The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Pitcher Makes HOF, Texans RB Mixon Wrongly Fined, College Playoff Expansion

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" react to Billy Wagner being elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in his 10th and final year on the ballot. Matt and Ross also:preview the Rockets hosting the Cavaliers with head coach Ime Udokadiscuss the possible expansion of the College Football Playoffs with Chris Gordybreak down Texans running back Joe Mixon's fine for comments he did not saytell people to "Shut Yo Bum Ass Up, Ain't Nobody Got Time" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10-1 in H-town. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Wagner gets a strikeout. That's what. He just kept pumping fastball after fastball at the sign and finally meet him with a hundred mile an hour heater.

Out over the outside corner. Bagwell with Sicky Stadium. When there's starter, Roy Oswald couldn't make it. One hitter into the second inning left with an injury. McAnne will have to throw down the first, two up and two down. Aering it out tonight. One strike from 400 saves. There it is.

Man, did he do it in style? And it's crazy that Billy Wagner left with something left in the 10th. Normally guys are like, I can barely throw 76-mile-hour pus. He left with his left arm still ablazing. The Billy, the kid, into the baseball hall of fame. Good morning. It is the Matt Thomas Show at Ross here on Sports Talks. It's not a topic, eh, but it's certainly a congratulatory topic.

Yes. Houston Astros legend, Billy Wagner. Last year of eligibility, I think eighth player, they said, to ever make it in in their last year of eligibility on the ballot. Ironly enough, his stats have not changed the previous nine times. He went from 19% all the way to whatever it was and got in. So good for him. It is, it's crazy how that works. And I wonder if you and I had a vote for the Hall of Fame, would we tend to say, yeah, this guy is somebody I'm thinking about, but he needs to wait five years. I don't know. It's sometimes luck,

because you can only vote for what is it, 10 guys or something like that. So some guys get squeezed off the ballot because other people maybe are more deserving or whatever. So, yeah, 82 and a half percent. Of course, you have to get over 75 percent. And it's been close the last couple of years. It is interesting that one of the biggest douchebags in baseball writers, All of Fame, would be John Heyman, put Torrey Hunter in the Hall of Fame with his vote,

but did not select Billy Hunter for it. Interesting. I would also say for Billy Wagner, he would also say for Billy Wagner, helped by, I mean, in the old days, we talked about closers and we talked about save totals, and his save totals aren't as high as, say, Trevor Hoffman or Mariano Rivera, but numbers that have come in vogue, like ERA Plus, whip, those things. He has great numbers for those. And I think that's also helped his case the last couple of years. You can obviously, if you're a very good pitcher, you can find numbers that will skew you towards the, this is a can't miss. And you can

find people that are detractors and say, well, he didn't do this, he didn't do that. for me he was one of my all-time favorite players not only as a player but as a young man in the media I had no relationship with him but just wouldn't go in the clubhouse once in a long get some postgame audio here and there he was the king of when we kicked ass we being the astros we're going to tell you how good we are and if we sucked and I gave up a three run bomb in the ninth inning and lost the game I'm going to tell you I sucked and I'm not going to make excuses I'm not going to avoid not talking to the media I'm not going to go high in the shower in the meal room I'm going to talk to you guys and get it over with. Yeah. So the opposite of Ken Giles is what you're saying.

And I'm also the guy that's going to say that when I think Drayne McLean is penny pinching and not trying to win baseball games, I'm going to say that and then I'm going to get my ass traded shortly after that. His last year in the major leagues, 71 games, he had a war of 2.5. Ryan Presley in his career has not had a war of 2.5 in a season. Yeah. In his career. Yeah.

He retired. I think he retired. I think is what he was. 38. 1.43 ERA in 71 games. 37 safe. Yeah, he did have some injury issues throughout his career, which I think was one of the things that detracted him from

wrecking up to $500 saves, something like that. And another thing is it's awfully hard for closers to get in. There have not been a lot of them. What has it been Mariano? There has been Trevor Hoff. Trevor Hoff. Goose, gosh, I should believe. It's been under 10 guys, I think.

It's not a real big list. So you have to kind of both. Right. Same thing with John Smoltz. Yeah. So you have to really be, you have to do the. closing eye, close your eye seeing eye and non-seeing eye list of exactly who you want out there.

And I'll say this and maybe there's just some bias for me. I need three outs from a left-handed reliever in the ninth inning of a game who's going to throw 101, 101, 102, and not think twice about it. It's going to be Billy Wagner. Josh Hayter. Well, I mean, Josh might get there. He's going to give up a couple solo bombs.

He'll get you out of there with a safe. So you're saying you have to have two-run leave is what you're saying. That's terrible. You're such a hater of a hater. A hater. I love Josh Hayter. You're a H-A-T-E-R of a H-A-D-R. I spent all year defending the guy. You've actually spent a lot of time defending Jake Myers.

That's my lefty dog. Yeah. So, yeah. And I don't know if I'm a fan of, say, the Giants or the Reds. I'm thinking about, you know, Billy Wagner's on my clothes, my eyes. That's my closer guy. Right. We saw him for a lot of his career. Now, he went on to other places and went to met them.

I didn't realize how well traveled he was. Atlanta? The Mets. I remember him as a Phillieieie. and as a man. In a Philly? I did not remember him at all as a Red Sox. And I

didn't really remember. A red sock, right? In a singular of that? I think you still say Red Sox. Huh, that is weird. How you do that? I know. It's an X. Yeah. It's like a Thunder. You go redstocking. Like a Thunderbolt?

Oklahoma City Thunder. Yeah. He moved around a bunch towards the end of his career. But again, he did okay for himself. He didn't embarrass himself anywhere. I don't think. Everyone, I mean, I spent a lot of time looking in the hotel because we had nothing to do last night because we were kind of iced in. But I kept trying to find lots of astro highlights of Billy over the years.

And it was harder because, frankly, 20 years ago, they weren't, YouTube wasn't putting every highlight of every player on there. But I could find plenty of highlights of him being as a brave, as a Met, as a Philly. Didn't find anything as a Red Sox. But yeah, he carved out a very successful career. And again, he probably could have pitched Ross at least one or two more years. Yeah. And maybe amped up.

My guess is, well, if we ever get to talk to Billy, asking about this, knowing what he knows now, it took him a full 10 to get into the Hall of Fame, would he have tried to go a couple more years, or did he just know his arm was like, you know what, I'm going to leave on top,

and I don't want to ruin my case, my case for a Hall of Fame by having a bloated ERA the last one or two years of my major league career. Yeah, I want, yeah, that'll be curious, but he made it end, so all's well that ends well. On the 10th time.

Yet his stats never changed. No, they did not. and yeah, he went from, he started at 10%. Yeah. 10.5% in 2016, 82.5% 2025. So good for him. Good for him. Nice to have all of you with us today on the show.

Hope you are getting back to normalcy a little bit. Again, we would still strongly suggest, and I don't think many people are agreeing with us, do not go on the roads. It's still not above freezing. At least last time I checked, it's not, which means the sludge that was the ice. The snow of yesterday is now ice and walking around our hotel parking lot this morning.

We could have played a little game of hockey if you wanted to. It was icy. It was, and you know, you're carrying luggage and you've got a cup of coffee in your hand. I mean, I was taking the Uber small steps. Yeah, you were. I felt like I was walking like it was 85 years old. I was a little worried about you. You shouldn't have been.

I was fine. You're doing great. But I got us here two days in a row in the drive, and so granted, it was also four-tenths of a mile. So we were very happy. Yes. But yeah, at least some of the streets. at least where we are by our offices have been completely cleared. So there are going to be some spots in the city that you're going to be fine.

But I would think probably in the suburbs it could be a little more of a dicey situation. So if your kids are not going on school day, which I don't think anybody's in school, just relax. Spent some time with the family. Take the Christmas tree down. No day was fun. Take your Christmas tree down. Why? You're still saying Happy New Year.

That means I can still have my Christmas tree. Oh, I forgot about that. I wouldn't wish all of you happy New Year. 10. It's too much. Why? I told you I would have a natural feeling of when it's too late. We are past that threshold.

I think about the 14th. I'm going February 15th. You of all people should know the statute of limitations. He knows. I know it's a bit, Dan. Oh, that's Dan, by the way. Hey, Dan's here. Hi, guys.

Where's Connor? Connor, I got very busy. He's shacking up with his lady. He went from very Irish to. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You don't know if they're having, if they're shacking up. You'd never ask them that question? What do you mean?

What do I mean? What I mean? We've never said, hey, you shacking up with a girl yet? No, I mean, maybe they're at the, maybe they're having a snow day. Building a snowman. There's no, no, you can't be building, there's no more snow left. There's some left. It will mush. It's mush now.

You can't, you can't do that. Okay. So basically we've talked about Connor shacking up with this girl and not being here with us today. That's fine. Would you rather be here or shacking up with a lady? Bye. Yeah. All right.

I went off the rails at eight minutes into the show. That's fine. That's not a record. That's why I'm here. No, it's not you. All right. We are busy today until 2 o'clock. we will have at 1130

shut your bum ass up at 12 noon we'll have the news at noon at 1 o'clock we'll have email Adoka and believe it or not today at 150 Oh we're gonna go Billy Wagner Can we do a full Billy Wagner You want to go with each year old

A and C C C C Cibet in there Let's sprinkle a little Cic Sabatia It's hard Have you seen He's portly You can't sprinkle CC All right

Not anymore Is he thin now? Yeah he's he's lost a ton of it See? Maybe he got on the moon jarrow He gave up the booze I'm sorry the moon The Ungaro. I don't know how to rhyme that one.

That's an uneasy one. I appreciate the effort, though. The Doz Mimpec. We got it, Ross. Thanks, buddy. 713-212-5-7-90 if you'd like to join us today. 7-13-212-5-7-9-0. So what did y'all do, lads? Did you all bond family time?

I mean, there wasn't a lot of sports on. There were also a couple of lousy NBA games. We had limited channels where we were. Yeah, half our channels weren't working at the hotel. We won't mention which hotel it was. That's fine. Couldn't watch your beloved Texas Longhorns beat Missouri last night. Let's go.

Yeah, that's why Connor's not here. He's morning. You want to hear trash. Suck it, Mazoo Tigers. If there is a radio show that's Blank talking Missouri versus Texas basketball, it should be off the air. That's what we're not going to do it here.

We're going to do a full podcast on it. Oh, my God. SEC Hoops. Okay. Gordian Hoops. 7-13. Where's Gordy, by the way? I haven't seen him a couple days. He's working from home. Yeah.

He works hard. Our entire sales staff is also working from home. No, they're on calls. They're probably in meetings. They're probably in pitch meetings for the Matt Thomas show. Funny, guys. I text a sales guy here every day and helping he responds and he never does. I've sent one email to multiple, the one guy from multiple emails, and he hasn't responded. Again, I say, I'm turning my microphone off.

Some of them double as Instagram influencers, too. 713 212 5790 712 7190 7190 big NBA NBA game tonight and I don't use that term very often but we got one here in our market We'll discuss that coming up in a little bit as well

713 212 5790 This is the Matt Thomas show With Ross on Sports Talk 790 Our producer Connor just texted me he says if you'd have let me stay in your hotel room the last couple days, we'd have been shacking up. That's true. You didn't have to sleep at the foot of the door after the sock would be on the door.

Okay. First of all, I don't know why Connor didn't say it would me. I mean, I didn't say he couldn't. Did you offer? I didn't think I needed to. I didn't know what his situation was. Probably should have. I mean, so then.

It's very rude. Grumpy Dan wouldn't have been putting all those hours in yesterday. Poor Dan. He was running on fumes. So surly yesterday. He was running on empty. He was. And Jackson Brown would say.

He was. Jackson Brown. Stop. Properly rated? Properly rated. Yeah, properly. Because two hit wonder three? More than that.

Okay. Basically the Forrest Gump's soundtrack game. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And then anything movie like Fast Times Ridgemont High and Valle girl, wasn't he? He had songs in those movies, too? He had one of those songs in one of those movies.

Whatever. All right, it is The Mad Thomas Show with Ross. Where we go through the Jackson Brown Discography. Love it. Yeah, it's fine. That's great. I mean, we've got four hours. We can talk, because it's good of some Texans offseason news.

You know what the Texans want from us? They want us to give them a break. I don't think they do. Do you think they want to be talked about over and over again every single day for hours on end? Have you met these PR departments of these teams? Yeah, but at some point you kind of want to say give it a rest, don't you? Maybe. So we're going to give the Texans a rest for a week.

Texans rest week. I mean, I know that other, you know, him, forget it. Yeah, I just, there's nothing. I'm proud of you. You stopped yourself. Yeah, I did stop myself? Because D'Amico wants a rest. Did he not say that?

He's going to take time to evaluate? When we figure out the offensive coaching changes, then we'll get into a deep dive on that. But we can move other things. We do, as I mentioned before, I think it's a very intriguing basketball game coming up tonight. It is. And I do believe there's a slight. uptick and rocket vibe in the community. It's not full board.

It's not to playoff level. And hopefully it will be at some point. But the team of the best record in the NBA, at least, is it Eastern Conference-wise or the whole NBA? I know them in Oklahoma City going back and forth. I think it's the whole NBA for them. Okay. 36 and 6th, the Cleveland Cavaliers are in.

Okay, that's the best record in the NBA. A team of Cleveland, Ohio has up the 36 and 6. And LeBron James is not on the team. No. 15 and 4 on the, there are 11 games about 500 on the road. They've lost six times since the start of it. They opened up the year 15 and 0. I know.

And this is the battle of number two versus number three. Jalen Green and Evan Mobley. Evan Mobley's been playing great for them. I believe Evan Mobley. is not going to play. Oh, he's not. He's hurt? No, Evan Mobley had...

It looks like he missed the last game, too. He's got calf sorenous. Oh, has his calf going to be all right? He's already out? He played 18 minutes against Oklahoma City last Thursday, and I don't think he's going to play. I think he's listed his out, but I'll double check on that. But yeah, Tristan Thompson is one of your favorite.

So Evan Mobley is ducking? Yes. Jalen Greene is what you're saying. Well, you got all these Texas centers on one team. Tristan Thompson doesn't play. Jared Allen? No. Yeah, Longhorn legend.

Jared Allen. He's really good. Good defensively. And I think by 7 o'clock tonight, Ross, there's going to be a lot of people in Houston, Texas, a little bit of cabin. If you ever want to get out and do something. Okay.

Come on to the game, but be safe. Yeah, please be careful. Donovan Mitchell's playing great. Darius Garland is one of the better players that nobody ever talks about. Maybe you all start a couple of years ago. Yeah. Largely unknown.

Yeah. Mitchell's been great. Caris Leverd, who didn't play their night, is really good for them, too. I mean, Sam Merrill. I mean, George Nying. I mean, these are not helpful name. Sam Merrill.

They're great. With a large amount of unknowns. Donovan Mitchell, would you call him? You're not a superstar, I guess. Star. People know who he is. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, so that's going on tonight.

We'll have E. May I don't know us at 1 o'clock today to give us a little rundown of that. Let's see. We got Billy Wagner in the Hall of Fame after the 10th time. I do have a couple of things. You know, when you're in a hotel room by yourself and you are bored. like I was. I peruse... So five minutes later, then what are you doing?

I peruse the 4U tab, which is dangerous in large amounts, but I did find two interesting little show things to throw in, and we'll mix them in coming up. Okay. One is about the NCAA basketball tournament, and one is about the college football playoff tournament. My interest is peaked. Okay, so we got that for you.

Also, there continues to be lots of rumors in new window that Roger Goodell is going to force the 18-game schedule, maybe not next year, but the year after. He's basically called it inevitable, correct? Yeah, and I think he could have called an inevitable five years ago. Yeah. What about all the player safety initiatives? They don't care about that.

The Texans played three games in 11 days. The whole bit of player safety is just a fall thing. What about we're protecting our players? Priority one is taking care of our guys, the product. But in reality, if you bump it down to two preces and games and 18 games, you're playing the same amount of games. No, you're not. I know. Well, Larry Tunsell doesn't care about playing in the month of August, period.

So that's, you know. CJ Stroud's not playing three preseason games. You know, honestly, Rossi, when I saw that story just a couple days ago, I think it's false anger from the players. They're going to see revenues bump up again. And everything is driven in every walk of life by money. There was real resistance to the 17. If you remember, JJ Watt was banging the drum.

I think didn't it go into, I'd have to look this up. We bang the drum on a lot of things. But it went to multiple votes, I think. there was real resistance from the players to go to 17 games. It's just at the end of it, I think it was like a 51-49 vote. I feel like it could be the same thing. There'll be a bunch of screaming and yelling on the TV talk shows, and then they're going to put it in there,

and they're going to wind up getting the Saturn cap's going to be raised, and you're going to have the quarterbacks going from making $52 million a year to $56 million a year. You're going to ride receivers going from 19 to 25. I mean, everybody, the 18th game is going to put extra money. It's going to open up probably another TV package or expansion of what's going on right now. Everything is generated.

Rossi, we had two games on Netflix on Christmas Day bringing $150 million to the league. Imagine what another slate of games would bring. Yeah, I'm sure they're going to go for it. And at the end of the season product, you even said it, and I said it, America said it. Week 18, we weren't even really paying attention. Right.

Those games were terrible in none of the starters place. So I don't know if we're going to get two weeks of that. If teams are up enough on the standings and stuff like that, so we'll see how good the product actually. is. But it is going to happen in all likelihood. And you're right that it probably will get voted through because just the NFL players union, for whatever reason, of the three major American sports, it just seems to be the weakest. As far as the owners have the most, I'll put it the other way. The owners have the most control in the NFL to me relative to the NBA and major league

base. But if, and conversely to the baseball and the basketball, if I'm the owners, then I go to the union and say, see this check right here? Netflix wants to buy. the entire week 18 schedule from us for whatever the amount. The players go, okay, I think they don't. They may be the weakest because they don't necessarily argue about it that hardly about it. I think it's also they are the least protected in the event of a strike. NBA players, there's only, you know, even the last guy on the bench on the NBA is making well enough to live for a long, long time.

it's not necessarily the case on a 53 man. The top 10 guys are making a ton of money. The 53rd man's not making as much to hold out in a strike for as long. Like John Weeks now, granted, making a million a year. He's been in around a million, million a half his entire career. You should be able to live a ridiculously comfortable life. But that's not you're talking about. The 53rd guy is making a million dollars.

And they're on non-guaranteed contracts as well. So, I mean, it's a little bit of a different. Yeah. But point being is that. I just think the NFL players association and its players can huff and puff. But when that check comes in and they look at the dollar amount and they go total revenue for the league. And you're telling me we get a certain percentage guaranteed that league revenue. We'll take the 18th game.

Yeah. So. But it will hurt the early games because the early games have been so porous the last couple of years because the guys don't play in the preseason. Or will it hurt? we have more dog games like we had this year towards the month of December. I don't know. I mean, I'd have to go through like the week one schedule. I don't remember it being too sloppy.

I think the last couple of years that we've seen defenses dominate off. It's almost like like pitchers and catchers. What are it, 29, 27? Pitchers have more success against batterers because they're the ones that are getting themselves ready. In baseball, you have games that are lopsided more in the first month of the year than you win in the second half. Eagles Packers was a shootout week one. Let's see. Texans Colts was 29-27. Yeah, there's a mixed bag, though.

It was a D-Fiking's Giants was a dog game. 28 to 6. It looks like about a regular week to me. Okay. I'm just saying I think the Christmas... I remember the Saints had 47 against the Panthers? And then they beat up the Cowboys after that, right? Yeah.

And then they blinked to bed the rest of the Super Bowl. And then they lost like eight games in a row after that. Yeah. 212-7-90 is the number you can reach us here today on the program. If you're home again this afternoon and this morning and one line of calling and say, hey, I've never called the show before. This gives you a little more of a leash to join us, whether it be about your snow day yesterday,

whether it be about the Texans, whether it be about Alex Bregman. We have a very small update. Do have a Bregman update? I'm excited. It's an embellishment, frankly. And I found a couple of scenarios I want to throw out you guys. Well, don't we come back?

Plus, we got shut your bow mess up. You may a doke, believe it or not, all today between now and two o'clock at 713-212-5-790. Big City Wings was open last night, and they're open today for lunch. Now, please, if you live close, be careful. If you live far, take another day or so to get to one of those 13 Big City Wing locations. But today, if you're out and about, you can get an $8 burger at any of those 13 locations. Not only to get the burger with your toppings of your choice, but you get a side as well. $8 for the burgers.

today plus whiskey Wednesdays are available for you so if you want to go have a nice whiskey enjoy a burger maybe some wings great appetizers or the delectable desserts you can do that today while you watch the rockets and the cavaliers at any of those 13 big city wing locations because when i mean this i say this literally they are wall to wall with big screen televisions favorite college basketball game NBA game hockey of your choice it's going to be found for you today at big city wings with an eight dollar burger special with a choice of a side all from Big City Wings and Big CityWings.com. A man Thompson.

Hey, it's a man Thompson. Jam it down. A man for all three ball is nothing been in all. Hear every Rockets game on Sports Talk 790 and streaming on the IHeartRadio at. Home of Rockets basketball. 1034 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

We thank you for listening if you're out there. Stay home. Stay safe. Relax. Send a tweet to add SportsMT. All right. Guys, and we'll get Dan involved in this. Dan, you're not cranking out right now.

Are you? You're just some normal emotions feelings? Dude, I feel like a brand new man. Oh, nice. Got a lot of sleep, feeling good. All right. Two things I saw on Twitter last night. The 4U tab largely involves women with barely any clothes on.

That's your 4U tab. Don't assume algorithms around here, brother. They got you on a bull's eye, pal. I don't believe it to be accurate at all. Nailed to a tibank. So get back to me So I did find some sports things on there One is from John Rostin

A basketball guy Okay We've had him on the show once It was kind of a little off-putting But so why, what do you mean? He wasn't very pleasant What are you? He called you an A-hole or something? No, he was just kind of a little smug

I don't like He can be that way And my response is, dude, you're not You're not big enough to be that way You're John Rosting, who the hell are you? But point being is, just be nice John Rostin So he had one thing about the NCAA basketball tournament

And I have another thing From Ross Dellinger Is he an athletic guy for football? He's college football I don't remember where he's from now I think Yahoo now He used to be ESPN, right?

Let me give you the scenario that Rothstein has for basketball This is something he thought of And then this is what Delinger heard about college football This is basketball first He would like to say he first of all said he never wants the tournament to expand from where it is right now at 68 teams. That feels right to me.

If you get the 96 and it gets kind of hokey and... It's only for more money. Right. He believes the final eight at large teams should be the ones that play the first four games in Dayton. Yeah. And that all 31 automatic qualifiers should automatically get to the round of 64. So if you win the SWAC or the Sunbelt or the Miac or the IAC or the I, Ivy League or the Patriot, any of those super small leagues that you did compete, you did something to win your championship.

The rightful prize is not having to go to Dayton in a short a period of time and have to work your way into the big field. He thinks if you win your conference championship, whether it's through a tournament or the regular season title, and most teams are now in tournaments, even the Ivy League has a tournament, I think now. You win your conference tournament, you deserve the automatic bid. the eight at large team at the last eight should go to Dayton to go compete. Agree or disagree? I'm with it. I disagree. You can get, you're throwing away a whole season's resume because what if some team with like a losing record in their conference happens to get hot and wins a conference championship?

It happens. It doesn't mean they're more deserving than some other team with a better resume. I would stick to doing it on resumes, which they don't do necessarily. They usually have what? 12s play each other and 16. It's a couple of 16 matchups and a couple 12 or 10 or whatever matchups. I honestly, I don't mean to be fensetting on this because we don't believe in it. I can see it both ways.

Okay. Because, again, if you are in, let's say you are the George Mason and you play in the 8-10, the SEC is never going to invite you to play in the A-10. So you have to play in the league in what you're in. Yes. So you should be rewarded for if you are in a league and you play a conference tournament to determine a champion, if that's the ultimate goal for you because you can't play with the other big boys,

you should get a reward for it. And also, I mean, to push back on Ross's point, the U of H run, what was that, 2011, when they were under 500 and so now made a run in the tournament and made the tournament and got bounced in the first round, that's the exception. That's not the rule. Like, that very rarely happens.

It does happen, though, where teams go on teams that probably wouldn't have gotten into the tournament do win their conference tournaments. They're not talking about. So I would go with a full season resume rather than I got hot for one weekend. Okay. I mean, as I'm saying, I can see it that way.

I honestly, I could see it both ways. It wouldn't be one of those situations that I go, wow, I don't know. I do want to play for something. I want to be able to have a second life, and tournaments do do that. Now, nine and 22 teams don't typically win tournaments, but you could, guys, you could see a 17 and 15 team get hot for a few days. I got a writer for you on John Arnithines. What if you win, if you win your conference's regular season and the tournament, then you don't have to go in a play it? Okay. I like it too. I like all three of the scenarios.

But it's also, though, too. I mean, the reason why I think this would be great is, for the most part, the Dayton games, they scratch the itch. But aside from that, you're waiting until Thursday anyway. Yeah. So, I mean, that provides some excitement. Well, the negative towards agreeing with John would be if I'm in a ridiculously hard conference, I mean, if I'm in the SEC, how many you say nine teams right now in the top 25? Something crazy. like that. Yeah. There's only to be one of those nine teams that are going to get in. And if I'm 10 and 8 in my league and all of a sudden I'm a bottom feeder team,

why should I be penalized because I play in a super difficult conference? So honestly, I can see it both ways on this. I just thought I would throw it out there. Now, what Ross Dellinger is reporting is Dillinger or Dillinger? I don't know what's going to have gotten something wrong before because I have him muted. He must have misreported something. This is something that he is hearing. I don't know if you guys know what's he hearing?

He is hearing. Now, there's supposed to be a meeting of the athletic directors of the SEC and the Big Ten. This is just those two conferences. Big money. Now, you know when those two conference A-Ds meet, there's something conniving going down. They're looking out for number one. They're not doing this to say, how can we get the Big 12 more money? No, they're not.

They're not caring about the ACC. No. The resurrection of the Pact 12. They don't care about these things. Here's what he's hearing. taking the 12-team college football playoff and expanding it to 14 teams. What? It gets worse.

In this 14-team field... Oh. Can I guess without... I haven't looked. Big Ten and Big SEC get two automatic bids? Try four. Four! Here's how they say it.

Four automatic bids for the Big Ten. God. Four for the SEC. Two bids for the Big 12. Two bids for the ACC. One for the group of five. One? And one for an at-large, which likely would be Notre Dame, provided they stay out of a conference.

So if Notre Dame, if you're good enough, you're in. Now, this couldn't happen for next year, but it certainly could happen in two years. What's the format then? You'd have a double-buy situation somewhere along. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I have heard for next year, they are kicking around the, idea of getting rid of the highest group of five automatically is a top four.

But they do need to get rid of that. I think it's going to happen too. But Dan, listen to me, you're taking the two most powerful conferences and saying, we are so good, we automatically take up eight spots, whether we deserve them or not. Wow. That's pretty damn ballsy, actually. I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's the two conferences that have the FU money of the Power Four and saying, what are you going to do about it,

12. What are you going to do about it? ACC? You can't move us off this spot. If we ask for it, likely we're going to get it. And two of the teams out of one of these two leagues were the ones who are the loudest of, hey, wait a minute. Why weren't we one of the final 12? Ole Miss in South Carolina. In Alabama. Alabama. I forgot about Alabama. You've got to be thinking Alabama's pushing this really hard. This is Alabama Drew. That's a good point by you guys. This has got Greg Byrne written all over it because, yeah, they were like, oh, hey, you know, that's what we get for scheduling a tough conference schedule and it's like you lost in conference bingo that's what it was yes okay so don't schedule mercer you don't mean i can't analogize very well oh but help me out

let's think of an analogy on this okay you are you have a party mm-hmm and there's 14 people invited to the party but we've already predetermined eight of the people going in whether they deserve it or not to get in the party i mean they're by far the two best leagues right now and and generally speaking if you probably did it that way. I mean, and it's at its face value, they're probably right, but I just hate entitled groups of people

demanding something. Four auto bids is stupid. It's ridiculous. In each conference. Now, in any given year, probably four SEC teams and four big teams are going to be deserving. In any given year, it's probably going to happen. It's probably going to happen. But, I mean, things can change

year to year. And you guys might scoff, but I mean, just follow the money. and follow the TV numbers of the markets that are in both of these conferences. They're top five every single year. Columbus and the Southeast. That's where the largest television numbers are. And also, too, they're the ones that far and away out-earned the Big 12 in the ACC. So if they're the ones coming to the table with this,

I guarantee you the rest of the college football playoffs committee is going to listen to it and say, they got a point. It's also not a question of Dave a point. It says, what if they say no, what does SEC and Bintending to do? They're going to go like, well, then guess what? We're going to cut you out of the... Guess what? Zero auto bids for you.

They'll be the good guys and say, hey, why don't we start our own thing then? That's right. You guys can join us. I don't know, man. This is pretty crazy. What a power play if this gets passed. This is also, by the way,

why I never care about the players getting as much money as possible. Because the conferences in these schools are doing the same thing. Seriously, that is about as ballsy as it gets right there. And by the way, telling your fellow power four schools, ECC, we don't think you can put together four automatics. Big 12, we don't think you can get four

automatics. Well, the playoff committee in fairness two years ago did the Dirty Work Forum with Florida State. I'm saying Jordan Travis is hurt. You're not the same team. You're out. But the thing about this, though, let's say the Big 12 had four awesome teams. Guess what? Probably not going to happen. Stop. I'm just kidding. My point is, you could have four. You're eliminating

you're eliminating the Big 12 in the ACC from having four teams. Let's say you put in a ranking and they put in, yeah, BYU as team number 12 in the and Alabama is team number 13, but they happen to be the fourth best SEC team, so they get in over a BYU team. There would be outrage. Outrage. That's why this can't happen. You know, I'm calling BS and Ross Dillinger in the first place.

It gets back to, no, I'm not. If he's reporting something that's regarding the SEC, I'm 100% on it because he's aces when it comes to covering that league. But it also gets back to tying it into the John Rothstein thing of the NCAA tournament. might say, hey, upsets are awesome. People love upsets in the first two rounds. Once you get to the Sweet 16 and the Elite 8,

then whoever's hosting the Final 4 that year says, hey, you know what, Butler, nice story, but please don't win. We want more people coming to our games. We want more people watching. I just, I mean, having helped it on a year where the ACC would have Miami, Florida State, Clemson,

and give me somebody else, Boston College, Syracuse, Who else would be a decent ACC? Cues. I guess Florida State. I mean, there's a year we're forcing. Louisville could have. You're basically telling the Big 12 in the SEC and the ACC,

you're never going to have more than two teams in unless you get to grab that at large spot. Good luck with that. Well, I mean, SMU is a great example of that of, you know, people wondering, is it going to be them or is it going to be Alabama? And then, of course, they went with SMU, which was the right choice. But I guarantee you, in that committee room, not a single person. and wanted them to beat Penn State.

And they got their wish. Yep. All right. 1046, Sports Talk, 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-790. SEC elitist, Big Ten elitist, once again in play. Let's say about the folks over at Game Day Men's Health.

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Get in there, get your T-levels checked, get a vitamin boost shot if he'd like. I'll be getting one of those coming up in a couple weeks when I come back from a rocket's road trip, looking forward to that. And sometimes you need a little extra boost. And remember, the most important thing is your testosterone level check is free today

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Matt and Ross Return. Returned. On Sports Talk 790. This song in itself explains what a decade of the 80s is one of the worst music decades of all time. Hold your tongue. This song is horrible. Number one hit.

I mean, it's catchy, but it's not a great. No great lyrics. Voice is average. It feels like this show. All right. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 7-1-3-2-1. Bernie Toppin wrote this?

No way. Yeah. Not friend of the show. Well, I thought his uncle or his brother-in-law or whatever? His brother's a friend of the show. Okay. Make scones, by the way. Kit, shout out to you, Kit, if you're out there. Bring in some scones.

You like a scones? I don't know. I can dig in on a scone. I like scones. longs are not too dry. I go to Moka Joe's. Yeah, they're too dry. You're a moist scone. Yeah. And the coffee's not hot enough either, Moka Joe's.

You can't get his beans, though. You guys are making references that I assume are going over there. I went to Larry Lottes until it burned down, sadly. All right. 1054 on Sports Talk 790. It is a Matt Thomas show at Ross. We've got the Rockets game tonight against Cleveland. And then we go on the road Friday to play Cleveland again.

by the NBA doing this. No schedule favors here. Cleveland, Boston, Atlanta, Memphis on the next road trip. Dang. Now,

the Atlanta game was rescheduled, but still, that's a heavy lifting road trip there. Then we've got a piece of cake Brooklyn coming in after that, so we're happy. Hopefully a piece of cake. And they lost last night

to the Knicks. I was watching that. You were? I mean, what else? I only had... What did you think about the Knicks' front court play?

Coronet Towns has been really good for them. That's true. Thanks for asking. Miles McBride. Miles McBride. That sounds made up. No, he's definitely a player. Okay.

Definitely a player. By the way, there's a video going on, and I don't know what it is because I got to figure out the context of it. The Rockets played the Pistons on Monday and beat them. And then after the game, they were supposed to fly to Birmingham. But I don't think they left for Birmingham until late at night. So they had some hours to kill? So the Detroit Pistons went to a Buckees. Oh.

I'm assuming they went to the one in Paraland. That'd be the closest one to Hobby Airport, right? Yeah, I don't know. And it's a TikTok video that's out there. By the way, TikTok is available once again to your friends and family. Okay, we're good. Thank God. And it was only about a 20-second clip, but these kids, these young adults were like mesmerized by this place.

Yeah, Buckees is great. I'm sorry, Ruckies. Could you imagine going to a Ruckies and having 15 NBA players come in? That'd be cool. It's kind of pretty, and they have. Mm-hmm. Eat a lot of beaver nuggets for $125 a day. All the jerky.

Oh, yeah. Cake balls, fudge. Southwest Trail Mix. Brisket sandwich, probably not. Nutritionists were probably keeping them all away from the brisket sandwiches. Strawberry sourbelts. And you know what I like is the red spicy peanuts. Bingo.

Really? Uh-huh. What about the chocolate-covered almonds? And the candy peanuts are good, too. Yeah. By the way, though, that place has gotten mega expensive. It used to be quite affordable. No, you can't know.

I told you one of them. You can blink and drop a hundred bucks in there. Yeah, I got in a fight with Kim over this. I said, a couple years back, she's like, she spent $62. Her and Carly, I said, what the hell are you doing? Trying to buy half the place? You need like one bag of almonds at a couple sandwiches. You can spend $60.

I know, it's crazy. It is absolutely crazy. But you know what? There are people that are making great money working there. That's true. You're right. They still haven't called me back. Did you apply?

Yeah, I'm waiting. You know, overnight managers make, like, $26 an hour. That sounds great. Just throwing it out there. Yeah. What's the rule of thumb? You double it?

That's about 52 a year-ish. 55-ish. Next time we go to a Ruckies, we see Ross in the red collar shirt. Yeah, man. I'll hook you guys up. Jackies. Yeah. What do you want some fudge, Maddie?

No, I don't like fudge. You don't? Uh-uh. What a peanut butter fudge, delicious? Nope, too rich. Oh, okay. I'm not a fudge guy. You can colotchamia to death if you want to.

Chocolate-cover pecans that they have. No. Sugar-free. Yeah, I'll bake you up a claw. I'll spit in a clotty and bake it up for you. All right. That'll take care of the Ruckies talk for the day on the show. Now we're all hungry thinking about trying to go to a stop.

Poor loves. We were popular back then. I mean, they're fine. If you can't find a Ruckies, you've heard of a Mubs. You've got to go to Rubs. Ryan J. I like a Ryan J. Ryan J. It's got a Denny usually attached to it.

Yeah. You can take a shower and get your clothes clean while you're there. Right. A Mick Rip. Those are nice. Nice. Oh, yeah, those are nice, too. They just realized that people like truck stops, just not the truckers.

We go pick you up a lot lizard at the loves. When I was a freshman in college in North Texas, we stayed at the best western Oklahoma City when you go to the racetrack, and there was a truck stop. And that's what I found. You were going to say a wrecked doppers. I know. This rhyming's out of control.

What did you say? Would you call them lizards? Oh, lot lizards? Lot lizards. I saw my first lot lizard there. Really? How much you charge you? No, I didn't pay.

Are you kidding me? I was 19 years old. I was too much. I wasn't making the immense wealth that I'm making now. 50 bucks in a pack of jerky. But they literally go from 18 wheel or 18 wheeler. Huh. Good for them.

They don't... Shower? Matt learned about the other side of life that day. Yeah. Well, it's an honest living. Single truck drivers need love too, Ross. It gets lonely out of there on the road, man. It does.

Yeah, you can't only be on your walkie-talkie for so long. Yeah. Brigger one nine. The world's oldest profession. Yeah. Lot of lizards. Did you think of that phrase or something? No, that's like, I think that's the common term.

That's the common term. Okay. I got you. Check the urban dictionary. I believe the act itself is called road beef. Excuse me? What did you say? I said, I believe the act itself is called road beef.

Road beef. That's what I believe it's called. Dan seems to know a lot about this, Matt. You see movies. No, Dan. No, of course you see movies. Your life is a movie. What about me tells you that I have ever

even gotten close to dabbling into this world? Do you pull the bullhorn when you're done? To let everybody else know. The best part of that was the sound effect. She's all yours. See who needs the hat on them. No, they do have beds in the back of their trucks, so they don't have to spend the night. Yeah, not that I know for anything firsthand, but it's on TikTok.

Yeah, thanks. TikTok tells you a lot of things. All right. Time for a break. The talk is huge in the trucker world. Yeah, I'm not interested in doing that. I don't have to drive, period. So I want I become a professional truck nerd.

Like, I might Uber for a day. That'd be fun. But I don't think I want to do that for a long time. me either. Especially because Lyft and Uber taking such big chunks of the people's money for driving. I don't know why it's even worth it anymore. That's why you've got to tip nicely Ross. Talking in the Uber or not talking?

Mostly time not talking. Bingo. I like to close my eyes and relax. All right. 11 o'clock. Sports Talk 7 and a second hour of 4. If you have the first hour is great. You can't wait for the next half hour. Rockets Cavaliers, Billy Wagner in the Hall of Fame. 11 different

Astros now have found themselves in the Hall of Fame. It's pretty good number, right? It's not Yankee Dodger good, but it's pretty damn good. Yeah. We'll talk more about it next here on 790. After I tell you about the Shell Federal Credit Union. ShellfcU.org, shellfc u.org for the incredible folks at the Shell Federal Credit Union. Auto loan rates as low as 3.99% are available for you.

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I want to say, honestly, that everybody in Houston, you did a really good job, very few accidents. I know there's some people that were startled. There were people on their freeways yesterday. It's hard to tell 6 million people not to do something. It's hard to tell 6 people. You know, if it's easier. That's true. But I mean, generally speaking, y'all didn't do anything yesterday.

Now, today the streets and freeways are much more active. Airports are open. People are going to get out of town, whatnot for business. But just be super careful as you drive around. And please listen to us, and we will give you zero weather reports. We'll just talk sports and live life with you. What do you mean? How's it going out there?

Is it nice and sunny? It looked great this morning. Again, if you're in the shade, you're going to have a harder time getting rid of the ice. But if you've got sun, it's going to be, it's 36 degrees now. So it's above freezing. It's going to get in the freeze. 36 and sunny right now in Houston. So again, if you've got flights today, you're going to be delayed.

I mean, you've got thousands of people trying to scram onto every single seat available on flights. But generally speaking, it's, you know, we're back to normal. And I think we're going to be in the high 60s in a couple of days. So all this. I think back to 70 by the weekend. Yeah, all this slush is going to be gone. All right. What else we got going on today?

We mentioned rockets tonight. We've got, um, no. One person didn't vote for Ichiro Suzuki to get into the hospital. Hall of Fame, the 10-time Gold Glover with 3,000 hits who started his career late. Do you think it was somebody just forgot unintentionally, or do you think it was I want? That has to be 100% intentional. I'm with Ross. And by the way, those that don't know, the Major League Baseball Writers Association,

not major, is it Major League Baseball Rider, MLBAA? What is it called, Dan? Baseball Writers Association. BBWA. BBWA is what it's called. they're the only ones that get to vote for it. Broadcasters, television radio broadcasters, national radio television broadcasters do not get to vote.

It's only based on the print media that do it. So that's athletic, that's ESPN, that's local reporters from different markets. They all get a mix of who gets to get in there. B-B-W-A-A. B-B-W-A. That's also a group that has age range of people that are currently in the industry to people that have been long out of the industry. Yes.

so it could be a variety of different folks. To even try to guess it as to who it was would be moot because there's so many different people doing it. The gatekeepers of the game, if you will. Gosh. Rookie of the year, MVP, multiple batting titles, 10 gold gloves, and 3,000 hits. But yeah, it has to wait a year, according to one person.

It's almost like, you know, but I mean, honestly, I mentioned John Heyman earlier. John Heyman voted for Torrey Hunter and did not vote for Billy Wagner. Yeah, that's what cracks me up. that he had the nerve to go on Twitter and say, I want to know who that one person is. Brah. Bras, he is seriously,

ugh. And I don't mean to, look, I've never said one word to John Heyman, because I don't need to. But there's a lot of people I've never said one word to in journalism, in sports,

in our business that I've had tremendous amount of respect for. But, man, I just, he makes me cringe. It's the self-importance. That's what makes you feel. that way. But I work with a lot of self-important people around here too. I mean, we're a client and I talk to him every day. That's true.

Take it easy on him. He deserves it. My point is that what is it with me, Ross, that I have such disdain for national people. You're just a hater. Maybe that's what it is. Natural one hater. Let's go through the list of people I don't

like. I feel like I'm clienting here. Okay, here we go. I have zero. This list is the longest in history. I have no respect for Mike Florio, whatsoever. Jeff Passon? Zero respect. Zero respect.

By the way, the way he is just globbing all over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yeah, I mean, he's been... He needs a bib. I was trying to decide if this phrase is FCC friendly, so I'm not going to say it. Okay, that's a special morning.

I think mine went close enough. D.T. Mm. You can't know say that. I've lost a lot of respect for Buster only. Hmm. I do like Rosenthal. JP Morosi?

No. Chandler Rome, we love. Love Chandler. We reported earlier, by the way, that Cubs are interested, possibly interested in acquiring Ryan Presley. Okay. Ryan Presley with this team at camp? No. I think they're going to pull the trigger too.

They're going to try to. You're going to have to send money, though. If Chandler's throwing that out there, I think he feels comfortable enough that it's somewhat close. They're going to have to send money or just get nothing in return. We just want to have to pay $14. million dollars to a 36 year old who's had two of his worst years of his career. And you have to convince Ryan to go somewhere else, which my guess is for the talent of his career,

he'd probably thinking this is probably a not a bad idea. Yeah. All right. So, again, I like Tom Breducci a lot. He does not ever want to come on the show anymore, but I don't hold that against him. He says it always busy. He's always busy. He's always busy.

He's always busy traveling, apparently. He's very busy. You can get me on the field. Yeah, get him on the field, Matt. No, I'm okay. Yeah, that's just the next, I think maybe, do you just, when you become national, guy you just become uber smarmy?

I think to rise to those heights you do have to you step on a few people along the way sometimes sometimes, not everyone. I understand you can't make everybody happy but like if you're not being called upon a ton

throw a bone every once in a while. Like you're not that busy. No, I'm not care. I don't care about the talk show part. I mean because I'll never have Florian again. I mean I just think the way he conducts his business as a report, well, he's an nagging, not a reporter.

Yeah. The way that Haman just, I mean, he took a tweet yesterday to make sure he, that whoever, what do he call him a knucklehead that didn't take? Something along that. Yeah. I tried not to focus. But, Tori Hunter, look, Tori Hunter is one of the most likable people I've ever covered in sports. I mean, just outstanding, fun, interesting person and was very good for a lot of private's

career. But there's no way, no how in the world that Tori Hunter's ever getting in the Hall of Fame. Not in front of Andrew Jones. I don't care who's in front of anybody. Tori Hunter's not getting in the Hall of Fame. It's just not happening. But to vote Tori Hunter in and Billy Wagner not in is, you should get your card pulled.

It's just ridiculous. Don't remind him about the arson judge tweet. You get very upset with you and refuse to come on your show ever again. I'm never coming on this show ever again. I just want to let you know that. Is that your John Heyman impersonation? Well, that wasn't terrible. I've heard worse.

I don't know. I just, if I ever get to that national front, let me be as affable as I am now, Ross. I've got to bring more news, Matt. I'm not real. I'm just going to do. I'm just going to do this. Yeah. Didn't you do that and people got upset with you? With LeBron James. People still got upset with you.

Oh, man, never tell me, F off, go to hell. I can't take that kind of payment. Yeah, you know what? I was partially responsible. It was your idea. I was terrible. I was partially responsible. I didn't hit the tweet, send tweet button for you. All right.

1112 on Sports Talk 7.9. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We'd love to have you as part of our radio program today if you want to get in. Not a lot of piping hot sports topics. We can go through the 53-man roster for next year for the Texans if you want. Although I think we should give him a break. But remember, Ross, you're as part of the show as much as I am. So if you feel like we need to get into a deep cut and deep dive on that, I'll be happy to do that.

Why don't we leave that to the YouTube shows today? Those poor YouTube numbers are going to drop for those folks. I hate to hear that. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 if you're on Twitter want to follow us there it's at sports mt at sports-mt at at dan matthews h-o-u is that right that's correct matthews with one t bingo and it's on all caps which makes it a little you've got to set yourself apart mad you didn't set yourself apart let me tell you about the folks at scott callahan and associates they have set themselves apart. They are one of Texas super lawyers by Thompson Reuters every year. They've been that way since

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Let the folks at Scott Callahan and Associates get you on the road to recovery. 713-8889,000. We HelpTexis.com for Scott Callahan and Associates. Principal office, Katie, Texas. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Continues on Sports Talk 790. I can't even believe it.

They can't even believe it. That was more of Dan doing John Heyman person, it in there. I like this music we play as good. I won't talk about it, but it's been good day. But you've been talking about it almost every break. I'm done. You talk about this, we built the city. It's a matter of Tomasio Ross.

We talk sports, nothing but sports, sports, and more sports. It was either this or the heat is on by Glenn Fry. They rest. Really? Yeah. Oh, man. I wouldn't have gotten out. Gone too soon.

You knew he was dead, right? I did actually. I did not. Yeah. It was a few years ago, right? Oh my God. It's been 10 or 15, I think. This is 2016.

What the hell have I been? I don't know. Who knows? All right. We're not talking about music. Okay. Go ahead. Rockets capillars tonight.

You're interested? Pumped up. I'm fired up. Now, is Dan, you're doing the Rockets Launchpad, right? Yeah. You got to get some nice mail it in for you. Are you producing two to six? Two? Yeah, I'm two to six. Oh, my God.

Wait a minute. This is the hardest working man in radio. Okay. That's... What? Yeah, yeah, I'll give it to you. He's working harder than I am. Yeah, he is. I've seen you in action. Working right now, get ready for the Rockets game as we speak. Yeah. I got to call the two and a half hours of magistrate. Magistry? Yeah. It's not a word, Matt. It is. Let's go. No. And I believe... Magic. Majesty. Majesty. Majesty. Magist. Magist. Magistry.

Majestically? Is Magistri a word? Believe so. Okay, good. Thank you. You're welcome. And I believe the A-Team are going to be over at the Postoak Hotel for the Bear Brian Awards. What about 18? What about the TV show? I don't know if we're going to be doing the TV show today. Magistry, a principle of nature having transmuting or curative powers. That's Rockets Radio right there.

I don't think you're properly... I don't think you're properly using the words. Especially, you know, the nothing but nylons and left-hand. hammers. Yeah. What about right-hand hammas? We'll do right-hand hammers, too. I've caught a lot of left-hands.

Yeah. You've got to switch it up. I just want him all the care. That's all. I'm not asking for much. Yeah, Matt. People are caring. We haven't had one call about.

Interest is going up. We haven't had one call about anything. It's a snow day. Relax. I bet you get a full arena tonight. Oh, okay. Well, now he's getting a little crazy. I don't know about that.

And the ones who will go and buy their jerseys from certain sporting goods stores, they're going to have their old LeBron James jerseys, you know, throwback. No, nobody's going, no, that's the thing I completely disagree with you. I think you might see one. Have you been in that crowd? There are people who just for the sake of being contrarians or just thinking that, oh, you know, I've always been a cavalier's fan.

Oh, really? If I hold up a picture of Mark Price, you're going to know who that is? You know what? If you're a true cavalier fan, you'll go to the game tonight with a Craig Ello jersey on. Or Brad Doordy. Wrong, Brad Doordy. I'm going with my Ira Neubel jersey. Ooh, Zedrinis-Ogoscis. Somebody shows up and it's the Drunus Elgascuscusis. John Williams?

You're going back. That's really going back. I got my Boobie Gibson. He does TV. He's like Kevin Murphy for them. Good for him. Jesse Jones High School grad. Delante West at one time a Cleveland Cavalier?

Oh, yeah. You don't remember. Yeah. You don't know the way. The glorious story? Yeah. It's Gloria and James and Delante. Delante back in prison?

I can't remember. I was rescued off the streets by Mark Cuban. He tried to save his life, but I think he went. I mean, he's just crazy, unfortunately. That's too bad. That's too bad. All right. So there's your Cleveland Cavalier preview tonight. Thank you, Matt.

And we'll talk to EMAIDOCA coming up in about... That's the preview. Yeah. So basically it's going to be a mail-in in addition of the launch pad because it'll be primarily Dan Matthews. It's not a mailing in addition, Matt. Got the game rewind. Yeah, yeah. Good, relevant interviews. I've got the end-in-outs to E-May U-Doka. The, yeah.

Keys to a Victory brought to you by Fred Hass-Toyota World. I'm sure it's going to be great. Okay. Don't forget about Rockets wrap. I've heard that too. Player of the game. Yeah. Post game audio.

Yeah. Not enough of my calls, though. Let's get more, let's get more of my calls on there. Gerard on the west side. Yeah. Biscuit, hopefully. Mixing, mixing a biscuit? Haven't had too many of biscuit this year.

There's your two calls. There's all locked up and loaded. That's what you're going to get ready for. Should be great. All right. 713-212-5-7-90. What else we're going to get to today? I was thinking there was something I wanted to get to.

You had a little topic list of things. Let me see, I can look at something. Yeah, this is... You've rarely done this, so, you know, I'm just giving... No, that's not... I used to do it almost every day. Used to. I was out of the country.

We had the holidays. There's been snow days. All right, okay. You have mock draft of the Texans, Josh Simmons, offensive tackle at Ohio State. This is according to Mel Kiper. Yes. At number 25.

Your thoughts on that, Matt? My thoughts is, does a number 25 pick come in and immediately help the Texans' offensive line or does it take a season or two to make that happen? That's immediate impact from a tackle. It's possible. But all you're looking for is an upgrade of what you've had. Didn't Bill O'Brien give you guys a whole like crash course on where you draft in the first round and these guys will be for sure stars? These guys are fringe second rounders.

So I guess this would be kind of a French second rounder, right? I don't know. I don't know if enough about him. I mean, we need to get an offensive line evaluator on soon. Do you know any? No, I don't believe there's even one in the market. I don't know. Okay.

I don't, maybe there's one. I don't know. Okay. Kibolik? I try getting on anything in Kibon. Oh, go through Gourke. He listens. He's a big SEC, locked on SEC listener.

Cole Kubelik is? Yeah, I know Cole too. Get Gordy. Yeah, look, we got connections. Not today, though. He's got a, is he still on a radio show in Birmingham? Yeah, he and Greg McElroy. Greg McElroy is really good.

He's the number two guy on ABC. Yeah, good for him. Yeah, they tried to do a reprisal on that station of, an Alabama and an Auburn guy because they used to have Alto Greco and Jay God. Oilers legend Aldo Greco? Yeah. Kicked at Auburn.

I didn't know that. Now the Gulf Coast at Samford University there in Birmingham. S.A.M. F.O.R.D. Samford. Yeah. It's usually on Alabama's schedule. Well, I mean, we just... Look, we can repeat this over and over again. The Texans absolutely 100% must go for offensive line in the draft. Yes.

Right away. And then the question is, do we trust Nick Casario to make offensive line draft picks? Kenyon Green. Well, he tried to trade up for a higher graded out offensive line. He does. He's got an itchy trigger finger there. Trade up for a Kelvin Banks out of Texas, if you will. You tell me you've seen him play.

You like him? There are people that think he's not big enough to be a tackle at the next level. There is some, the draft people I trust, say he's not a top 10 pick. he's in that next group. Okay. And might have to move into guard because he's 6-4. Normally, you like your tackles to be about 6-5-66. So we'll see.

See you, Shaq Mason and welcome in Kelvin Banks, right? Bingo. Shaq Mason can't play anymore for this team, right? I don't think so. I mean, that was, he had a good first year this past year. I mean, father time is undefeated, especially when it comes to that position, does it not? Yeah, he is 31-year-old. years old.

It's good feet. It's good hands. It's strength. The Texans got wrecked by good defensive interiors all season long. It was a problem all year long. Yeah. Yeah.

But to me, just go get the best offensive tackle on the board. And then we got a, we got, but we're kind of locked in, aren't we? Townsill still got some time left. Townsill's got a couple years left. I mean, you're, and he's good.

You don't want to get rid of Larryman, Townsend. I know. I don't like him, but he's your best or your worst. Yeah. And then who's the other guy that just, that was the first round pick that still, that, what you mean, Blake Fisher was a second round? No, I'm the veteran guy.

Titus Howard? Titus Howard? Yeah, Titus Howard is, I mean, well, they kicked him into the guard the last end of the season. But Titus Howard looked like, he was a sieve too. I mean, there was nothing. I liked, Blake Fisher was horrible, started the season. He got better as the season went along. He still gets pushed around as far as, I think if he can build up his strength and

continue to get stronger. I mean, he's 21 years old. I think Blake Fisher can be a good pick. Yeah, I think to give up on an offensive lineman after one year would be significantly premature. Especially one that got better as the season went along. Is Juice Scruggs just a guy, by the way? Yeah, he's decent.

Capable. I like that. Yeah, let's go to George. We'll get to shut your ball ass up. Hi, George. Hey, guys. Definitely listening to what you guys are saying. I'm just curious, I'm sure you guys have seen it too. Some people are saying, that we should maybe get the Ohio State receiver.

I can't say his name, so I don't want to butcher it. A mechagbuka. Yes, sir. Yes, that one. Thank you. We should get him with the first round, and we can pick up some O-Lignment in, like, the later round. Just curious what y'all think.

And also for Tumsel, I'm kind of open for it. To me, it's like a high-selling salesman who can make the deals, but also drops the biggest ones. There you go. I'm just curious what you guys think, and as always love the show. Thank you, guys. Thank you, George. Yeah, I'm not a big

Tunsel fan at all. I mean, he's capable. He obviously has built quite a resume, but I think the marquee is one thing. And then when you go into the movie, the show itself, he's little supported.

I disagree. He's had really good games where he's shut down Miles Garrett and some good edge rushers. Others as well. commits too many penalties. He commits too many penalties for sure. The, off of the...

I think when I look at the... This year was way worse than it was last year. Yeah. I think he's good, not great. But you know what? With this offensive line, I'm not replacing him. I'm not saying you, I'm saying getting rid of him and get rid of him.

You're locked in. His salary cat number is astronomical. You couldn't trade him for what his worth is in terms of getting dollar for dollar payback. Rossi, I'm against going after a wide receiver in the first round. When you go get a wide receiver in the first round, aren't you, isn't that your WR1? You've already invested and you've got a WR1 already here. Nico Collins is the main go-to guy. Yeah, he is.

but no, I have no problem with a wide receiver in the first round. Didn't the Bengals do that with Chase and Higgins? Did they already have Higgins when they took Chase? I think so. Yeah, I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying, I don't know. The Bears took Roma Dunzee, and they already had DJ Moore and Keenan Allen.

Oh, yeah, there you go. I don't disagree that wide receiver is not an argument to go early, but I think you've got to start, you have to start rebranding. Brandon, that offensive line, and I think you want to do it with guys that have been, that are the top three in their positions. If we're looking to help out C.J. Stroud as much as possible, it's offensive line, it's wide receiver. I don't think it's an accident that the last two years, Pat Mahomes has looked like just a guy when he has, when he lost Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey has gotten a lot older. You have this guy who, I mean, has won three Super Bowls and already going to be one of the greatest of all time.

he if you look at his his interceptions have been around 10 to 15 the last two years with touchdowns being around 25-26 But who's offensive line And I don't know the answer to this Whose offensive line has been more highly regarded The Texas offensive line or the Chiefs

Yeah the Chiefs that's not even close So if the Chiefs didn't have as big of an issue At offensive line Well the Texas I think the bigger issue is protecting quarterback I think C.J. Stroud lost his mojo Because he didn't trust his offensive line And to Ross's point too I mean that's where you go younger

and Sheeper is at the skills for the reason that he just mentioned because you've got CJ coming up that you're going to have to extend. You've got Willie Anderson, Jr. You're probably going to have to do Derek Stingley Jr. this offseason. So soon enough, you'd be getting into hard decision territory in terms of, oh man, we had to cut that guy. That sucks. Yeah, I just say it all needs to be addressed. If they took a wide receiver at the 25, it wouldn't be an outrage. I just would prefer them going offensive alignment. I would prefer as well. It's, of course, stay true to the board, Nick Casario. that was actually, that was Rick Smith that wanted you to true to the board. Okay, well, Nick's staying true to his board too. Yeah, he does. He loves his board. Rick did love his board. These GMs love their board. Rick loved it board more than anybody else's loved his board. And his first round board was always great.

Yeah, second round board was awful. Brandon Harris. Oh, hey, come on. God. We don't have to go through the, the Sam Montgomery's and the Brennan Williams's of the world. We have to go through those. What was that receiver that broke down multiple times before going to Miami and then we broke down there? Help me out.

Receiver? Oh, you're talking about Will Will Fisher? No, Will Fuller. Will Fuller? What happened to him, by the way? Was Fuller a Brian Gain?

Will Fuller is only 30, and he's been out of the league for four years. Yeah, Will Fuller and Blame is serving Cuban sandwiches in Miami. He also got, yeah, he got PED suspension, right? And he broke down. Yeah. Texts and not a great run with

receivers that are breaking down. Diggs, Fuller, Dell. Hey, Dell was a freak accident. Two years in a row. I know. He had somebody run into his knee, man.

Yeah. And for whatever reason, they had him blocking a defensive end on the goal line. It's a bad idea. Mistakes happen. Would you like to tell somebody to shut their bow masses up? Anybody got time for something else either? 713-212-5-790.

Come join us here on the radio program. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to tell somebody to shut their bow masses up, Let us know right now. 1132, Sports Talk 790. Ain't nobody getting time. Ain't nobody getting time for it? Hey nobody getting time for that.

There it is. All right, 1136, Sports Talk, 790. It's our favorite half hour of the week. It's where my man Ross. Connor Dean when he's here. You wanted to shack up with me yesterday. I said, no thanks. Should have.

That's rude. What are you doing? What have made Dan less cranky? I'm going to kill you to put some clothes on in your room for a few minutes. I had a thermostat up. I was cold in the room. Oh, my God. No. Ours was, my room was way too hot.

I had 74 and felt good. Are you serious? It was like having a warm fire. He's sweating in there. I finally had to get on. 74? I finally had to get up and kick on the AC. Well, yeah.

It was 72 and that was too much. I don't have as much body fat as I used to. I need to keep myself warm. Oh, okay. Cuddle up. Yeah. I know the message. All right.

Tapworm's really doing a number on you. 713, 212. 7.1.3.2. 7013-21-1-2-1-2-5-7-9. If somebody in your life is irritating the hell out of you, Ross, okay? You tell them to shut their bum-asses up here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Shut your bum-ass up, man.

And then let's say somebody is telling you about how difficult they're alive is where they couldn't get to the office or they couldn't get to this, they couldn't go shopping, they couldn't go to the store because of the ice. When the entire city told you to sit down and relax and stay home with your family for a couple days, you can say, ain't nobody got time for that either. Hey nobody got time for that. Dan, you are a guest of the show today. Would you like to go first on shut your bum ass up?

Yeah, I mean, this one's going to be a personal one because, well, my fiance fell into this. She was legit depressed for the less than 24 hours that the popular social media, medium TikTok was shut down. So, Megan, with love, I say, shit your bum ass up, man. That is, that is by way, one of your best works ever because you're not married to her yet. and if you're going to have relations, it's going to probably be with her the rest of your life and you've put yourself in serious danger. Hey, you know how people say no disrespect

or no offense? That means somebody's about to be disrespectful or offended. With love. It's in the same category. It's not offensive. As long as you preface. All right. To Channel 11,

you spent all day yesterday. Every channel. At the damn Miller Park, going down the ski slopes when you could have put on the Youngler Restless and building the beautiful. Oh, my God. So to Channel 11, ain't nobody got time for your ski slope coverage.

Ain't nobody got time for that? Hey, I'd rather have ski slope coverage than stupid soap operas. Shut your bum ass up. What? Man, if Phyllis is going to hook up with Billy again, I got to know about it. So shut your bum ass up. Phyllis is going to hook up with Billy again? Yeah.

Shut your bum ass up, man. I mean, we got to find, we've got to find who out of who is kidnapped Sharon. Poor Nick's worried about this. We don't need endless coverage. It's cold outside. Burr. Don't go on the streets. Burr.

Then Zach from KHU and Sherman Chow, they finally wanted to do that. Yeah. Sherman Chow. The court of the news journalist. Let's get on one of these slides. I want to hear you tell Sherman Chow to shut her bum ass up. No. Sherman and I are close.

She's very nice, Ross. I know. That's why I wanted Matt to say it. It would be funny. I'm not telling her that. Tell the news director to shut his bum ass up. It would be funny, though. If it gets in the IFB, hey, hey, get a tube.

Go down the hill. Yeah, I guess so. By the way, Jim Cantori. Oh. I offered you, I got you a chance to get you on the floor tonight for the Rockets Cavaliers, and you don't even respond. Hey, nobody got time for that, Jim Cantori? Hey, nobody got time for that.

Guess what I'm going to do next time I see you on Storm coverage? I'm going to say, I'm going to look at the TV. I'm going to say, Jim Cantororre, shut your bum ass up, man. I'm going to go to the one anonymous. Get your bum ass. WAA writer who did not vote for Ichiro Suzuki for the Hall of Fame. Ten time gold Glover.

I think it's a ten time all-star. Two-time batting champion, MVP, rookie of the year. Shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. To imagine league baseball for allowing the cranky-ass baseball writers to only have a vote. Shut your bum ass up.

Shut your bum ass up, man. You mean to tell me that the respected television broadcasters that broadcast these games, the Brian Anderson's, the Joe Davises, the John Smoltz, can't have a vote? I would be okay with... Meanwhile, the cranky guy from the Rochester Gazette gets a vote. And nobody got time for that. Yeah, I would say the play-by-play guys who call 162 games and see every team,

you should definitely, and the color guys that are with them. Definitely, they should have votes. Finn Scully and Myel Hamilton never voted for anybody in the Hall of Fame. That's atrocious. Per our conversation last night, Matt. I mean, you know, maybe just go with the Heisman Trophy voting way, because, I mean, seemingly everybody gets one. So, hey nobody got time for that.

Open it up. Don't want the cranky baseball writers. Now, thankfully, they've allowed some MLB writers to get in. Like, people used to work for MLB.com could not vote. I think they now can. So. Does tags vote? I don't. Yes, he does. Does he? Okay, I didn't have an answer for that.

I think he does because I think he put out his ballot. He put his ballot out once and some people on Twitter weren't happy with him, I think. Imagine people on Twitter are not happy with something. Yeah. Okay. That seems fair. 713-21-2-5-7-9. We go to Aggie-Land.

Juan. Juan, what's the matter with you? Hey, good morning, guys. We love the show. Thank you. I've been holding half the football season. Whenever you're losing by three touchdowns, and you happen to catch or run for a first down,

quit jumping up and pointing first down, you're losing. You're doing your job. Stop it. Bless you. Stop. time for that. Juan, I've said that myself, but thank you for backing me up on that a few weeks later. I am so annoyed with the damn first down catch and run. Just give the ball the official

and get back to your spot. Correct. Thank you, Juan. Thank you, Juan. Bless you, that was great. Yeah. They, Rossi, they do it every single time. It's so annoying. It's so annoying. They're trying to have fun on the football field playing a game. It's not funny. Stupid. Oh, it's so bad. Fun. Fun is celebrating a touchdown. I'll get off your lawn too. whatever. Oh, I'm down 31 to 2 to the Ravens. I got a first down. First down here.

Yeah, you know, get back to the huddle and get going here. Ross, it's the same in baseball. You're down 7 to 2. Don't pimp a home run. Yeah. We can do that too. Why not? No.

No, you don't. No. So what? What's that bog all over the fence, baby? What's his first down? You got to get the team riled up. No, you don't. Down 7 and 2.

You're getting your ass kick. Yeah, you can get them fired up with a 3-run bomb. Go get in the clubhouse around. Try to rally in the dugout and sit out and relax. Rally in the troops, baby. Oh, my God. Yeah, a solo home run to make it seven to three. The pitcher just says, can I have the ball back?

No, people don't pimp those normally. That's happened. In the dugout they are. Now, Luis Val Buena did. He would pimp a single to left. May he rest? May he rest. Seriously.

Oh, I'm down 37 to 19. I don't think I'll put my hand up in the air. First down, great. How about the four previous drops you had? You didn't do that. That's what I had to do, Ross. What? If you drop a football, you should take your left hand and right hand and bounce them up and down.

Like you're bouncing these things. Boom, boom, boom. That's bouncing what things. You know, football. You give you rotation. That's what you're doing. Look at this. Let's see what I'm doing.

I don't know what you're doing. You put your left hand up, your right hand down, up down, up down, up down. That's a bobble. You don't do that. Well, defensive backs do it even if they didn't necessarily break up the pass and do the shee and the sword. Or when the flag comes out for the pass interference. We got them that. No, no, you pass interfered. Then the hands go out. Wait a minute.

Oh, man. What are you doing? Or like when, yeah, somebody gets a sack and they do their whole, they do like a full 30-second sack dance and then it happened to be off-sides on the other defensive end or something. Why would you talk about Antonio Smith that way? Hey. Oh, that was one of our first obligatories. Obligatory? Not, yeah, it was back of the day. Right. Antonio Smith, off-sides call. It was jazzy. Yes.

Now, if you have any other shut your bum asses up. Let's hear from you right now. we got another segment to get to at 713212-5-790 remember our man won just holding that back for weeks don't hold back on this let it out it make you feel so much better shut your bum ass up ain't anybody got time for that 713 212 5 790 more matt thomas show with ross now on sports talk 790 all right a few more to get to ain't nobody got time for that shut your bum ass up to cbs to drubbery more who i secretly had a rush on for 20 years. You ruin the Hollywood squares. It's not funny.

It's overproduced. Was it on before? It's had various different reincarnations. Was Bruce Valanche still on it? No, Bruce Valanche is not on this one. You had one that had Whoopi Goldberg in the center square. That was okay. I used to watch that back in the day.

The best one of all time was the original. Paul Lynn in the Center Square, one of the funniest human beings alive. May he rest. I'll take your word for it. Then they had another version with Joan Rivers. in the center square back and then shortly after that but this new version no thank you you'll be canceled before soon enough so anybody got time for the new version of the Hollywood Square I'm a big game show guy I used to watch the Tom Bergeron version

back in the day what you think I loved it I mean it was like in high school I was watching it after school yeah to certain hotels that don't have certain channels available because it's scrambled on the satellite out yeah I don't know I just wanted to watch the Tiger Woods little indoor golf thing I know they don't even have the pay-per-view skinna max for Matt he was very upset

Hey Last channel the last channel I tried to scramble Was I think the Playboy channel in 1986 I thought you were a spice guy I don't even know what that is Ross Anywho Anywho That's 7-13-212-5-790

That hotel was very nice But that's the second time I've been there For weather purposes And it's had the channel problems You know what they're doing? These hotels are using Wi-Fi for TV channels. I think the place is quite nice. Yeah, but if you can't get Re-S-R-R-N, it's not going to do much good. Pool Park Sliders are clutch, though.

Fantastic. Yeah. Acroni and cheese, shout-out. I felt the baked beans this morning. All right. Nobody needed to know that. But not a single person on the planet needed to know that. And you broadcast it on air. I did. 713-212-5-7-0.

Anything else? Weather coverage are taken care of. airports closing that's not a show that was a good idea um let's see here anything else that has bothered me in the last few it's hard to be relatively bothered by anything when we had weather to deal with the ice i love the snow people enjoy the snow that was that was the most important thing we've had very few actions which was you know what a a reverse yeah see that's what we got to do the blessings to you segment so next week we will do blessings to you Okay.

Write that down. I do have time for that. We do have time for that. I'll text it to Connor. Is he so going to be with us? Is he all right? Is he going to be out for another week? No.

Hey. Maybe he's scared. Maybe he wants to me to take him one more day. Just be precautionary. You can take another day. I don't think he all of a sudden developed agoraphobia. He's fine. All right.

That is shut your bum ass up and anybody got time for that today. We got the news at noon coming up at about six minutes from now. We have an intriguing basketball game tonight. as the 36 and 6th Cavaliers come in. Is the NBA ready, Ross, for the Cavaliers v. Oklahoma City potential NBA finals? I don't think Commissioner Silver is rooting for that. Or will there be calls wink-wink that will favor the Boston Celtics. I'm going to tell you, it would be a great finals.

America probably wouldn't pay attention, but that would be a great finals. We as basketball die-hards would, but the rest of America would be like, eh, not so much. Yeah, we're good. It's like, who's the NFL rooting for? I get chiefs or bills either way, but probably chiefs? I was about to tell you. Taylor. The Taylor effect. They want the Chiefs.

They want the Chiefs. And then Chiefs Eagles? Did you see who Taylor Swift was hanging out with on Saturday? No, I didn't. Caitlin Clark was in her private box. I did see that. Good for her? Caitlin Clark gets an email or a phone call.

Taylor Swift wants you in her private box for the game. She's a Chief fan anyways, right? She's from Iowa, so I would assume she's got to be, yeah, that's the closest team there. Oh, no, I thought you know. she was a Colts fan. Didn't she have a Peyton Manning jersey or something? We did this on. We did this on, believe it or not.

She did that because she's not a part of the Indiana fever. She probably moved on. No, I'm going to go back to Believe it or not. Okay. Isn't she too young to be a Peyton Manning Colts fan? I don't know. Let me go back to the Believe it or not, I wrote on February of last year. She is from Des Moines, Iowa. Caden Clark was a huge Peyton Manning fan growing up and had a Colts number 18 jersey, believe it.

Wow. And then she goes to play in. place with the Indiana fever, ironically enough. By the way, they're building a $76 million practice facility for the Indiana fever. What? In Indianapolis. What? 76.

I don't know where that number came up from, but that's what it is. Wow. What's the salary cap situation in the WNBA? Can they free spend because the fever are going to have all the cash? It's like they're the Yankees of the WNBA. They're the only ones that making money. Actually, the Dodgers. Yeah, the Dodgers.

That's right. Both the Dodger memes out there in the last week or so have been so good. I haven't heard it. Has Jeff Passon still been bending at the knee for the Dodgers? Blank gobbling. Did I see they got Kirby Yates yesterday? Yeah. If there's any free agent left, like Bregman's going to doggers too now, right?

I was going to do you. He's going to doge him a catcher. The Dodgers apparently are petitioning to Major League Baseball to carry a 35-man roster because they can afford it. A 10-man lineup? two DHS with Bregman as one of them. Yeah, and having multiple third basemen on the field at one time. Seems unfair, but Rob Manfred said he's going to let it slide. Do you think, now, granted, we know the Astros are the most hated team in baseball still because of all the things.

No, it's got to be the Dodgers now. But the Dodgers are gaining steam on this, right? I think so. Because if you're a baseball fan, wouldn't you want to root for the team that all they did was spend money? They just outpocketed you is what they did? Yeah, it'll be interesting. When's the next CBA? Although, who was the kid that signed with the left-handed that just signed last week with the Dodgers?

What's his name? Toronto wanted him too. Tren Scott? So, one and a time. Sorry, go ahead. What's his name? It was Tanner Scott. Yeah, Tanner Scott.

Didn't Tanner Scott get better offers other places? I don't recall. I think the Blue Jays were going to give him some sort of additional dollars. It's the second offseason for the Blue Jays where it's like, hey, we've got tons of money. Yeah, I know it was Blue Jays because. I kept seeing these tweets saying, how does it feel to be finished in second place again? To the same team, again.

Toronto's on a bad place to play baseball. They got great fans. Now, is it, does the money situation have... The taxes are bad. I think Corbyn Burns went to Arizona because the taxes in the Blue Jays are so bad. Yeah. I don't know what it is,

but I can tell you that if you win, Toronto fans will be there. But there's a big... And I don't know if it's... The travel is a big hassle on it. I know it's my... The only thing I don't like going to Toronto for the Rock. is the fact that the whole the passport stuff going through customs is a pain on the ass oh mine

expires this year i got to get mine i can get mine i can get mine you want to go together yeah let's yeah we can skip i think you can do it online we can lock arms and skip to the office mt show with ross live from the passport office we'll take candid pictures ship to the federal building love it have you gotten your um uh what do you call it the tsa pre-check done no Go to the post office for that. Yeah, Kim and Kim and Carly got one. How much does that cost? It's like $85 for five or six years.

Easy money spent. Okay. Sometimes the pre-check line is longer. Pre-check is longer sometimes, but more time is not. Now, apparently if you're real travel savvy, you will do the TSA pre-with-clear. No, that clear costs too much. Clear is a very expensive. It is very, but again, there's that line.

It's very, very small. All right, the news at noon is coming up in just a moment. If you'd like to be a part of our show, we'd love to have you. EMA, Addoca is going to join us in one hour. We have, believe it or not, today coming up at 150. The categories today about today's inductees to the 2025 Major League Baseball Hall of Fame class will have that for you. But right now, a word for Big City Wings where today is the $8 burger special that I know you'll enjoy because you will choose the burger. You'll choose the bun of your choice.

You'll choose the side of your choice, whether it's waffle fries, potato wedges, tater tots, perhaps an onion ring, a side salad. And you'll get an $8 burger with a choice of toppings. Grote onions, mushrooms, guacamole, bacon, it's all available for you at any of the 13 Big City Wing locations. You're saying, Matt, it's a wing joint. The burgers are spectacular. And they're just $8 today with a choice of a side. If you are a whiskey connoisseur, it's a whiskey Wednesday. They've got specials for you tonight as well.

As you sit back, eat your burger, eat your wings, eat your salad, eat your chicken sandwich, or your desserts with your whiskey. And you can watch the Rockets. You can watch other college basketball. You can watch hockey at any of those 13 locations that feature wall-to-wall big screen. televisions. $8 burger Wednesday today at big city wings and big city wings.com. Lunch timers. This

is the Matt Thomas show. 124 Sports Talk 790. What's happening in luncht timers? This is our three, the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Wagner gets a strikeout. That's one.

He just kept puffing. Fastball after fastball and Mazzana. medium of a hundred mile an hour heater out over the outside corner. Pitchers combining first ever win in Yankee Stadium. When there's starter, Roy Oswald couldn't make it. One hitter into the second inning left with an injury. McAnnell have to throw down the first two up and two down. Aaron it out tonight.

One strike from 400 saves. There it is. Man, did he do it? in style. All right, 1206, it is a Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Would you want an entrance song? What do you mean? For this show, we have one. Yeah, but you... The intro. Yeah, we have that one. That's been that from 2010, for the most part.

I think... But a lot of players change there's up and down a lot. Yeah. I think it's consistency as everything. Why? Mm-hmm. What if... Breggman changes is a lot.

If he's in a slump, he'll switch it up. See, I would want to be identified with one song. Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, I don't think there's anything much to comment on. When you hear big time, when you hear, you know, you think of me. Okay.

When I hear Neil Sedaka laughing in the rain, I think of you. Oh, that's terrible. Ladies and gentlemen, at 1206, it is the Matt Thomas Show of Ross in this time every day. We give you the big headlines of the very busy world of sports. We present to you the news at noon. So kind of Didn't tell you where it was. Matt, so we played the Billy

Wagner highlights to open up this segment and he does headline news at noon. Interestingly enough, Matt, on the first year of the ballot, and this will be a believe it or not question coming up later on the show, so you're welcome. 10.5% of the vote in 2016.

It actually went down from there to 10.2% in 2017. then continuously climbed up to last year's, 74% and then this year, 82.5% for Billy Wagner. So 90% of the voters didn't think he deserved it 10 years ago. Only 17.5% of the voters voting against him this year. Would you, if you had to vote,

would you be one of those guys to say, if I've got to only pick 10, I do like Billy Wagner, but I feel like I need to wait a wait, while because I've got nine, 10 people in front of him. Is that, is that the reason why you would do it? Or all of a sudden, do you just feel guilty and going, well, this group of 2025 is not great.

I'll sneak him in. It's like, just because you're allowed to put 10 in, I don't think you have to put 10 in. Yeah, I, I think, I mean, I would have voted him in. I was on the fence of me, he's a, he's a borderline case. I mean, very, very good case. But if you want to discount relievers with the old, they are failed starters narrative, and can't be as impactful long term as a starter or a everyday position player. I buy that.

But also, as relievers go, Billy Wagner, you look at the numbers we talked about earlier, the ERA plus, the strikeout ratio and stuff like that. I think deserving nod for him this year. Here's the reality of it. When you and I were growing up, and we grew up at different times, the Hall of Fame was the most unbelievable, no doubt about, no wiggle, room, no debating on radio or TV shows or newspaper columns. Either you were the greatest of the great or you didn't get in.

And we're seeing a trend in baseball's Hall of Fame, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and I don't even count the basketball home from because anybody in their mother gets in the basketball. Everybody's in there. The requirements to enter such halls are not nearly as stringent as they were, say, 50 or 20 years ago. With that, Matt, getting 86.8% of the vote, C, C, C, C, Sabathia, would you say a deserving recipient of the Hall of Fame

Honor? One time Syung Ward winner, 6th time All-Star, also won the 2009 World Series with the Yankees. All right, let me ask you this one question. Did he win 200 games? 251 in 19 years.

So, of all the things you just described, in the world of baseball, we're getting victories is not nearly as easy as it was, say, years ago. It is an overrated stat to me, wins and losses. No, because I think it goes to appearances

and how long you've been able to do it for. Longevity? Longivity. So I would not say it's overrated. I think it's properly rated. It's overrated. I would say 300 used to be the automatic. Maybe now in 2025, 250 is the automatic. So I think based on the 250 number,

not only did he get in, Ross, but he got in rather comfortably. In 19 years, he had one Sy Young Award and a fourth place two fourth place a third and a fifth

so he finished top five five times with one win I'm going to tell you and again don't hate me for it I'm not going to hate you but

when you get 3,000 hits you're automatically get in when you get to 250 wins you probably automatically get in he wouldn't have gotten my vote but it's a good case

he's got a good case to me When I think about it, I think... Good. Really, really, really good. Is he winning a game seven of the World Series for me? Probably not. Hall of Fame pitcher should be for a long stretch.

You look at... You know, we do this always in baseball. Look at the probable pitchers. What's the mound matchup today? Like, all right, we're losing this one. Yeah. You didn't feel like that with C.C. When Randy Johnson pitched, you felt like you were going to lose.

You're like, we're taking the hell of the day. Or how about this? You get... You get... Your pitcher gives up one run in the first and you're like, all right, they're lost. This game's over. Greg Maddox. Yeah, exactly. No doubt.

Roger Clemens will never get in. But my point is, Roger Clemens, you were going to take the L on that. There either needs to be like an extra Hall of Fame, like Hall of Fame plus or something like that, where we can put the other guys in because exactly right. C.C. Sabathia and Pedro Martinez are not of the same existence. I have the perfect analogy. Oh, oh, here we go. And when you hear it, you'll applaud me because you're like, Matt, it's so rare for this to happen.

I'm ready to stand up and applaud. There are players that are very good, but you're going to sit and coach. Sorry, it's what it is. Okay. You have the next layer of players. I knew you were going to go here, actually. That should get economy plus seats. C.C. Sabathie is an economy plus passenger.

There's only very few people that should hit in first class. Yeah. So C.C. Sabthi is the economy plus of baseball pitchers. I think when Bill Simmons wrote his basketball book, he called it the Pantheon. and then there's like the top, top, top of the top. So you said Bathy's not there, but you put them behind the velvet rope. That's fine. I'm not calling this an atrocity. Did you like my analogy?

I think it was good, Matt. Thank you. I'm proud of you. It's so rare that you would say something nice about analogy. One single person did not vote for Ichiro Suzuki, one MVP and rookie of the year at this in the same year. 10 time All-Star, 10-time Gold Glover, three-time Silver Slugger, two-time battling titleist. And somebody said, by the way, over 3,000 hits and did not. did not hit the major leagues till he was 27.

And oh, by the way, if you want a lead-off guy for the ultimate winner take-all game, Etro Zazuki's my lead-off guy. Him, Ricky. Yeah. Who else is in my lead-off spot? Jose Al-Tuwe.

Jose-Tuwe. Craig Bizio, maybe middle of his career. One of the ultimate, learning of the ultimate lead-off guys, I think of Ichero and Ricky Henderson to me. I like that. All right. What else is going on?

And the news at noon, you ask Matt, how about your Houston Rockets taking on the Cleveland Cavaliers? In a clash of Titans in the NBA, the team with the best record in the league in town to take on the Rockets. Every game important down the stretch, Matt, the Rockets just half game ahead of the Grizzlies, although you do have the tiebreaker, but just one and a half games ahead of the Nuggets as well. Four and a half games is the cushion for the top six, so you don't have to play in the play in the play. I am worried about the nuggets. I am worried about the Grizzlies. Period. End of the story. Now, the Rockets will have the tiebreaker over the Grizzlies. They have won three

matchups. They've got one more next week. They already have one win against Denver. They'll play them two times remaining. Once in Houston, I think both games are actually in Houston. So you split one of those. You want to start winning tiebreakers because of those three teams, it could be a mad scramble for two, three, four in the West. You're not going to have to worry about the Mavs, especially with the most recent news. Oh, get it. Tell them. Derek Lively out two to three months, according to Shams. Wow.

They're still done just out. They're a hot mess of injuries right now. They're lucky to make the playing game. Health matters. And they are not healthy. Although Kyrie Irving has been playing. They lost in the Hornets. Well, the Hornets have been played better.

Anything else? Oh, that's it for now. I'm all disturbed. It's two straight days of Dan not being able to find the news and noon music. That's okay, Matt. Don't worry about it. It's no days. Communication among people in the country.

You just have it in a certain place. That's breaking newsbed. Yeah. It's not breaking news. It's rather news. News and news. Okay. 1215 Sports Talk 790.

EMA adjoca joins us in 45 minutes. 713212-579 if you want to get in. 713-212-5-790. Did you hear the latest rumors about the Dallas Cowboys coaching situation? We'll discuss that coming up in a minute. Right now, a word for Uptown Appliance Repair. could you imagine if your appliances weren't working today, how you would have had to just be so miserable

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And I'm going to give you their phone number just a second. But the main thing I want to tell you about is that they're a Houston-based company. Bobby Fero and his crew have done an amazing job of taking care of people's needs so they don't have to go spend thousands of dollars on brand new appliances. They simply call 281-758-9978 and say, yes, I heard Matt call you the premier appliance professionals in Houston. And they are. They're not going to leave your house, not going to leave your equipment until everything is 100% right. 281-758-9-9-78, 281-758-9-9-78. A lot of you worry about your dryers, not heat, not drying your clothes fast enough.

It might be because the dryer vent not working. Take a look at that through Uptown Appliance Repair. They'll clean those for you as well. 281-758-9978. That's 281-758-9978 or online at Uptown AppliancesPair.com. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal. on Sports Talk 790. So the Dallas Cowboys are still searching for their head coach.

Robert Sala got a look. Brian Schottenheimer, their offensive coordinator, apparently is gaining some steam as potentially a head coach there. He was their offensive assistant two years ago. He's been well-traveled in the NFL circles. Yeah, he has. And it feels like Dallas Cowboy fan, not overly thrilled about the fact that Brian Schottonheimer would be the head coach,

because it would once again label this as a guy that would be a yes man to his general manager, Jerry Jones. I think we've pretty much figured out by the number of people that have been in that position that if Jerry Jones is your boss, there is not going to be really a lot of give and take. It's going to be what Jerry wants. You have to do with what Jerry gives you. And there's not much flexibility. And the Jerry Jones remains firmly in control that franchise when he probably five or ten years ago should have given up the general manager's spot. to a real personnel guy. Maybe 30 years ago. Should have given it up.

That's crazy. I mean, I don't, look, you don't, what is Jerry Jones's approval rating among Cowboy fans? Is it mostly everyone hates him, or do most of them say it's his team, we're close, and they hate them? There has to be hate. The hate factor has to be significantly high. They hate him when they first got, when he first got the team and he fired Tom Landry. Then they won the Super Bowls.

Then they loved him. Then they hated him when Jared, when Jimmy Johnson had him got, That's true. And they still won with Barry Switzer. Yes. And then it's been 30 years of ever since then of just mediocrity. They're the only team in the NFC championship. Excuse me.

Never to win a, never go to the championship game since they won to the Super Bowl. So we're talking about mid-90s. He's basically like a drug addict hating his drug dealer because they're addicted to the drug. And the other person is a person they don't like for that reason, but they can't stop. Who's the drug dealer? Yeah. I'm trying to figure that one out. In this scenario, it would be Jerry Jones because, I mean, they can't stop watching Cowboys.

You want some more crap? I mean, think about it. It's the same. I've said that there is a cycle of Cowboys fandom. At 12 o'clock, it's training camp. You're feeling really good about the season. Yes. You get the 3 o'clock, maybe there's a little bit of a lull.

6 o'clock, you know, it's not great. And then 9 o'clock is they get a huge Sunday night football win, and then they lose in the playoffs and it starts all over again. And the whole time, you're hiding a butterfly knife and your jorts. How you doing over there, Matt? I'm perplexed by both of you, frankly, at this point. Do you want a movie reference? As long as you play the ding.

Yes, I've got the ding. Whoever the head coach is for the Cowboys is basically Kevin Pollock's character in casino. Okay. He just does what he's told. Yeah. Yep. Now that I can understand. The whole alarm clock thing I didn't get.

And the butter knife thing, I didn't get either. Butterfly knife. Butterfly knife. I didn't have that one. I'm not the guilty party. I'm not playing and blame on you on the other. What do you mean? Cowboys fans like to wear joints and they're criminals.

What's so, how's that flying over your head? They are the number one fan base in sports. For what? For television ratings. Criminal activity? You put on. That's probably Raiders fans. Well, it used to be Oakland Raiders fans.

Now, I don't know. I don't think, do you think Las Vegas Raiders fans nearly has many? I don't think there are a Las Vegas Raiders fans. Raider fans. That's true. No, there are. I went to a game. But you do have a lot of people who drive over from California.

Like, if the Raider fan is no longer the number one criminal fan base in the NFL, who's number one now? Hmm. Eagle fans? Yeah, Eagle fans are like misdemeanor guys, though. That's true. Well, they're still a crime. They like to climb on polls. I think 49er fans have.

Oh, Niners fans would be good. That's a wine and cheese group. No. They get a lot of scraps over there, too. The fan base chant is bang bang, bang, niner gang. Yeah, they're in the niner gang, Matt. Okay. Bill's mafia doesn't get in the trouble.

They're not really a mafia. They're just the drunks at the party. Yeah, they just overserved themselves. They're more of a criminal mischief, setting stuff on fire. Saints fans just want to party. Yeah, Green Bay fans are going in trouble. We just put some food out in front of the ladies and they'll get after it. What's that?

Hmm? Green Bay fans... They don't get in trouble. They put a trough of food in front of the ladies. Is that what you're saying? lot of food in front of they're happy. So you're calling them pigs. You put a lot of broads out there. It's basically seeing their people with high caloric diets. Maybe some Miller high life as well.

Having lived in Minnesota, I know what that's all about. Trust me. I think we've got to go Eagles fans then. Eagle fans are going to climb on polls. They're going to, oh, I know, they're definitely going to do that. How about the one Philadelphia fan that called the Green Bay fan in front of him a C word? Yes. Lost his job. lost his job with the DEI of some sort. Yeah, that's who it is. That's the biggest group of criminals right now are Eagle fans.

You know, so much that, I mean, they're not Eagle. Well, maybe they are Eagle fans, but Justin Verlander flipped them off. Justin Verlander flipped off Eagle fans? He flipped off Philly fans, yeah. Oh, okay. So you're just saying General Philadelphia fan. Yeah, it became a popular meme, him getting off the bus and saying, hey, Philly, what's up? Okay.

Yeah, number one. It's my least favorite city to go to in the NBA. It just is. Food is good. The cheese steaks are wonderful. You don't even eat cheesesticks when you get there. I got a place I can recommend for you there next time. Yeah, Matt.

Need some recommendations. No, I'm going to tell you. I've been to these places 25 times. I'm zero need of recommendations. I'll give you some. I'll give you some. I don't want any recommends from any of you all. No disrespect to any of you.

It's rescinded. All right. Fine. You don't want to. Some good local fare. This is a place called Maggiano's. It's really good. Let me tell you where I go.

If I want to find Italian cuisine in this town, I go to this place and their breadsticks are good. Yes. And the salad is endless. As much as you'd like. Yeah. And when you're there, your family. Yes, it is.

It's, yeah. I'd like to take a tour. And they'd let me bring a pasta home with me if I want to. That's how good those people are. 1228. Sports Talk, 7.9. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 7-1-3-1-2-2-5-7-90.

Do you hear why? give the number out is because if I don't hear from you, I have to talk to Ross and to Dan. I love them like brothers. The hamster came off the wheel for me on that one. I'll go ahead and hold my hand up for the foul. I'm Dan Marley in that regard. Marley never objected to a foul call. He just said, yeah, it was me.

I appreciate yourself reporting. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9. Come in and join me. At least join me. Don't go to you guys I don't care about. Back in a minute. Good late movement on that. Nice stream, Beavis.

I like talking about frog baseball? Strike one. Hey, you dummies, listen to Astro's baseball and Rockets basketball games on any device with a free high-heart radio apps. Time now for Gordy to save the show. We'd have him play the liner, but I don't think Dan knows what that is because he couldn't find the news at Noonliner. Oh my God. He's a little generic news. Putting in the extra hours.

Yeah, this, what do we need one of these mics? I got your back, Dan. Dan, we love you. You know that. bum ass up. You know, I'm just teasing, Dan. The Matt Tom Show. All right. All right. I'm here to save the show.

All right. Now you got to say now. Yeah. Shut my bum ass up. How you like me now? That's right. Exactly. Right. It is an idiocracy out there right there, guys. Idiot. Is that a word? I believe there is a requirement. If you're all in the roads right now, you have an IQ of below 10. Because it is people like, morons. There's ice everywhere.

It seems safe enough to drive, at least on surface street. but the interstates are still packed with what we call black ice, which is frozen roads that you can't see with your eyeballs, and I witnessed four accidents coming in because people are morons. Slow the F down. No reason to be doing

80 on 610 right now, you idiots. Get them, Gordy. There's like another rule. If you're a big, the bigger the truck, the faster you've got to go. Doesn't matter if it's ice. Oh, yeah. I got a tailgate people. Yeah, absolutely. If you got an F-150 with a double-cast, and all this extra stuff. Floor it, buddy. Floor it.

I'm going to Toyota Center for the Rockets game tonight, and I've got to be there at 5 o'clock to listen to coach and talk to him after this pregame interview. I'm leaving here at 205. I'm going to take Memorial to get myself two and a half hours. I'm going to sleep in the garage. I'll do it. And if there's a car in front of you, slow down, lease some space. Give some space for Jesus. Exactly. That's right.

So Gordy made it in. Yeah, I see people stopped up. This is 610 and 288. Is that a live cam? No, it's from, I don't know. Yeah, it's, it goes down to one lane, but you can clearly see the path that's been formed by other cars, and so you just go in that. But I have idiots trying to pass me.

They go on ice, like, okay, hey, play stupid games, win stupid prices. Can't wait until your car is crushed up against that wall like a moron, and someone has to come save your life. Get a gaudy. These gaudy drive-bys are amazing. I love this. Dumbassery.

Maybe it's just mad. Maybe his kids these days have never driven on ice. Maybe you've grown up in Houston and you're 18, you've never driven on ice before. How's New Orleans handling things? They cancel the Pelicans game tonight. Oh, yeah. They're a winter wonderland still. My buddy sent me video from Destin.

Destin had snow. Never in a million years would have thought that was possible. Yeah. In one state this year, a hurricane and snow. Actually, two states. Texas and Florida. All right, real quick, as we got you here. I believe that we'll get to talk about two things.

He's your college football guy. I believe the college football national championship games should be played the Friday night before the divisional playoff games. Agree or disagree. Yeah, the Monday thing was a debacle. And it wasn't just being on a Monday. But the fact, it was Martin Luther King Day. You had NBA games all day. You had the inauguration for Donald Trump.

We had all this stuff going on that just had everybody else. And then we had here locally in the South, we were all worried about preparing for the winter weather. But you could have that for any part of the country, too. So I just think it's about sexiness and giving yourself the marquee. And you don't get the marquee when you just finish four games of NFL divisional playoffs. Well, I think people have brought up taking that weekend off of Army Navy, I think needs to be considered. And there's a bunch of these purists who are like, no, it's got to be its own weekend. It is Army Navy.

I get all that. We could still play it and play some playoff games that week. It will be okay. Army Navy should be played in September, early September. like week zero. Yeah, I mean, I don't care. I think I don't care. I'm fine where it is.

It's cute in December, but it's a throwaway weekend. But we took a week off before conference championship weekend this year. Like, that's stupid. It's all these weeks off, yeah. Yeah, go play your conference championship, and then let's play play play playoff games the next weekend. All right. So, yeah, I just think put it before the playoffs, you get your chance to be the star.

Now, something I brought up earlier today, I don't have you heard it. Ross Delinger, we don't like him or we do like him. How do you feel about it? He was on the LSU beat for a while. He says the SEC and the Big Ten ADs are meeting where they would like to maybe push an agenda of expanding the college football playoff from 12 to 14 teams

and giving the SEC and the Big Ten four automatic spots. The other two, then the ACC and the Big 12 would get two. So that's two, four, eight, 12. Group of five would get the 13th spot and then one at large spot would get the 14th spot. I tell you that, you say, I don't like it, but also take a step back and realize it's deserved. I mean, it is the two premier conferences where the best football is played.

Look, I'm not, I think 12 is fine, but they said this from the get-go. Before they even expanded the 12th, they said 14 and 16 are in play, and it's all about money. It's more money, so let's do it. And so that's where they're looking at. I do think they did come out and say that the committee said they are willing to look at some changes this offseason. I do think, I don't know if they'll do it for next year, but I hope they do, will change the stupidity of the automatic bid for the conference champ, the four highest-ranked conference champions moving to the front of the line. I think they will change that. When the

committee does their final rankings, they list one through 25. One through four should be the first round buys, no matter what conference they are. If they're four big ten teams, so be it. And Notre Dame is in the top four? If Notre Dame is in the top team, so be it. If you are a top four team in this country at the end of the year, you should get a first round by. It was Boise and Arizona State jumping. Everybody was stupid. To my original point, though, that's awful presumptuous. Now, granted, more times than not, the Big Ten's going to get you four. The SEC's going to get you four. But on a year where the ACC is four deep, or maybe some case, the Big 12 is four deep, that means you're going to,

you're going to potentially knock out an ACC or a Big 12 school in order to squeeze in a fourth SEC or a fourth Big Ten school that may not be deserving of being in that group. I think this year was an interesting year because there was a lot of parody in the SEC. But if we're still, if we're being real with ourselves, Ole Miss finished with three losses. Were they still one of the four best teams

in the SEC? Could they still have been in this field of 12? Yeah, probably. People were making a case for Alabama, three lost Alabama. I didn't think they deserved to be in, but you know, the problem I have is the Big Ten getting four, automatic four bids. We've seen the last couple years,

there's Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. I mean, great story, Indiana, but we saw from the get-go you didn't belong there. Who's the fourth and fifth best teams of the Big Ten? It's a monster drop-off. Purdue and all these other crappy teams, Rutgers. Like, I'm sorry. I think the Big Ten is way more top-heavy than the SEC.

Well, I just think we're having a difficult time, essentially telling the committee, we think we're giving you the responsibility of giving us the 12 or 14 best teams, but we're trying to create some different, scheduling courts. It's all about fairness, because the conferences, the big 12 commissioners are like, I'm not signed off on this unless

we get a fair shot. It's like, we can't do it that way. It's just got to be whoever's ranked one through 12. That's who it should be in. All right. There it is. Anything else for Gordy? He's locked on us. Texas, by the way, ESPN put out their way too early top 25.

Yes. Texas Longhorns number two. I think Brett McMurphy put him one. It's a lot of faith in Archmanning because they lose a ton. Yeah, I know. I don't have them number one. I don't have them number one. I don't make the poll.

Michael Taff and Arch Manning. Yeah, let's go, baby. New old line. A couple of corners came back. No, Anthony Hill's back. Yeah, they got some of the defensive pieces back. Colin Simmons, yeah. But yeah, it's a lot of rebuilding.

Matthew Golden, by the way, is jumping up draft boards. I've been told by multiple people. Number one one receiver in the class. If I could put a hex on something, it would be him. Why? Why would you put a hex on Matthew this young man who went to go better his life and play in the playoff rather than lose a bunch of games with Willie Fritz? You wouldn't have lost a lot of games. Matthew Golden was here. We would have been

like a nine-win team easily. Quarterbackers firing every pass into the dirt. Is he going to the senior bowl? I haven't seen that yet. Matthew Golden? I don't know. I might jump down there next week. Oh, we'll see. Can you stay in town for more than one day? Jesus. It'd just be a third day. I drive down the mobile. We'll get a mobile report. You're not going to drive.

That's too far for you to drive. It's an easy drive. No, it's on easy drive. How many? What's it? Eight hours? It's about that. No, it's longer than that.

Seven if you put pedal to the money. I don't need, no, I don't want you being unsubes of it. Your wife wants you to be at home. Maybe, or maybe this is the opposite. Maybe she wants you out of town. Two years ago, I got a one-on-one with a little kid out of Houston named Tank Dell. Loom behold. Oh, so that's the reason why he's been hurt so much.

It's a gourdy curse. Oh. It's good as rookie year. Until he got hurt. Matthew Golden, if he had stayed at U of H, probably would have been hurt all year. That's not true. We have the best sports medicine in America. In Wegman, we trust.

Go ask DJ Hayden. So we saved his life. Yeah. Okay. Right? Yeah, he was minutes from dying. And we saved him. I think they got him to the hospital, I thought.

If Tank Dell was a, oh, my God. If Tank Dell was still of U of H instead of being in the NFL, he'd be back on his feet playing. Matthew Golden is? Yeah, exactly. Okay. So U of H football's. Athletic Department, as far as their medicine, is better than the Texans? Yeah, we put us, Johns Hopkins, Cedar Sinai.

Ross, over under games played this year for Connor Wegman. I'm going to sit the line at eight and a half. Why are you saying so little? He's going to get her? Eight and a half? I guess. Why wouldn't he start? I don't know.

You tell me, is he in danger of losing his job or something? Ross, go tell Gordy how good our recruiting has been. Oh, the basketball. Oh, okay. I thought it was football. I thought it was football. You thought I was saying number two class? We were talking about football?

basketball teams on a roll. Yeah. Be a shame if they lost in the tournament unexpectedly. By the way, that game was at 5 o'clock with Utah. So if you're going to the Coor game this afternoon, it's at 5 o'clock. You could go. I'm busy.

If they serve Frenchies for pre-game, it's delicious. Wait, what? Okay, now I'm not getting a credential now. Now I want a credential. I'm not going to out. I'm not going to eat leave. I'm not going to out Ryan Hounds, but I'm going to anyway. He had never had Frenches until he and I worked together. He might have had eight pieces.

That's good. Wex's got the hookup for sideline, court side seats. I don't care for the rolls, but the chicken is excellent. Chicken and red beans and rice? Oh, yeah. Oh, so good. Pretia says it was a nice environment, too. Yeah, why don't you come check it out?

Close to the court. I think, well, I was there when it was the old building. I was there for the CBA. The last time I was in there was the CBI game. It's way nicer. When Prince eBay missed like eight free throws and Texas is lost. If I get us some decent seats, you'll come sit with me for a game? Absolutely.

And we'll eat and drink and be there. and watch you'll actually see a real college basketball team kicks some ass. Yeah, speaking of CBI, Rodney Terry, how's that going? It might be in CBI. Hey, no, in IT, baby. They just beat 25 ranked, 25th ranked Mizzu last night, pal. After losing, what, four, five? Yeah, they got crushed by, like, all the top teams in the country.

We're officially lost. Any remaining audience with this. Look forward to that Rodney. They'll also be OU on the road. That's back-to-back quad to a quad-one wins. Okay, maybe not back-to-back. I think they lost four a second. There you go.

Coogs just don't lose anymore. 11 straight. Yeah, they're saving them for the tournament. That was Gordy's update. 1244, sports talk, so many. He says that all of you in Paraly can't drive worth crap. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90.

You may doke in 15 minutes. Poor man couldn't eat his collage. He's got to talk about something else. Hey, your energy is looking low, Matt. Let's get you to centergenicshealth.com. Look, the New Year's Resolutions, it's a real thing, folks. I know you've had some excuses. It's been holidays.

It's been snow days, but you haven't felt a motivation. Just tell yourself the truth. You haven't had that energy. You don't know why. Could be your testosterone levels are low. Make that resolution and go to synergenics because the health providers there are going to give you the personalized therapy that goes beyond standardized therapy. Some of these places are just going to give you a bottle of stuff. That's not tailored to you.

They're just going to give you some stuff in you on your way. Tailored to you at synergenics who also offers weight. loss management with affordable prescription GLP 1 plans. So you've been looking to build strength, lose weight, go to Cinergenicshealth.com because they have clinics all over town. S-Y-N-E-R, GenX Health.com for Centergenics, testosterone, and weight loss. The Matt Thomas show continues. On your Roku.

Listen to Sports Talk 790 on any device with our free I-HartRadio app. Time is 1250. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We've got EMAIDOka coming up in 10 minutes. Tonight, the Rockets take on the Cleveland Cavaliers. We have college basketball in town. If you're going to go see the University of Houston, take on the Uts at 5 o'clock, that'll be over on 9.50.

We'll have the Rockets game here on 790. Dan Matthews will be hosting the Rockets launch pad at 6 o'clock and the Rockets wrap after the game. Let's see. We've got the Hall of Fame announcement, Billy Wagner, and congratulations to him, C.C. Sabathia, Yichiro Suzuki. Somebody sent me a, and you were talking about this before we went on the air. The class of 26? Oh, my God. It's not great.

Here it is. Ryan Braun, steroids, no chance. Can we just go through? Yeah, go through everyone. No. Shoo-choo-choo-I'm good. Edwin Encarnacion. No.

Gio Gonzalez. No. How he can. No. Matt Kemp. No. Cole Hamels. I'd have to wait.

Yeah, maybe. Alex Gordon. No. Nick Marquakis. No. Daniel Murphy. No. Hunter Pence.

No. No. Rick Porcelo. No. Neil Walker. No. I got news from Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame. Now, that's not just the only people on there.

Some of the people will carry over. If you're one of those carryover groups, do you have the list from yesterday have who got what? The votes? Yeah. Because if you're, the whole ballot. Yeah, if you're, if you're part of that carryover group from last year. Andrew Jones is looking good. Maybe Tori Hunter gets in after all. Yeah.

I think Carlos Beltrane maybe was close. Carlos, yeah. If that's who you're competing against from 2026, if you've gotten in that 60 to 70% category, you're going to be pretty close to getting in. Beltran was at 70%. He's in. Andrew Jones is at 66? He's in.

Chase Utley, 3%. No. Alex Rodriguez, 34%. Nope. His ninth year on the ballot, by the way. Andy Pettett, by the way, has been a huge debate point on Twitter. Andy Pettittitt's a haul of very good. Agree?

Totally agree. And it's admitted juicer. Yeah. If you admit, you don't get in. It's unfortunate. Or you don't admit, and you get caught, still, you don't get in. I mean, also, I mean, are you going to tell me there isn't anybody that was juicing and just didn't get caught or didn't admit? I'm all of them.

I'm saying they're very lucky if they didn't get caught. 256 wins. Andy Pettett, three-time All-Star. Now, five World Series rings. Hold on. You said 256 for Pennett? Yes. Oh, that's your threshold, Matt. You got to put them in.

You got to put them in, Matthew. Five-time World Series champion. Zero times Cy Young Awardware. What is Pettett's numbers percentage? Oh, I'd have to go back. Hold on. Oh. 28%.

How many years? See, he's been in, this got to be several years for him as an about. This is his seventh year. Can you go from 29 to 75 in three years? I guess you could. Top five in the Cy Young four times. It's as many as Sabathia, but never won it. All I will say is this.

There's nobody from the class of 26 that's going to get in, not even close, frankly. Except maybe Cole Hamill's, but I still think he's going to be distance far away. that maybe a guy like an Andy Pettick gets the bump up. Beltran's getting in. I'm just going with no. I wouldn't put him in.

No. And I like Andy, but I wouldn't put him in. Deer Park legend. It was so weird. We used to have an A-Holpity. It's like, you got to go sit in front of his house when he comes out. You can talk to him.

I'm like, I'm not doing that. Yeah, you are. I'm like, okay, I need to get another job. And that's why I did. It's ridiculous. I'm not stalking people at people's houses for stupid sports for a 12-second soundbite. absurd. Get him, Matt.

Proud of you. I got him. Look where I am now. Hanging out with you. I win. You lose. That guys had four jobs since then. You lose. Good day, sir. There you go. Yeah, so I guess Beltran's going to get in there. So, is Clemens off the list now?

Yes. Players get it that are going to be off the ballot because they didn't need 5%. Include Troy Tulowitzky, Curtis Granderson. Oh, Ben Zobrist didn't get any votes? No. You got zero votes. Oh, that's too bad. Hanley Ramirez, Fernando Rodney, all zero votes.

You know, Jim DeShays said he voted. I don't know. Did Shays had a vote or something at some point? Why would he, he wouldn't remember the member of BB? Somebody got a, somebody voted. Oh, no. See, I know what it is. Somebody voted Jim DeShay's in because he didn't want to be,

he didn't want the guy, Jim DeShay's to be embarrassed that he didn't get a vote. Okay. Yeah, this is what these writers are doing with their votes. Not voting for each row. And to be fair. the Major League the BBWAA

wanted to have an edict in where they would display their votes but the Hall of Fame said no we're not let you do it I'm okay with making it optional that if you want to do it it's on your own accord. Yeah, I'm okay with that I think. All right, let's get to

EMA Adoka. He'll start the final hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We've got believe it or not today about the Hall of Famers. EMA is with us after I tell you about two creeks crossing resort and starting to warm up in the next couple days. That means you should start making some plans for spending some time outdoors when it's refreshing and crisp and enjoyable.

That's what you can do when you get to two Creeks Crossing Resort. It's a RV site and a site with plenty of amazing waterfront cabins and glamping tents and yurts, all on their beautiful property very close to Lake Livingston. About 90 minutes from downtown Houston where they are offering 40% off, I repeat 40% off those cabins, 20% off of RV sites. So if you've got an RV, get up there, about 90 minutes of downtown, as I mentioned. If you don't have an RV, no worries, they've got these amazing cabins that have kitchens. They have full ovens.

They've got stoves. They've got refrigerators, microwaves, lots of nice treats, Wi-Fi, color televisions with cable and satellite, all the good stuff at Two Creeks Crossing Resort. com. 40% off those cabin rentals, 20% off an RV site for you. Take a look at the website for yourself, and you'll say, yeah, Matt, it's good chance. Get away for a couple days with friends and family at 2.TWO Creeks Crossing Resort.com. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. All right, our time is 101. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We are expected to be joined by EMA Adoka, the Rockets coach here in just a couple of minutes. We look forward to having you with us all hour long, whether it's on the phones at 713-212-5-790 or perhaps on Twitter. if you want to follow us there at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Dan Matthews H-O-U. That's with 1T, and it's in all caps, because he's just a loud personality. I'll have to put it in all caps. He'll find it.

That's sure you could. We got, believe it or not, today coming up at 150 about the Hall of Fame. You know what's funny, though, when we'll get to email just a second here. What's funny? The Hall of Fame used to really, really be a big, unbelievable event. And clearly, if you saw the video of Billy Wagner getting in, he was quite emotional. It's a huge accomplishment for him.

It's also his last year. He's extra emotional. Yeah. I wonder if somebody set him up to say, you want to shoot this, or did somebody shoot that video and hit the erase key for you to come up just short? I thought it was

because his wife was there. Ortiz kicks. What's his full name? Jesus. Yeah. That's Jesus Ortiz. Was he there at Billy Wagner's house? I thought it was his.

video that he posted. But I could be wrong. Point being is that you'd hate to come over to Billy's house and then you're just shy. And then you have to turn the video off and say, I'm sorry, Bobby didn't mean it. You can post that one. You didn't want to post that.

Yeah, I think it's Jesus's Jose de Jesus Ortiz. Excuse me. Okay. Yes, but they call him Jesus. Okay. So there you go. Yeah. So he must have, mess that can't come over. And maybe, maybe somebody from the baseball Hall of Fame said, you can go over there. Because if Hesuz-Ortiz

wants you to come over and shoot video, if you get in the phone call, isn't it a good sign? I guess so. So how much of that was rehearsed and sometimes that was authentic? I think it was authentic, Matt. Like when I get the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, if it ever happens. I want a video that. You do? Yeah, why not?

Why don't you pay the enrollment fee first for me? You're supposed to pay it for me. Oh, so basically I'm paying for you to help me. The only way I can nominate you is if I'm a member and you got to pay for my membership Matt. All right. So if anybody's in Texas Radio Hall of Fame wants to nominate me Let's pay the memberships.

Texas. I believe their website is still based off a copy server account. That's not true, Matt. It doesn't It's not real professional. What do you mean? T-R-H-O-F dot net. All right. Let's give him a break, Dan. You've already called four times. We'll give him a couple minutes here.

Get a text. Yeah. Yeah. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3 212-5-70. Is it look good? $50 for first-year membership to the Hall of Fame. Or Matt, just give me 500 bones and I'm a lifetime member. It costs 500 bucks. So what would you get to be in the Texas Radio Hall of Fame?

What does it get you? No, it's just for being a voting member. That's it? You don't get like discounts at various hotels, restaurants, and runner car agencies? Yeah, I think you get half off XLR cables. That's so baseball 101. Great line. But so inside baseball.

I don't know what you get, Matt. I think you get first right to be cranky about the industry turning into a hub and spoke systems. Ooh, here we go. You're not going to go reel to reel on us? No, no, no, no. All right. So congratulations to Billy. It'll be cool to see another app.

I mean, we've had a good run. Bagwell, Biggio. Deserved. Wagner. Is there anybody else on the astro front that needs to get in that we have not talked about? Unfortunately, Berkman's off the ballot. Yeah. Birkman again is Economy Plus.

Yeah, I like Berkman, but I think he was off the ballot in like one year. It's like the dude couldn't even get 5%. Well, the problem was he didn't have any much national cachet. He got 1.2%. He's at least more deserving of 1.2%. Yeah, yeah. But all very good. I mean, let's face it, part of being a New York, L.A., Chicago player is you're going to get a lot more attention.

Boston, too. Yeah. If you're on national... You played his entire career. Milwaukee is he in? Maybe. Probably not. It would take quite a bit of work.

I mean, you got to think of the super... Mowler and Yount are in from Milwaukee. Raleigh Fingers is in. But that's not a real deep group of Milwaukee brewers that have been in the Hall of Fame. Ryan Bront, no chance. No, no. He was the convicted on the steroids.

No, the steroid guys are not getting in. Even though it felt like we've had quite a bit of separation between that steroid area and where we are now. Yes. But yeah, he's not getting in. Was he a biogenesis guy, Ryan Braun? Was he a, I didn't do it and get caught guy later, guy? He got caught.

I think he got caught. And then did he win? It was the chain of custody, right? He won his case on a technicality because the chain of custody was briefly broken or something. And then he was in the biogenesis scandal, I think. He basically threw the person who ran the sample under the bus. saying that they did weird things. That was the first time I remember hearing chain of custody.

But isn't that what we do in generally in life boys is that if we're accused of something, we admit, we say, no, it can't be us. And then we come back and apologize and say, well, it was by accident? It's like all these NFL guys, they get dinged for when they take these suppressants and stuff to make weight or something. And they have illegal narcotics that are against NFL rules. They go, no, that wasn't me. I never would have, I don't do that stuff for performance enhancement.

Oh, but I took something because a first. to mine says I can lose a couple of pounds this way. Yeah, 2011 was his testosterone test failed, and then 2012 was when the biogenesis thing broke, which that was the Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, and some other guys. And he wore it. I mean, Ryan Braun was a, I mean, the scarlet letter was on him. Nelson Cruz, Johnny Peralta, Everth Cabrera, and then some lesser known guys. And still, Ryan Braun, so beloved in Milwaukee, but there was a couple of years where you couldn't, he wanted, he wanted to hide

himself. He didn't want to be out there in the public because people were pretty mad at him. I don't know, he's got a borderline case as it would be. Six-time All-Star, 350 home runs. Because Raphael Palmeiro, I don't have his numbers in front me, but Raphael Palme... He was 500 home runs and 3,000 hits. Yeah, I mean, it should be a no-brainer.

Yeah. But when you lied and you suck your index finger out and said, I didn't do this, and then they caught your red-handed? I did not ever use stereo, period. Yeah, you did. We had a lot of guys in front of, then we had Mark McGuire's uncomfortable. He was using his child as a human shield.

Yeah, he was, that's an old tactic. I've never seen a guy sweat as much as he did in front of a set in some committee. They were already talking about that, right, buddy? Look at my child. I'm a father. I'm a father of children. Please don't ask me all these hard questions. Well, Ross, we talked about this morning, though, too.

I mean, a lot of that can be forgiven if you were a nice guy. Yeah, it's true. Does anybody talk about David Ortiz in this way? Not really. He was on the, what you call it, report, right? Mitchell Report. Yes. Yeah.

People love him because he's so gregarious on television. Yeah, he's nice. He throws money to everyone. Says the Astros of the Yankees' daddy. Well, Pedro did that. I mean, he does S-talk Derek Jeter a lot, and I have zero problem with that. Yeah, it's fun. And Alex Wrenegas, for that matter, too.

I mean, it's not ironic that the baseball Fox postsies and coverage has Yankees and Red Sox on all over the place. because that's usually the teams they want to show. They're all like, I think I like the Astros to win this one. Saturday night baseball. It's Yankees Red Sox on Fox. Sunday night baseball. It's Yankees Red Sox on ESPN. Like if you were a fan of the Yankees here in town like our friend is, our Garden Oaks, buddy,

you wouldn't have to pay for the extra innings package because you get every Yankees game on television as it is. That's true, actually. That's a good point. By the way, the Astros will be on Sunday night baseball early on in the year. Yes. we found that out when the times came out. So there's a little bit of run for the Astros. Also, by the way, coming up, we will be at Astros Fan Fest this Saturday.

And you'll have some great guests. You'll have Verlander on the show. No, he's not on the team. He's with the Giants. But we'll have a great lineup of guests this weekend, Astros Fan Fest. I think it's 11 to 4 we're on. Me, you in Wex, 11 to 2. 2 to 4 is La Lima and Sean.

What's Clanton doing? Oh, he's busy. He's a running cables for us, actually. Is he? No, because Wex is on the rockets at night. I don't know. I'm also on pre-imposed. Three hours on Saturday plus pre-impost.

So you're working a lot of hours. Dan will be out there. Dan's out there. Yeah. Leema and Sean are out there. You'll be calling the game. I'm doing the game in Cleveland. I would be with you guys.

Yeah, I've done it before. I will say a little bit advice for those of you going to Astros Fan Fest. there's no heat inside minute it makes or dakin park diken park whatever dakin or diken i've seen both so heard both so dress warmly yeah depending i think it's supposed to be like 60s shouldn't be too bad i was still i wear a scarf bundle up by the way you wore the scarf yesterday and so what you were like i took it off fast it's too hot you couldn't take it off fast enough because it's so effective you look so metro it was just weird i don't care it's utilitarian it keeps me warm you kept down for you kept down for 30 seconds Stop. Again, we're not taking fashion advice from Matt Thomas.

You should. Literally. With the cold, usually if you go hands, ears, neck, and feet, you're good. 97% of the time you're wearing something you get free from the Rockets or U of H. It's closer to 98. It's like I drink. I put my scarf on right now. Is it going to make you uncomfortable? No, it's not going to make you uncomfortable because it's going to be too hot.

Matter of fact, I'm going to turn to heat up to 75 degrees in here. Here, I'm going to put it in my head. I'll wear it for a segment. If you wash it lately? it's clean it's brand new actually yeah but it's got some of your beard dust on it that's fine it's warm

you get your Texans hoodie on I'm so proud of you oh I've had this battle red is back in the day Battle Red is out there Battle Red is looking for offensive line improvement and past Catchter Red is still mad out that

And defensive interior by the way Battle Red is still mad that Pat Mahomes didn't get called for a foul for a flopping Yeah they need to be fine Flops for flopping fines for the NFL. Has there ever been an NFL player that's been fine for a flop? No, they need to put that in.

Yeah. Now, they never do. NBA has 75 flops a game, and they don't find their players either. Yeah. All right, 713-212-5-790. 7-13-213-2-5-7-90. We hope to catch up with EMAIDOka here in the next few minutes here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas, Ross Villariel.

It's the Matt Thomas Show. with Ross on Sports Talk 790. 118 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713212-2-5-790 is the number you can call us anytime. We'll have, believe it or not, coming up in about 30 minutes from now. It is all things about the three new members of the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame. Tomorrow on the radio show we'll have, I just don't get it.

We'll have a recap of the Rockets and Cavaliers. but right now we preview the Rockets of Cavaliers with E. Meadeauka, who joins us here. Coach, I'm sorry about this weather. I knew when you took the job in Houston, you were thinking about 85 degrees every single day, but, you know, what's going to happen once every 25 or 30 years? That's why you're late, right?

Yeah, got caught up in the snowstorm. No, it was interesting. I had never seen this in my time in Texas, but it was kind of pretty, I must admit. It was pretty, but how did you do it in Boston? Damn, I mean, that's happened. all the time. And did you have a good snowblower? That was a key to my success in living in Minneapolis. I have a high-end snowblower to get rid of all that crap on the sidewalks.

Yeah, I had some practice after my years in San Antonio. I went from Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Boston, so I had quite a bit of snow, but lived in high-rise, so it didn't have to do the art stuff. Oh, I'm so jealous. All right, Ema, let's get to first things first. The game against Detroit stunned the 40-point first quarter. That had to surprise you. little bit as well. And I got to get the sense from the guys in the locker room and certainly listen to you after the game that there was just a little more firing the belly from the Pistons a couple nights ago.

And that hasn't happened a lot for your squad this year. Yeah, it's exactly what it was. I think there's a few things. Obviously, I called the timeout on halfway through the quarter when it was 19 to 19 and both teams were kind of scoring at will. And I said, we're on pace for a 40-point quarter given up, which we never do. And so, or rarely do. But it felt like we were scoring well enough

and weren't giving any resistance on the other end. So, you know, we gave that up. Got back in it, obviously down 15 and to take a lead and then be tied at halftime. So we felt like we woke up a little bit late coming out to West Coast trip, early game, all those things. But, yeah, bottom line was out, played us, out hustled us. We're more aggressive and that has really happened this year. So looking forward to getting back to who we are tonight. Yeah, 39 points in the second half obviously was not what you wanted to see from your squad,

although the defense did settle down. was it just a night of off shooting where there's some spots in the floor that maybe some better shots could have been taken? A little bit of both. I think we guarded well enough, obviously. They had 17 in the fourth quarter, but we only scored 16.

And so other than those six or seven free throws late in the quarter, we really guarded well, but to your point, weren't scoring enough. I think they mixed it up with some zone and going after Jalen quite a bit. They guarded Alpi one-on-one, and we just didn't make them pay. I thought we saw a lot of blitzes on

Jaylen early in the season where we got some practice and we managed it well but didn't really take advantage of that there and then some of other guys just missed shots that they usually make one-on-one situations and so it was a rare off night for a lot of people and then once our defense did settle down we just didn't score at the rate that we needed to. Yeah, Alpe with a little bit of a difficult scoring night for himself with 11 points and and my

always philosophy on him is this and I don't know what you tell him in between games and practice and whatnot is I don't mind it. I'd rather him go to basket and take his chances against some rim protectors. Endurance, obviously a different kind of player, but he's gone against Gobert and Janice and some other folks, Yokic in the past. That's when I find my most impressive times watching

Alpi is, you know what, I'll see what I can do as compared to maybe taking the fate away and making them maybe a more difficult two-point attempt. How much do you talk about him going against an individual defender as the game is progressing? Yeah, I think for him, it's, it seems to go to guard him one-on-one. We have the belief that

going to score more often than that. And so you've seen it done, obviously, against some of the best post defenders in the league. And the thing is to be aggressive and not be hesitant, whether that's in the pick and roll, you know, the half roll where you kind of stop halfway instead of going all the way to basket or in the post taking some of those fadeaways, like you mentioned as well. So the rhythm guy that gets, you know, sees one or two go down and gets into a rhythm, obviously has all the footwork and moves down there. But first and foremost, it should be to be aggressive and go score, especially when they're guarding you one-on-one. And so it's some easy ones that you would usually make obviously five for 14 is a tough night for him with a lot of those coming inside but

like I said a lot of guys had off nights as well but we want all the guys to be aggressive you know not give a defender or a scheme any credit or too much credit attack those like we have and that's when we're at our best you mentioned the five of 14 and his shooting percentage is down from where it's been the last couple of years and his career what do you attribute that to I had I mean him and jalen And they both had slow starts offensively, you know, from a percentage standpoint. I think we saw both guys come out of those fairly quickly. It was just a lot of missed shots early in the season that we talked about. You know, our record would have been a little bit different early on if we scored.

And, you know, now we're scoring at a high enough clip. And a big part is our aggressiveness. And so just continue to be aggressive and take the shots that are there. Like I said, don't second guess and give a defender or anybody too much credit. Go do what you do, especially if they're going to guard you one-on-one. We invite the double teams that he attracts to garner a bunch of free shots for everybody else. But when they do guard, you want to go make them pay. And so we have motivated guys that are obviously very confident.

And so look back to getting to what we do tonight. Rocket's head coach, Emilio Doka, with us here on Sports Talk 790. After tonight, eight of nine games on the road, two sets of four games and six nights. Is there any sort of conversations about altering or rotations or keeping guys friends? or is it going to be business as usual? We're looking at both. I mean, obviously the makeup game in Atlanta adds one, adds a back-to-back after Boston there.

And so for us, you know, we talk about our depth all the time and how we have very reliable guys. And so, you know, Tari coming off some things and different guys feeling things, Stephen was out with the migraine, obviously. And so we rely on the guys that we have a hand, but no, we can go deeper if we need to. And so, yeah, for us, it's business as usual.

You know, I don't mind the road schedule at all. I think it builds character and toughness. And we've obviously done much better job this year than last year. So let's get on the road and it doesn't matter who we're playing or whatever the case is. We want to hold ourselves to a certain standard and attack it with the same mentality like we do at home. Yeah, it certainly has been a tale of two seasons for this squad, 14 and 7 away from Mototisan in this year, which has been a lot of fun to watch and call. This Cleveland team, I mean, my goodness, six losses on the year.

They shoot at almost 50%. they're making 40% of their threes. Now, you're not going to give us any company secrets, but have you been able to find something that you kind of say, all right, if we take advantage of this, we can get at least one or maybe, hopefully both these games against Cavaliers coming up. Yeah, I mean, our thing is be who we are.

And so a lot of teams don't defend at the level we do with the physicality we do. And so we're one of the best that's taken away three-pointers. They're one of the best in making them. So it's always a battle as far as that. And we've seen that throughout the year against third. certain teams. And so what we want to do is be aggressive, impose our will, and play our style of basketball. And so a lot of teams get taken aback by that by our physicality. I think Detroit did a good job against us with the blitzes and the physicality they used last game. And so we understand

what works for us regardless of the opponent. We know a lot of people don't play the way we do. And so we could present some challenges as far as that. Other than that, we don't look at the record. We look at how we want to play where we're trying to get to. And we've beaten a lot of great opponents this year and so Cleveland will present that same challenge. Yeah, they score 122 points a game. I'm going to assume that you, do you want to slow things down or do you just want to make sure that everything in terms of defense is short up and that the good defense will turn into, and we've seen this so much this year, coach, better offense for you guys.

Yeah, we're not going to change the way we play. And what we rely on is, like I said, our defense and our toughness and the things that we can try to take away from them. But as you said, we've been our best and we can turn the defense. defense, offense, get out and transition to have those high

fast break numbers and let our guys get out and run. And so get the stops, get out and run where most teams are not great in transition defense.

And that's what we've had a good success with this year, getting the steals, getting into open court and everybody kind of have an equal opportunity as far as that.

So we'll do that. We'll be aggressive there. And then obviously you got some guys to worry about Donovan Mitchell and Garland they're playing a high level.

They got some athletic mobile bigs, even though Mobli is out tonight. So that's why they're so good. They present a lot of challenges and have a lot of balance. Despite the loss of Detroit, you had 18 steals in that contest.

And a lot of them, I mean, Freddie, out on guards just poking the ball away. And how much is that that basketball one-on-one for these guys? Is that a little bit of taking their chances and hoping that they can go in there and not hopefully steal the ball away and not commit a foul? What makes a team and an individual player in your mind a good guy that, oh, and Tari does this too, just poking the ball away and forcing turnovers. but just a guy just dribbling. Yeah, I mean, we have guys really good hands and instincts, and so

Fred is as tough as they come as far as that. I think I'm in and Tari are through the best in the league. And then dealing with his body position and physicality, we also will go after guys at certain points, and so we give our guys freedom to make plays and be aggressive. And like I said, when our

steel numbers are high and their turnovers high and we can convert those in transition, we're in good shape, but a lot has to do with instincts or natural ability is something that's hard to teach. but, you know, Fred does that well and obviously the other guys as well. Coach, thanks for the visitors. Always.

We'll see you later tonight at the arena and best of luck against the Cavaliers. Thank you. You got it. You may adoka with us here on Sports Talk 790. We have an NFL new coach, head coach candidate, and we have a Texan

getting fine for something he didn't say. 128. That's a radio tease right there, my friends. 713-212-5-790. I want to tell you about Berkeley Eye Center. I want you to get over $1,000 in savings today on your LASIC from Berkeley Eye Center.

713-526 eyes. The phone number is the number you must memorize. 713-526 EYES. You can also go online to BECLASIC.com. Get that 2020 vision without glasses and contacts. Get that opportunity to have the renowned surgeons and the best medical team out there to take care of your eyes like so many historians have had. You can use your flex spending account.

You can use your health savings account, and you can also use $1,000 plus in savings, plus no interest financing until 2027, all through the incredible folks at Berkeley Eye Center. BECLASIC.com, or better yet, call them today and mention me, Matt Thomas, and they'll give you preferred appointments. They really will. I think they will. 713-526I-713-526 EYES, LASIC Savings, Health Savings Account, and Clear Vision, all with Berkeley Eye Center. No need for a roadmap when all roads lead to that sweet Iheart radio app. Astros and Rockets games plus legendary Houston Sports Talk 790 on any device with a free Iheart radio app. Now that's the art of living. A couple news and notes from the NFL, Patrick Mahomes, speaking to the Kansas City media,

basically apologizing for saying he shouldn't have tried to decays. a couple of the Texans defensive guys chasing after him and potentially flopping. Well, it wasn't potentially. It was definitely a flop and did not get a penalty for it. But he's like, I got to stop doing that. The officials were to correct not to throw a flag on that play. He said, quote, I would say the only one I felt like I probably did too much was the one on the sideline where I didn't get the flag. The ref saw it and I didn't get the flag. I understood it immediately and know that I probably shouldn't have have done that.

I've learned that no matter what happens during the game, something is going to come out about it if you win, if you continue to win. I don't want to pay attention to it, basically saying that he hears the same noise that Mahomes gets calls that other quarterbacks don't get. So that's issue number one. Issue number two is that former Nimitz Great,

is that once you're Nimitz Great, aren't you, and always a Nimitz Great? Always, Matt. Cougars for Life. Hail to Nimitz High. Nimitz High. Aaron Glenn is a new coach of the Jetopolitans. The Jets hiring him today.

I wish you would have gone to a better organization, quite frankly. I think it's kind of dysfunctional over there in Jetsville. Do you think Aaron Rogers goes back to them? No. Okay. So that's a lot of work there. Does he pass Michael Bourne as the greatest Nimitz notable alumni? Okay, we go.

Brittany Griner. Griner. Glenn. Who's the other one? Born. Jason Glenn. Jason Glenn, you. Michael born. Dante Hall? Dante Hall.

I mean, obviously, I'm the last place. Not so cool. Of that group you just, of that group you mentioned, Aaron Glenn's number one. I think so. I don't know. They gave away a war criminal for Britney Greiner. Did it a what?

They traded a war criminal for Britney Griner to get her out. That's pretty, I mean, you put that on your resume? Like in your... I'm so important. They traded a war criminal arms dealer for me. On your Twitter bio, do you put that on there? Yeah. I don't know.

All right, so congratulations to, or maybe not congratulations to him. He's getting head coach money. He's getting money. I mean, it's the Jets. And then if he's terrible, it's like, well, it's not my fault. It's the Jets. Yeah. Robert Sala's getting play from other organizations after getting fired from the Jets.

That's right. That's right. And then number three. So a lot of people around the NFL have taken their shots at the officiating from the Texans game against the Chiefs on Saturday. I think Will Anderson wasn't afraid to say a couple things. I don't think. D'Amico tried to be as bombastic as he can,

but he's never going to be that much of a referee comment baiter kind of thing. Yeah, that was pretty strong from him. If you get anything from D'Amico, it's pretty strong. Anything outside of, we play well, we respect everybody, is pretty strong. The NFL, apparently, this is coming from pro football talk, has fined Joe Mixon for $25,000 for saying, why play the chiefs, why play the game of every 50-50 call goes with the chiefs? These officials are trash and bias.

Ross, there's only one problem. Apparently, Joe Mixon didn't say this. According to the pro football talk article, the quote is from a tweet included in an SI story regarding Mixon's actual comments after the game. Said Mixon, everybody know how it is playing. up here. You can never leave it into the ref's hands. The whole world see, man? The same article attributes the comment

for which Mixon was fine not to Mixen, but to his former Bengals receiver, T.J. Hussmanjada. Wow. Mixon's actual quote wasn't mentioned in the fine letter. Presumably, it wasn't enough to trigger the punishment. Mixon's agent, gentleman by the name of Peter Schaffer, tells pro football talk he will, quote,

defend and appeal the fine and will explore all other legal avenues direct to the situation. That's bizarre. So basically were they like, your teammates said it, you kind of agree with him, and then you said your own little sort of version

of what TJ said, we're going to find you 25. Now, if he's not, if he doesn't say, why play the chiefs if every 50-50 call goes with the chiefs, these officials are trash and bias? If he didn't say that,

then he shouldn't be fined. Yeah, that has to be some sort of clerical. There's got to be something. And my guess is the NFL will figure this out. I think it'll be, yeah, it's got to be rescinded. There's no way. That's embarrassing the NFL would take that. You get the Players Association involved with this?

There's no way. Now, granted, for Joe Mixson, $25,000 is a drop in the hat. In fact, in fact, I'll flip the other side of this. If I'm making several million dollars a year and I get a chance to tell the NFL their officials are trash, tell them to shut their bum ass up. For 25, geez, that's actually not bad value. you. That's fine. That's a trip to Cabo, Matt. Okay. But he can, but he's going to make that up. I mean, 25,000 to him is 25 bucks to you and me. Okay. Well, then go asking for $25,000 and see if he agrees.

He's not going to give me $25,000. Well, you said it's nothing to him. Yeah, but just because something's nothing to it doesn't mean you have to go ask for it. It's not my right to get it from him. Yeah. Look, Ross, I travel with people that are make $35 and $40 million a year. I don't ask them for money. Well, you should. If it's nothing to them. Okay, so let's roll play this thing. Okay. You be Matt. Okay.

And I'll be set NBA player. Go for it. Hey, it's Matt Thomas. I'm the greatest play-by-play man in the history of the world. What do you do again? I'm your play-by-play voice. Yeah, I've seen you around. I've been traveling guy with seven years.

I've seen you around, I don't really know what you do. I'm obsessed with various women on Twitter and their walking bets. Oh, that girl. I like her. What's up, girl? Anyways, can I have 25 Gs? Yeah, you can't pay me back. with interest.

Interest. How much, how many, what's, what's the rate? What is an APR for asking professional players for money? I don't know. That would get me kicked off the team like yesterday. Now, somebody wants to hand me 10 G's and say, don't worry about it. They could do that. Yeah.

Be a personal donation. I wonder how many times professional athletes get hit up for money, like their friends and stuff. Daily. My guess is, yeah. Like, the biggest group of people that hung up, around while I've been calling games is James Hardin's group is immense. The entourage. The posse.

Okay. The peeps. The peeps. The bros. The brothers. Who's number two? James is one. That's a good question.

Now, there's a difference because some guys travel their strength coaches. Some guys travel their own personal security. Side pieces. I don't see that life. You can get a whole roster. I'm trying to think. If James has more of his friends with him, who would be second?

Maybe Russ, but it's such a, like, Hardin's crew was like five and six deep. I think maybe Russ had his, he went one or two, maybe, I don't know. But it's, but nothing comes to mind, put it that way. Plus the side piece is you recruit on the road to avoid the jam up.

Well, it depends. And by the way, if I told you this, Dane, when you have a side piece, you do it, you get them their own room on the road. Just in case the wife surprises you with a little trip. I was told by it by a former NBA player. Yeah. Words to live by. Who shall remain nameless. We're not going that road.

Okay. Thank you, Matt. It makes sense. Yeah. You've got to be practical about these things. You'd be the one getting the text message. Not any of us. No, I mean, I'm not doing it my saying, but think about this.

If you're an athlete and you are unfortunately not staying faithful. Professional athlete not staying faithful? If your wife says, hey, babe, I'm surprising you here in Chicago. What room are you in? I'm coming upstairs. That could potentially cause some issues. Mm-hmm. So. We saw that for love of the game.

I mean, Kelly Preston wasn't his wife, but she did that to him at spring training. Ding. Perfectly done, my friend. Just perfectly done. I'm proud of you. At least Stan's catching on. We're getting Connor back tomorrow? I believe so.

I think hockey parlance is we're full strength. He's going to skate up here? He's going to say, if anybody would have known how to deal with this, wouldn't it have been Connor? Yeah. Missouri and the hockey player. He's driving this stuff. And he plays hockey.

Yeah. And his family's from Canada. He's the weakest one for not being here. I put him one, Clinton, two, Wex for three. 143. Let's play, believe it or not, next. 713, 212, 570. 713, 212, 790. Believe it or not, on the candidates, not the new enshrinees in a baseball's Hall of Fame. If you would like to play 713, 212, 5, 790. The Matt Thomas Show continues.

On your smart speaker, listen to Sports Talk 790 on any different. with our free iHeartre radio app. Bobby Sloick has been requested by the Jacksonville Jaguars to interview for their head coaching spot. I mean, Bobby's going to get a head coaching job. And by the way, it's funny, ladies and gentlemen, all the haters of Bobby Sloick, you're kind of on phone on deaf ears on this. I don't think he'd be interviewed by two different organizations if he was so bad.

Now, do I think he's going to be a head coach? this year? I mean, it only takes one person's mind made up. It's general manager or two of the owner, but... It's seeming like people don't want that Jaguar's job. It's not good. It's not good, because they kept Trent bulky, who has not been a good general manager. And look, I was a Doug Peterson guy. I think he, I thought it was a great hire by them.

I thought that he would have gone up there and be able to resurrect that, and he had receivers. They had spent money. Lawrence, I thought was it going to be one of those operational and quarterbacks? Is he just the definition of mid for being number one? one pick? Yes. I can't think of any other way to describe him as mid.

There are sometimes that I watch him, I go, man, this guy is amazing. And then I watch him overthrow receivers by 7 to 10 yards. The playoff win he got, wasn't it four interceptions the first half and four touchdowns the second? Like, that's Trevor Lawrence. I was going to say, I mean, I'd say his second season was the one that puts him in that category because outside of that, he's not been good. But for being a 1-1, not a bust,

but what's the next level above bust? Disappointment. Yeah. I think it's very easy to say that. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game.

Shall we simply call it B, believe it or not, and here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is all things about the gentleman that are in the the Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2025. We'll read your statement about one of these three gentlemen. Statements completely utterly accurate.

You'll say this. Believe it. The same as erroneous, full of bunk and made up, you'll say this. Not. Two, believe it or not, in a row, win a prize. Dan Matthews in the studio tells us what they win today. We are playing for Bunby at the Houston Livestock Show in rodeo. Four-pack plus pit passes to Monster Jam at NRG Stadium in the great and illustrious 790 T-shirt.

Let's play. Believe it or not. 713-212-5-790 if you want to play. 7-13-212-5-7-a-ni. Scott is with us on 7-90. Scott, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, I am. His first year on the Hall of Fame ballot was in 2016,

and Billy Wagner received 10.5% of the vote that year. Believe it or not? Believe it. That's right. Statement number two for the win. Billy Wagner was actually naturally right-handed, but broke his right arm twice as a youth and then went left-handed. Believe it or not.

Believe it. Yes, that's correct. Ross, how's your day, Ben? Great. How about you, Matt? It's good. Everything all right? Yeah. How's the wife? How's the kids?

Everybody said? I'm ready to go home. How are the dogs? They're doing good. Sadie and Coral. I've never been out in snow before until yesterday. Wow, good for them. Mike, on 790.

Mike, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Yes, sir. Billy Wagner started three games, his rookie year in the major leagues, and had zero starts thereafter. Believe it or not. That's right. Never started a game. Statement number two for the win. In 2001, C.C. Sabathia recorded his first Major League Baseball Strikeout. It was against Cow Ripkin Jr. who was in his final Major League season. Believe it or not. Believe it! No! You can scream all you want, but you're wrong. Thank you, for black.

713-212-5-7-90. That's 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Sharon on 7-Ni. Sharon on 7-N. you're ready to play, believe it or not? I'm ready to play. In high school, C.C. Sabathie was a Division I level tight end of receiving offers from schools like UCLA and others. Believe it or not? Not. Believe it.

Oh, I'm sorry, Sharon. If I've said it once in a thousand times, you've got to know which former baseball players were Division I recruited tight ends. Let's go to Broderick on 790 at 713-212-5-790. Brodrick, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Bally. C.C. Sabaffia was the cover athlete for the Xbox game Major League Baseball

2K10. Believe it or not. Believe. No. Are you kidding me? No chance. Hall of good. Actually, no, he's a Hall of Fame. I had to fact check that just to be sure, by the way. Why did you just made that up yourself?

No, he wasn't the cover of it. All right. Who was covered, you know? 2010, that's got to be what? It would be too late for Jeter, yes? Evan Longoria. Evan Lungoria. How about that? Dave on 790.

Dave, you ready to play, believe it or not? I was born that way. Let's go. Erlaine is majorly baseball career. Ichero was sure to learn Spanish so that he could banter with Latin American players in their native tongue.

Believe it or not? Not. Oh, you weren't ready for this question. Sorry. Dan, you get the last one here. Dan, he has cut the answers. Oh, he does have the answer.

I'm looking away. No, no, no. I'm looking away. Are you really? I don't know it. I don't know it. I don't know it. I'm a total of 17 gold gloves, seven in the Japanese league, and 10 in the major leagues. Believe it.

That is correct. You win nothing and like it. Believe it. You get to work with us again. How about that? A t-shirt. Hey, okay. Yeah, there we go. I'll take it. You know what I'll get you 40% off of a cabin rental at two Creeks Crossing Resort. Would you like that? Nice weekend with the lady. Her birthday's coming up. Yeah, what a great idea. Take the lady up there for a little whining and dining.

You got fire pits, right? Fire pits. They've got pickleball courts. I've got a catch and release pond. You get steamy in the yurt? You ever been steamy in a yurt? I've never been steamy in a yurt. You should get yurt steamy at Two Creeks Crossing Resort. 40% off the cabin rentals, 20% off the RV padded rentals as well.

That's hysterical. Two Creeks, if you're not getting some ads run off of this, I don't know what we're going to do for you now. TWO Creek's Crosset Resort.com. High speed Wi-Fi, laundry facilities, workout facilities, just a really nice clubhouse area. They've got a ice house on a weekend that's open movie theater as well. All available for you at 2TWO Creeks Crossing Resort.com. Up next, it is Wexler and Clanton. They're on location today at the Bear Bryant Awards.

Looking forward to listening to them. What? For real? Yeah, they really are. They're up next with the A team. Talk to you for Rockets and Cabs at 7 o'clock tonight here on 790.