The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Big 10 Reaction, Embrace The Astros Hate & NBA Bubble Talk

Episode Date: July 10, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas Show. 12 o'clock in H-town. Good. Welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. I'm Matt in the Kingwood Studios. Joe George, fresh off of a lid shift yesterday.

back with me today. How many had you to sell yesterday, Big J.G? Oh, man, I don't even know. I don't keep track. Come on now. I keep track of jerseys because I can get bonuses. That's what I focus on, Matt. I mean, are you like a five-star employee or like two and a half?

Ooh, I would say I'm like a four. Four and a half. I mean, I'm a manager, so I feel like I can be pretty good. Are you really? Yeah, I'm not getting back into retail to be bossed around. Oh, there you go. I have two bosses. And even then, like, we're all equal.

Hey, tell people where you are so they can come to see what you look like and you can raz you a little bit. If you like me, you can DM me at Joe George Radio. If you don't, I'm not telling you where I work. Oh, come on. No way. No, it's the locker room at the Galleria. Okay, I was going to say, does it rhyme with Nehbrook Nall? No, I'm over here at the gallery.

I transfer it. I was just kidding. Hey, it's good to have you back. Good to have Brendan Riley as our producer. day and it is really nice to have you guys with us here on the show this afternoon as we take you to three o'clock we've got a lot of things to get to today uh the guest list brian gell sider from hoops critic i just i'm not a big fan of east coast voice guy but he just sounds like he's just in the midst of a basketball i don't know how to explain it but he just sounds

basketbally. He sounds like he's been at Madison Square Gardens and he was like five years old. So Brian Geltziler, Hoops Critic, you hear him on Sirius XM Radio, on NBA Radio. You see a lot of his work in print as well. He will join us at 1.30 this afternoon. Brian T. Smith is with us for his regular Friday visit at 2 o'clock.

And then, Joe George, it's you versus me and another Fantasy 5. I'm a little nervous about this one. I think I'm going to have a good list, but there's some tough strategy with today's Fantasy 5. There is absolutely some tough strategy. Now, Ross and I in the past have done airport shopping muskets, but this is different. The Fantasy 5 today is you're on a long-ass plane flight, and you've got to bring a goodie bag of food with you what you eat there is strategy do you go with hearty or do you go to the food court

or do you go to just the good old-fashioned snack store at the airport to load up what do you do do joe george you have two and a half hours to figure it out plenty of time because here's the thing about airplane flying As much as I love grab it a Wendy's or something or bringing Chinese food on the plane, there's a couple of issues. One, it's not easy to eat that food on a plane. And two, you wind up smelling like that food, and the people next to you are going to give you dirty-ass looks for the three and a half,

four-hour flight that you're on. That's why it's challenging because that was my first thought too of like, I never bring on food that smells because I don't want people around me to just be staring at me looking me down. What's interesting about this one too, Matt, is that they're not doing a lot of, a lot of the services right now on the planes are not even giving out peanuts

right now. This is more, this is more important this Fantasy 5 for people traveling to listen to our advice more than ever. I would think so because that's what we do here on the radio show. Yeah, we help you. Solid advice. All right. Sometimes. It is also, anything goes Friday, Joe,

and you've been with me on a few Fridays. And by way, Ross will be back in a week. He's going to take some time off for vacation next week, and then he'll be back on the 20. So we'll look forward to having Ross back next week, and Joe's going to fill in a couple days when he can. You can join us right now, and anything goes Friday. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790 is how you reach a show.

On Twitter, at SportsMT, at Joe George Radio, and at Brendan Riley underscore. So yesterday, relatively late in the show while you were busy selling jerseys and getting some of that bonus, the Big Ten announced that there will be conference only football this year. And that would knock out some of the non-conference games. It would knock out some of the, you know, how the smaller schools go to Big Ten, like Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State get the big paychecks, Wisconsin. All that's gone. It's just a conference slate of games. So I thought, Joe, when I had heard this that thankfully somebody, some conference, some governing body was actually thinking, okay, we've got to play a football season, but let's be realistic about this. Instead, not only did the Big Ten start this, but I believe by the time this show ends at 3 o'clock this afternoon, we're going to know what the Pac-12.

and the ACC are thinking. And I'm thinking, they're thinking the exact same thing that there will only be a conference-led of games this year. Add on top of that, there are a lot of athletic directors and officials from Big Ten schools in the last, just say, 18 hours, that are kind of even hemming and hawing about whether they'll even be a football season or a massive delay to it.

So what you thought yesterday would be some finally some information and some thought-provoking, let's move forward. And now, maybe Joe, I'm reading this wrong, but it feels like to me that this was just the precursor to not only are we not going to play non-conference, but we may not even play college football at least for several months. Yeah, I think that you're right where I think by the end of the show, at least by the end of the day, at least the latest map by the time

the NICA is over tonight, that we will know that the PACs well in the ACC will only, be playing their conference opponents. Part of it's because it changes everything with when one conference drops out, it just starts this domino effect that has to be followed. And right now, like the SEC, they're not affected. But as soon as the PAC 12 makes this decision, the SEC's got major problems. Colorado is supposed to play Texas, A&M, USC, supposed to play Alabama week one.

Those games aren't going to happen now. So I think you're right. I think this is the precursor of college football being delayed. Because if you're only playing your conference, who cares when you start? If you're going to start in the end of September, if you're playing less games, what's the difference? Well, as Brethren and I talked about a little bit yesterday, when you eliminate the conference games, you in theory probably could start the season around the same time, but build in some additional buy weeks just in case there is an outbreak.

Yeah. But I have not heard one word about any of that. Seriously, I spent probably an hour, an hour and a half today looking at the crawl on ESPN, you know, the different channels they have in the various headlines. Ohio State AD says this. Michigan AD says that. Michigan State President says this. None of it was, man, we ready to go.

It was just the opposite of we're not, like Notre Dame's athletic director. It was like, we're not, I mean, Notre Dame has had. almost zero positive tests, and they're testing like a muddle all the time. And he's even worried about whether or not there's going to be a college football season starting in September. It is a really odd scenario. I completely misread the room when I thought we finally heard from a conference to say, we're going to do this the right way, we're going to play a 10-game schedule in our league, but we're going to play college football this year.

And I'm not saying they're not going to still do that. But if you take a look in anybody's quotes in the last 18 to 24 hours, the sentiment is not, thank you, Big Ten, for saying this. It's, well, we're saying this now, and we're just praying and hoping we even get a 10-game schedule out of it. Well, okay, so, Matt, they play 10 games. Yep. Let's say they don't take any weeks off.

The semifinals for the college football playoff are January 1st. If they don't expand the playoffs, which I think they might do in this realignment, and this change of plan. They might expand it to six teams this year, maybe just the five teams, the winner of each conference gets in. Well, if you're only playing a 10-game schedule, by my quick math,

that means the college football season to allow one week to prepare for the semifinal game. College football season does not have to start until October 17. So you've got a pretty good, like, so what's the rush? If you're only playing 10 games and you don't need bi-weeks in theory, and you could just play 10 straight weeks, the latest you could start was October 17th. That gives you plenty of time to learn about testing,

to come up with your protocols as a conference, to make sure that it's safe to play, to make sure that your schools are okay with you playing. I know it's just another delay, but October 17th starting and then 12 straight weeks of college football, including the national championship game, it would be awesome. But what about if you're,

what if you are trying to allow some time to manage an outbreak? move it up to October 3rd. That gives you potentially three bywigs. You're moving that bull's eye around. And you're also presuming that we're all going to have our blank together by October the 3rd, too. That's a good point. I mean, but that's like the other sports are doing this.

Look at the NBA and the NHL. They're saying we have to go into a bubble system, but both leagues are reporting their intended start dates are December 1st. What's going to change between now and December 1st, like that we honestly know and can prove? So what's the difference? The only thing that I think everybody on all of us, this includes human beings in sports and onto sports,

are hoping that we have a vaccine by then. Oh, absolutely. So they're saying why put these thousands and thousands and thousands of kids in harm's way when if we push the season back to the spring and there's a vaccination? And if we do have an outbreak, boom, shot taken out. I just, I don't think spring, you know, Matt, I don't think spring makes any sense because I know it's just three guys, but just based on Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, and Trey Lance alone, before any other graduating juniors and seniors

that want to play in the NFL, all those guys would drop up, would be dropping out. They wouldn't play this year because they'd be going to the NFL. I think you would have a huge problem even more than normal where juniors are declaring for the NFL draft and they're going undrafted and ruining the rest of the, the next two years of their college career. And then health-wise, if football is such a dangerous sport, which we know it is, I'm not sure it's really any kind of a good idea to play spring football and then turn around and play fall football. So I don't know how you play spring ball.

You know, I don't mind the October start as you were. I mean, you sold me pretty good on that. I'm not thrilled about the spring because, again, you're then going to have to mix and match. college. I mean, if you're bringing back football or you're bringing also volleyball and soccer and tennis and all that, then you're mixing in your college basketball. That could be a convoluted mess for college athletics. But I'm blown away and I had to use keep using that term by all the cynicism that was out there even after the announcement yesterday of the Big Ten. Yeah, it was surprising. To hear the announcement come from the Big Ten and hear the athletic

director from Ohio State, so he's not confident college football is going to happen. Woo. Tough. Tough. And here's the thing. You can't put a sport out there just so three players can play before the calendar year.

And it's obviously much bigger than that, but. Yeah, I just don't know. I mean, let me tell you, the NCAA, the conference commissioners are not going well. If we don't start playing by October 5th, we may lose Trevor Lawrence. Because college football fans will be.

they're, you know, regardless of who's playing. Now, it'll be, would it hurt Clemson? Clearly, yes. But Clemson fans going to be there. But even then, they're going to have a five-star quarterback backing them up. This isn't like the NFL if. That's right. That's right. If Deshawn Watson goes down, AJ McCarran comes in.

If Trevor Lawrence doesn't play. That's right. That's right. Anything goes Friday continues here on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. That's how you reach our show today. 7-13-212-5-7-90. on Twitter at SportsMT, at Brendan Riley underscore, and at Joe George Radio. Some really good news from Major League Baseball, and they're testing.

We'll tell you about that after I tell you what's happening at Beck and Maston-Bewick GMC. The summer sell-a-thon is going on where they are literally burning up high prices to bring you massive summer savings at both of their Beck and Maston-Buick GMC locations. 2020 enclave of $11,000 off the MSRP, a 2020 terrain. $9,000 off the MSRP, a 2020 Akkadia at $10,000 off MSRP, or how about $10,000 off MSRP on a 2020-C-Ara-2500? These vehicles and so many more, zero down, 0% APR for 72 months, and absolutely no payments for 90 days. At the number one Buick GMC dealer, and they aren't selling them for many more, zero down, zero percent APR for 70, two months and absolutely no payments for 90 days at the number one buick gmcc dealer and they aren't selling them for that kind of way for over deck two decades the number one sales volume leader

fmm 1960 and jones road 45 in fuque and online at beck and mason dot com that's beck and mast and buick gmc where they are professional grade this is james arden it goes to hard three to shoot jacks up a three hits this is the matt thomas show on sports talk Are you kidding? James and Russ did not travel with the Rockets yesterday to Orlando. And apparently we'll join the team in near future. Joe, is that conspiracy to you or? See, I'll give you my interpretation.

Because I don't know. I mean, I don't have their numbers. They're not calling me. They're not updating me in their life. But it really comes down to two things. Either they have the COVID and you can't travel. Or they're divas and don't want to leave. that early to get to be inside the bubble.

They want to stay in the, they want to get in the bubble as late as humanly possible. I mean, it's tough because I hate to speculate someone as COVID and be wrong, but Tabasovolo should talk to a, what, a Swedish newspaper and said the reason why he's not playing is because multiple rockets players tested positive and now Hardin and Westbrook aren't traveling.

They've been working out together. There's viral videos of James Hardin driving in nice cars with rappers and stuff around Houston. not social distancing. So, like, I mean, I think I can only make one assumption at this point. I mean, that's the thing about the COVID that it's so weird is that, you know, again, obviously it's up to everybody's individual decisions as to whether or not they want to make it public or not. But I just, I've traveled these guys.

I mean, I've traveled James for four years. He likes to kind of go at his own speed. He, you know, if he can go out to California early before our Rockets, Clippers, or something like that, or Lakers, he'd like to do that. If he can stay in a particular town and not extra, if there's two or three days in between days off, he'll go to Vegas for a day or whatever. So, yeah, it could be just as much of what you just said,

or it could be, I have to go, because here's the thing, they're supposed to practice on Saturday. So it wouldn't like they'd be stuck in a room for all that long. Well, they're going to have to quarantine for 48 hours when they get there, no matter what. Yeah.

So even if they fly out Saturday, they still can't practice until Monday. But I could buy that they just didn't want to go yet. Why not? I mean, have you met it? Have you met deep NBA athletes? Yeah, you're the best players on your team. You can do what you want. I don't think that endears you to your teammates.

No. If you're saying, you all go to the bubble, I ain't coming yet. Yeah. That's not. I'm hoping that's not the case. I would almost, this is going to sound really weird, Matt. I would prefer that they had COVID at some point and are getting much better versus being that big of a diva and saying I'm going to the bubble five less days than you. It's that important. I don't like that. I mean, this sounds really nuts because I'm going to back you up. It's easier if they get the COVID now than that they do when they get there.

It's true. Get it out of the system. It almost becomes an advantage. Because if the quote unquote experts are accurate, that it'd be very difficult to get it a second time. and if you're going to get it a second time, you'd get it probably several months from now. It's not as compared to me. Like, I don't think anybody's getting too COVID. Like, COVID, you have it, you're off, you're back to work for two weeks. You get it again.

Yeah, get it now. Because right now, that's the time to do it. You got scrimmages, your first games, not for still, what, 21 days? I just, there's just a part of me knowing James the way that I do that I just think that he's like, You know, I'd rather just take my own private plane and get there when I want to get there. Yeah, I could buy that. Yeah. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach a show.

7-13-212-5-790. It is an anything goes Friday. Joe, while you were with it, not with this yesterday, we had four Pete Rose calls in the first hour of the show yesterday. I heard. Four. Thus, and anything goes Thursday. moves ahead to anything goes Friday. Let's say hello to on the phones.

First up today is Chris and Copperfield. Chris, what do you got this afternoon? Hey, Matt. How you doing, buddy? Oh, Chris. This is our bad cover guy, Chris. Yes, sir. You called.

Hey, great show as usual. Thank you. But did you give any thoughts about putting together that segment? Not yet. Let me say it, brother. I'm hanging on day to day here at this point. So we will do the bad cover bands. We'll do a, we can actually do a fantasy 500 someday, but I just haven't thought of it right now. That's fine. That's fine. Hey, I did want to hit you with one more I forgot about yesterday. Sure. It was, don't forget about David Lee Roth. Oh, I won't. Don't worry.

You paused yesterday. I forgot about Roseanne Barr and Carl Lewis singing the National Anthem. Yeah. Carl just forgot the words, and Roseanne was just disrespectful. Thank you, Chris, for the phone call. Have a good weekend. I appreciate it calling it. You know, Joe, I can listen to Carl Lewis and the National Anthem all the time.

I got zero trepidation about listening that again. Why? Because it's just one of the funniest renditions we've ever heard in our entire life. Because it's so bad. You heard it. Yeah, it's awful. Yeah, but he tried. He didn't give up.

You're right. I mean, he's not a quitter. He did stop midway through, which was a little odd. But the best part about the whole thing beyond the vocals itself is the ESPN Sports Center anchor Charlie Steiner at the time's reaction is he's trying to discuss this after Carl Sings. Matter of fact, because as anything goes forward, Friday, we present to your little snippet of one, Carl Lewis. Oh, say, can you see the dawn's early light? What's so proud after twilight last gleaming,

whose broad strikes and bright stars through the perilous by. Not bad so far. Oh, the round bought we watch. We're so gallantly streaming. And the rockets. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

The monster that I'm still. Take up for it now. Tell me you don't get tired of hearing that. I forgot that the PA announcer basically like says Carl Lewis was at the end before he's even done with his last note. Basically, get this. guy out of here. You know that happens quite a bit to us, PA guys. Really?

Is that sometimes these choirs, these individual people that come in and sing like to hold out the last note for like an hour and a half or like to add verses to it like and the home of the free and the home of the brave

eh hey, hey, hey, hey, you know what I mean? You don't know one to like give it a rest. and that's exactly what Carl did he wanted to make sure he extended as long as humanly possible It's so bad

Because like he like You can tell you can sing a little bit And my favorite part is at the end when he stops Before he tries Before he was it Before he says free He like stops because he's like You can tell he's got to make that jump Matt

Where he's gonna go for He's going to gold He ain't afraid And then he realized he was afraid And he stopped And he went for the lower note But he was a thought somebody says furgy did a terrible job of the all-star game fergis was so so unbelievably

be bad can we play it when we come back definitely 1228 matt thomas show anything goes friday thus it isn't anything goes friday 713 212 5 790 719 719 it isn't anything goes friday Talk 790. Hey, I am very happy, and I put this out on social media earlier today. The return of the Monday night meeting is this Monday, and we are looking for three contestants to play the 790 match game, and I'll have more details on what that is in a little bit. But anybody that plays, we're looking for three contestants to play the Monday night match game. And if you play, we're going to give you a $50 gift card to Big City Wing. if you would like, if you guys know what the match game is on television, I'm sure you see it with

Alec Baldwin in the old show with Gene Rayburn. If you are available Monday night at 730 to play match game, shoot me an email at MT at Sports790.com. MT at Spach Game is on television. I'm sure you see it with Alec Baldwin in the old show with Gene Rayburn. If you are available Monday night at 730 to play match game, shoot me an email at mt at Sports790.com. MT at Sports790.com.

We'll choose three players, and then you'll get a chance to go against our celebrity co-workers here for a $50 gift card to Big City Wings. And it's great wings. In fact, great crawfish today. That's it. Today and tomorrow. If you want that last chance at five pounds of crawfish for $25, check out BigCitywings.com.

Big on wings, big on specials. And today and tomorrow, big on crawfish, five pounds and $25 for just the next couple of days to officially wrap up crawfish season. Dine in, take out, delivery options all available for you. And again, we're looking for contestants to play the 790 match game to win Big City Wing gift cards. Big City Wings and Big CityWings.com. Talk Cougars Football. Weekdays on Sports Talk 790.

Here Cougars Football. Saturdays on KPRC 950. Get the best coverage of your Coogs. Oh What's so Oh my God Joe George So bad

What's worse? This are the black IPs Oh 1A and 1 right Yeah All right I can't We can't do this to our country She

You know she sound like a bad She sound like a Nightclub singer At a Holiday Inn who had too many drinks before she went on stage. This one doesn't do justice without seeing the video. Just seeing all the celebrities at the All-Star Game and all the players reacting the way they do.

Like, they can't hide their faces. God, that was, I mean, I didn't give, we didn't give it the full run, and I think it was probably in the best interest of the show that we didn't. That was, when was that? NBA All-Star Game? Yeah, wasn't that this year?

Was that last year? I don't really pay attention who does anthems. 2018. I remember a long time ago going to San Antonio for the NBA All-Star game. And I got to the Alamoidam, this is way before the

AT&T Center. And they said, ladies and gentlemen, we had this new young singer who's going to sing the Canadian National Anthem, and she's pretty good, and you're going to want to keep an eye on her. And this woman sang the song, and she was sexy, and it was

Oh, Canada, which I think is a great national anthem for Canada. Her name was Shania Twain. So I got to see Shania Twain sing Oh, Oh, Canada before she became a megastar. Then she became a massive star for a long time, and then she just went away. Is she back, or did she just like, I got my 15 years and I'm good? I think she's... Isn't she married to someone? Yeah, but she...

Yeah, she's married to some dude that likes to hide. Isn't his name like Wolfgang Puck or something strange like that? Wolfgang. Yeah, it's not who I thought it was. I couldn't remember who she was with. Oh. But, yeah, I don't, I mean, Shania Twin doesn't do anything. She does nothing.

She does nothing at all. All right. 713-212-5-790, as we continue to run through the best of and worst of national anthem singers of all time. Thanks to an earlier caller. Joe, did you see the MLB release today about the number of positive test or lack their of. Yeah, very good news. For those of you that did not catch it.

And by the way, I forgot to mention, Buster Posey is not going to take part in this year's baseball season. He's got two kids, twins that he's adopting that were born prematurely and stable, but will be in NICU for some time. So he is opting out for the season. Which, again, nothing to do with. with the COVID, but it's just, he's just said, look, I don't want to be gone for a couple of months while my kids are trying to work out, you know, and try to survive.

Yeah, and if he did get it while playing for the Giants, then you can't bring it home with it. That's disastrous. Yeah. I mean, he basically would. I mean, some of these guys are basically going to go into bubbles. Like, it's so impossible. Like, Mike Trout is basically in a bubble except for the two weeks he leaves for the birth of his child and then comes back. There's still a parmy that's going to, that Mike's.

going to say, I don't want to play. I don't think it's a large part of me, but I do think it's a part because he has hemmed in Hall and more than any other superstar athlete about not playing. And maybe it's easier to him in Hall and say, this doesn't make sense, but then realize when those checks aren't there that he probably should go ahead and finish off a season, even with 60 games. But he of all the people that I'm still waiting for the, yeah, I'm gung-ho about this. And he really hasn't done that. All right. as we said, Major League Baseball did 11,000 tests. And out of 11,000 tests, 83 have come back positive.

71 players, 12 staff members. And for those of you playing at home, that's 0.7% positive. Do you know, Joe, what good news that is for Major League Baseball? That's great news. The challenges can they keep it up, but it's, we talked about this at length when you interviewed BTS like two weeks ago. Yeah. And then we talked about it, I think it was last week, how if they can stay around the 5%

mark, I think they can have a full season. That's what Brian T. Smithson. I just, I was like, I totally agree with them. 5% has to be like the ideal worst, best case number. This is incredible. This is great news because this is makes this should make guys like Mike Trout and Chris Bryant and the Astros players what Altuva is expecting or just had a child recently You've got a ton of guys you've got players in the MLB who have beat cancer

You have you have the older managers like Dusty Baker and The entire Astro staff almost like this is It shouldn't as long they shouldn't let their guard down Right, it's more important to be more stringent than ever we've seen that here in Texas, but this should give people hope for the first time that if they can get the testing protocol done correctly, like which to make sure it wasn't a disaster like it was earlier in the week and what caused Bregman to miss a practice. If they can fix that stuff out, this should give people hope that a baseball season can and will happen for 60 games and we will crown a World Series champion. Do you know who should be beating their chest?

It's not the health of the players. It's that major league baseball protocol is working, that they made this big-ass man. annual and they made sure that everybody was using face mask and social distancing and spreading things out. I mean, if you put a plan in place and it works, your average is significantly lower than the national average. The only contingent, though, is they haven't started traveling yet. And I think that's still where we don't fully know.

Because what if one of these guys who tested positive late? What if they were playing right now and they were traveling? from Houston to L.A. to Anaheim to San Diego, back to Houston to Arlington. That's where we have to make sure the protocols really do work. But to start the season, this is awesome. It's great. Yeah. The only thing I would worry about is you were talking about traveling wouldn't be the guys that were with me.

It wouldn't be the plane flight. It wouldn't be the airline. it would be just being in a different city, staying in a hotel where the employees aren't being checked as much as you are. And that are those hourly employees that are cleaning rooms, serving meals, what are they going home to? Because you don't know who they are. They're anonymous. You're not getting a federal rundown of every employee that works at the Weston Hotel. in San Francisco. You know what I mean? I mean, that's the group of people that I think might bring in something that could cause a spike.

Because right now, the Astros, just like every other major league baseball team, they know they're controlling their environment. They're controlling who's getting in. They're controlling how long they're there for, what they're wearing, what's being cleaned. And you can clean a hotel room. And you can clean an opposing stadium. And you can do all the right things. but there's still going to be enough people that are at that hotel cooking your meals, cleaning your room, doing whatever it takes, changing sheets that you don't know what they do when they're off at 5 o'clock on a particular night. And that's where I think the spike might come in is where guys are going to different cities

just because there were so many different people. That's where I think you might see a little bit of a spike. But I think, as I said before, you keep this under 10%, which right now is at 0.7%. percent. Yeah. I mean, if you get it to five like we were talking about, that's a win-win for baseball. That is under the national average, and that means whatever baseball has done in terms of protocols is absolutely working.

It's all about just patience, though. Like, not that I feel for them, because I don't really like Rangers fans. I think they're annoying. But Wexler just tweeted, just retweeted the Rangers that Joey Gallo's bag of practice. Two positive tests, two negative tests, not in order. mixed bag of results, they finally have figured out that he is now negative

and he's back on the field. Like even that's a positive. Just that it shows that they're going through a process. That means he took four plus tests from the first time he tested positive to get back on the field. That is good, encouraging news.

All of this is. And again, if you get caught, if you catch it, hopefully in two weeks, you're over it. And hopefully you catch it at home. Because that would just, suck to get stuck in a hotel room by yourself for two weeks well i mean you're staying in san francisco but still you're two weeks you know you're a thousand miles from home oh hell yeah that's

suck seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety brian geltzada from hoops critic at one thirty brian t a two fantasy five you're taking five food items on a plane a long plane flight joe and i are that's our fantasy five coming up at two o'clock this afternoon right now if you're a big sports fan which i know you as you listen to this show, I want you to fly the flag or banner of your favorite sports team, and you can do that with Cromberg's flags and flag pulls. They have an assortment of flags so you can support your favorite college and pro teams. All their flags and all their banners are heavyweight.

They're durable. They're 100% nylon or polyester, and they are finished with the heavy-duty stitching for longest durability. So if you want your flag, all their flags and all their banners are heavyweight, they're durable. They're 100% nylon or polyester. And they are finished with a heavy duty stitching for longest durability. So if you want your flag to really stand out, maybe you want a flag for your place of business, maybe you want a flag to represent the state of Texas or the U.S. of A or your school. whatever kind of flag or banner you need, you stay right here with the Houston-based company.

In fact, over there in Bel Air, 713-661-922 is their number. 713-661-9-2-2-2 for Kronberg's flags and flag pulls. 713-661.92, Cronberg's Flags and Flagpoles.com. The Rockets have Red Nation. Matt has Maddie Nation. Things are going to start happening to me now. You've made it.

I'm somebody now. More Matt Thomas. Now. 1249, sports talk 790. Anything goes Friday. And I mean, anything goes. What you want? 713.

1, 2, 5, 7.9. We've got a few things on our agenda. We'll get some NBA talk in, Brian T, and the Fantasy 5. But you guys, especially on a day like this, we're damn hot outside. Come on in. Bring the conversation in whatever you want to talk about. We're here for you on anything goes Friday. Drew's in West Chase at 1249.

Drew, what's the word today, friend? Hey, how's going today, Matt? Today is my birthday, actually, man. Is that right? How old are you? Sound like you're 35. You know, that's funny. I'm actually 28, turned 28.

I called last year on my birthday, and you played some UGK for me, and you thought I was 35 or 38 then, too, but yeah, that's pretty funny. All right, well, Drew, let me tell you this. Before you wrap up your call, you give, tell us the song you want to hear, and we'll come back for the next break and play it for you as your little birthday gift to you. Hey, and I appreciate that. You know, last year I thought that was a real, you know, special gift. I really appreciated that last year.

I told everybody. But yeah, man, I wanted to talk about the Rockets, you know, a little NBA talk. Okay. I think they can really do some damage. I think the thing I'm probably most excited to see is a skinny Harden. I'm not going to lie. Like, I'm very interested to see what he can do. I know his legs have failed him in the past.

But with all this risk, I think the ailments that he had, you know, he had little, you know, knickers here and there, and he just played through him. But I think with that risk and with him dropping that weight, I think we have for a real show, you know, just really from everybody because I think the rest helped everyone. And I'm really excited to see what happens. I hope everyone stays safe first.

But it'd be cool to see this whole thing play out and see what happens. But you love the show. And once again, appreciate that birthday gift. All right. Well, give me a song before we wrap it up. What do you want to hear? I think I want to hear Energy by Big Crit. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's a good one. Energy by Big Chris. Okay. This should come as zero surprise, and I'm not familiar with that song, but I'm sure. Really? I thought you were real versus. I thought I thought you had a Big Crit concert one time. You know, that's right.

You've out of me for the fraud that I am. I got you. Thank you, Drew. Happy birthday, my friend. Happy 29 or whatever it is. Stay in those 20s. 30s make you have to like a grown-ass man and then 40s,

everything starts to break down. See what you have to look forward to, Joe? Man, I'm turning 29 in like six months. Come on. Like, don't do that to me. You got one year left. A year and a half. Let me tell you what you got.

You got a year and a half left of playing video games. You have a year and a half left to sleeping as late as you want to on a Saturday. You got a year and a half left of basically, eating whatever you want because the 30s, I got news for you. You're going to be a father probably.

You are going to not be able to eat what you want because you're not going to want to go out and work out as much as you are if you already are. I just started. So I lost seven pounds this week, Matt. Hmm. Seven? Seven pounds this week. How? Eating healthy and working out for the first time in like three years.

You're having a lot of mulamil, aren't you? you don't lie no okay and then in the 40s everything breaks down so that makes me nervous i got bad knees you're gonna be taking probably at least eight to 12 pills a day a year and a half that's why i'm gonna buy you when i get back to studio i'm gonna buy you chinese food every friday until you turn 30 deal i'm not gonna say no to that i'm gonna make sure you're as fat as humanly possible no it's not happen i'll be i got wedding in october i'm going to Who's getting married? One of my buddies back home.

I got to be, I'm planning to lose. It was like 30 pounds, like 25 pounds by October. And I'm already seven deep. So I'm going to change that to try to be like 35 pounds. Well, then I won't be buying you Chinese food then. I don't want to. Cheat days, man. Cheat days, man.

Oh, I see. Fridays are cheat days now. All right. Tell me about a 2020 bachelor party. Where is that going to be? Not happening? What's the rule on that, by the way? If you can't have a bachelor party because of the rona, do you get to have the bachelor party after you get married?

But see, a lot of people are canceling their weddings or what they're doing is, there's people I know from college that they had to cancel their wedding, but they went to the courthouse and got legally married on their planned wedding date, and then they're going to have the full walk down the aisle and reception next year. That has answered my question. What about the bachelor party? Well, I think that if you, well, they're going to push back their wedding. So they have, so they'll still do it before.

Okay. Actually, I don't know. I guess I don't know. By the way, I have, it depends on your wife, I think, right? I, I can't imagine anybody getting married and then saying, hey, because of the virus, we didn't have our bachelor party. Me and 10 of my buddies are going to go to a strip club for the night. I hope you don't mind. Yeah, I don't think that's going to go over well.

No, not at all. By way, did we find the song for Drew for Big Chris? We did, and I got to say, I'm a big fan. Fire out 30 seconds if it's his birthday. The man's listening to show right now. Sounds all right for now. Your energy. I need your energy.

Joe George is his song on my iPhone yesterday. No, but it should be. Why should it be? This is good. Turn it up. They should be playing this for games, right? Yeah. YouTube says up-and-coming Detroit rapper.

All right, Drew. That's our artist of the day. Big Chris. Is there a such thing as a little Chris? It's Big Crit, by the way. Oh, Crit. C-R-I-T? Yes.

Oh, then there's a Big Chris from Detroit. That's not the same person. This is Big Crit. All right. You know what? This show is about pop culture, sports, and up-and-coming rap stars. The essence.

He's established. He's 33. He's new to me. That doesn't mean he's up and coming. It means you're on touch. How about Indy Kalu saying, hey, there's this dude named Stevie Nix. He's a pretty good singer.

I think we should just do the counter for rap. That's exactly right. So when does Indy do that on Tuesdays? Yes, that's on Tuesdays. Okay. So, Brandon, from here on Friday's, we need to start playing. acts that have been around for a long time, but I know I've never heard them even one time.

I'm going to stop by every Friday for this segment. Perfect. All right. Second hour, the Matt Tobin Show starts at a matter of moment. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Big shout-out to Drew and his birthday. Shout out to Big Crit as compared to little crit or medium-sized crit.

7-1-3-212-5-79. Brian Geltziler talks NBA with us. He's our hoops critic, and he's in 30 minutes here on Sports Talk 790. Hey, this is Eric Gordon. Put a grand in your hand on Sports Talk 790. Text this nationwide keyword, Love, L-O-V-E to 200-200. You'll get a confirmation text and info, standard data and message rates apply in this nationwide contest. Look!

Take your shot at $1,000 on the home of the Rockets, Sports Talk 790. Text, love, to 200-200-200. is the Matt Thomas Show. 102 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show, hour number two or three. We talked some NBA basketball bubble style in a half an hour. Brian T. Smith, The Chronicle, a 2 o'clock visitor on Fridays. And then the Fantasy 5 coming up at 2.30.

Have you thought, Joe, George, about whether you're not, You're going to go to a food court as part of your five main go-to things. I have. I need a clarification question, though. Sure. How long is my flight? I'm going to say four hours. Okay.

Look, that's because if we're talking a one and a half hour flight versus a 10-hour flight, we're talking a big difference here. I'm good with a four-hour flight. Now, you are not allowed to buy one of the snack boxes on the plane. you have to bring everything on the plane with you. Yeah, we're assuming that because of COVID that they're doing nothing on the plane. Well, that plus those snack boxes have a bunch of crap. I mean, we're looking for five individual items. For those of you don't know, we're going to do a fantasy five where we're going to fly on a four-hour flight.

We're going to go to Boston from here. And we have to take five items with us to eat on the plane. What are those five items going to be? Anything that you could buy at the airport could be brought on the plane. the question is do you dare bring a salad on a four-hour flight mull that over joe george now you're the guest so you get to go over the very first pick or you can take the snake system and picks two and three uh no matt it is your choice because the last time we did the fantasy five you beat me oh that's true i beat you like a drum did i not

yeah and i beat you in the beetles one so yeah but that's because you had your friends call it that's not true don't have them no anybody that what was the name of that octopus's garden Yeah. One of the worst Beatles songs ever, and you beat me on it. And it was my birthday, too. That was the worst part of it. It was the best part of it. Did you see what Jacksonville is going to do this year for their fans at the Jaguar

Home Games? 25%. Yep. So they really changed nothing then, essentially. Yikes. True or false? It might be a slight increase. It's true.

I've never been to Jacksonville before. Have you ever been to Jacksonville? What's in Jacksonville besides a football stadium? In all honesty. What do I need to go there for? If I'm not going to see a Jacksonville, Jaguars game. Well, I mean, it was a major city before Jacksonville got there. Do they have a theme park?

Do they have... I've never been. Yeah, so I'm going to assume that there's nothing good to do there. Jacksonville may be the biggest city in America I've never been to. And I've traveled from one end of the country over, I mean, hundreds of times. I've only There's one of the few cities Like I've only been in Kansas City one time of my life

I've only been I've only been to Pittsburgh just a handful of times Not very many but I'm just trying to think of cities That I don't like I can get around Chicago pretty well I know where the you know where the The ballparks are the airports that kind of thing I have a pretty good feel of how to get around Los Angeles Decent way around San Francisco

I have never been to Jacksonville, Florida my life Let me try to tell you what I think Jacksonville is. I think Jacksonville is the epicenter of Florida stories. If you were to take Jacksonville and put a circle around it and its surrounding communities, I bet there is way more Florida stories from that quadrant of the state than there is anywhere else in the entire state. I feel like there's even more waffle houses in that vicinity than you would find, say, in Orlando, like Disney World. I feel like that some of that special Georgia girl can be found in Jacksonville occasionally,

if you know what I'm saying? I just don't, I don't know anybody that has ever gone to Jacksonville and went, man, what an incredible town. Now, granted, I might feel differently if I ever go there. But do you remember when Jacksonville had the Super Bowl, how they didn't have enough hotel rooms? So they brought in cruise ships for people to stay on? Last time I checked it, I never been on a cruise before, but I heard cruise ship rooms, generally speaking, are like the size of broom closets.

Could you imagine going to a Super Bowl spending $300 a night on a room for the size of a broom closet? I heard their stadiums just, eh. Their fans are, eh. Hell, Shad Khan, the owner of the team, he sells off a game every year to Europe. They don't even get eight,

regular season games there. Haven't they been doing two games in Europe in London? I don't think two. I think there had been thought of maybe playing a second one as a road team, but they definitely sell a home game every year. I mean, you know that the owner of your team just doesn't give that big

of a damn about you when you sell off a home game because he knows it's no big deal. There is one. Now, I don't need the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce calling me and sending me terrible messages. I'm sure there's plenty of I mean, there's probably a lot of things about Houston that people don't like. But this is our town, so we can speak to it.

I've just never heard anybody. Now, apparently the PGA headquarters are not far from there. And there's great golf courses, but there's great golf courses all over. But Jacksonville, seven home games, nobody goes. Their uniforms suck. I mean, I can go on one hand. They're all-time great players. Am I right on that?

Fred Taylor, Mark Brunel, Jimmy Smith, Keeney McArdle. That's four, Besselli, five. J.D. Does Jalen Ramsey count? No, MJD, yeah, it counts, right? A little overrated, but yeah. That's six. But you know what the thing that sucks about it is?

As bad as they are, they went to an AMC championship game this decade, or at least last decade. Well, actually, everyone's been to an AFC championship game in the AFC South in the last half decade besides the Texans. Yeah. Right? Or the last decade, I guess, for the Colts. So basically, Jacksonville fan listened to the show right now. Like, shut up. At least we go to AFC championship games.

And they made the playoffs. Didn't they make the playoffs have a deep run their first year? I don't think it was their first year. I think it was their second year. Okay. Meanwhile, the Texans, well, hey, they beat the Cowboys in their first season. Let me say, the Jaguars go to the Super Bowl before the Texans do. We might as close up shop.

Especially now. They just blew up their team. Like, they just dismantled everything they had. And they play one game a year in London. They don't even care about the team there. I mean, they've, they have one of the best defense in the NFL, and they have nothing left to show for it. Now, they've rebuilt it pretty well.

And I think Don Morone's way worse of a coach of Bill O'Brien. He won't last there, but. And those two guys are. tight. There's a real possibility, a high likely possibility that next year, Trevor Lawrence is their quarterback. Oh, great. So they're tanking.

They're trading away all these guys like Ramsey and Cleas Campbell and Boyer and all these guys to get draft capital. They have a ton of it. Now they're going to get Trevor Lawrence. They failed at the rebuild once, but they got to the AOC championship game with Blake Bortles. that's an organization that might know how to get it done with the right quarterback. Yeah, I was right. Josh says on Twitter, saw grasses in Jacksonville, suburbs, but not much else there.

See, I knew there wasn't much to do in Jacksonville. Thanks for the backup on that. Let me go to Mike and Aleep at 110 on the Matt Thomas show. Mike, how are you, sir? Hey, what's going on, fellas? Hi. Man, I'm glad that sports are starting back up soon. man, we'll be able to have some ball, you know, some basketball and some baseball.

But I just want to talk about the Astros. And I'm glad also I am that, you know, this, you know, not to say the pandemic happened, but I'm just glad that we won't have any fans like just from opposing teams and everything. Because I remember we were talking about before the pandemic, how the fans were going to boo us and all this negativity around the Astros. but the little break made it marinate for the other teams, you know, to get their little karma like the Red Sox and the Yankees. But I'm glad the fans, we won't be able to see the fans booing

and seeing the media talking about how they were booing us for all that stuff, you know. And we'll let the ball playing do the talking. But, yeah, I'm happy the Rock is about to start up, start back up too. So, yeah. It's going to be good. Thank you, Mike, for the phone call. I do want to talk about Mike's comment about booing a fan, the fans booing the Astros. Let's do that when we come back.

112 is our time. Anything goes, Friday continues. Sports Talk 790. I'm going to give you probably an anti-a comment that may not mesh with y'all when it comes to that. I'll discuss that. Again, fans not being in the stands, probably not likely. Booes on the Astros. We'll discuss that next.

11, Sports Talk, 790. At least now, we know. that losing sucks. And if anybody knows how much losing sucks, it's Matt Thomas. I'm outstanding. This is Whitney Merciless. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

Did you see that Whitney cooks on Wednesdays, Joe? No. Yeah, on his Twitter account. He cooks. And he made salmon with some, like, I guess it looked like lettuce, some sort of cabbage. something. I want to get him on the show. I don't need him cooking healthy for me.

If I'm going to watch Whitney Marshall's cook food, I want it to be like something delicious, like fried pork chops, like scalded potatoes. I don't need him having healthy greens and salmon with dill on the top. Yeah, but Matt, he's trying to, you just tried, you just lectured me. Like last hour, Matt, about how when I turned 40, I can't eat unhealthy. Whitney Merciless is trying to change my life and change your life. No, he's not. That's what he's trying to do here, Matt. He's trying to brag. He's trying to show you how to change your life and eat healthier. It's too late. And have it not be blamed. Too late. I'm 48. It's too late. No, it's not.

My son is working a construction job in Sugarland, and he texts me a little while ago. He says, hey, do you want me to pick up an in and out for you in the way home? I'm like, oh, that sounds so good right now. But you know what? Because I'm trying to be somewhat responsible. I said, no, eating in and out at 3 o'clock would not be the sage thing to do, especially when I'm going to have sushi tonight. Sushi's the best.

Are you raw or cook sushi? Indifferent. I'm just not, I'm a very finicky sushi eater. I don't like avocado and I do not like salmon, but anything else I like. I'm not an eel fan either. I like the eel. I don't eat the, I don't like the raw tuna, but that's pretty much the only thing I won't eat. Anything tempera I'm all for.

Because it gets fried. Sure. So, all right. The caller asked a little while ago about he's going to like the fact that this year's Astros team is not going to get booed because we're presuming that most games will not have fans in them. You know what my thought on this is, is that this is going to be, this is going to plague the Astros for, I don't know a decade now it won't be nearly as bad in 2000 say

28 as it will be in 2020 when we get fans back in the stands but I think if you're the Astros and you're grown ass Astro fans or players you just have to embrace it you have to just get it out of you know you have to go in one ear and out the other

I think that first of all baseball players hear booze all the time as it is and they've had months and months and months to hear about them cheating and trash can stuff and going on Twitter and seeing anything that they do be crushed by outside fans. My philosophy, Joe, is let's just go. Give me fans and stands, make it safe,

and then if those fans want to go into these facilities and yell and scream at the Astros about how much they suck, do it. Bring your best game. Yeah, I want to see Carlos put his hand up to his ear like Hulk Hogan. When people have been talking trash, when Dodgers fans come to Houston next year. I want Carlos Correa to hit a home run at Dodgers Stadium. And I want him to flex his muscles all around the base pads. That's what we want, Joe.

It's better for baseball. We want wrestling. We want our baseball players or our baseball team to act like they're in the ring being introduced. You know how, like, Granny Orton puts his hands up in the air? Yeah. That's what Jose Altube is going to do with the football. the two-run double. And that's what, like,

I think it's just better for baseball. I want the louder the booze, the better the bat flip we're going to get. And that means, you know what that means the bigger the booze? It's okay to be the villain. At some point, embrace the hate.

It's just, it's time to embrace the hate that's coming, and it's not going to go away. Right. Until every single member of this team is gone, and they're trash. Yep, and they're all retired. And if they're never bad again, which of course they one day will be.

But until the Astros lose 100 games in a season, people are going to boo this team. And that could go for two decades. And when they're good again, people are going to boo them again. Yeah. All right. So let's do this then. Let's put this in an exercise. Carlos Gray hits a home run.

You want to do the Hulk Hogan. Let me hear you. Yep. Carlos Jose Al Tuve gets a double scores two I want him to stand on second base and I want him to flex like Randy Orton does Alex Bergman give me a John Cena you can't see me when he gets back to the dugout look it right at the camera hand over the face or a five knuckle shuffle too yep do both of them there we go

maybe when let's see euliguriel slides into thirno a triple he gives the he gives the people's elbow on the bag so who's doing the stone called double birds mccullers definitely definitely striking out the side and calling for a beer and throwing the double birds yeah so instead of a ball hey no actually it's what it is instead of a ball being thrown to Yerle Gerell to the first baseman, you know, when he gets back to the dugout, they throw a can of beer in his glove. Yeah, that's what you have to do.

You have to go WWE taunt for as long as his team is put together because there's a chance two or three years from now. It's going to look a lot differently than it is today. And then Verlander is Undertaker. He strikes out the side and he walks under his breath. He's going, rest in peace. He's just got to do the eye roll, though. Can you do the eye roll?

Where only the whites are shown when he looks up? That's a tough one. Okay. I'm trying anybody else. Could you do all the outfielders is the new day? Yeah. You can do stuff like that. I'm trying to think of it.

No, they do a, don't they already do the NWO thing? They're too sweet? Oh, yeah. But everybody has been doing that. Yeah, that's true. But that's a shirt. You know, you have one of those shirts. Yeah, the AWO.

AWO. You know what? Instead of this for the age stuff, you go AWO in 2020, 21, 22. Whatever, however long the nucleus of this team has put together, you stay with that. This will absolutely work.

Because here's the thing, Joe. Having lived in Houston for basically 35 years of my life, we've always been the nice guys. We were the lovable Fie Slamma Jama. We were the lovable Houston owners. We were the good astro guys with the pinstripe jerseys. We were the lovable rockets.

We haven't been public enemy number one of anybody. Like we've learned to hate the Patriots, anything New York-related. We hate the Dodgers. We hate the Giants. We hate the Rangers. I mean, we have never been, generally speaking, hated. Now, there are people that don't like James Hardin, but that's just because super-sars are going to have hate.

But there isn't anybody on the Texans that the NFL players hate, that other teams hate. I mean, they may think J.J. Watt's a little hulkey, but nobody hates J.J. Watt, right? People hate the Astros. So let's be heels. Because guess what, Joe? Heels also get to carry the belts around, too, right? Exactly. You don't give belts back.

I mean, it just embrace it. Rick Flair is the dirtiest player in the game. He's also 19-time world champion for a reason. He'll hit you right in the nads. Now, I'm not endorsing the Astros doing any form of any more cheating. Trust me when I say this. This disaster that has been, this cheating scandal has been awful. But if you're going to be hated, I would, as a matter of fact, I'd put it, I'd put

put an AWO logo on the Astros jersey. Get rid of for the A, just put AWO. And then instead of playing Take Me Out of the ball game in the seventh inning, you go, I mean, that's what you do. You full sell this. They still going to play taking out to the ball game this year, even though there's no one there? Oh, of course.

All that stuff's going to happen. Just for TV? Yeah. So what you're saying, Matt, is Jeff Blom going to seem deep in the heart of Texas every day for us? No, they'll be in a commercial break. They got to make it. Yeah, but someone's got to sing it. Now, Sparks and Ford might sing it.

Just saying. Full AWO. For the H, I'm sure it's a very nice, cliche, little catchphrase, AWO 2020 for life. Well, the last team to use For the H that actually played games got canceled, so. Yeah. What's up, Roughnecks? Yeah.

Poor, those Roughneck fans are still bent over that. I've never seen a fan base so go so crazy over something I've played five games. Yep. Yep. All right. Let's talk to our friend Brian Geltzlider from Hoops Critic. He'll join us next.

Time is 128. It is the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. What's life going to be like in the bubble now that all these teams are making their way to Orlando, which include the Rockets? We'll talk to Brian about that. after I tell you about what's happening at Shaw's jewelry at the corner of West Gray and Montrose.

You know, Shaw's has been an exact same intersection since 1966. They specialize in engagement rings. They specialize in diamond ring upgrades. They also possess the biggest selection of pre-owned Rolexes in Houston. Give your wife a diamond ring upgrade. She's always wanted or perhaps a pair of gorgeous diamond studs or a diamond tennis bracelet. And right now, Shaw's continues to offer you 0%. financing for 12 months on purchases. Some exclusions do apply.

Corner West Gray and Montrose, where they're open today and every Monday through Friday, 10 o'clock until 7, they go 10 to 6 on Saturdays. It's a difficult purchase to make, but it's a fulfilling one when you do it right in front of the great sales team over at Shaw's jewelry. West Gray and Montrose, that's Shaw's. This is Eric Gordon. We've got a pullback. Three hit it. Eric Gordon on fire here. Sports Talk 790 is your home?

for Houston Rockets basketball. He is the founder of Hoops Critic. I catch him quite a bit when I'm listening to Sirius XM NBA Radio and a friend of the show. We have not had Brian Geltz out with us for quite a while, but you know what? We are closing in on the return of real basketball, so now there's absolutely a perfect time to bring Geltz to the show.

Brian, it's Matt. How are things? Long time, no talk. I bet the folks at NBA Radio are finally ready to chew into some games here in the not-too-distant future. Yeah, we ramping up the programming, Matt. It's exciting. It's all good with me here.

Hope you and your family are doing well there. I know it's a little bit of a hot spot in Texas right now, so I'm wishing you and your family and your friends and your listeners. Nothing but the best. Thank you very much. Now, you used to be in a hot spot, so tell what it's like in the Jersey, New York area, just from a pure comfort level of people moving around a little bit

and trying to conduct day-to-day business. You know, it's funny because you're right. I mean, we were bad for six weeks. I mean, really bad. And the lockdown seemed very restrictive at the time, but there was a method to the madness. And we ended up, we actually today, for the second time in the last couple weeks, our transmission rate got back below one in terms of not. What that means is essentially for every person that has the virus, how many people are getting infected by it.

So they feel like it's under control when you have it less than one. But we also, in our state, our governor, has. to pull back on restrictions here with indoor dining. He wouldn't allow that because people, listen, people are going to do whatever you allow them to do. And, you know, we have a vacation destination here in New Jersey at the Jersey Shore. And over the course of the last week, week and a half, the crowds at the Jersey Shore on the beaches got to be much more than they should have been. So our reopening is not, we're not going backwards, but we're kind of paused and stalled here on reopening and waiting for the next. numbers to go down a little bit further.

And again, we're getting people in from out of state. They're supposed to be quarantining. It's a hard thing to enforce. So we're moving along, but there's definitely some legitimate fears in our state right now, in our area that we could start to see cases spike again for people coming from state. States with much higher coronavirus rates than we have. Well, hopefully I can report some good news about our state in the not too distant future. Geltz, let's get to the bubble.

It feels like everybody's just about there. the players have been taking a lot of IG videos and tweets and whatnot about their accommodations. It doesn't look overly miserable, so I think it's got to be a nice early sign of the guys that are there are embracing. And frankly, are you surprised at the end of the day how few players have decided to bow out of this thing? Not really, because listen, I think that there's an understanding among the players, Matt, that participating in this bubble and making it a success is vital to the league's financial model. And that's of just as much benefits to the players as it is to the owners. So for the players, they want to make sure that this is a success.

And listen, you look at the guys that have bowed out. It's been from teams that are kind of a waste of time for them being there in the first place. The guys on the neck, they tested positive. That's a team that doesn't have a lot of chance to really advance, even with all their guys, obviously not Durant Irving, but everybody else. But even look at the Washington Wizard to the league stretch to have them there from 20 to 22 teams with the hope that they could potentially create a play in a series in the Eastern Conference, knowing that one was somewhat likely in the Western Conference.

What happened with the Wizards? They're two best healthy offensive players, Bradley Beal, and Davis-Brickon both opted out. That field said it was because of injury. I'm not sure it was because of injury. I think Bradley Field probably could have played if he had wanted. play. So you get those guys dowling out where it doesn't mean much. But, you know, in terms of the top teams,

I'm not surprised. The guys are Gabriel Bradley, Trevor Ruizza, they had significant family concerns that just like all of us would have, they prioritized over doing what they had to do for the league. And that's understandable also. But I like, I like the player's attitude on being all in.

I just, you know, Ray Jean Rondo put an Instagram post up yesterday complaining about the accommodation. He's got to be a little less tone deaf and that stuff, Matt. People are struggling across this country. 11% unemployment having trouble putting food at a table in some spot. You got to, you know, the NBA

players kind of have to take a little bit of stock in that and a little bit of perspective about what's happening in this country at a whole before they start to complain about things like hotel accommodations, which, by the way, are pretty darn good in the hotel Rondo's staying in. Yeah, no question. Rajan's been basically toned deaf for his entire

part of his NBA career, so that's really nothing out of the ordinary. Brian Geltzider, at Hoops Critic, is the website and you should also check him out on Twitter. It gives you great analytical information on the NBA. All right, so I'm not trying to be my epic here because I call Rockets games, and we are obviously in Houston. But Grant Hill said this on the NBA restart for the Rockets.

He thinks they've got a serious chance of doing some damage. Is that just, he's just being polite? Or could the Rockets be a sneaky team in the Western Conference when this playoff thing eventually gets underway? Well, let me say this. I'm going to start by saying, no, Grant Hill's not just being polite. And this morning on NBA radio, I had a conversation with BJ Carlissimo, who felt the same way. That when I asked him the question, who else in the way, who's the most likely deemed to creep into the Western Conference picture besides the Lakers and the Clippers?

The first one he answered was the Rockets. So that's not anybody being polite. The fact is for the Rockets, and let's look at it this way, Matt. You've seen them all year. The Harden-Lesbrook experiment has worked largely. It really has. The two of them have played, I think, very well together. One step back when the other one has been hot at both different times.

It really did make it about the team and about each other instead of themselves. And I've been impressed. Here's what I will say. I just, I am not a believer in the small ball thing that the Rockets are trying to do here. I do think that it was Lusry-Pax motivated more than basketball motivated. and we can discuss that on a later date at another time. Sure. But that's firmly my belief.

But more than that, I think that it's very hard to win the NBA hunting something like defensive rebounding. And I know what the Rocket strategy is. Listen, the Rockets went from being one of the slowest-paced teams in the league to getting Russell Westbrook and being one of the fastest-paced teams in the league. And that transition was very impressive season over season. And I love Mike Antonio. I think he's got a fantastic job here with the hand that he's been dealt.

With all that said, you try to burn teams out in transition when you get rebound and make them suffer for crashing the offensive glass on you because you've determined that that's, you know, things are going to do that. The Rock's a play at a six-foot-five-and-a-half center of Trey Tucker, Covington's their next biggest guy, and they're playing really small. So teams are going to try to take advantage of them rebounding-wise as much as they possibly can. And I think that's going to be successful when they get against the better teams. I think they can certainly get out in the first round. I think it's going to be hard to get out of the second round. To do that, they're going to have to beat the Lakers.

So let me ask you this, Brian, because, you know, I'm very mixed about it because I was a huge Klingapella guy. I loved the pick and roll when it was working, and he was a good rim protector, became a much better NBA player every season, but there was almost a crescendo with him. So let's assume this doesn't work. What does Darry try to do to alter the team next year

knowing that seven footers aren't growing on trees. And, oh, by the way, is that what you really want for this team that needs the ball spread around? And oh, by the way, you've got about three weeks to figure that out when it comes to free agency. How would you fix that if indeed you do not believe that this smaller rocket lineup could make that kind of big difference come playoff time? Well, it's not hard to fix if you feel like you have to repair. And follow where I'm going here now. First of all, centers are not hard to combat. There's a whole lot of them in the league, and they're being devalue, which means if you decided you had to go get a big, it's not the most enormous challenge out there to find yourself a quality big.

One is good and as young with as much potential as Capella, probably not, but you definitely get one that's going to be cheaper salary-wise. So I think that that's one part of this where you can pick up. That Cuffington is a guy that if you even going into the last year of a deal next year, if you fished in out there for teams to look at, You get a lot of bites. Robert Covington, his profile around the league is high. He's like him a lot. He's one of these long wings. He can shoot it.

He defends well. He's very high, always with steals, plays off the ball defense really well. And if you're looking to kind of, you know, go get a big guy again and say, hey, this didn't work. Covington is a marketable guy to be able to do that with. You know, it's a good idea about the Rockets. And remember two years, I think,

it was way, the last year, two years ago in the playoffs, Steve Kerr said this. about the Rockets. The Warriors were a long team on the perimeter. He said the Rockets bring a bunch of middle linebackers at you. And they do. And that's hard sometimes for longer games. And that's one of the reasons the Rockets really, with strength and speed, really gave the Warriors a very hard time two years ago on the playoffs. You can argue that if Chris Paul doesn't get hurt, they win that series.

Either way, they were right there at the end, being one of the all-time great teams in history to sport. So, I mean, it's not that. far away. Listen, I understand that this is an owner that doesn't want to pay the luxury back. I get that. I also understand that James Harden, in terms of the way his games

evolved, needs screens a lot less because of how lethal he is in isolation. Which really, that one thing made Clint Capella a guy that went from being somebody to help him space the floor to being someone that crowded the floor for you with having him there. So one of those

things made some sense in terms of what they did. But I do think, like, West Bricardin, Gordon, got like Austin Rivers, the same physical profile coming off the bench. I think if you have a big and you get yourself, you know,

one more longish wing here, you can kind of remake this if this doesn't work and make another run out of next year. I, you know, I don't think the one thing I'll tell you, and Darry has done this time and time and time again, where it looks like he traded himself into a corner. There's always the way out for Darrell.

He's always had those options. He's very creative. In this case, I think the way out, if this doesn't work, is a relatively clear path. I got 30 seconds, Giles. You always bring great material. Give me your Western and Eastern Conference champions. You know, it's funny. At the beginning of the season, I had had the Clippers and the Sixers.

I'm so down on the Sixers. 10 and 24 on the road, and I'm going to tell you something, Matt, these games in the bubble are going to feel much more like road games than their own games. And that and the Sixers lineup trouble, I'm not all that high on them. I hate, I'm still on the Clippers. I think that they're the team built best to win in the playoffs right now in the entire league. And as much as I like the Raptors and what they're going to do, I don't have a lot of confidence without Kauai and their ability to guard Donis.

I just don't think Siakum can do it over the course of a long series. So I hate to be trophy with Milwaukee, but they've kind of been the team that's put themselves in that spot. So right now I'm going Milwaukee Clippers. I have the Clippers winning the time of the game in the season. No reason to jump off that now. We'll leave it at that. Geltz, thank you so much for your insights. Congratulations on all your success with the Hoops,

critic and NBA radio and I can't wait to start dialing in on those games because it'll be fun to actually talk about real games thank you very much for the time from we really appreciate it matt always by pleasure congrats to you as well keep up the great work on the rockets broadcast you reach out any time I always happy to join you thanks girls really much appreciate that brian geltzider hoops critic joining us here on the matt thomas show bryan t smith in 15 minutes on college athletics and we're going to see if the acc and the pack 12 have said anything yet kind of quiet after what the Big Ten said yesterday.

Plus, in 45 minutes, it will be the Fantasy 5. Joe George and I, the Pack 12 have said anything yet. Kind of quiet after what the Big Ten said yesterday. Plus, in 45 minutes, it will be the Fantasy 5. Joe George and I pack five things for a four-hour plane flight. What are we eating on that flight? That's up next. 145 on Sports Talk 790 with a message here for Big City Wings.

Delicious Wings, outstanding customer service for dine-in, delivery, takeout, curbside pickup. And you've got a couple of more days. If you need one more satisfying crawfish run, you've got till Sunday to get five pounds of crawfish for $25 at any of the eight big city wing locations. Every day, they're appetizer specials on Fridays. There are specials every day of the week. There's specials every day at lunchtime from 11 o'clock until 3, which includes the main course, a sign, and a drink. It's just a great place to go. And when we got NBA games coming up

in Major League Baseball games, you're looking for a place to watch all of them one locale, it better be Big City Wings. And remember again, you've got crawfish today, tomorrow and Sunday at any of the eight locations, and then it's gone for five pounds of $25. Big on sports, big on wings, big on crawfish for a couple more days.

Big City Wings and BigCityWings.com. This is Ricky Williams. I may have worn a wedding dress on a magazine cover, but it still looks better than any outfit Matt can put together. Let your wife dress you, man. Texas fight! Texas five! Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk, 790.

All right, Joe, we had a couple weeks off for the Monday night meeting because of people moving around in schedules and whatnot. It returns Monday. And we are going to play. the 790 match game for the first time on a Monday night meeting. Are you nervous? Me? No chance. Oh, I'm just...

It's my wheelhouse. But what, are you nervous that we won't live up to your... Absolutely. Are you nervous that I'm participating? No, I wouldn't have... If I didn't think you could handle, I would not have invited you to play. I appreciate that, Matt. Thank you.

Let me explain what it is, because we need three contestants. And I want, would you do me a favor and tell the guys in the afternoon to promote this couple times? Yeah, of course. We need three contestants to play. Now, I'm going to assume that most people have some idea what match game is. Would that be, are my still presuming too much? Well, when we played ourselves, like you put me through a test around and was it last week? Yes.

Because I didn't really know. Because I'm not a game show guy. Okay. So I had watched, and I was pretty sure I understood the concept, but we went through a couple, you and I, to make sure that we were. great you didn't disappoint at all first one was really bad because i didn't understand what you said right and then the rest were good so what we're going to do is we're going to have all the 790 hosts well at least some of them are going to be the celebrities and we need three contestants to try to match what our celebrities aka host say on match game and i've thought of these questions

three o'clock in a morning when i'm not unable to sleep and there's nothing good on television I think of match game questions. That's my life in my 40s, Joe George. That's what you to look forward to to later in your life. So we're going to have three people that will compete against each other to see how many stars you can match.

And everybody that plays, the three people that we choose, are each going to get a $50 gift card to Big City Wings. So if you are able to play Monday night from, say, 7.30 to 8 o'clock, we need you to email me and say, yeah, I can play.

You'll be on our Zoom call, and we will do this, and we'll put it on our Facebook live. And, again, we're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to get a lot of stupid answers, but we're all going to get a lot of funny answers, too. And they're all, I would say, 80% of them are Houston sports related. So if you know, if you've ever watched the match game and think you could be pretty good, we need three contestants to play with us Monday night on our Zoom meeting

and I need you to send me an email, mT at sports790.com, mt at sports790.com and say yeah man I'm available Monday at 730 and if we choose you and you play with us and it's about 30 we'll play for about 30 to 45 minutes we'll give you a $50 gift card to Big City Wings. It's kind of a thank you for playing so that's the Monday night meeting Normally we talk sports and other stuff, we're going to try to play the 790 match game this Monday, starring Joe George and Adam and Adam. Connor is in, Gordy is in, and I might even bring a mystery person in in as well. So the 790 match game, we're going to try this, but we need three contestants to play.

So if you think you can join us Monday night, send me an email, mT at sports790.com. m t at sports 790.com. 153 on Sports Talk 790. Have we heard anything from the ACC or the Big 12 of the Pact 12 today? I haven't seen anything. It's kind of silent, isn't it? The last thing I've seen here, I always go to Bruce Feldman. Brian Fisher, he retweeted Brian Fisher from Athon Sports.

NCAA Football Oversight Committee is recommending a waiver to allow teams to count two wins over FCS teams towards bowl eligibility this season. Yeah, but you know we even even talking about the FCS schools? What are they supposed to do? They'll play each other and they won't make a ton of money or they might not

all play. I can see some FCS schools taking a year off. Definitely. I think the schools that would see what are going to do with your players? You're going to give them an extra year of eligibility. Because here's the thing, if you're an FCS school and your game with Virginia got canceled and Virginia was going to pay you $1.3 million, good luck funding the rest of your athletic program.

Because I guarantee you Sam Houston State isn't making any money off of playing Northeast. I mean, southeast and Louisiana. I know like a Division III football coach is going to make significant less money than an FCS coach. But it's not like those programs make money. And they still have football programs. I know they use academic scholarships or they don't always use scholarships at all even. But I mean, if your sole income is based on getting your ass kicked, your business model sucks. But it's been that way forever.

I know. Why is Abilene Christian playing A&M? Does Abilene Christian think they got a chance in hell when beating the Aggies at Kyle Field? No. They just want them paycheck. And A&M wants the easy win. Yeah. That's the reality of it.

The FCS schools play the FBS schools. They get on a plane because their kids can say, hey, remember when I play at James Madison? We played Texas that one year. How cool was that? We got to fly on an airplane to go to a game, and we got to play in front of 90,000 people at Darrow K. Royal Stadium, and we got our ass kick 72 to 7. That was fun. I can't imagine the players are going to miss it, by the way.

What's that? You think the players are going to care? These players are probably excited. Oh, yeah. I don't have to go to A&M and get beat down or go to Alabama. Oh, for sure. I'm so excited. Yeah, if I was playing college football at like William and Mary,

and I got to go play at USC to get my brain speed out for three and a half hours and playing in the Rose Bowl, in my mind, I'll just tell the whole world, well, the game was 17 to 7 until a bunch of bad calls. The reason why I'm keeping an eye on the Pac-12 is because the University of Houston supposed to play Washington State this year in Pullman. I wonder if the Pactiwell is going to play. At all? Yeah.

Well, that may not be too crazy to say. Brian T. Smith joins us to start the final hour of the show, Joe. Is your list ready and locked and loaded? I feel we're getting there. We're almost done. Very good. Final hour, Fantasy 5, Brian T, and you. 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-7-90. Is the Matt Thomas Show. All right, 201 on Sports Talk 790. It is the final hour, and we always enjoy a Friday visit with our good friend, Brian T. Smith. You can find him on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith. He's also the league columnist for the Houston Chronicle, and he joins us here on the Matt Thomas Show. BTS. First of all, good afternoon to you, friend.

I got a question for you. Yesterday at this time, the Big Ten announced that they were only going to play conference games. And Joe George and I were talking earlier today that you would have thought that would have been a breath of fresh air, a little finality to or at least a push towards a college football season. Instead, it's just the opposite. You've got ADs all across that conference and other conferences saying not only is that that's kind of a pipe dream that we may not even have a college football season, Are you a little surprised at what the Big Ten did and the reaction we got shortly after they announced they got rid of their non-conference games? Number one, Matt, and you always have me on it and always starts with a question, which is fun. Number one, I literally am sitting on my couch and my house, you know, doing the working from home thing, which I've been doing about four months now.

Sure. And I'm almost done with a column that will appear in Sunday's Chronicle about this issue. And you and I have not talked about this. So I had no idea, full disclosure, you were going to ask me about this. This is everything, I think, right now in sports. As much as you want to talk about the NBA and the bubble and Major League Baseball and all of its issues and the NFL, in a lot of ways, the most pressing, complex, unpredictable of all these sports, the major, the big four, right? I'm going to throw college football on with the big three for pro sports.

It's college football because it's kids, it's young men, it's such a billion-dollar game. It's Saturday. It's also, you know, Sunday night and Monday, Thursdays, et cetera. But nothing really drives the conversation in our country, a couple of. across the entire country, whether you're in Washington or Florida or New York or Ohio or Texas, like college football, right? And so to me, baseball is one thing, NBA is one thing. College football is it when it comes to if they can't figure out a way to make this work, that's the biggest sign that, you know, and I don't want to say this, but 2020 from a sports

perspective, it could end up being just very much a lost year, which we haven't really seen since World War II, right? I'm almost done with this column. I think what the Big Ten did yesterday, and some people are going to disagree with that, and that's fine. I think what they did is just absolutely stupid. If you're going, number one, they didn't have to do it right now. Number two, if you're going to do it, do something like,

okay, we're only going to play in state, or we're only going to play within a 200-mile radius. Bowling Green, I believe, if I look at the map correctly. Bowling Green is in the same state as Ohio State, and Ohio State was going to play Bowling Green in the season opener on September 5th. That game's already been canceled,

but Ohio State's going to play Rutgers. Michigan is going to play Maryland because they're in the same conference. Michigan has nothing in terms of geographically with Maryland. Ohio State has nothing geographically close to Rutgers. So again, we just, see this struggle. We see the struggle with the NCAA, with the Power 5, and these conferences are supposed to be working together to try to find some way to save the college football season. And you basically have conferences and athletic directors and the heads of conferences

acting out of their own on a whim. And in a lot of ways, throwing a huge, huge monkey wrench into the idea that, yes, we can save the season. It makes no sense to me at all. Because it was really odd. Big Ten, first one to come out and say something. All right, okay, kudos to you guys, because there's no leadership of the executive at the instability level. 100%.

And then you had AD's going, well, I'm not even sure we're going to do this. This is Ohio State talking, BTS. This is not like this is a little Vanderbilt. This is Ohio State saying, I'm not even sure we're going to do this. And that's why. Well, and I'll never call it. I'll never, you know, no offense to the people out there, the Buckeye people out there. I'm sure they're all nice people.

I was actually born in Ohio. It's for the most part of the good state. It had some issues. No offense to the Buckeye people. Number one, you don't, you can't, you don't get the the, you don't get the V, you know, in front of your name. You just can't do that. Number two, Ohio State's been at the forefront of saying, from their perspective, we're going to play. We're going to have fans in the stands.

no matter what it takes, maybe if I have to suit up, I think it was their AD or president or something, said that just a month ago. And then you're going to come out on the same day that you're one of the driving members to say, we're going to only be in conference in the Big Ten, we're going to wreck the entire college football season, college football playoff, rankings, all that stuff. Teams, smaller schools, I mean, millions and millions and millions of dollars are at stake. On that same day, to your point, you're going to say, well, I don't even know if we're going to be able to have a season. It's just like what the bleep is going on.

And Matt, here's the thing. The season's not that far away. You know, as much as we're talking about baseball and the NBA and the NFL, college football is not that far away. And you now have conferences fighting each other. I don't know what they're going to do. Is the SEC going to do its own thing and the Big 12 does its own thing? The smartest thing right now would be for Texas, according to the Big Ten, the smartest thing would be for Texas to play. Texas A&M because you're going to reduce the risk of corona because they're closer together.

That would actually be logical, even if they're in different conferences. The Pig Ten's idea to only go stay within its conference but still have Michigan and Maryland and Ohio State and Rutgers playing each other when they're all so far apart is absolutely nonsensical. So, okay, and I'm going to put you in a very difficult spot. But, okay, Graham Puba in Cibola College football, what are we going to do here? You want to play 10 games, Brian T. Smith? Okay?

Yeah. Do you want to play the schools closest to you? Do you want to scrap the conferences? Because when the official announcement first came out, we were kind of like, okay, so we're going to play some football. And we're going to space it out. If there's an outbreak at one of the campuses, you can at least play. And look, even though you're right, Maryland and Michigan are worlds apart, there's nothing more. or less safe than flying on an airplane that would be going to put a bunch of kids on a bus.

I mean, it's still going to potentially contract things from each other. So how do you do this when there are still so many people in America that want to see some sort of college football this season? Number one, you have to have coordination. I think this is why disruptor is a huge term right nowadays in our modern tech world. You're a disruptor. The big thing with Kyrie Irving yesterday. you have to have communication, you have to have coordination. Baseball for all of its issues, it's the players and it's Manfred and it's the owners.

The NBA for all of its issues, it's silver and the players and the owners and the teams, the same thing for the NFL. What we're seeing, Matt, in a time of chaos and sports and the U-word unprecedented over and over, I'm not sure if it's going to be able to work in the NCAA and maybe yesterday was the first, real proof that we've had because there's no communication, there's no coordination in a lot of ways it's survival of the fittest, everyone's out for themselves, and as much as we get this whole image of the Power 5 and the SEC and the Big 12 and A&A, what the Big 10 did yesterday wrecked in a lot of ways. Now, they could solve the season, but yeah, what are you going to do?

Do you have to play at least 10 games? How do you make the college football playoff work? how in the world, if I'm Ohio State, and obviously the part of, if I'm an Ohio State fan, I would be so bleeped off right now because you can't talk straight to schedule anymore. The best games you're going to play are already taken off your schedule. So the NCAA or the college football playoff committee is going to have to come out and say, you must play at least 10 games. They're going to have to be some type of qualifiers. But Matt, if I'm an SEC fan, if I'm a Big 12 fan, if Texas or A&M or LSU,

or whomever, if that's my favorite school, and we're going to play out of conference, and we're going to keep our schedule and play some of the best teams in the country on the road, why in the world would I even look at the Big Ten this season? They're not even in our stadium. They can't even get on our field because they're playing Redkers. They're playing Maryland. Don't talk to me about rankings in the top 25 if you're not going to play out of conference. Yeah, especially in Notre Dame's in a big.

big spot too because they've got no conference go to. All right. Before I let you run, let's get a little bit of... BYU to 12 times or something like that. Yeah, Houston Cougars, Houston is supposed to play BYU this year. Houston is supposed to play Washington. That's what I'm kind of waiting to see what the Pact 12 says because I feel like that part of the country is even worse shape than even other parts of the country. Hey, good news.

100%? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, we got some good news. Major League Baseball, incredibly low test results. So I would ask, BTS, at the NFL... except for the logistic delays they had over July 4th, is whatever the Major League Baseball folks are doing,

make sure that the NFL can do it as good if not better because it feels like the low report we got today from MLB is a very good sign for that sport. Yeah, and I love being positive and optimistic during time of Corona, right? 100%. And we said this a couple weeks ago about the NBA's initial report. It was actually better than expected. Major League Baseball, now we'll have to see, right?

When they actually start traveling, that'll be the test. But JJ Watt mentioned it this week in a conference call, and this is a point I've made in a lot of my columns. The NBA is going to learn from MLS. Major League Baseball is going to learn from the NBA. The NFL is going to learn from Major League Baseball and the NBA and MLS. And hopefully college football can learn from all of those if it's smart enough. It's going to – I mean, it's absurd if these leagues aren't.

on daily conference calls, you know, just one person meets with, what are you doing? What's your best practice? What isn't working? What is working? How are you handling when you have a positive? How are you secluding players? How are you dealing with food? All those things.

I don't know. I still don't know if we're going to have real sports the rest of this year, Matt. I mean, MLS is going on. It's a tournament. We already had two teams bow out. Are we going to have baseball and are they actually going to play all 60 games? are we going to actually see the NBA finals in Orlando and will we have a full NFL season

and a full college football season on some level? Nobody can answer that. I think the only way they make this work is to continue to communicate, use best practices, and kind of borrow and steal in a good way from each other. And just behave yourselves, and don't get out of that bubble, especially for an NBA player. Brian, thanks for the inside. As always, have a great weekend

and we'll talk with you again next week, friend. Thank you for the time. Thank you, Matt. Take care, man. You got it. Brian T. Smith, Houston Chronicle, a Friday contributor here to the Matt Thomas show. 2.13 is our time.

We are back in 15 minutes with the Fantasy 5. You're going on a four-hour plane ride. You're bringing five food items with you. What you bring in. Joe George and I will debate that in 15 minutes on Sports Talk 790. Yo, what's up? This you boy, Bumbee, the Trill O.G. With the whitest man in America, Matt Thomas. You are now tuned in to Sports Talk 790, man.

On your March 10, ready to go. 219 in The Matt Thomas Show. Thanks again to Brian T for joining us. Also, if you missed our visit with Brian Geltzider from Hoops Critic, that's in the 130 block. All right, Joe, my list is done. I have seven things for the four-hour flight we're going to go on between Houston and Boston for the Fantasy 5. Okay. I've got about 10, 10 or 11.

but some of them are like slight variations. So it's like if I lose my pick, I got a backup plan. All right. So we need judges. If you guys would like to judge our Fantasy 5, we're going to do this in 10 minutes here on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Joe, I'm about to go to the rarely ever heard. It's not really sexist. It's just the truth take of the day. You ready for this? Sure. Celtics assistant coach Carol Lawson completed her final interviews and is expected to finalize a deal

to become the next women's head coach for the Duke Blue Devils, according to an NBA source. The female Duke Blue Devils? Female Duke Blue Blues. Okay. Yeah, Coach Kay is not going anywhere. Now, maybe NCAA may say something with the Zion Williams and stuff, but for now, no.

Yeah. Well, Do you know why I believe this is not as sexist but real comment coming my way from me? I don't. I do not believe the NBA will ever hire a female head coach. See, I think they will. And I think in the near future, I think Greg Popovich, who tries to portray that he's very pro that is not doing Becky Hammond any favor when he misses a game and that's Tim Duncan coach. Correct. But I still think at some point it's going to happen.

I think Carol Lawson has been around the NBA circles for quite some time as a broadcaster, as a very recognizable player, as an assistant coach. If she thought she was on the cusp of getting a job, then why would she derail that run in the pros to go take a job in college? Now, it's a good job. I mean, Duke Women's Basketball is good. But why would you do that if you were her? I mean, it's just like, it's a tough job to pass up.

but you can make the argument that she knows the NBA job's never going to come, so she took this opportunity. Or you can look at it like Patrick Ewing. Patrick Ewing waited years and years and years and years. Right. He never got a job, but Georgetown finally opened up, so he finally left. It is really hard to break into the NBA coaching fraternity. Do you know that?

You've got to be a longtime assistant coach, or you've got to be a spot where you've been a head coach multiple places. You said Tom Thibito is, one of the leading candidates to become the Knicks coach, he's not going to survive there. Or Mike Woodson, who's interviewing today? Didn't Mike Woodson already? Wasn't he the Knicks coach already?

It feels like it doesn't it? I thought he replaced Mike Dan Tony. You know, NBA coaches get nine lives. They do. I mean, look at a lot of people that thought that Mike Dan Tony was done after the mess that was in Los Angeles. And, you know, a year and a half later, he's coached in Rockets and he's done a very good. job but these NBA coaches you get you get lots of chances uh yeah Mike Woodson did interview today but he was the head coach for the next from 2011 and

2014 oh so this was before Dan Tony yeah okay so there you have it you uh again I'm not saying that Carol Austin doesn't know basketball I'm not saying that Becky Hammond doesn't know basketball there are I mean Nancy Lieberman and there's been a lot of female female coaches that can no way more about the game than any of us could even dream of. But it's going to take a really, really, really progressive owner to trust that a woman is going to be able to relate to grown men 82 times a year. I think it's up to the players, too, because you don't want to be making your free agent pitch and guys are saying, well, I don't want to play for a female coach. I don't think that's going to be super popular opinion.

I think it's going to happen. It's not going to happen this offseason because there's two job openings. Yeah. That's it. We have a Woge bomb. Would you like to hear it? Oh, sure. It's not the kind of Wojabom that you're accustomed to.

Woj, minutes ago, I was disrespectful and I made a regrettable mistake. I'm sorry for the way I handle myself and I'm reaching out immediately. to Senator Holly to apologize directly. I also need to apologize to my ESPN colleagues because I know my actions were unacceptable and should not reflect on any of them. You're saying what happened? Senator Hawley wrote Woge a letter

asking about the NBA restart and their current relations between China and the NBA. What did he respond back? Did Woge? F you. and he said the word he wrote the word Joe you just got

you gotta stay out of politics in your sports man man I don't know why he replied he he went right to a senator and said F you I mean

Wodge think somebody knows the power they have just that he's I mean nothing's gonna happen no no ESPN PR tweeted out some like

some state even be like we'll handle this internally. Yeah, you know what they're going to say. They're going to say, don't do it again. The woe just, I mean, short of committing a crime, Woe is never going to leave ESPN, correct? I wouldn't think so. Unless he'd be the highest commodity once again. Yeah, I mean, unless the athletic or Sports Illustrated want to just give him a blank check, but they, those organizations don't have blank checks.

He might be able to commit a crime. Because either way, he's breaking the story. Is he breaking it for you, or is he breaking it for you? is he breaking it for somebody else? That's true. His own Woj bomb of, yes, I have petty theft. Wodge didn't mess around. Not only have, hey, I know the NBA is doing their best.

I know that the restart is a very controversial thing. No, he decided he didn't want to go to that. You just wanted to tell that senator to F off or F you. And put the word in there. That's why Joe George, we're the most apolitical radio show in the marketplace. How did he get Woz's email? I don't know. Did he tweeted at Woge?

But let me tell you, it can't be that hard to get Woj's email account, right? I'm thinking A. Woj Nahowski at ESPN.com. Yeah, you're probably. You're probably, right. It wouldn't be that big deal. He says, again, I was disrespectful and I made a regrettable mistake. I'm sorry for the way I handle myself and I'm reaching out immediately. to Senator Holly to apologize directly.

It looks like it's Adrian.wosh at ESPN.com. Does not. You're making that out. No, I'm not because Senator Holly left his email and Woe's email in the screenshot of the tweet he put out this morning. Now, a good producer would snag that email address, right? Well, you've got to pay the guy to come on the air, so. Oh, well, it was fun of a lot lasted. Ladies and gentlemen, all of you have been on a plane flight before. I'm assuming many of you have been on long plane flights before.

And you're hungry. What are you going to eat? Remember, four-hour plane ride. Remember, don't bring in stinky crap on the plane because if you do, you're going to face the wrath of your people on the plane sitting next to you and the surly flight attendants who have to clean up your mess. We need judges right now for the Fantasy 5. Food you're bringing on the plane.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We need judges right now, so call in. Brendan will put you on hold. And it'll be Joe George versus me in the Fantasy 5 next here on Sports Talk 790 with a message for Coors Light. I can tell you this when you're on a flight and you want to enjoy a cold, refreshing beverage.

on a four-hour flight it better be cores light the world's most refreshing beer made to chill if you are barbecuing this weekend if you're just sitting back after a long hard day's work do yourself a favor and get some delicious cold cores light and when you get a cores light can if you're on that flight the mountains are blue that means it's absolutely made to perfect chill so if you're going to the store tonight go get you a 12-pack and enjoy 144 clean crisp delicious delicious ounces. Now obviously probably not in one setting, but you get my drift. For friends, for family, as long as drinking responsibly, let it be Coors-like made to chill. The Rockets are raining threes. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. This is Sports Talk 790. You're home for

Houston Rockets basketball. Here we go, the Fantasy 5 at 232 on Sports Talk 790. Joe versus myself. Joe, what did I beat you on last time after you stupidly beat me in the Beatles competition? Sports TV shows. Yeah, you had a bunch of shows and I never heard of it before. No, you chose like college game day. I thought we were going TV shows.

Which my show was a TV show. I know, but I drafted like Blue Mountain State and I lost. All right. Joe, since I won, I get the option of going first or giving you the first pick and then me taking picks two and three. I'm going to go ahead and go first.

And remember the category this week is any food you would take on a plane to eat on a long flight. We're pretending that Joe and I are going to go see the Astros and Red Sox play in Boston in 2021. Four-hour flight, got eat five things. Here we go. And remember, you're not bringing this stuff home from home because you can't bring it through security. So you can't make your own peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We understand this, correct? Yes.

Okay. So I go through TSC. and I go through security and I head to the, you know, the Channel 2 news store at the airport. The absolute first thing I always get, and I'm not a huge candy eater, generally speaking, Joe, but I'm getting me a big family-sized package of peanut M&Ms. Okay. I literally have a pack of peanut M&M sitting next to me that I'm going to eat during the A team. Perfect.

So respect. Thank you. I'm an early morning flyer. So what I'm going to eat for breakfast is important on these flights most of the time. So I'm going to start over at Bush, and I'm going to stop and get a honey butter chicken biscuit sandwich from Waterburger before I board my plane. Okay. Uh-oh. I feel like this.

Really good call. Okay. But are you sure you want to take that mess on the plane with you? Yeah, I do it all the time. It's not that bad. bad. Okay. Next. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Oh, whoa, whoa.

I'm going to hit my candy now. Yeah. Sour is where I go. I'm going to go Sour Patch Kids. Okay. Sour Patch Kids. Not one of my favorites, but definitely one that has been a favorite of the previous Fantasy Fives. All right, since we have to have Maine nourishment, I'm going to go to Terminal C,

at an intercontinental airport. And hot food is a very, very difficult thing to bring on a plane. But sometimes when it's so good, it has to trump what somebody next to you may be, and not being a big fan of you eating. I'm going to get a slice of Pink's Pizza and bring it on the plane with me. Oh. What is it? Oh, me. That's a bold choice for pizza on a plane.

I've never even thought about that. Yeah, pinks will put it. They had the little triangular box. It's nice. It's compact. It's not over. There's not so much cheese is falling outside of the thing. It doesn't have too much sauce.

It's just the perfect slice of pizza for a plane ride. Okay. Okay. Next, I'm going to stay with protein. A very salty protein. I'm going back to the Channel 2 news store at the airport. I don't eat this. at home, generally speaking, but for some reason, I enjoy a good slim gym on a flight.

So I'm going to get me some beef jerky, slim jump. I don't want to ever fly next to you. Why? You're thinking like the stinkiest food possible. No, I'm not. Slim gyms don't stink. Yes, they do. What do they stink like?

Slim jims. Beef jerky. Let me tell you why slim gym works. There's no juice to it. You open up a container, you eat when you want. You can cover it back up when you're done. I do agree. It's quick.

It's, again, I'm not trying to get in your way. I just want to have some beef, you know, and I'm going to put beef jerky, the Alberto beef jerky, all that beef jerky-esque type thing in that category. Okay, that's fine. Okay. All right. Well, I need a chocolate, I think, to go with my sour candy

in case I'm in a mood change here. Yeah. So I'm going to get a bag of the mini Reese's Pieces buttercups. Reese's Pieces Buttercups? Yeah, the mini ones. Okay, here's your problem. You're going to create a mess because you're going to be getting chocolate all over your face. No, but the mini ones.

No, the little tiny ones. Not the two-pack. They come in the bite size. They sell the bags of them at the airport. Okay, but still, you're going to be on a hot airplane. They're going to melt? Strongly disagree. Ooh, good luck.

Good luck being on the plane licking your fingers with a person, a complete stranger next to you. My next pick, in case I get like hungry, hungry, I want to have. have something that is going to fill me up a little bit I'm a little nervous about this one, but I'm going to go granola bar. What? Oh. They're easy to eat.

If you get the right kind, they're good. No, they're not easy to eat. The crumbs go everywhere. No, no. I'm not a messy eater, apparently. I'm going to win this thing like 8 to nothing. You're going granola on a plane? Yeah

Look at you trying to be somewhat healthy I guess I have respect for that Trying to mix it up a little bit All right My next two Sometimes you need a little something salty You just do And if you're going to go get a bag of chips

You're going to go get the go to chips I'm going to go with lays Sour Cream and Onion Okay And lastly This is for the morning flight You know sometimes the coffee in planes

isn't the best so you're going to go get you a little Starbucks and be happy with that but sometimes you know some of those treats look pretty good I'm going to get me a banana nut bread I'm going to have him warm it up for me at the airport so that'll be a good way to get the breakfast started I'm going to have me some banana nut bread from Starbucks can be a little messy but very good

I mean you're only messy if I'm like putting my hand through it firm solid piece of bread thick delicious I need some chips as well, but I'm going to keep it plain and simple, because it's what I always go to. It doesn't matter if I'm getting on a plane or eating them at home. Lays, plain potato chips.

No flavoring? I love just plain potato chips. Lays plain. I don't know if that makes me weird, but I just like plain potato chips. Okay. I like a flavoring, if you will, a barbecue, a salt and vinegar occasionally, but plain's fine. Salt and vinegar was next on my list.

All right. So here we go, ladies. gentlemen let's run through the list i mean the only i would have to say your granola bar call is probably not very good i don't think so what wrong with that all right here it is um and again we need to we've got our judges here lined up 713 212 5779 if you want to jump in in case somebody drops off 713 212 5 790 and brend by the way is the seventh and deciding vote here it is joe's list Honey Butter Biscuit from Waterburger Good call, again, a messy component in that.

Sour Patch Kids, mini Reese's peanut butter cups. Now, are those individually wrapped? Yeah, they're individually wrapped. Oh, so now you're going to create garbage around yourself. Hey, can you just read my list instead of trash, you know what? I'll let you kind of on my list. That's fine.

No, it's okay. Granola bar and plain Lays potato chips. Yep. My list. peanut M&Ms, Pink's Pizza, beef jerky, slim jim, lays sour cream and onion, and a banana nut bread from Starbucks. It is time for you to decide and help us pick the Fantasy 5. All right, here we go.

Line number one, Tim on 790. Tim, who wins the Fantasy 5? Joe or me? Man, I'm glad we have the 50 seats in the middle. I'm going to go with Matt. All right. One vote. Thank you very much. Have a great weekend. Let us go next to line number two.

Miguel on 790. Miguel who wins the Fantasy 5. Me or Joe? I'm going to say that y'all better be sharing, but M.T., you're taking it all the way. Mine is those sour cream and onion chips. But either way, M.T. all the way. Thank you very much. Have a good weekend. Yeah, I think you're losing on the granola, my man. I got terrible news for you. The rest of my list is stronger. Leonard who wins a fantasy five me or Joe slim Jim man that stuff really does stink I have to give it to Joe

thank you Leonard all right letters vote really shouldn't count yes it does okay I guess it has to line number four Tracy on 790 Tracy who wins the fantasy 5 me or Joe Matt the hands down you can't bring a toddler candy sour patch kids on

Toddler candy hashtag toddler candy damn I guess I'm just not old enough to win the fantasy 5 on this show whatever Terry shut up Terry Joe or me on the fantasy five I'm sorry Matt

but with you and that Starbucks stuff I got to go with Joe I'm so sorry I repeat Starvation What? It's a banana nut bread what the hell All right three to two So here's the thing that scares me is it Brendan's got horrible taste and he's the seventh vote if we have to go to him.

You shouldn't insult the guy before he votes. It doesn't matter. I could be as nice I can to him. He's going to vote for you because you're younger. Martin on 790. Who wins the fantasy five? Me or Joe? I know you with Matt.

Oh, thank gosh. Thank you very much. And I am, you know what's John Cena would say? The champ is here. We almost went to you, Brendan. and you would have been the seventh and a siding boat. What would you go on? You know, your list stinks, but I think it's a lot better.

So I'd have gone on you, Matt. My list must really suck, then. Oh, I met his list was smelly. I think a lot of smelly stuff on there. See, I think so, too. I think far better snacks. What is smelly? Is the beef jerky really that's stinky?

I think it is. I think that is. I think the chips are, and I think the pizza is. Yeah. I think you would like, I don't know. I'm not sure I'm sitting by you, Matt. Maybe you just don't know this because your fancy Matt, you fly first class, and no one's ever around you to tell you. That's right.

Yeah. When you fly first class, you know, you really should make any comments about anything. It's just kind of just assumed that you should have stinky food up in the first. That's fair. I was always expecting you to go like caviar or shrimp cocktails, you know, since you're so fancy Matt. Where do you buy a shrimp cocktail at the airport? I feel like you buy lander reason and bring it on the plane, but that'd be rude to bring shrimp cocktail on the plane, right? I mean, I've seen people wearing like pasta on the plane, which is such a bold, bold, bad decision. Well, that brings my record to two and two in the fantasy five.

So I just want you to know, Matt, that if next week I lose and I fall the two and three, I will be announcing my retirement. You should have started, you should have quit when you were ahead. You were two and I know. I've lost the last two, and my confidence is shaken. Well, you get a chance next Friday. Hey, let's, uh, speaking of delicious food, big city wings. They don't have, they don't have any locations in the airport, but they should.

because imagine bringing some delicious wings on the plane. Bone in, boneless, whatever you want to do. That'd be cool. But since you're not at the airport, you might as just get in your car and go right now to any of the eight big city wing locations where you have today, tomorrow, and Sunday to get five pounds of crawfish for $25. And after that, it's gone. They have locations all around town.

They have locations in Atascata in Kingwood. There's Bear Creek. There is the Marquis Center at I-10 in Silber. There is spring, all points in between. You can find a big city wing location. When you get there, tell them Matt Thomas sent you in, and you will be taking care of very, very, very well, whether it's burgers, salads, sandwiches, wings, and crawfish again.

When you've got today, tomorrow, and Sunday to take advantage of five pounds of crawfish for just $25. Do yourself a favor. Go online to find that location near you, bigcitywings.com. I've always wanted to learn another language, so I decided to give back. a try and I really like the teaching method of the app. I started with the beginner lesson on Babble and soon you're putting words into a conversation. Each lesson takes about 10 to 15 minutes and they're all really different, which keeps things interesting. I can't wait to use my Spanish skills in real life. Do serveasas, for favor? Now try Babel free. Just go to Babel.com and start learning

a new language today. That's BABB-B-B-E-L.com. Right, half the workday is done. Celebrate. with Matt. Hey, Matt. Love here. Shut up. By the sound of it, some of you started the party at breakfast. Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. Sorry, Joe, you lost on hashtag toddler candy.

Can we get that trending on Twitter before the end of the show? Toddler candy? No, there's no chance. All right, I'm real quick before we wrap things up. I have three foods that I don't think grown-ass adults should be eating, but I do enjoy them a lot. Well, apparently, the callers think that Sour Patch kids should be on your list. By the way, I'm getting a little bit of brushback on the Pink's Pizza.

Damn it. Too bad. I mean, it's just so delicious. You get to suck it up with a single piece. All right. So here are three foods that I eat that I don't think grown-ass adult should eat. And you then you guys, both of you guys come up with a couple of your own. I love applesauce.

I, as a grown-ass man, to this day, eat lots of applesauce. Number two, cream corn. You get me a can of cream corn from the grocery store for like $0.85. I'm done for the day. I'm very satisfied. And then lastly, do you know what pecan twirls are? No. Little Debbie makes them.

They're like little miniature rolls that are twisted around like a hockey puck. Nope. You don't know what a good snack item that is? Hey, Matt. Yes, sir. Can I fill in for Ross one day instead of Joe so I can feel young again? I thought we heard ambient noise in the background. Is there anything going on back there?

Pecan twirls? You know what pecan twirls are? Are you sure your dentures are going to be okay eating this type of candy? I just said... Applesauce? What time is dinner right after the show? I do hate you. I'll be here at 3 o'clock. Okay, well, don't leave Wex.

Give me the childest, the most childish thing you eat. That's a good question. I have to think about it. Remember, on our show, we rip Clanton for eating kids candy because he's a Cheez-It fiend. Oh, Cheez-is-is is so seven-year-old. You're exactly right. Let me ask you this. Have you had a dinosaur-shaped nugget in the last three years?

Thankfully, no. Sadly, we have multiple different types of nuggets in the house because the adults like a certain kind, and there's usually tenders. and the kids have theirs for them. I let them have the kid tenders. I know what's on my list. Go ahead. Let's hear it. SpongeBob, Star Wars, something shaped macaroni and cheese. No way.

You get your mac and cheese in a shape of a cartoon? Not always, but I think it's, I don't know why. I think they taste better. Like if I'm going to make box mac and cheese, I need you to explain why SpongeBob tastes better. I don't know. I don't often do it, but I have done it within the last year. Just been like walking down the aisle, see like the SpongeBob box, grab it.

That's dinner tonight. It's typically, look, I should not be allowed to go grocery shopping alone or without a detailed grocery list. I come back with things I don't need that I don't ever eat or I don't know. I don't eat them now, but before I got married, man. So let me ask you this. If I took you to Masters to get steaks, okay? And we were going to decide on sides. Would you ask the person, does your sides look like soup, the super friends?

No, no, no, just occasionally. You eat applesauce. You have no judgment here. Well, I'm putting myself out there. Even though there are these, they're real, you know what? You tell me that you don't like applesauce with a little cinnamon on top? No, actually, I'm going to add, I'm probably going to make your applesauceauce one sound better by, like, you go to H. There's the candy aisle right next to where you're checking out.

Like there's the beef jerky there and everything. Right. And they have those applesauce, like, pouches now where you screw off the top. Oh, now, wait a minute. I don't even do that. That's the last time I had applesauce. I was in line. I was waiting to get my groceries.

I saw it. And I was like, that was kind of good. So I tried one. It wasn't bad. So you're an applesauce squirder? Just like once in a lifetime, but that's it. Look, I'm a child. I'm 28 years old, but if I could eat how I wanted to, I would eat.

eat McDonald's every day and eat just junk food 24-7. And apparently toddler candy. Let's go. What is your most embarrassing young food item that you still eat to this day? So I struggle with this a little bit, but I have two. Go ahead. One is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, still a big fan. Not a problem with that.

Okay. I think you'll have a bigger problem with the next one. Lunchables. Oh, yeah, you're right. What about, oh, I could add, you know, I eat still peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches. Yeah, that's a big problem. It's so good. No, you know why peanut butter and jelly?

I've told you this before, and there's been stories. I've never been, I've never had more P.B&Js in my life since traveling in the NBA. Every game we go to, every flight we're on, every arena we go to before the game, there's always PB&J available for us. But are they PB&Js or are they like when you're in high school and middle school and like the little circular like smuckers? No, no, no, no. This is the bread is there. There's the crunchy. There's the strawberry.

There's the grape, and there's the crunchy and the smooth, yeah. You, Brendan eats luncheables. Any kind. To this day. I don't know if I hate that or love it. Maybe I'll start. I'll buy you some applesauce to go along with it. How about that?

Thanks, and I'll get you some new dentures. Stop, I hate you. That's Brandon. That is Joe. I'm Matt. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll talk to you guys Monday at 12 noon. Clatin and the chicken nugget fiend that is Adam Wexler is up next combined they are the A team and they're on the way here on Sports Talk 7th