The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets Come Up Short vs Lakers, Astros Spring Training & March Madness

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Rockets Come Up Short vs Lakers, Astros Spring Training & March Madness

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10 o'clock at H-Town. Good morning. And welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We're live at Willie's Ice House 290, Barker, Cyprus. This is Sports Talk 790. Step back. Going to launch a three straight on the way, and it's up.

It's good, and that might seal it. Timeout to the Rockets. Look at Dutch. Now, with a three-pointer to give you. 38 of the... Oh, the Hotel, California was inside TOTUS Center last night. One of the one out who didn't even play was the Acha Mura side pocket three that rattled around for like five seconds. I haven't had a championship since 1995.

By the way, I want to make sure you know I do like this song. This is how my favorite is. It's a great song. Turn it up a little bit. It really is a good jam. Here it. People in the crowds. These 8.30 starts aren't doing so bad.

Oh, granted about 5,000 Luca LeBron jerseys. Did you just hit yourself with your water bottom? I closed the top of my... And I just got copies right into my eye. And I'm tired. You're down to an eye. And I'm sad. This is a great...

Stop winking at me. Fantastic start. But thank God. Look, we are... We are basically outside. We are inside Willie's Ice House of Tunney, but they've lifted up the gates. What are the garage gates or whatever these things are called?

Okay, you just lifted my spirits. Yes. It is, we are at Willys Grill and Ice House. It's beautiful. It's tournament day. Longhorn's going to be in action later tonight. Oh, yes, they are. Cougars on lately tonight.

They're going to smack those Mormons. Send them back on their missions? I don't think DeBonce is Mormon. Why not? I don't think he is. Do they let you in? Absolutely. You don't be Mormon to go to NYU.

Oh, you don't? I thought it was a requirement. No, only the coaches must be Mormon. Really? Yes. What about the trainers? Nope. Okay.

The only requirement at BYU is you must, if you're going to be a head coach, you're a head coach, you must be Mormon. Really? Yes, it must be of the LDS faith. I didn't know that. That's what you're just freaking on the show. You know. They run you down with papers?

They're a little intense. I mean, what if you're a, what if you're a, just convert? You could, sure. Okay. Yeah. Ironically enough, there are, you know, quite a few LDS coaches in, you know, Andy could go coach at BYU if you wanted to. Okay.

It didn't be in age You didn't he? Yeah, I think he did. Jim McMahon, I don't know if Jim's LDS or not, but he obviously played his college football there, so. Okay. What about Vince McMahon? I think Vince doesn't know where he is right now.

I think he's still in some legal issues, but that's not here nor there. Where at Willie's Ice House, 290 and Barker, Cyprus, we'll be here until 2 o'clock this afternoon. Come hang out with us. I mean, this is why we love Houston. This is why Mr. Texas branches outside of the gallery

to come to beautiful Cyprus. You're not Mr. Texas. What an absolutely gorgeous day. It is gorgeous. And what an outstanding place. TV's all over the place. If you want to come check out the multiple NCAA tournament games, have some lunch. If you are of a Cajun Flair, I'm getting gumbo today, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Okay, that's great. Can't wait. Can you just, like, for like an hour. Don't call yourself Mr. Texas. Because I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm tired. Now, the listeners call me at 7.

Once it's coffee hits, I'll be fine, but I'm tired. You're throwing coffee in your eye. I was on over a past midnight. taking calls of people upset about the Houston Rockets. Drydwin almost four minutes last night. They're not even trying apparently. That was awful. Emaudoka has checked out apparently.

The Rockets lose. And I'm happy to be out here on location, but I'm just not in a great mood for the moment. Well, that's what I'm here for. And it makes me upset when the worst possible candidate for Mr. Texas calls himself that. So just as a friend, as a friend, I'm asking you for one hour. Yes. So, no, no, no.

I will not even refer to myself as at any point during the show today. Now, if you want to call the show, we can't silence the audience. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-790. What do you mean? Nothing. Okay. Brian McTaggart, 11 o'clock today will join us.

He will be right smack in the middle of that futures game they're playing this morning, which is coming up at the top of the hour. Oh, great. If you want to hear that game, it'll be tonight at 7 o'clock here on 790. And then what else we got? Oh, we got. I just don't get it at 1130. today. Wonderful. We have the news at noon and then

we're also checking the prize vault to see what we can give away today for anybody that comes out here. So stand by for that. Don't want to give you anything away. Until we know what we have for sure. Rockets last night fall to the Lakers 124 to 116. They're in a mathematical tie for the fifth spot in the west, but the Rockets have to play two more games and the Nuggets have played so far and the Nuggets do own the tiebreaker. The Rockets also with the loss last night

lose the Laker tiebreaker as well. And what I thought would be a top three team, unless the Lakers start to play like they did, maybe say a month or two ago, the Rockets may not find themselves in the three seed. There's still the four spot to be had. But the hottest team in the NBA is coming to town tomorrow night to play in the Atlanta Hawks.

I think I've won, what, 11 straight games, I think? I've lost track. Then you've got Miami, and then you've got a four-game road trip. Now, the four-game road trip has Three of the four opponents are putrid. One is really good. But you're running out of time, running out of games, and you're running out of, I don't want to say juice,

but super positive vibes. It's a four-and-five months, four wins, five losses for the Rockets in the month of March. Losing the two games at home to the Lakers does not help. As they further supplant themselves, they've won, what, 10 of 11, they've won seven straight games. Is that me or you? I think it was you. Let's find out for us.

Let's find out. It was you. It was me. All right. Let me tell you what we're going to do today. What are we going to do today? If you come out here, anytime between now and two o'clock. Okay.

We don't even have like a prize vault or anything, but you come out here. Give us your name and your email address. Okay. And we'll say it around 150 today. Okay. I've got two pairs of Rockets, Bucks, tickets for April the 1st. Wow.

That we will give away now. We'll send them to you digitally because that's what we're doing now in 2020. And that's great by me. It actually works out very well. We don't have tickets in our hand, no. So if you come out now or you come out at 12th or you have to go back to work, whatever the case may be. Yeah.

We will give away two pairs of tickets to people that literally come out and say hello to us. Love it. You'd come in here. Now, Grant, we want you to have lunch. Yeah. I want you to sit. Now, watching us is not the most entertaining thing in the world. It's not bad.

You can kind of see the behind the scenes of how we do. a show. Yeah, get some crawled annies. Get some gumbo. Why is Ronnie Unro coming to do? Yeah, watch a McNice Cowboys, baby. What time to play? What time they play? I don't know. Come on to Willis. I would say Louisiana people hate us, but they don't.

Because I don't have people Louisiana hate anybody. Yeah, that's because they're drunk. That's true. They're happy to watch. So two pairs of tickets for any... On 2.15 p.m. McNeese and Vanderbilt. I think in my bracket, I've got Vanderbilt winning.

Okay. But, yeah. Point being is that any two pair... We'll give away two pairs. We'll do it at the very end of the show. So come on by, and you know what we'll do? No. You know how important these little notepads I get when I say in hotels?

I'm going to surrender a pad for people to write their name and email address down. Okay. This will only be with 75 pads left. We'll do a drawing at 150? At 150, yeah. And we'll give away two pairs. That's beautiful. For those April 1st tickets.

Again, if you want to see Rockets. You can get rifting enough pads. You can afford it. I don't think grifting. I think they're a gift. Yeah. Please at our hotel, take our pads. Okay.

All right. So I listened to the Rockets rap coming back from home. How'd I do? Any notes? You did fine. You always do fine. But the reality is... I think I do a pretty damn good job.

Look, the Lakers are better. Luca and Reeves and LeBron finally figured it out. That's why the NBA was scared of them. Now, I don't think they're not better than Oklahoma City. They're not better in San Antonio. But they're right now playing like the third best team in the Western Conference. They are who their record says they are. And they played incredibly well last night.

Luca pushes off more than any other being in being. I mean, it is tiresome. And then, damn. And look, you and I have had for 16 years, 16 good years of really, I think, decent debate about LeBron James. In my mind, the second greatest player. But my God, his acting skills are going from bad to worse. I lost my mind yesterday when he was.

We heard. Rithing. Riving in pain. He was in so much pain after that common foul by Jabari Smith that he had to get help from multiple teammates. Went to the sideline. I don't know if he came back in the game, except he came right back in the game to shoot the free throws. Yeah, he came right in. He is a horrific actor.

I thought his work in, what's that movie? Space Jam 2 was bad. His acting last night was worse. It was bad, and he's riding on the floor, like you said. He throws his head back like he got shot, and Jabari Smith Jr. Like he's having an aneurysm live on the floor at the TOTA center. Yeah, he grabs his elbow like he dislocated it, and he's just on the ground, kicking and screaming. And it's like, this is the thing that I almost want to pull this out for I just don't get it.

They have video reviewed, dude. This is not soccer. You can't hide this. They're going to look at it. They're going to see that Jabari Schmidt Jr. barely put his arm on you, didn't hit you on the head. Right. And then you're just acting like you got shot out of a cannon. Yeah.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Because you know what it's doing in my mind? It's staining part of his career. Not a lot of it. But there's a little bit of a stain. I think if you've decided you're not going to like LeBron, it's going to add it. But I'm not anti-Lebron.

My God. night he went 13 or 14 he's 40 whatever he is he's been the league for 23 years he's incredibly efficient last yeah what about i mean 13 that's that's not supposed to do that but yet he did 13 of 14 is the best shooting night of his career ever and you know this he's he leaves the league and fast break points and by the way oh the leakouts last night they were a problem that's it led to it's a big part of the lakers shooting 60% if you look at the boxer scoring you didn't watch the game. You're like, maybe he shot 60% of there. The Rockets played no defense. Well, kind of. They played no defense on those leakouts, turnovers that led to points. You didn't

turn over the ball as much, but you gave up more points off of them. You only turned the ball over 12. You cut your turnovers in half, just 12 turnover. They scored almost every one of them. They scored 23 points off of those 12. That's the problem. And then you couldn't stop Luke late. Credit to the Rockets for coming back in the third quarter. Great third quarter. I mean, everybody was getting, you know, giving up on them. I'm receiving text, they have no balls and all this stuff. They showed some fight in the third quarter. They just weren't good enough.

And that's what hurts. And Luca Donch. They had Luca Donchich and you didn't. That's what happened at the end of the game there. You're trying to trap him. I love Alper and Shingoon, but when he's on the floor, they're running pick and rolls at him the entire game, and the rockets are trying to trap. On a positive Alpe, he did play very well offensively.

You can't go under Luca. He's going to shoot the threes. You got to, if he's going to show and go, which Shingun was doing some two. I mean, there's just no solution for a Luca Donjic pick and roll. And the behind-the-back dribble alli-uped up to Rui Hachamura. I mean, there's just nothing you can do. And then he found LeBron James on the al-A-loop, and then he knocks down a killer step-back three.

It's funny to say, I think they played pretty good defense on a guy who almost had a 40-point triple-double, but they actually, for the most part, played pretty good defense. It took him 25 shots to get there. That was, and he was only 7 to 17, and he didn't do himself any favors in the free throw line. 713, 212, 7190. 7-190. 7-190. 7-1-3-2-1-2-2-1-2-7-90. We're at 2-9 and Barker Cyprus.

You come by today. Take one of my hotel notepads. Put your name and your email address on there. We'll draw two at 150, and we've got two pairs of tickets to get away for the Rockets and the Milwaukee Bucks. Brian McTaggart at 11 o'clock. I just don't get 1130. You guys may join us all throughout the show. We will get to the tournament tonight.

We've got a couple of teams locally that we care about. We've got a major injury in the NBA to discuss very quickly. Astros talk certainly on the agenda. And Ross and I are going to craft our master's dinner tonight. Oh. Because it came out yesterday. All right, wonderful. We'll tell you what Roy McElroy is going to eat.

Oh, Rory Macaroy. Oh, is it corned beef hash? All right, I'm sorry. Write that down for Friday, 1130. Sorry. 713, 212. St. Patrick said a couple days ago. Give me a break.

713, 212. 5, 790. 1021, Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with you. I know it's not lunchtime yet, but if you want to come over and have some lunch with us, we're at 290 at Barker, Cyprus, 4 Willie's Ice House. And grill, two pairs of rockets tickets for the April first game against the Milwaukee Bucks are up for grabs, but you must come out here to have to say the whole time.

We'll get your email address, and we'll hopefully take care of you from there. You have a picture of us. We look good, don't we? I got my Cougar paws up. You have your hook-em-horns up. your beloved longhorns play later tonight against the BYU Cougars. Yes. I think you're losing.

Well, they're dogs. They might. Cougars tonight are, what's the latest line on our beloved Houston Cougars against the Idaho vandals? 23 and a half, I saw. All right. Which, why are the teams from Houston and Idaho playing at 9-10? Why is it the very last tip off of the evening? I think you put your most attractive game on the game.

No, no, no. I was going to say. Well, that's Oklahoma City. What's an O.K.C. before that game? I have no idea. By the cities, I just know by my bracket. All right. By the way, the two early games, if you're going to come and have lunch with us today.

TCU, Ohio State is 1115, and Troy versus Nebraska at 1140. I'm taking Ohio State and Nebraska. Give me the favorites, locks at a week. And then they have the game staggered all throughout the day. Okay. It is really a fun day just to kind of sit and veg in front of a television. Yeah. Drink. Of course. Yeah.

These are the best two days of the year. Sports-wise. About teams we don't care about. No. And players we don't know. Can't name a single player. Cannot name a single player. No.

But we just want, well, all of a sudden, when Western Illinois is within four, we're like, oh, my God. Upset City, baby. Well, the Jake Myers fan club is supporting Nebraska for him. How is that Jake Myers' fan club? It's been quite a quiet for Jake this year. What do you mean? We're doing great. We're getting exposure. He was on Chandler Rums' Crush.

City podcast. It's great. Slug is up. I guess. He's a little he's a little more ripped than he was a year ago. He's got dad strength. He's got two kids now. I didn't think about that way. He's ready to go. That strength is important. So you get to your 40s and it becomes dad flab. Well, that happens. You can get out of your prime, but he's in his prime.

Yeah, he is. And he's still on the team. He's still here. He's been in trade rumors for like two straight years. Yeah. He was in trade rumors when he wasn't even an astro. He's been talking about at trade rumors. 713-212-5-790 Rockets again Fall in the Lakers last night and find themselves right now in the five-spot

percentage points ahead of Denver for the six Glad we don't have gut feelings today It's not good I mean they've lost three of the last four They've just been in this pattern of 500 to below for a couple of weeks Post-all-star break the defense hasn't been as good The offense hasn't been as good

and we keep unfortunately having to go back to the well if you don't have Fred Van Vleet, you don't have Stephen Adams and the Tar-Eason we had the first month is nowhere to be found I mean Tarry Easton has been a worst month of a player I've ever seen in my life than Tar Eson he's had one three-pointer in the month What is today? Today is the 19th he's got one three-pointer in all the games

He's O for his last 21 from three And you know I'm getting people talking to me and tweeting me like Hey tell Tarry to stop shooting. Tell Tartre to stop shooting. That's not how basketball works. You can't put a player out there and say, don't worry about putting the ball up. Don't ever shoot the ball. That's just, if he's out there, he's got to

shoot, he's got to work out of this. Because if somehow, some way, the rockets are going to turn this season around and make some noise in the playoffs, Tari's got to be a part of it. He just has to be. So, I understand that. The same thing when Doreen Phine Smith was struggling, and people are saying that, just don't put him out there. Just, Dore and Phiney

Smith, that the rocket's going to be out of their best. He's got to play better. Tari's got to play better. they have an amount of talent on this roster to where they can play better than they are. You just got guys in a funk, and then you're missing some of your key parts. And especially the thing we're talking about, like the double teams with Kevin Durant, oh, they can't handle the double team. Yeah, they needed Fred Van Vleet in those instances. And then last night, Alper and Shingoon was back,

and they did a lot better against the double team than they did on Monday. And Durant saw a handful of double teams. I think he only was – what was his turnover count last night? Let's see. He had, still not great. That's not great, but that's better than seven. But remember, but Katie, that's, if there's anything that's been attached to his career, elite shooter, 50, 40, 90 guy on the cusp every single year,

but he does run a ball over. He's always been a turnover prone guy because, again, at his height, he's going to be asked to do a lot of things that are going to put the ball in his hand more than anybody else on the floor, and you're going to naturally have more turnovers because of that case because he's not a true prototypical point guard. Yeah, four from Durant, three from Reed, two apiece from Shungun and Tari, and that was it. Just 12.

You can live with 12, you really can. Problem is you just saw the Lakers score almost baskets every single time the rockets turned it over. They had a bunch of leakouts, and then at the end, when the rockets rallied, it was the Lucca Donchid show at Toyota Center. And it was incredible. He's an incredible player. I'll go home on you. Why does he get away with so many push-offs? He gets away more push-offs than Michael Jordan did in his heyday.

I wouldn't say that. Come on now Oh come on He's been in the league Seven or eight years now He's been to leave With push off Shegilder's allegation

Maybe they all do Sheailder's Alexander Gets away with push off Yeah James Harden was pushing off Every time he was out there No it ever saw him push off Jeffisky was pushing off

And elbowing people in the chest Alpern Shingoon always hooks people in the post Never see that And pushes off on people It's basketball They want to Kevin Durant is always pushing off people And then getting to his spots

in the elbow it's basketball How about Katie getting a flagrant one last night, huh? That was absurd, by the way. I mean, it was a little shove. But that, no, that was bad.

Calling that a flagrant one, I'm not normally get off my lawn. This is soft basketball. This would have never played when John Havillac check was on the floor. Why do you go to Boston accent? I don't know. That's weird.

I don't know. But the point is, I'm not that guy. But that was a soft flagrant foul, and a lot of these flagrant reviews are just ridiculous. Like, the flagrant, like, they're reviewing the flagrant for on LeBron James, and Jabari Smith Jr. barely touched him. At least they kept that a common foul. But you know what the funny thing is? In the back of my mind, I'm like, uh-oh, they might be upgrading this.

Even though you see nothing happened, you never know, because that's what happened in the NBA now. I don't have the fraction of this, but it feels like to me that about every 10 times you go to the monitor, seven or eight of those one up being upgraded. Again, the Rockets got frankly lucky because maybe it's because LeBron's reputation is, well, he tends to embellish on his fouls. I thought the way that he turned his head back into Jabari's hand, and I thought they might call that a flagrant.

That's how bad it is. So how about that Texans' offensive line additions? Look, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. Okay. I love football. I can't get into a deep dive in football in April and May. I wanted Houston. I wanted y'all to come to our show and talk lots

of rockets and get a good playoff push and get going here. You're going to come to us for the Astros and we are beyond excited about this. But if I'm losing my rockets and they're not going to be in a deep playoff run, you're all going to be calling about whether or not Cade Stover is going to be a huge backup

tied in for the techs. That crap is boring to me. It just is. And I don't want to be boring. I want to have fun stuff. I want to have relevant Houston things to get to. And my rocket are, there's just a, I mean, are four and five in March. Tara Easton, who was fantastic for the first two months of the year, especially from three,

and then, you know, was able to fight through leg injuries and playing on back-to-backs and playing multiple games and had to step up. This drought he is in is rough. Kevin Durant in four quarters, the last two against the Lakers, and then their first two last night in the second-laker game had four points. Just because they're double-teaming them. I mean, they're taking the ball of his hands. He's not going to score.

He's not going to shoot over double-team's 30 feet out of the basketball. But I'm saying, thank God the third quarter, he woke up. That third quarter, that's the thing that got me last night when you had calls was, oh, the ruggins of a hell of a lot of passion. They've got a hell of a passion. And I'll score the Lakers by 15 in the third. That's a lot of passion. Yeah, that's another thing.

We have to have some perspective. I know it's been a bad run of things, but I mean, unless we forget, Matt, It wasn't that long ago. You were calling 60 losses a year. Oh, my God. I was there for all that. This is bad basketball. Rockets are trash.

This is the worst. I don't want to watch this. This isn't fun anymore. Like, shut Joe, bum ass up, okay? Watch what happened in the Rockets of the last 20 years, where we had to watch Kevin Porter Jr. And we were watching the Christian Wood Show and his Ole defense. And the Stephen Silas Rockets, that was bad basketball.

Okay? Come on. never have any perspective everything's the worst of all time and the best of all time and that isn't that's not to do with social media that's just life that's just life i understand 713-212-5-790 i give a shout out to

uh tyrese halliburton of the indiana pacer's not playing this year oh okay and i like him what a huge difference he has would have made for the pacer's this year but tyreys halliburton yes But I put a tweet out and I actually retweeted what he said because I don't follow him. He doesn't follow me.

But he may want to follow me up. You look that up while I tell the people where we are. Yeah, please do. Willys Grill and Ice House. We're at the Barker Cyprus 290 location. Again, Barker Cyprus 290. We are hanging out for all the tournament action here. You got a lot of great stuff going on.

They have all the, look, if it's, now it's not Friday, but you can come tomorrow for Lent too. You got fried crawfish, fried shrimp. They have crawfish everywhere. Happy Hour. Are you going to stay for Happy Hour off the show, Matt? No. Oh, well, thanks. $3.00. You know, can I congratulate my mom?

Sure. She is in remission. She had all of her cancer treatment, so we're having a little celebratory early dinner after the show today. Awesome. Yeah. And my mom, triple amounts of cancer. I mean, it just, when it got her, it got her good. And she has been going through radiation and chemotherapy.

And she has been an absolute warrior. She's born in 48th. That puts her at 70s. How old with 48? 76? 78. And she's doing great. I'm so proud of her, so I'm going to go have dinner with her tonight.

That's awesome. And so we're a little celebrating. Congratulations to Mama Thomas. Yeah, for sure. I got some issues with her, but I'm glad I'm happy she's doing great. Well, you're probably not really pleased the way she raised me. That's fun. I mean, that's a different discussion for a different time.

Right now it's all celebration. That's right. But celebrate at Willie's, watch some basketball games. You could. Happy hours come on up at 2 o'clock after the show, $3 margaritas, $5 appetizer, There's $3 wines. Hold up. $5.

Frozen Jack and Coke. That sounds dangerous and fun. I'm going to be brutally honest with you. I've had a Frozen Jack and Coke in here. You want someone else to drive you home. Yeah, go ahead and plan for a safe ride home. Correct. Go ahead and always plan.

Real fast we go to Sterling. Tyrese Halliburton tweeted out yesterday. God love him. He's maybe my favorite Eastern Conference player now. With a torn Achilles. 107 p.m. yesterday. Make one bracket and stand on it. There you go.

That's one of the. the greats of the NBA saying it. Thank you, Tyrese, for spreading the gospel. I made four brackets last night. You do listen to him. Normally I do, I feel like there's an overwhelming favorite, and I do two winner, that overwhelming favorite, winning twice. Like previously I had U of H winning in two of my four brackets.

I did four different winners. Do you have your cougars in any of the four? Okay, don't even answer that question. You saw my face. I saw your face. I'm such a bad liar. If we were on TV, you'd have to saw the face too. I'm sorry.

I like the cougars. Look, I have them making the four. final four in a few of them. Okay, I guess I'll accept that. I mean, the Florida Gate is a good. Illinois sneaky. That 2-3 matchup could be tough. Yeah.

Yeah. And Arizona's really good, too. I'm really scared of Arizona. And Ken Palm's blog, which I always read every year before the tournament, he made a case for a wild card Purdue, so I put one in Purdue winning one. Because of the home court advantage in theory? Because they had a lot of three-point luck that went against them.

They could turn in the tournament. All right. Let's go to Sterling at 1040 on 790. Sterling, good morning to you. What's up, man? How's y'all? We're excellent. Thank you for calling us.

Okay, listen, I'm just really frustrated with the Rockets because it's not that they lose it. It's that they lose the same way every time they lose. It's like, I thought you don't know what's supposed to be this great coach. He keeps doing the same stupid thing. Over and over again. What's that? What's that? What's that?

Is it me? Am I just only one seeing that? He gets the ball taken from him five times last night. On the first, a Monday night, somebody missed six times, seven times. Am I the only one that's seeing this? Is he ignoring the coach? I can see how two Phoenix coaches got fired if they were going with Kevin Durant. He was just doing what he wanted to do.

I mean, he's a great player. Don't give me wrong. But he's got holes in his game and standing out front dribbling the ball like James Hardin. That's a problem. It's a turn over. Is it me? Well, I'll say this.

The number, again, I've always said this about Kevin, even before he was a rocket. He's always going to have a higher number of turnovers. He just is because the ball's in his hand as much as he is, and it's very rare than a 6-10 guy dribbles as much as he does. That's how he gets himself in the offense. Secondly, it was a lot better last night. The double teams came and the Rockets...

Go ahead. I'll cut you up. No, no. I mean, I... Look, thank you, certainly for the phone call. I'm glad you called. I understand. I just don't get it. I get it. I get the frustration.

He's just been the go-to guy. And normally, not that I have a percentage in front of me, but usually when the ball is in Kevin Durant's hands for a lengthy period of time, especially this year, Good things are happening. When you've had out, you miss a couple of games here and there. He's had to carry the heavy lifting. When a man has not been able to hit the outside shot, you get to go to Kevin Duran

hit the outside shot. Jabari's had his ups and downs, reads at his ups and downs. Tari has had his ups and then now is in a way downs. I still trust him. I just do. And with that trust does not come perfection. There are going to be mistakes. Yeah.

And he turned the ball over four times. yesterday. For his career, his illustrious 18-year career, he averages 3.1 turnovers per game. This is who he is. This year for the Rockets, he's averaging 3.2. Not a lot higher. Literally point one higher

without a point guard. In Golden State, per 36 minutes, he's 3.2 this year for the Rockets. He was 3.2 and 3.0 his last two years there. This is just who he is. He turns the ball over some. As you mentioned, he's 610, 6-11, whatever, and you're just not going to have a tight handle, and then there are some bad passes that are going to be made,

and that's just kind of who he is. It would look a lot better if you had a real point guard and didn't have to give him the ball as much. But Kevin Durant turns a ball over. He's done it his entire career, and he's doing it right now as a Houston rocket. And he made a doke isn't having him bring the ball up every single time. And they didn't necessarily make adjustments. They were just, they fine-tuned and they were sharper against double teams. And oh, by the way, it helps having Alperin-Shingon being the guy coming to help when you have a double team,

rather than Dorian Finney Smith. All right, I'm going to put you on tape duty because I know what you like to do. Let's go. Last 30 possessions. I saw Jabari Smith come up in court. I saw Men Thompson do it.

I saw Alperin Shingoon do it. I saw Jabari Smith do it. I saw Kevin Durant do it. So they were doing that a lot. This is what they were doing. They were putting Duran at the left elbow and then they were putting Alperin Shingoon at the right elbow. Then they'd have the ball handler come up in the middle.

Whether it be, you mentioned, Amin Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., whoever it is. Then they would pass it to Kevin Durant. Shingoon would come on a screen. They were baiting the double teams. So they baited the double teams, and then once they did that, Kevin Durant was ready for it, and then he would find Alper in Shingun, who would get rolling downhill.

They broke that double team a number of times with that exact set, knowing that double teams were going. So there were adjustments and there were improvements in that game last night. Unfortunately, it came a little too little too late in terms of the run they were able to make, and then Luca Dantzic went nuclear in the last three minutes. He went nuclear and to do that. The JJ Redick's credit, I think he had a handful of players on the Rockets roster in his mind that he told his guys, anytime this person shoots, somebody leak out.

Let's catch them in transition. And that happened way too much. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. I'm just watching the games, and it's a different perspective than TV where you can go back and rewind and see what the heck with the deal was. But you're absolutely right. They had 21 fast break points. It felt like even more than that.

They were leaking out. And again, we brought up earlier. The 12 turnovers led to 23 points for the Los Angeles Lakers in that game. If it was one out of 82, we could just say, you know what, hey, Lakers had your number. Luca went crazy. It was a big game. It was a big game.

Huge game. It was a tiebreaker type game. There was a lot of things on the line. It hurts. It hurts. It does. Especially after Monday, you wanted to bounce back with the victory after Monday was an absolute disaster in the fourth quarter.

But it was, they were two different games. They just were. 1046, Matt and Ross from Willie's Icehouse, 290, Barker, Cyprus. We're with you today until 2 p.m. 713, 212, 5, 790, 7-19. Come back with us, hang out with us, and come win some rocket tickets with us here on 790. Matt and Ross with you, we're at Willie's Ice House, and we're at 290 and Barker Severs. If you're a Northwesterner. Yes, sir.

It's not northwestern walk. We're a northwest Houston guy. Oh, okay. We're not too far from Toro Town, actually. Or Evanston. Yeah. Okay, we're a little far. from evison oh where's torro district

toronto town's got to be maybe 15 minutes from here whenever it comes in play that won't be going I told you I'm going to buy you some fried cheese there you told me I'm not invited so I'm saying they can live without you but yeah that's fine as my guest no I'm good

you and I will have a meal in toro town that's too fancy me you Cal and Hannah will be happy I can't hang them the McNair's they're a little too high class for me all right well you're talking about stuff I never heard of vacationing in places I never even knew existed. That's right. They're probably in Bora Bora right now as we speak.

I'm just trying to save up for my trip to Freeport. I was going to say something about Freeport, but I told you I wasn't going to... But it's nice. I wasn't going to do anything. All right, so... Yeah, they got a new meth lab, I heard. What? It's nice. That's why they don't call you, Mr. You know what.

They got some new plastic chairs. All right, all right. So the tournament starts at 1115. Yes, sir. 1150. Yes. Stagger games all throughout the course today. Ohio State and TCU, first game on CBS coming our way, Matt.

By the way, Miami of Ohio was an underdog yesterday. Yes. And won over SMU. Yes. So the Red Hawks are in. They're in, in. I did not see the game because obviously I was working rockets. Apparently, the Miami Red Hawks.

What? Yeah, they're bombing threes. Go ahead. The swim team was at the game yesterday. Yes, and Speedos. I see nothing wrong with this. I know you do. Don't.

So, whatever it takes, right? That's cool. Yeah, how far is Miami from Dayton? It's got to be an hour maybe? Okay. You know, Ohio's that, not that big. You're the small town Ohio expert. That's why I asked you.

I've never done a game in Miami of Ohio my entire life. I don't even know where it is. All right. I couldn't even see what city is it in. I don't think it's Miami. I don't think it's... It's not Miami? I don't think it is.

I assumed it was. Hold on. Now I feel stupid. No, I feel stupid. Hold on. Miami. It's in... Oh, it's in Oxford.

Why is it called Miami? I don't know. See, I'm the stupid one. Apparently, it's a public university known for its quote, public-a-vi for providing a high-quality education and our public school costs. I've been around since 1809. I assumed it was like in Miami-Oh-I. Because you always call it Miami, Ohio.

You know what? It's their fault, not ours. Yeah, it's a Miami. Miami is a tribe or something, right? I don't know. You're asking me, I just gave you the city that was that's all I could provide. Yes, the Miami tribe, or downstream people. Algonquin speaking nation originally from the Wabash River in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois.

So there you go. Is that tomorrow's believe it or not right there? Locked and loaded all they win. They don't play until tomorrow, so that's a good or good spot. Yeah, we'll figure it out. So your longhorns are in Portland. Yes. That's a long way to go from Dayton, Ohio, to Portland to play a game two days later.

They'll be fine. Our Cougars are taking on Idaho Vandals. Yes. I couldn't name one Vandal to save your life. That's fine. Matter of fact, we're not even talking to Joseph D'ortay today. We're going to talk to him tomorrow because I've already assumed the victory tonight. Yeah, you should.

Kelvin Sampson's boys are going to take care of business. And guess what? I'm taking a Cougars minus a 23 and a half. That's my Lactober pick. Let's go. We don't actually have Lactobos. I'm giving you guys free picks. Now, let's see how they go.

All right, so let's do this really quick. Let's pick an upset today. Really fast we get the Bryant Bryant-Briam McTiger. All right. Forgetting about seating. We'll go off, strictly out the Vegas line on this. Oh, Vegas upset. I'll go VCU over UNC.

Now, you're not talking about a straight-up winner. Let's go with a straight-up winner. No, they're dogs and they're under-seated. VCU. Two-and-a-half-point dogs in the 11-6. I'm going to go with A&M to beat St. Mary's, 10 beat over a 7. Okay. That's a solid one.

Also a two and a half point spread. It's a coin flipper as I call. Let me give you one more because I feel like I'm in the gift-giving mood here. Okay, great. Upset alert from Matt Thomas. All right, I'll give you one more. I'm going to write these down. Write these down.

And I'll bring them up if you get them wrong. If I get them right, you'll never mention them right. Of course. That's how this show works. Okay. So I've already got, I've got for you VCU beating. No, what do I say? I said VCU. A&M over St. Mary's.

Yeah. This one I don't feel great about. Oh, you're going Howard over Michigan. That's a bold pick, Matt. I'm not doing that one. I'm going to go. Those Howard Boys can ball. South Florida beats Louisville.

There I said it. I don't feel great. Say again? South Florida over Louisville. Oh, that's not crazy. Isn't Louisville, don't they have an injury or something? I think they got somebody hurt, and that's four and a half. I believe his name is Joe.

Yeah, four and a half. Okay. South Florida on a record. The boarded line. That's at 1230. Yeah. I'm getting excited. I like this, too, because Longhorns at 6 is great.

Cougars at 9-10. They better have the thing done because I want to go to bed by 1030. You don't want your team playing at 11-15. You don't want your team, no disrespect to the Cougars. You don't want your team playing at 9-10. I'm not thrilled about it. I mean, 6 o'clock, 625. That's a wheelhouse spot right there.

Exactly. You get a good six hours of action to wet your appetite, then your team plays at 6. You're ready to rock. And then you can fall asleep at 9 o'clock. Absolutely. And hopefully you don't sleep in your. own vomit.

You fall asleep watching the quad box with the Idaho Vandals and the University of Houston Cougars. That's the only right to make those blowouts interesting. If you're not betting the point spread or you're not a fan of the team, is there any chance you're really invested in when the Cougars get up 30? Well, the only reason why you're watching any of those games is if something was in two points with teams you've never heard of before. Brian McTaggart. Oh, Brian McTaggart. A fine Cougar fan himself. Yes, he is.

No Cooke's. Joints us next from Florida. This is Sports Talk 790. Can't wait. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Oh, you're going to love Thursdays at 11 o'clock in the Matt Thomas show with Ross for the next 26 weeks. You loved it last week of Brian McTaggart made his season debut with us, and now he's with us every Thursday again right now. Joining us from the West Palm Beach metropolitan area.

Brian McTaggart, first of all, first good morning to you. Secondly, how bad it was a little bit? those field conditions yesterday in Jupiter? Yeah, I don't think they were super terrible. I mean, it was just sort of, it's rain here for a couple of days, pretty much nonstop. And so there was a drizzle during the game. So I just don't think they wanted to take any chances. I mean, look at the lineup they had out there.

I mean, they had pretty much their opening day lineup out there except for Jeremy Pena. So they just wanted to take zero chances. And when I saw Paredes come off the field in the middle of the third, I was like, okay i think i see what's going on here and then alvarez left and then altuve and yeah they they just he wanted those guys i think to get four five at three four bats they ended up getting just just two but they just didn't want to take any chances so ironically enough all the twitter nervousnesses meant was nothing correct him everybody's doing okay no injuries report of as of this morning yeah no injuries uh yeah everybody i mean the the assholes play a night

game so none of the none of the players are here yet they do have the The spring breakout prospect game's about to start, but, yeah, the Major League Club hasn't even reported yet. All right, before we get to the big picture on the current 26, tell me about Walter Yannick, and tell me where he is, where he's going to be, and is he slow to move up the Astros organizational chart? Well, he probably opened more eyes here in this camp than anybody else, especially when it came to prospects. I mean, he really came in here and did a really good job. I think everybody knew what he could do defensively, the elite pop time, the arm strength. He showed all that, throwing behind runners at first base, showing off the arm.

I mean, it's all there. I think he's got major league ready defensive skills. Handled the pitchers pretty well. So they were really, really pleased with what he did. And then he swung the bat, too. Hit a home run, made more contact, just looked very comfortable up here against the pitching. So, you know, he's a guy that. that has spent pretty much the last two years,

ever since he got drafted at high A. And so, yeah, he's going to start the season. I would say at AAA Corporates Christi. He's from Corpus Christi, his hometown, so some home cooking. But I could see him in AAA by the end of the year. And, you know, who knows? I mean, we all know the Astros have a little bit of a drop-off and catching depth after Yiner.

But we could, I wouldn't rule out seeing him in the big leagues by the end of the year, but I think certainly next year he's in the big leagues. All right. staying with a catcher's spot, is Vasquez, the leader in the clubhouse in your mind to be the number two catcher behind Yonnier? I wouldn't necessarily say that, Matt. I mean, I think the fact that Salazar's been here all camp, and he's so widely respected in the clubhouse, you know, he's worked with these pitchers all spring. You know, he does swing a left-handed bat, although, you know, he hasn't swung much of a bat.

I'm not ready to say this is Baskas' job to lose, so, you know, Christian's first game. I think it over in Brayton the other day. He did pretty well. So I think right now it's a coin toss. It's 50-50, depending on what they're looking for. But I'm not ready to rule out Salazar making the opening day roster. Yeah, but either way, Brian, it just doesn't seem like a great option. I mean, Yiner Diaz came into camp with that foot sprain.

Your one aggravation or any kind of injury away from having to put Salazar or even a Vasquez, who hasn't put up good numbers in a couple of years out there every single day. I mean, how much of a lot, should alarm bells be going off? I mean, it feels like it's not necessarily something we're talking about every day, but you could be in a bad situation here with just one injury. Yeah, you could. I mean, they do have some depth with the position. You know, they got Carlos Perez, who's been in the big leagues, but I get it.

I mean, it's not, the drop off after Diaz is there's nobody you'd feel comfortable with getting the everyday starts. But, you know, I'll keep an eye over the next week. Some guys are going to be getting cut from camps. Right at the end of the camp, you know, maybe if there's a catcher that they like, who they feel maybe is a better option for their backup catcher, they can go and try to nab somebody off waivers or make a trade or whatever. But, yeah, it is a concern, but you're right. They have to hope YonRD stays healthy at a position that's very demanding and you're one foul tip away from going on the EIL. So I think it's something they're going to be keeping an eye on other team's rosters here for the next few days.

Brian McTaggart with us here on a sports talk 790 covering the Astros. for MLB.com. Tell me what you're seeing, hearing everything about Bryce Matthews in terms of his work in the field, at the plate, and what type of role he could possibly carve out. I know you had him making the roster in your projection. Yeah, I had him making the roster if Pena starts the season on the IL, which I think right now, again, is probably a 50-50 proposition. He's supposed to grab a bat and start swinging this weekend, which leads me to believe that

he might be ready for the start of the season, but, you know, Bryce has had a pretty good spring. You know, he's got a Homer driven in some runs. He's stolen some bases and drawn some watch, which they really like. If he makes this club, it'll be, obviously, is kind of the last guy off the bench. He can play some second if they have to, you know, maybe put Altuve in D.H.

He can certainly play center field as well. So I don't think he would get a ton of the bats. You know, he's probably a better serve to go, to AAA and then and then be ready for a call-up. They don't seem really motivated to play him at shortstop going forward, the position he was drafted at. But he's looked pretty good in the outfield. He's, I mean, he's very athletic.

We know he was a stark quarterback at Atascata, so he can certainly, he certainly has the athleticism to handle center field. Ryan McTaggart with us from West Palm Beach, our MLB Astros Insider with us every Thursday at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. Is Tedder Tremel fighting for a spot, or am I just looking at March number? and going, man, a nice camp, but we know who he is, ultimately.

I think he's got a really good shot to make the team. He's not on the 40-man, so they have to create a spot for him. But if you look at the guys that are battling for those four outfield spots, I mean, Jake Myers, of course, has made the team. I think Cam Smith has made the team at this point. He's had a pretty good spring, 871 OPS. Joey Loparfitos had a great spring. So I think he's a lot.

So I think it'll come down to Tremel, Zach Cole. They both hit left-handed. Both have a little bit of pop. Can both play all three outfield positions, but Cole just has not swung the bat very well this spring. He's six for 32 with 16 strikeouts, which I think is a big concern. So he hasn't even played at AAA yet very much. So I think Cole right now begins the season in AAA. And I think Tremel makes this team because he has had a solid camp. You do know what you're getting, but you also know what you're getting. And you know, you can put him in any of those outfield spots. He's going to give you some good defense,

and he will give you a good at bat off the bench from the left side. When you said 16 strikeouts, my jaw drop. Brian, that's a terrible. That's a terrible number. It's 50%. I mean, and that was the thing on him coming up, is he's very aggressive at the plate. You know, he swings hard, and when he makes contact,

he hits the ball hard. And he has hit the ball hard this spring, but he's hit the ball hard on the ground, but there's just too much swing and miss yet. So I know it's something that they're working on with him, but that's just a lot of swinging miss. So, yeah, I think he'll be in AAA, and they'll try to get that ironed out before we see him back up here.

Staying with the outfield, Yordon's been pulled twice because of weather to play the outfield. How anxious when you walk around the clubhouse is he's like, man, I got this glove, I want to use it. Is he getting enough working left field for his satisfaction? My guess is probably the answer is no to that. Yeah, I mean, he's done a lot of work on the backfields too. So Jordan likes to play outfield.

I mean, he would like to be out there a couple of times a week. And when they sign him to that big contract, they didn't sign him as a D-A. They signed him as an outfielder. And, you know, he really likes to do it. Is he a great outfielder? No. Is he a butcher? No.

But I think the Astros know that they would like to get a little more athletic out there, which is, you know, kind of their goal with the way their outfield is configured right. now. So we can still see him out here next few games. We only have, what, four games left here, a couple of, couple of Diken Park. So he is going to play outfield this year, not a ton. But yeah, we will see him out there. And he wants to do it. And I think Joe's going to keep him out there enough to keep him fresh in left field. You mentioned, or we were talking about Jake Myers and we were talking about the outfield earlier. It's funny to me, it was all offseason. It just seemed like an eventuality that he was going to be traded away. And then, of course, on the ESOC Paredes thing, I mean, is that, are we just assuming that neither or either of those trades are just not going to be made? Yeah, I mean, I thought all offseason that Myers would get traded, and I wrote that several times. I mean, I wasn't guessing. You know, these are things I was being told.

I mean, they obviously were shipping him around. It didn't happen. You know, obviously they've tried to trade Paredes this spring as well. You know, the chances I keep getting told are slim is just, there's just a fine margin with what the Astros want. in return. So yeah, I mean, it looks like unless something happens. We're a week from opening day, but this next week, like I said, is going to be, rosters are going to be changing here left and right.

Some guys are going to get cut from teams. Some teams are going to get desperate. You know, maybe somebody needs a center fielder and wants to make a deal with the Astros or maybe the Red Sox say, hey, we would like Paredes after all, so maybe they can make a deal. So I would say more likely than not just because where we're at in the calendar that both Myers, and Paredes are on the opening day roster, but some things could happen here in the next few days with other teams

that could force the Astros maybe to make a deal and change their roster up a little bit as well. Brian, final question. Any clarity to the back end of the Astros rotation? I think I've got a pretty good feel of 1 through 3. How's my 4, 5, and potentially 6 look at this

point? Well, what are your 1 through 3? I'd probably go Hunter Brown Javier Emi Burroughs makes four so maybe I could go 5-6

help me out with 5-6 Yeah I mean Lance McCulles Jr. is in this rotation I mean he's throwing the ball pretty well this spring So I think he's in there That's five and then it comes down to Arrogetti in that six spot

And I guess it comes It's a question of whether do they open the season in a five-man rotation or a six-man rotation. And even if it's a five-man rotation, maybe Arrogati makes it in the bullpen. He throws a couple of times in long relief, and then it's put in the rotation. But I think it's pretty clear who their five rotation guys are going to be

with Arrogetti being that six-guy if they choose to go to a six-man rotation right now. So that gives them some pretty good options down in AAA after the season starts. I mean, they have Alexander down there. Colton Gordon's down there. JP France will probably be in that AAA rotation. So they've built this pitching depth, and so far it looks like it's done pretty well because the guys like Burroughs and Emi, the additions to the rotation have been terrific and great for a league play. Could you see a scenario?

I only said one question. I'll give you one more. Could you see a piggyback between McCullors and Arrogating is maybe your first two guys on a night where those two guys are ready to throw and go in the same game? Yeah, I could definitely see that. Yeah, I think that's a real distinct possibility. And they're going to have a couple of guys in the bullpen. I think that are going to be capable of going to those multiple innings.

There's a guy starting tomorrow. Peter Lambert, he's going to start the game tomorrow against the Marlins, who is a non-raster guy, has big league time with the Rockies. But he's throwing the ball really, really well. Nine innings. I think he might have given up one run and throwing the ball hard. So he's the guy that could give him multiple innings out of the bullpen. if Kay Wang Tang next the team,

he started a game down here. He could also pitch behind another starter, throw two or three innings. So their goal is to have two or three of those multi-inning got. Ryan Wise is another one, another guy who's throwing the ball really well. Another newcomer, a guy who wants to be a starter, but it looks like he'll be long relief from the pen.

So, yeah, I don't think they'll call it a piggyback, but they have lots of options where they can, if the starter comes out after five innings, they feel pretty comfortable about the guy. guys coming behind them to get the ball to the ninth inning. Where is the West Palm Beach University Houston watch party tonight? That's a good question. I saw the games on True TV, which has me a little worried.

And so, I don't know, we'll have to find a duffies or a nail house in the immediate area and scattered out. But I think it might be a watch party of one, but I'll be there. Yeah, but a lot of your parties are a party of one, aren't they? Tell the truth. Pretty much. I'm used to it. used to it. It's kind of sad.

All right. I'm going to be on the road next week with the Rockets, so you're going to hang out with Ross and Adam and Adam next Thursday for a segment next week. So get ready for that, my friend. You're welcome. That will be opening day, so that's going to be exciting. All right, safe travels back, friend. Thank you for the time as always. All right, guys, thank you. All right, Brian McTagher with us. Party of One. West Palm Beach.

We're on True TV. We get no respect. True TV, 9.10. By the way, so last night, the first four games were in. Yeah? When I turned the television off when I got home last night, because my wife was asleep and the TV was still on. Guess when I turned the TV on and True TV was on?

What show was on? It had to be impractical joker. Correct. That network showed nothing but impractical jokers and first round basketball. I got me no money. That was a minus 2,000. Now, if you'd have put on TNT, what would have been on? Charmed, of course.

A Charmed? Or Shawshake Redemption. Yes. Bones? One of those shows. Yeah, one of those shows. How does Charms still show on T&T? I don't know.

That show has not been on it for 25 years. I don't know. Back when Lisa Milana was like half sane. She insane? She's completely insane now. In the membrane? In the membrane. 1116.

Matt and Ross. Well, these people are eating already. I love this. What do you mean? It's 11 o'clock. It's lunchtime, baby. Let's go. We need some gumbo.

Okay, go ahead. Let's get some gumbo going. We're some. Let's get some Hush puppet. Yes. 290, Barker, Cyprus, Willie's Grill and Ice House. By the way, we need to let the people know we are giving away the rockets tickets. All right.

Anybody that comes by and fills out one of my hotel pads, these pads are very, very important to me. That includes the people who are already here. That's right. Name and email address. Yes. And two pairs of rocket tickets. We're getting away between now and $150 this afternoon. So I'm going to go around right now and walk around and hand off these Spring Hill Suite no pads.

Yes. Very, very important to me. Oh, wait a minute. You're giving them the spring hell? Why don't they get the Ritz-Carlton ones? The four seasons I'm going to keep. Wow. I mean, I do have my limits.

Oh, okay. Seasons is one if I have to. I don't want to. You just cut these in half. All right. So if you come on by between now and $150 today, we will draw two names. Oh, no, that'll affect the drawing. You can't do these in half now.

All right, let's fine. Look, I got these. We're good. I got to go to the four seasons. We'll figure something out. That's the same size. Okay. I don't get that how good it is.

That's going to be all gone, too. Yeah, it's all right. Come on by. Billy, take my notepads from me. It's a take my notepad Thursday. You never heard such a bad promotion in your life. I get to shoot a photo. I've got about 100 of those in my office.

I'm at the house. I'm beginning to think you've got an issue. Hoarding with those? Yeah, I don't know. Warning is often an indicator of mental disease, Matt. The best example was we were in a city for two or three days. I remember where it was, but they would clean my room in the morning. okay and I would take the pad

then I would ask for turn down service at night and they would give me fresh pads what is wrong with you we all have little things like that you mean there's nothing in your house that you don't have like a big group of a big like pile of stuff

like I regret one of my best friends collects hot wheels that doesn't intrigue me but he loves it and I don't blame him for it's his own deal I like no pants okay I told you where do I like to spend more time besides my family and hanging out with you at an office max or a home or a office depot? I know you had me in office max for like an hour. We were there for an hour.

I didn't want to leave. I mean you got me a nice, I'm using it and trying to use it every day. Yeah, you are. I'm so happy for you. All right, so we decided we had an executive decision. This will be the second time we've done this. We're going to do a Fantasy 5 tomorrow. Jonathan, jump in on this because you're going to be one of the voters. Oh, how about we have to do it? Oh, Jonathan against who? You? I don't know.

Nobody ever works on Friday at the office. I want to recuse myself. I don't know. I can do it. You know what? But I think we've done it recently. You want to ask one of the Adams at 1-120 tomorrow? Clanted.

Because we think we'll make fun of his bad palate. It's got to be clanton. No, let's go Wexler. Let's invite Wexler. Jonathan, we're going to do a master's meal. Okay. Master's meal. Okay.

You know, because when you win the Masters, the next year you get to choose the pre-dinner. Right, right, right, right, right. So we'll do one app, two entrees, a side, and a dessert. Does that seem fair? Okay. One app, two entrees, aside, and a dessert. And we'll get one of the... We'll check see if Wexer can do it first.

And then if Wexer says no, then we'll go to... Uh, we'll go to Clayton. And I think you and I did it about five or six years ago, and I beat you. I think it was more recently than that. Yeah, you did win. And I was, I was salty about it. I thought you. The only thing I remember about that was, I think my dessert was banana cream pie.

You had some horrible dessert. I can't remember what it was. Banana cream pie is delicious. Uh, I think it was nilla wafers. It was not. No, banana cream pie is on the Mount Rushmore pies. Banana cream pie? Absolutely.

Okay. Banana cream. Cherry? No. Coconut cream. Pumpkin? Dutch apple. Pecan.

No, it's pecan, apple, pumpkin. I like pecan pie's good, too. And a lemon meringue. Oh, no, I don't like meringue. Key lime. Merang's gross. Key lime. Key lime is good, too.

Oh, see, we can do a fantasy five of pies. We could. We never done that before. At least that's slightly better than soup. Soup was amazing. Every slightly. Everybody loves me. Oh, yeah.

Eighth round, we're going to take bean and bacon. Speaking of that, my gumbo is just derived. Oh, love it. Look at this. Hold on. We got a dark roo over here at the wheel of his eyes. I got a dark rue in their gumbo now, baby. Any excuse for you to go Cajun.

Hey, you got the gumbo now. That's not my fault. All right. Sorry. Whiff, I just don't get it coming up at the bottom of the aisle. I don't get you in your gun. Why aren't you doing a show in Lafayette? You can be a star in Louisiana.

I'm trying. I'll be a star anywhere. 7-1-3-2-1. 1-12-7-7-9-7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Anything out of Brian's conversation real quick? It makes him sound like the rotation's already set. I'm worried about the catcher situation. Shiner wasn't good last year.

I mean, were you forgetting that? Let's see. Wasn't throwing guys out and wasn't hit. Well, it aggravated him. I think people were more aggravated by the fact that every base runner was able to run on him. He was swinging out of his shoes at everything. Yeah. Couldn't hit.

Yes. And doesn't throw guys. out and he's your by far not even close best option that's why I asked about Walter Yonik to be brutally honest with you I mean when is there going to be some pressure to supply because I you know my long-term gut feeling was that Yonair was going to move to first big yes not happening so far not this point you can't happen I mean not for a little while Christian Walker's your guy at least for this year we'll see all right one of our favorite segments of the week we'll leave a lot of favorite segments yes I always say this is a

I just don't get it. There are things in your life as you listen to our show throughout the city of Houston that you just don't get. And we do this on Thursdays when applicable. And today is an opportunity for you to call 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. You have three different viewpoints, Ross, myself, and Jonathan. Anything you want to tell us in your life that you just don't get, we're either going to back you up or give you the proper explanation as to why we get what you don't get. I just don't get it.

If that's what you say to your wife, your sister, your best friend, your kids, what is it? 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I just don't get it. It's next year on Sports Talk 790 live from Woolie's Ice House 290 and Barker Cyprus. Do you have something in your life that you just don't get? No need to worry. No need to fret.

We will discuss the topics to see if we comprehend the things that may confuse our friends. I just say I just don't get it. Ross with you from Willie's Ice House, 290 and Brockwood, Cyprus. And we simply ask you, what don't you get in your life? 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Ross, I'm in downtown Houston yesterday. And you know when you get downtown, the far-right lane is for high-occupancy vehicles and buses only?

Yes. Why? We're all trying to get out of downtown. Open up as many lanes as possible. It is to encourage carpooling and public transportation use. In downtown, you said carpooling? I just don't get it. Yeah, people, yeah, you and your buddies live out on the northwest side.

You carpool into downtown. What do you mean? That lane is empty. If I see it's available, I'm going single. I'm breaking the law. You break the law. Yes. No one's ever been caught.

That's not shocking me at all. you're definitely uh yeah i'm so low in the h o v line guy i could see that now when i go in the uh hov lanes i pay the toll that's good give me your money some people in my life don't do that i avoided at all costs unless i'm in a in a rush yeah i just was like this lane is over here on the far right side just sitting there doing nothing. Nobody on it. I'm like, there's no buses,

there's no carpools. I'm going to help decongest the downtown traffic. I'm going to the far rally. So I was actually doing the service of people. That's probably how you see it. I do. That's how exactly how you see it. Yeah.

So I say, guys, you're doing something for your benefit in saying you're helping everyone else. I say I just don't get it. Okay. Sure. Turn of an action underway, by the way. And?

My lock at a week, Ohio State's trailing by one in the middle of the first half. Texas Christian. Don't call them to you see. And it should be. Troy and Nebraska tipping off very soon here. We got all the action here. All the actions.

Perfect. At Willie's Grill and Ice House. 298 Barker Cyprus. Jonathan, what don't you get this week, my man? You know what? No. I don't, I just had a weird thought. I don't understand when you're going to any place

and they ask if you want the receipt. Why wouldn't I want the receipt? Oh, you say yes every time? Yes. What if they mess me up? What if I got wrong clothes? on close size. What if you missed my fries in the bag? Now I can't come back and return it.

You want the receipt automatically? Why would they not give you the receipt? Well, check the food while you're there. What's the scenario we're talking about here? Any scenario. Like when they're sitting there, okay, let's do water worker, right? You're sitting there and they're like, do you want your receipt? Check the bag. Check the bag when you get it. How much stuff are you

ordering? You're ordering for a family of six? I always feel guilty when I check the bag, but I feel like I got to check Yeah, check the bag. Check the bag and then you're going to be fine. I just don't understand why we don't just get the receipt. I feel like you purchased it, get the receipt. I mean, you're going to put in your tax return?

I mean, when you do self-checkout anywhere, you take your receipt, right? You don't just leave it in the machine. I mean, because I have to. I don't like having receipts. No, I understand some people need when you expend. For example, we're in West Palm Beach. Got to keep the receipts. Got to ask for the receipts.

You need the receipts. I keep receipts on the things you guys say. I got some receipts, too. I got a whole file. It's called the Nosturongus file. That's not true at all. That's literally what it's called. We can bring up the cheese you said last season, too.

I got some receipts. Oh, really? Yeah, you want to bring up some receipts. Wow. Wow. Matthew. Wow. Yeah, it's time for an audit.

I got five months of, oh, SFA's going to beat the Cougars and I'm seven. You don't even get the, you didn't get one third down conversion. Did they even hit the red zone? It's not fair. No, that's not fair. It's a truth. The only red zone they got was Scott Hanson on Sundays. Wow.

Oh, my goodness. Oh, I got one for you. It ties into sports. Go ahead. So Rob Manford is loving all this attention to the WBC. You see what they're talking about now? Oh, here we go. What?

Mid-season tournament. What? Like NBA Cup type of deal? Correct. Oh, my gosh. Come on, man. I just don't get it. I'm not a fan of WBC.

You know this? You want to do it once every three years? I can live with it, but don't interrupt. You cannot interrupt the baseball season for two weeks. You get it. No. You get it. I can't.

What's the sign I'm making, Matt? Nope. What sign I'm making it? You can't do it. You know why? Tell the people what I'm doing with my hands. Do you know why you can't do it? The Weather Channel.

Money Manzel sign. Money. That's why they're, why, why else what do you can see this? Oh, because it's really fun and we're going to take a bath on this and lose money? Of course not. You sell the games, you sell tickets, you sell sponsorships, you would want to make money on it. So when the Astros are playing the Phillies in the

World Series in November 23rd, and there's a blizzard in Philadelphia, that's going to be worth it? You can't do it. Hell yeah, you're going to sell a snowplow advertisements. Oh, my God. Figure away to turn money on it. Did you see the WEC, the guys all had advertisements like on their helmets and everything?

I'm telling you, once every three years is great. This time of year is not preferred, but it's the best option you have. Stop mid-seasoning things. See, I'm not trying to tell you I love the tournament. This is the greatest idea ever heard. I'm telling you why. This is I just don't get it.

I didn't say I agree. This isn't I agree with it. Okay. This is I get it. I get it. It's money. Stop reinventing the wheels, sports commissioners. You know, look, every board of governors meeting, how are you going to get us more money?

Here's revenues. How do we get this up? That's everywhere. That's not just baseball. Isn't it crazy? Is I heart media? That's anybody. everybody. Everybody works in this whole

Willie's Grill and Ice House. They know exactly what I'm talking about. That's how the world works. But the calendar, you fight the calendar, Ross. You can't beat the calendar. Well, it's a two-week tournament. I had the idea. What do you think about the pool plays preseason, and then

the tournament and then the bracket is... Oh, so you have a nice four-season weight between a rounds? A few months, yeah. No. You could have bracket... I mean, it's like you have World Cup qualifiers. You have World Cup qualifiers, and then you have the World Cup, like, a year later. It'd be similar to that. So we're going to take a vibe off of soccer.

Okay, that makes a whole lot of sense. The most popular sport in the world? Yeah, wouldn't be the worst thing. What's the most popular food in the world? See, that's a another, again, that is a stupid analogy. Rice is the most popular food in the world is because it is cheap and accessible and filling with carbohydrates, and it can fuel a human being on a very low budget. That has nothing to do with the popularity of a sport you elect to watch is a whole.

horrible analogy. I just like using the word rice to piss you off. Okay, well, it's bad. And it works. It's a bad, and it works every single time. Honestly, it works with your analogies that are horrible. You know what? That was rude.

I'm writing it down. Analogy. These one does no-bat. Nosephazes he got on there. Analogy. Yeah, but where my notepad goes? That guy stole my notepad. Hey, bring that notepat back over here.

Trevor, he's got a note-up. Come on, man. That's my four-season's not. There you go. He said he was going to steal it. I know. He said he was going to steal it. I know.

I'll tell you what I just don't get, Matt. Do you see what the Browns are proposing? No. So in the NFL, they have a rule. You can't trade first round picks or any picks more than three years out. The Browns are trying to make it five years. Why? For what?

For a general manager, if Nick Casario, Nick Casario could just trade five first round draft picks for whatever he wants because if it doesn't work out, he's not going to be here anyways. That makes it worse. That's a horrible idea. I don't know. I just don't get why the Browns would be pushing for that. Why are we taking any vibe and anything from the Browns for anything?

One of the worst organizations, past tense, current tense, future tense. They do nothing right. I don't get it. They have nine quarterbacks on their team right now. I think the three-year limit is good. You keep owners and general managers from being out of control. And especially you have a general manager on the hot seat and he needs to make a trade, then he's going to trade away all the first round draft picks.

He doesn't care. Yeah. Nigel and Brian will get to you. If you don't get something, let us know. So we're here for. 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. Amazing gumbo being consumed right now.

Willis Grill and Ice House. We're here on Sports Talk 7-90. This is awesome. All right, we got a lot of phone calls to get to. People want our advice, Ross. They actually want my advice. I'm the one that gives them the sage advice here on the program. You know what the hell you're talking about in general?

And by the way, Gerard is on the line. We're going to get Gerard. Because Girard's always going to give us some great basketball takes. But first, what don't you get in your life? Neal on 790. Needser, what can we help you with? Yeah. I still don't get the Reed Shepard truthers that want him to be a starter when, you know, for the last three games,

he's shown, like, his offense has been great. But he has literally proved the liability that he is on defense. Like his man has scored an incredible amount of points and he's never going to be able to be James Hardin where he can score 30 and give up 20. He's going to score 18 and give up 30. So I just don't get why other stations announcers are talking about too.

Like he should be starting. He should be starting. I just don't know what game they're watching. Yeah, I'll say this, Neal. Thank you for the phone call. That's cooled off a little bit. First of all, Reed is playing major minutes. Reed played 27 minutes last night.

I think he played 31 the internet against the Lakers in the first matchup. I think that has cooled off a little bit. I think it's natural. The I don't get it. I mean, I get it because, I don't agree with it. I get it because we always like the backup. Everybody likes the backup. The sixth man needs to start.

He needs to play more. He's shown a little bit. He plays well. Also, basketball is a sport where people pay 10 times more attention to offense and defense. how much more do people look at shots made rather than shots defended in the NBA as far as just casual NBA watchers? It's every sport, right?

Like a shortstop with a flashy glove who can't hit. People are like, why is he out there? Or why is Jake Myers out there? Watch the catches that he makes in center field. So nobody normally pays, offense is the flashy points. We want hits. We want all that stuff, run, touchdowns.

So I get it, but I don't agree with him. He's playing major minutes. he comes in, you know, at the key important times of the game, I don't think that the fortunes of the Rockets would change with Reed having

being announced in the opening lineup. It's about fourth quarter finishing. Yeah, and it's also a situation where, yeah, he's playing against backups normally as well, and he's thriving in those. And a lot of times when somebody's thriving in that role, for whatever reason, people want that role expanded, even if they're not,

if they're not suited for it. Just because somebody here, at Willie's Grill and Ice House is a great server. Doesn't mean they'll be a great manager. Oh. Interesting analogy there. Yeah. Thank you, Matt. Let's go to

Brian and Pearland. Brian, what don't you get, my man? We're here to help you. Well, I may get it, but I don't like it or I don't understand it. Why the first four? Why are you forced teams who have done everything you've asked them to do? Prairie View A&M. Now granted, they won last night, but you say you win your conference tournament, you are in the big dance.

Give them the shot to go sling their arrow and take out Goliaths. Give them the Chisbee, UMBC, and take down, who is it, Purdue or whoever they, or Arizona, whoever was lost Virginia a couple of years ago. Give them that chance. Don't make them play in another game then to go get that. So make those bubble teams who are bitching about they didn't get in because they got left up by Miami of Ohio. Make those be the first four games. The first four out and the next four out should be those eight bubble teams that are trying to get in. That should be your way to work yourself into the dance because your regular season didn't do it.

Don't force your brave U.A&Ms and your Lehighs. They did everything the NCAA told them to do to get an automatic bid. Just to get in and play. This may be their only chance to get in and take down the big dog. So give them that chance. I don't get why they still continue to do this. I'd much rather watch Texas and NC State or A&M and NC State play to get in than Lehigh and Prairie View. Let those teams in the first round and give them that chance to slay the big dog.

It probably won't happen, but let them settle it on the court, not in a playing game. They don't get that chance. Thanks, Brian. It's because these are 16 seats who, they're not one of the best 68 teams in basketball. Preview A&M's Kim Palm is 280. Lehigh's is 292. That's why. This is not some grave injustice.

If you really, really wanted to take it up a notch. They shouldn't be in the tournament at all. You just take the best 68 teams. Yeah, so they get an automatic bid. That's cool. That's nice. They get to play in the NCAA tournament. And if you want to make it against the Big Dog and the ones,

seed win the game. Yeah, I do like automatic qualifiers. Yeah, it's cool. But if you want to take the four worst of them, send them to dating for a couple days, you know, it is what it is. Yeah, Lehigh finished the season 18 and 17. Prairie View is now 19 and 17. Got to play one extra game.

That's how the turn, if it was 64 teams, there wouldn't be an issue. They're not, they're not tournament-worthy teams. Yeah. That's the bottom one. Yeah. So I will say, I get it. Let's go to Tom and downtown. Tom, what don't you get, my man?

Okay, so recently I'm at the dentist, and the little hygienist is working on my teeth, got all kinds of tools and hands in my mouth, and then it's like trying to ask me questions. I'm like, how am I supposed to talk when you're, like, drilling on my teeth, you know? I just don't get it. Just do your thing, and then we can talk later.

I will say my hygienist is quite a talker as well, Ron. Mine is chatty as well. Is it just part of the profession? I feel the exact same way. She's like, I'm like, she's asking me like about my entire life. She asked me about my kids. Yes.

She asked me about my travel. She also, so my general answer is the following. Suction. More suction. And you've got like, like the spit dribbling down your mouth because you're trying to talk. I don't get it either. I am due to see her on the 30th. I will give you a full report on the 31st about how that goes.

A little chatting I'm okay with, but it's like it's the new. I had a different one and then that person left. The new one is way chatting. And she's super nice. No, you've ever been around a mean hygienist? No. They're probably being the nicest people on the world. And just like, hey, how's this going?

And I think they just try to make it easier for you because it's just awkward like their hands are in your mouth. It's just weird. What? Their hands are in your mouth. Am I wrong? And you're asking for suction. Yeah. It's awkward.

And she's asking for suction. No, she doesn't... I don't know what kind of dental office you're going to. You and Bob Kraft. Yeah. But that isn't... I think dental hygienists just like to talk to you. They're just chatters.

And the reality is this. You can't give them the answers, so they're wanting more. But I'm still with Tom. It's like, I don't get, like... dial it back a notch. Why can't we, when we go to the dental hygienist, have a big screen TV above on the wall? I like that.

You know what I do? I like count the tiles over and over. I'm just sitting there, like, trying to pass the time. So another thing that happens in the dental at the office is I will ask her, the song will be playing in the background. Uh-huh.

And I'll say, name that song, and she can't do it. Oring that term. No, you miss it. No. Close. I'll get a $1,000 a dollar of, and it's wrong. Prince, duh.

Easy. What don't you get? I just don't get this rocket's defense right now. They've been playing well at the beginning of the season. I just don't get it. And number two, I just don't get why y'all have not set up a Jonathan and Mr. Freem race. And I'll hang up.

up and listen. Jonathan versus Mr. Freeze. Don't give me something. He's going to beat him. I got bad news for you. I got Freeze. Wow. Wow.

Because you're such a hater, Matt. You're the biggest hater on the planet. I've been looking at your diet lately. Oh, come on. You're not a track and field guy right now. Oh, yeah. You're eating way too much pasta. Yeah, how them hamstrings feeling, John?

Yeah, Jonathan. Tell the truth. Are you, what's your speed lately? Tell the truth. Athletes eat a lot of pasta. We eat a lot of carbs. Oh, okay. Yeah, he's carbol loading.

Are you burning it off, though? Yeah. You ain't seen me get big, have you? No, but I just, I'm a little worried. I'm going to take my shirt off in the studio for you to see, huh? Oh, no, you're not. Oh, no, you're not taking your shirt off from anybody, except your girl. What?

Yeah. Well, that's if you choose to do such a thing. All right. Oh, we got to play the Hotel California song again. Yeah, we do. Unfortunately, with too many Laker. We're at Willey's Grill and Ice House. Yes.

And I just finished off some hush puppies. I had some chicken and shrimp gumbo. You got that grown ball, baby. And the room was good. Okay. Nice looking people here. Good service. Love it.

And if you want to come by between now and 150, we're going to draw names for two pairs of rocket tickets, April the first, against the Miliwakey bucks with Zangachwin for the Goodland, right? Yes, that's correct. All right. What are you working on over there? You got some charts going? I like what you're doing.

I'm just breaking down some games. I like that. I got my Joe Lunarney over here to my right. Girard wants to talk about anything he wants. And look, you may want to order some lunch with Girard's on. Just saying. Oh, that's true. Just throwing that out there.

Get something to eat. 713-212-5-790. We go to the Hotel California tour next on 7-90. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Top of the key. Step back. Going to launch a three. Straight on the way.

It is up. It's good. And that might seal it. Time out to the rockets. Look at Dutch. Now, will the three-pointer to give him 38 of the night? I was emotional last night. I must admit it.

I don't know if you could figure that off the calls. It sounded like it. It was a stressful time for all of us. It was a big game, and they lost. Yeah. Quite unfortunate. I just, for as awesome as LeBron is, that, flailing and oh my god I'm going to die moment is per is one per night I think somebody's

using your pen okay somebody stole my pen somebody still Ross's pen do you give it away may have come on man this is my pilot G2 now how much like that's that's what are you worried about that hey let's go I love these oh you gave away my pin give away this one spring hill sweets one I'm giving him a not pad you know how that's how valuable the fours his no pad is these pilot G2s aren't free all right all right Matt and Ross we are live as you can tell At Woody's Grill in my house. Oh, the crowd is going nuts. You get a nice crowd here.

Absolutely. Absolutely beautiful day. Wonderful, beautiful people here. And you? Yep, 7-1. The most beautiful of them all, you're right. Let's get to the news at noon, why don't we? Oh, yes.

I have really... You know what I'll start. Last night, the Rockets lost to the Lakers, 124 to 116. The Rockets came back from being down by as much as... is 13 to take a lead in the third quarter by outscoring the Lakers, 37 to 22, but the Lakers got 35 of the fourth. And it was Luca Dantzich 40 points. LeBron James had 30.

LeBron did it on 14 shots. He was 13 of 14. DeAndre Aten, 16 points. I cannot have DeAre Aiton scoring 16 points. I'm sorry. LeBron James' best shooting night of his career happened. on March 18th 10 years ago

and then he did it again 10 years later 13 of 14 is the best percentage shooting night of his career and he did it at the age of 41. How? I don't know. And leads the league in fast break buckets. And Luca Donchinch

went nuclear at the end of the game. Rockets actually didn't play that poorly but it just didn't go their way. They lose Matt and now they are at the moment the number five seed in the Western Conference. Holding on for dear life for that, by the way. Two and a half games behind the Lakers that also cost you the season tiebreaker. So now you're effectively three and a half games behind them with 68 games played.

You're not catching the Lakers. It's just not happening. Yeah, we are rooting for the heat tonight. The Lakers play the heat this evening in Miami. They're not passing. Oh, come on. I'm sorry. Well, mark my words.

I'm putting my name on it. I hate what you mark your words. Mark my words, put my name on it, all that stuff. They're not finishing top three. You can try to finish four for home court advantage in the first, but that means the Oklahoma City Thunder are waiting for you, so that'll be fun. There are one game behind the Minnesota or Timberwolves.

Two matchups remaining with the T-Wolves, correct? One here and one in Minneapolis, right. And then they are in a virtual tie with the Denver Nuggets. That's where they sit in the Western Conference right now. NCAA tournament is underway at halftime in, I think it's Greenville, South Carolina? Sure, why not? I always get the Greensboro and the Greenville. It is TCU, the nine seed in the East region.

Leading eighth seed at Ohio State 39 to 24. Yikes. All right. Which idiot said Ohio State was there lock of the week earlier in the first hour of the show? I don't remember. I think it was Jonathan. Yeah, me too. 843 remaining in the first half in the South region.

Nebraska leads Troy 21 to 15. I do have South Florida honor. recorded line beating Louisville today. Let's go, baby. We got our Houston starting up. That starts at to 1230. We come out here and see us at Willis Grove to watch that. Sienna plays Duke at 150. I will not be able

to reach my wife for a few hours on that. And Ice House. And Ice House. We have the Houston Cougars playing tonight. That will be a game that you will hear on 950 KPRC. That's a 9-10 starter, probably closer to 930. Be a Burlington. You know what? That's and I just don't get it.

Why do they always schedule these games and they never start on time? Because they try to do two-hour windows. It's ridiculous. But they're, they know. They never start on time and they act like it's only going to be two hours. Yep. What are they doing? Why do they lie to the American public over and over and over again? The Idaho Houston winner will take on the winner of the A&M St. Mary's game.

That is also tonight in Oklahoma City at 635. Well, the Coos got a nice draw. Oklahoma City in Houston. in two very easy-reachable places. I know who you have in your bracket-winning at all. Who are they playing? You can make me look this up now? Oh, you don't have.

I mean, if you're just clicking buttons, it's fine. I really don't remember. It doesn't matter. Okay. All I know is that I'm going to be taking an extra day off to go watch the national championship game. I worked last year to go watch it where? I was in San Antonio.

Are you sure? I was. Well, I'm talking about this year. This year it's in Indianapolis. And so I worked last year and got sick And I'm like, I'm not doing it this year So if I'm going, I'm going to watch a championship game In Indianapolis, I don't have a hotel room yet

Okay You know, I got a question for you Go ahead Do I go old school college and not get a room? What do you mean? You're not going to sleep the entire time? Yeah, you're going to wait. You're waiting, right?

Well, I mean, wait for the cancellations. Yeah, I think I'll be okay But it wouldn't be part of the fun Just getting up there and just trying to find some of the last second? Yeah. What do you just price-liners or whatever? No, price-line's no longer in biz. You can't price-line a room anymore.

They went out of business? They're going to business, but their model is gone. Yeah, they don't give you good deals anymore. By the way, when I was, when I came and I were young and married and didn't have much money, we would price line. The hotels would turn their nose down at you. They were like, oh, here, price line. They put me next to, like, the washer dryer on the first floor. Yeah.

They did not like the price liners. At all. Yeah, I understand. I get that. You should be like, you know what? You shouldn't like us. You can't find deals anymore. You cannot.

Not like you used to. Anything else are going on in news? Yes, we have some news. Did you hear about Piston Starcade Cunningham? This is a bad, bad spot for Detroit fans. He has been sidelined with a collapsed lung. He is expected to miss an extended period of time. He has left lung pneumothorax.

and it will be re-evaluated in two weeks, meaning he's going to miss at least eight games. The collapse long is considered mild, so that's the good news. And... According to Sham Sharania, not that anybody particularly cares, but that will put him out of the MVP consideration

because you've got to play 65 games. He will not have played 65. Oh, well, my mic needs to get stiff. That's a shame. Are you okay? Got a little limp? It's a limp mic over here. Fix my low t.com, Matt, fix my low t.com.

com. Also, a note, the WNBA has struck a collective bargaining agreement deal. Last year, the league minimum was $66,000. This year goes up to $300K for the young ladies. It's doing better. Caitlin Clark. I'm going to hope and a prayer. It should be called the Caitlin Clark Basketball Association. Yeah. They need to name every trophy after her. She needs to be the logo. That's not a lot.

Yeah. But good for the ladies. They're getting $300K a year now instead of 66. And they're chartering. They're staying in a nice hotels. There's a massive increase in tax bracket as well. They're getting apartments and stuff. After taxes, it's a $4,000 increase annually.

Yeah, that's fair. All right, that's the news at noon. Up next, Gerard's going to come in with some NBA analysis. If you know who Gerard is, we love having them out on the show. Let's go. Looking forward to it. We want you guys on it as well. We are at Willies, Grill, and,

nice house. Okay. Where they're serving crawfish right now to people. I can smell it. Will you please peel my crawfish? I'm not peeling your crawfish. Why not? I'm not going to be a crawfish, bitch. Why are you? What is wrong with you? I don't like doing it.

Well, pill your own damn crawfish or pay somebody. No. Ray, will you come peel my crawfish? I had to lug all this equipment up here. Your brother's peeling it for him. Yeah, he's got gloves on. Look, he's going to come. He's going to come. Yeah, come, come feed him.

Yeah, put it in his mouth. What? What? Come on. Yeah, you heard me. Oh, my brother's putting it in Matt's mouth, the crawfish tail. Oh, oh, oh, good stuff. You're so weird.

But I don't want to do too much work. This is this. All right. Can we go to break? All right. This microphone is a problem, too. Can we stiffen this thing up? Fix my low-tie.com.

7-1-3-2-212. You're swallowing it. I know. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5. That's another clip. We've got, like, three, clit. up to the last 30 seconds. You didn't get any of those, Jonathan, makes you get none of those.

No, I didn't get a single one. All right, two things. We're at Willey's Ice House, Grill and Ice House. 290 and Barker Cyprus. If you're driving around and Parker Cyprus, where are you guys? 290 and Barker Cyprus. Is it even 80 degrees yet? It's simply spectacular right now.

The garage doors are open. It's a nice breeze. The bay windows. The bay windows. It's gorgeous. Oh, the Margarita. are flowing. I have decided to stop drinking tequila.

What happened? Getting older. You can still drink tequila. I don't know. Number two, Adam Wexler, versus Jonathan Allen. Really? You got Wex confirmed? Tomorrow at 120.

Okay. Jonathan, Master's Dinner. In any order. Yes. One app, two entrees, one side, one dessert. Got it? I'm ready.

Now, Jonathan, the key will be, do you make the menu because you want to beat Wexler? Or do you make the menu because you really want to have these five items at your master's dinner? When in doubt, listen to your heart, Jonathan. I'm going to listen. Although sometimes you've got to cater. Sometimes you do. To the audience.

713-212-5-7-90. 7132-1-2-1-2-5-790 early second half t-cule leads ohio state 39 26 we need a comeback folks there goes your bracket come on now oh house no i didn't have them winning in the second round but a little ohio's eight two and a half would be nice come on now let's say how to our friend let's go buck guys one second seven one three two one two are you okay oh no i'm fine i'll just get my phone ready for what so oh my gosh gerrod on seven 90 gerard how are you I'm doing good, man. How are you guys doing out there?

We're good. We're at Willie. Is it 290 and Sparker Cyprus? Yeah, if I wouldn't have to work today, man, I'll try to be out there with you guys. I was out there a few years ago when you had the Marsh Man. Man, I had to work today so I wasn't able to get out there. What's on your mind? Quick thing on the Rock is far I talk about the tournament.

I don't know why a doker don't play in more. It's a phone when you have Reesh Shepherd out there. You know, he did that early on the year, and I thought it was a festival. For some reason, you know, he has a little. we shabber out there trying to guard man the man he's got a little better but you know a little bit more zone and then we just want to when Lucas cooking out there in the fourth quarter try to switch it up you playing them straight up there's nobody in there he guard that guy one-on-one man he is just too crappy too skill and know how to create his own offense so they shouldn't try to

try to switch it up in a little bit of him I'm not saying trap him get the ball at his head and they got a other guy that can handle the ball like lebron james and austin reid but go to a zone when the guy's cooking like that in the fourth quarter try to switch it up and see if you can get them out of the rhythm of the offense that they got going on in that four-quarter. With all that being said, man, quick thing on the tournament. I don't think it's going to be a lot of upsets in this tournament. I think it's going to be a chalk tournament. I don't even see any double-digit seats making it past the second round.

I do have South Florida beating Louisville, but I got to lose the Michigan state in the next round. I think it's going to be a chalk tournament. I don't see it a way we're going to see a lot of Cinderella where you see a double-d-digit-seat in the sweet-16 or even their final four. I don't see that this year. my final four I have U of H, UConn, Arizona, and Iowa State. I think the Big 12 has been the best tournament this year. I think it's going to show up and show out in this tournament. You see, TCU is beating Ohio State, man.

I think the Big 12 is going to do well, man. Once they get outside of that conference where they kind of beat up on each other, I think they're going to have a lot of success in this tournament. I think it's going to be all Big 12, basically, Final Four in Indianapolis outside of Yukon. I do have Yukon representing Big East. So I got three big 12 teams in the final four. So we'll see how it all play out, man. But I don't see a lot of upset.

I think it's going to be a chalk tournament. And I think part of it is because of the NIL. A lot of those Cinderella teams, they would have good players in the past. But nowadays, those good players are getting paid big money to go to a bigger university. So you don't see the Cinderella that you're going to see that you had in the past year. Or the Cinderella team that will, you know, senior later teams that would have a lot of experience were able to beat a lot of inexperienced teams from bigger conference. I don't think you're going to see that this year.

I think it's going to be a chalk. I'm just going to hang up to listen, man. Guys, let me know who you got in the final for. That's my final four again. Yukon, U of H, Iowa State, and Arizona. I got an Aerosone in the final. I hope you should pull it out, but I just think Alton is the best team in the country. I got them winning the championship over U.S.

Kind of like when we seen back in the 80s, when the U.S. made back-to-back finals with the Lajuan now. I think they're going to come up short again back-to-back to each year. I just think Arizona has the best overall team. I'm trying to hang up and listen to what you guys think. Thanks, Gerard. What do you got there, man? What did you clock that at?

240. Okay. That's pretty short. I had 3.30 in the over-under-under-old. Well, really? Okay. Normally he's under. It went over last night at the Lakers' loss in the post game.

He was mad. I don't know. We were all mad. Yeah. I want to, I don't know. I'd talk for four minutes straight if I could. Yeah. Well, I think I went like 45 minutes without a break.

It's a good. times. Anyways, go ahead, Matt. Your thoughts on Gerard's basketball takes? As I said, I'm not worried about where Reed Shepard starts and where Reed Shepard finishes. Yes. And frankly, he's going to get more time on the court in the fourth quarter games if you can't

rely on Tar He said to make shots. That's the guy he's taking the spot for, frankly. Yeah. A little bit of Josh Kogi's on that as well, but it's mainly been Reed. This is the thing that's difficult. And we were talking about this with Dorian Finney Smith, with Tarisner or whoever. If this Rocket team is going to hit their full potential, it's not going to be playing Jeff Green or Aaron Holliday more or Isaiah Crawford.

Like, no disrespect to those guys. But you signed Dorian Finney Smith here to be a 3-and-D wing and knock-down shots. And he had like eight points in what was the second quarter on Monday or something like that. Right. Tari Easton is a key piece to your team, especially as a 3-&D wing, where you're running things throughout Arunshungoon and Kevin Durant. You need floor spacers. You need three-point shooters.

He's got to be out there. So I understand he's going to O for 21 right now But you can't have somebody on one of your five guys on the floor And look him in the face and say never take a shot Don't shoot anymore Take better shots Yes make the shots that you do take Yes

But it's not as a situation where you can just tell Tariya Just completely bench Tariessen It's not going to happen Let's go with her I've got the five realities on the Rockets When we come back Oh okay Five of them You're giving me five

Five realities that this current team is going through right now. And then I want you, when I give you these five realities, you're going to then go, I see why they're struggling. Okay. Make sense to you? Yes. Willys.

290. Woo. Barker Cyp. Woo. My gumbo's on the way, baby. I already had me some gumbo. Yeah, how was it? Good.

Do they get crystal sauce? Yeah, they have all the hot sauces for you there. I'm a crystal guy over Tabasco mostly, but I love Tabasco. Yeah. I want people getting mad at me. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90 come out and see us here willies 290 290 and barker cypress we're giving away rocket tickets through email if you get here by 150 today here on sports talk 790 man and ross we're at 290 and barker cypress at willies

grill and ice house enjoy the experience good crowd out here today to come out and say hello a lot of people come on and say hello to us yes we appreciate all you we're big in the northwest we would like to do more shows out of the location so uh if you're a business Yeah, but Matt's out of town all the time. Even one of my favorite people of the world, Tracy Clayton's here, come over and have lunch with us. Tracy is on the stats crew. Oh, yeah?

He is a U.S.C.F. Knight, so he's very excited about his Knights. I think I win one of my four brackets. I got him pulling the upset, I think. And I'm going to brag about Tracy. Tracy was a contestant on the Price is Right. Really? Yes. Played the freeze-frey game and lost.

And he did not. Why are you going to bring that up? Because he'll show you the video. That's a bad game, by the way. It was a prize he didn't even want. I think he won like a toaster oven or something like that. Oh, okay. And then he spun the wheel and didn't win that either.

Oh, that's a shame. And he also agrees with me that I'd be a much better host than Drew Carey would be. Why are you laughing? Oh. I don't find anything, nothing comical about that whatsoever. You're right. That was a very, yeah, it was good observation. So, sorry.

Oh, the five guarantee. We got Mark and Jay, hang tight. We'll get you guys a second. Here are the five. One, two, three, four, five. Go ahead. Number one, no Fred Van der Leyen. Of course.

Number two, the disintegration. Is disintegration? Is that a word? No. Well, what's your con, disintegration is a word, yes, man. It's like a sixth grade word? Of Stephen Adams' ankle.

Okay. That's a big one. No, no, no, let's talk about these real quick. Hold on. I'm going to give the five, then go off from there. Oh, you want to do a list and then do it. Number three. A list breakdown.

Dorian Finney Smith has not been the Dorian Finney Smith that we've seen as a Laker or a Maverick. Okay. You sounded to be a multi-year deal. We were all excited about it. It was a sneaky good pickup. Number four. And this has been brought up a little bit here in the last month or so. Maybe I'll be playing all the international basketball overseas in the off season.

He has tired him out a little bit. He looked okay last night. He did. And number five. How many games in Eurobasket did he play? I don't know, but it was still... It was like a 25 game grind. I know, but it still was competitive.

It was highly intense. And number five, uh... Well, what's my number five? I don't know. I should have had number five. You can't have a top five as a number five. Yeah?

What's my number five? You want to help me with number five? What would you say for number four? I was looking at Alper and Chingu... Maybe Alper's wearing down a little bit? Alpi wearing down. Tar Easton's regression. Oh, Tar Easton's regression.

Never was going to be a 47% three-point shooter all year long. But did anybody anticipate him only making one field goal in the month of March from three-point range? It was nine games in the Eurobasket. That is a lot. Plus practices. Now, they're 40-minute games. Okay. That's the least of my concern.

But I just do believe there is a little bit of, sometimes a little bit of fatigue with him. Not much, but Tarry's regression. Maybe the ankle injury as well that he rushed back from. Playing through pain. He looked pretty good. I mean, 10 of 15, 27 points. It was great last night. All right. So go ahead.

You want to chew on those five numbers there? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think those certainly all matter. I think those are some good reasons why the Rockets aren't where they are. I think the biggest reason of the five you listed is Fred Van Vleet not being here. And it's something we knew going in and it's been baked in and it's been for 82 games. But he was supposed to be a key part of this Rockets team. And he missed 82 games.

That just is what it is. I mean, I had a caller asked me last night. would this team beat last year's team? Like, as the way they are right now, I don't know that they would. But with Fred Van Fleet and Stephen Adams, which is how Rafael Stone constructed this team, it's not even close.

It's a better team. Are they better than the Thunder or the Spurs? Certainly not Thunder, the Spurs, it would be a little closer, but I think probably the Spurs took that big leap and passed you up, unfortunately. But this is not the team Rafael Stone envisioned. The fact of the matter is the major.

injuries. It's not, you know, he twisted an ankle, he's out for a couple weeks. I missed the entire season with a torn ACL, an entire season. It's bad luck. Fred, point guard, check. Yes. Fred, floor leader, check. That moxie that you're missing with Dylan Brooks would be less of an absorbed if you had a guy like Fred out there who was ready to throw hands when necessary as well. And also, Fred, not a prolific three-point shooter, but there'd be times. go back to game six of the Western first round series last year,

where he basically won that basketball game with you by knocking down three after three after three. Yeah, he's like a 37, 38% shooter last year. That's great. That's exactly what you need, and that's what you're... He gets you into your offense, and he can shoot and space the floor, and he helps you in those ways,

and he's got a great assist in turnover ratio. What is one of the Rockets' biggest problems? It's been all season. How many times has Zima Dook have been asked about turnovers this year? Between us, pre-game, post-game, everything. A billion times And ultimately too He also played 35, 36 minutes a game

You had to absorb that by other people Yeah All right by the end of the season he was at 34% from 3 But he had 38.7 the year before So career 37% shooter That's about what he's shooting as a rocket You're missing that Big time

Oh by the way championship pedigree Guys got a ring And can say Calm the F down now you can call him the F down when you're in the huddle. But you've got to put the uniform on. It doesn't carry the same weight when you're in your street clothes.

When is the Rockets' offense looks most out of sorts? It can be in clutch time in late situations. And that's when Fred Van Vleet thrives. When you need to get into your offense, when you need somebody who's going to calm everything down and be that floor general. And he's gone. Let's talk to

Mark in Umbal at 1241 on 790. Mark. Thank you for waiting and good afternoon. Well, why don't the Rockers just go ahead and tank the season? You know, they ain't got a chance, a snowball's chance of winning anything in the playoffs anyhow. Not with all the turnovers they got. They already go to work for Apple or something. And I think all these turnovers is a lack of discipline which comes from the coach.

You know, I've been saying it all year long. Nobody wants to hear me out. All right, well, Mark, I'm going to give you a shot here. Mark, Mark, I'm going to give you a shot. Tell me what lack of discipline Ime Adoka has. I'm very curious on this. I mean, make them responsible for their turnovers. By doing what?

By doing extra work and practice and stuff. I don't know. It's just, it's been the same old way every year. I mean, this whole year, they didn't have near the turnovers last year. Well, why is that, Mark? Because for the love of God, Fred Van Bly was running point. They don't have a point guard. Right now, they just don't.

Tell me, there's a change. There's a difference in year to year. It's because the number one point guards hurt. Hadn't played a single minute. That's the reason why the turnovers are up. I mean, I'm not trying to dumb this down for the audience, but Jesus. But why did they have Durant doing the, bringing it up court? Did you watch last night?

There was a combination of four different people doing it. Actually, I missed last night, but I was. Well, then you can't call me and tell me that Durant did it all night if you didn't watch the game. Or listen to it here on Sports Talks, 790. Mark, thank you for the phone call. I don't think we're going to agree on any of this. I just make them new extra practices. Make them take some extra practices.

What the hell? What are you all thinking? People, come on. This is not small-time high school basketball. You're talking about professionals that are making $50 million a year. Run suicides? What do you want here? I mean, come on. They're going to make him run gasser still he stops turning the ball over.

This isn't high school. This is not your eighth grade co-bee team. Okay. Kevin Durant's averaging 3.2 turnover is a game for the Rockets. And he always was a turnover machine. He averages 3.1 for his career. he's around his career average this is just who he is

this is not going to change he averaged three and three point two two years in golden state I mean that this is Kevin Durant he's going to turn the ball over some I know it's frustrating and it's hard to watch he's not a point card and unfortunately you're just going to run into these issues

and that is really high comedy saying IMA doca is not holding anybody accountable you guys don't know he maya doca he makes you accountable I had somebody call me last night and say he doesn't chew them out. Are you watching these games? I made a docket doesn't chew them out? I talked to him for four minutes and a guy, and I'm scared to the guy.

He chews you out. He chews me out. Who got a question was that? He called me a soft FB later day. Come on, coach, this is your broadcaster. He says no nonsense as it gets, and that's what the players like from him. There's accountability just because you're not seeing improvement doesn't mean, I mean, with the turnover stuff. Doesn't mean the coach just doesn't care or is checked out or anything like that.

Gang, they're trying. If you watched the game last night, they were competitive. The Lakers are playing at a different level right now. And that hurts. They had Luca Donchitz last night and you didn't. Unfortunately. It was a Laker team that's super, super hot right now. But there was guys that were diving for basketball.

Who was the guy that was dope for the bag? You had Luke up down though. You had Josh Akogi fighting for the loose. I mean, look, I've called a thousand NBA games in my life. I've seen games where the team doesn't care. And if they didn't care, it'd be way easier to figure this one out. Yeah, go ahead. It's just, it's frustrating.

I know, it's frustrating. But don't care, undisciplined, repeating history. You're only dealing with the roster. front. I mean, I don't believe, I know this from the facts. I don't believe that they think that Aaron Holiday can run the point for this team. If that

was the case, he may not be just sitting there going, you know what, dress out, we don't need you. He just feels like the best chance he has are with the eight or nine guys that play right now. We'll talk to Jay in Spring about the Rockets. We come back. 1246. It is Matt and Ross. We're with you today until 2 o'clock.

We're at Willey's Grill and Ice House, 290 and Barker, Cyprus. Where right now, TCU leads Ohio State 4640 1143 remaining in the second half Ohio State went on a 10-0-0 run plenty of time love baby if you're a horn frog get out out here awesome baby don't shake your head that was terrible what don't do Vic Vectal I mean his time has passed no he's so alive he's alive man he was on the game I didn't say RIP I just said his time was past as a broadcaster. All right.

713-212-5 Cividity. A couple things that pass along. You've got to finish my gumbo. All right. The Houston Business Journal just announced the best family-owned business in Houston. Now, I don't know if there's more than one. I don't know if it was sports-related,

but the best family-owned business in Houston, according to Houston Business Journal, the Houston Texans. Wow. That's beautiful. What a small... What is this dessert? What dessert?

Look at this thing. You can't eat all that, Trace. There's a mountain. That's a mountain of cream over there. Excuse me? Oh, don't you say Friday, sir. I know who you are, but you can't say Friday. Let me handle my own show on Friday.

Matt, is it admiring his mountain of cream? Is that what you're saying? All right, somebody helped me out with that. On the Houston Business Journal, Jones said this to me, and it got sent it by actually, There are several people. The best family-owned business in Houston is in Houston, Texas? Yeah, you know, I love that small mom-and-pop operation of these people that came up out of the dirt and really made something of themselves.

Cal and Hannah McNair. That's beautiful. Are we absolutely sure about this? What a rags to riches story those folks are. That's just so beautiful, man. Really inspiring. All right, look, we're on location. I would hope to follow in Cal McNair's footsteps of his rags to riches story sometime.

You're seeing the exact same thing I am, right? Yeah. The best family-owned business used to the Houston Texans? Look up, yeah. It's got to be more other than just one business, right? I don't know. Maybe. Oh, they're going to try.

Am I going to be behind a paywall here? I mean, you couldn't tell me a small family-run barbecue restaurant or a hardware store? You're trying to make me subscribe. We're not buying Houston Business Journal. Sorry. $80 a year? For what? I'm going to pass.

I really wish all of you the best. the Houston Business Journal. I really do. I'm supporting journalism. I subscribe to the Chronicle and the athletic. Yes, you get my money, journalism. Athletic and Chronicle got my money, but I'm not big on the Houston Business Journal.

I'm wishing them the best. So somebody does some legwork for us. Are they the only business that got run, or are they among hundreds of them? I hope that they're... It doesn't say they're named the best or one of the best. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to figure out. What is it?

It's just that tweet says Houston's best, meaning that's their best. Proud to be a best family. Maybe it's like among Houston's. You call it Houston's best and you make a list. I'm going to bet that's what's happening. I'm going to hope that's what's happening. Another tweet that just came in. From Irvin Magic Johnson.

Oh, no. No, I haven't seen it. Let me guess. What a great win by the Los Angeles Lakers over the Houston Rockets. Luca Donchich is a special player and LeBron James is aging like a fine wine. How far off am I? Those were yesterday.

Oh, but you're actually pretty close. Okay. The one I saw that came down an hour ago is interesting. Ohio State's making a run. All right. Sorry, go ahead. Irvin Magic Johnson, at 1 p.m. Pacific time, 4 p.m. Eastern. Today I'll be cheering for my MSU Spartans.

They take on North Carolina, Dakota State, in the NCAA tournament. Go green, go white. Okay. Innocent enough, right? Yes. Why in the world would he put at 1 p.m. Pacific, 4 p.m. Eastern Time? Who does that? What do you mean? Do you ever put down what you're doing at a certain time or a certain time game is on?

Why would he write that? I don't know. Have you seen his tweets? That's what I'm saying? That's very odd. He just always puts something weird in there. Stu says, I too will be tuned in in cheering at 1 p.m. Pacific 4 p.m. Eastern. Yeah, he's trying to help out his folks over at Turner. Another one says, I'm going to do the same thing, and thank you very much for mentioning both the time zones. Magic.

He's Mr. Coast to Coast. Magic, can you help me a fellow C-T. Buck-Eyes lead. Oh, Jesus. Buck-Eyes lead, baby. Nebraska up big. And USF, your upset pick is down 11. That's why he's eating all that ice cream over there. This is going well for me now.

Boy, people really love the fact he's mentioning all these time zones. Yeah. Magic Johnson tweets are always captain obvious. Here's one. In the last week, the Lakers have beaten three playoff teams, Denver, Minnesota, and Houston twice. We should do magic tweets every now and then. Like a segment? Like a segment? Like once a week?

No, magic tweet or not? Believe it or not, Magic tweet. Yes. Next week. Okay. That's going to take creative energy, so remind me. Do it at home one night. I really want you to sink your teeth into it. I don't like to bring my work home with me, Matt. I got this text from somebody I cannot announce who I got it from. Chris is. No, you can guess all you want.

John McLean. Stop. John McLean. That's not John McLean. Proud to be a best family-owned business, of course, Houston, Texas. Yes. Was there a special category for families that sue each other? Ooh. Where is there a special category where you got lucky and your dad passed a team on to you? And now you're a family-owned business?

I mean, I guess that's family. How can you be a family-owned business when the brothers hate each other? I mean, how are you the best family-owned business? I mean, that's probably normal for family-owned business, but how can you be the best? We need some due diligence on this. Yes. Yeah, why don't you pony up for this Houston business subscription? We can read the article.

I'm ready to have. All right. Do a seven-day trial. No, because every day I do one of those trials, I always forget to charge. Oh, seven-day trial 99 cents. You'll be fine. Just cancel it. Make a reminder. Write it down on your calendar.

This big-ass calendar you got. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm loving this idea for this Magic Johnson tweet or not. Okay. It'll be great. But you have to do it in advance. Well, you know, I can do it during the show. I just won't listen to what you say, like normal.

It's fine. It is the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. We're at Willie's Grill. How about these horn frog? How about these Buckeyes, baby? Two and a half. All right, update on the scores. Those of you playing at home, Nebraska's crushing Troy, 50 to 32.

That's early second half. That's good. I think that's a 14 and a haffer. Ooh, I remember I have USF beating Louisville. How's that going? Cardinals are up 10 late first. It's early. It's not that early, but it's kind of early.

Wisconsin leads high point 20 to 14 with 1137 left to go on the first. Love it. And that's it. And of course, now Ohio State leads TCU 5755. That one's getting close and late. 428 to go. Our Cougars, America's Cougars play at 9, 10 to night against Idaho. BYU is America's Cougars.

No, they're not. They have a bigger nationwide fan base than Houston. That's because they're religious background. Well, I'm sorry, the facts are the facts. Nobody claims BYU as America's team. Yeah, I think they do. No, they don't. people in Utah don't even claim them

now the religious faith the LDS does yeah they do people in Utah claim them well some of it does nationwide they're bad and they're nationwide the BYUu Cookers and they're going down go longhorns hookum horns as a former voice

the University of Utah I wish you the Texas Longhorns out of the Texas Longer Oh okay that's a blood feud over there Blood feud They do not like each other That cuts through family lines because you got Utah people that go to BYU you got BYU people people

people to go to Utah. What's the, what's like the history of football-wise? Is they like a 50-50 or is that BYU who holds the edge? Utah's been kicking ass. Utah's typically been kicking their ass, but the last 10 years

probably 50-50 on that. Okay. Oh, now TCU leads 58-57. Oh, my. It gets a plenty of time. Oh, it's the Holy War. That's what they call the rivalries. Okay.

Quickly, my top six rivalries. Oh, Utah's. leads all time. 62 to 37. That's crazy. I think it's that big of discrepancy. BYU says it's only 59 to 34. That's how you've aged and Rice do they have discrepancy.

Really? Oh yeah, they do. I mean, I always fight about it. It's not fight, but they're like... How do they verify the old scores? I don't know. It's like somebody wrote a letter to their dearest Etheline. We defeated the Rassals.

17 to 14. Tell me where I go wrong. Best football rivalries. Ohio State Michigan won. OU. Texas won. OU, Texas, 2, Army Navy, 3, U.S.C., UCLA 4. Bama, Auburn. Bama, Auburn, 5.

Cal Stanford, 6. Florida State? No. No, no, no. I put BYU, Utah over that. What? Yeah. No, stop.

That's only because you lived in Utah. Across the country, Florida, Florida State is bigger than you, BYU. No, no. Coal knows football. Yeah, have you heard his piping hot takes? They're horrible. Yeah, they are tight. They're a hot take.

He's done all of his walking videos outside of his backyard, too. What is that all about? Oh, I don't know. Cole Thompson's over here. Cole is doing a lot of videos. You know what? I have to defer. Now, I don't mind arguing with you, but I could differ.

He is a college football expert. So if Cole Thompson says it, I guess. Who's the right where you again? Florida, Florida State? I would say Florida Miami's bigger. Miami, Florida State's actually bigger than that. We're talking about historically or? last 10 years.

Historically. Okay. I've been to a Florida Miami game. Yeah, but BYU, I mean, BYU is winning national championships in like the 80s. That game just doesn't have the cashier relevance. But that's in the end state. Are we talking about who hates?

Oh, I got one for you. Are we doing who hates each other? I got one for you. I got one for you. The Egg Bowl, Mississippi State Old Miss is pretty good, too. Okay. Let's go with the Apple Cup while we're here. Hey, why not?

The old Ogre Bucket. The old Oak and Bucket. And Michigan and Minnesota. What about the Little Brown Jug? You're going to play for that too. Buy you Bucket. Oh, USC Notre Dame? They're not going to play anymore.

No, no, no. No, no. You don't see. This is your call. Yeah, get a call. Get out of it. Come on now. You know what?

I'm starting to podcast. It's called SEC filtered. Mine's going to be called Better than Coles and Gordy's. Yeah. 713-212-5-7. Outy. Let's talk to Jay and spring at 110. Hello, Jay.

Hey, I can go off others. Good. Hello. Yeah. Yes, sir, you're on. Yep. All right. Yeah, I consider myself one of your sane callers and listeners.

We'll be the judge of that. No, Jay's right. Jay's correct. I know the voice. Yeah, because when you, when y'all get out of people that's making these random solutions to problems and then you ask, well, what's the problem? Then they get quiet and start stuttering. And the first words that come out there, my, well, I don't know.

Maybe we try something different. It's stuff to be hilarious. People don't know what they're talking about. But my question is regarding the Rockets of this season. At this point, you know, with all the injuries and everything, I think just getting out of the first round would be a positive for the direction of the team, considering all the injuries then if we run it back, it'll be a little bit better outcome and a little bit more support for next year.

But to me, they have to get out this first round. And my question is, with the turnovers and all that stuff, how do you foresee that happening, which opponent would be ideal for us to get out the first round? And then my last thing, this is just a joke toward our job too. You know, I've rep PV and U of H. So I think PV's going to do what U of H didn't do and get rid of Florida, and I hang up a list. Oh. He said he was going to say crazy things.

The chances of Perryview beating Florida? Zero percent. It's not point one, not point zero zero zero one, zero percent. There is no chance, no way, no how. Relax, he's just talking trash. God, you don't have to take it so serious. But he brought up Florida, man. That's a sensitive nerve to me.

Oh, I feel, I see. You're being sensitive. I got you. 35 and a half point favorites. It's like the biggest spread since 1999 or something like that. Per view is... I'm taking Florida on the money line. Oh, okay.

Yeah, thank you. It's my lock at a week. I need Ohio State in this. How come everybody on TCU shoot 65% from the free throw line? That's college basketball. I'm not going to be a free throw line. 65 seems to be about average. All right, real quick, most favorable opponent in the first round?

T. Wolves. T. Wolves. I don't know if the Lakers are ever going to. They're not going to win nine out of every 10, but they're playing their best basketball in the dinner for about three. T. Wolves has made the West Finals two games in a row, but Yokic and the more healthy nuggets scare me. Yeah, I'm just kind of...

Gobert doesn't scare me. Julius Randall's good. Anton Edwards is hurt right now. Edwards is, but he should be fine. There's no easy matchup. T-Wills could beat the Rockets in the first round. Am I going to be on the road the first two games? Answer my question right now, and do not stutter.

Do not stutter. Give me an answer. Are I in game one in Houston or in game one in somewhere else? I didn't hear you. Toyota Center. Houston Toyota Center. I'm super confident. You're positive?

I couldn't be more confident of anything in my entire life. Or I'm hoping for the best. They're the five seed right now, Matt. They've lost three and the last four games. Why are you wanting me to inspire some kind of confidence? He's got their ass kicked by the Lakers in two different ways and two different games. But it's a one game turn around. They've got no point guard.

They can't figure out getting a double team. But look, you saw that fair quarter? You're right, you're right, I'm sorry. That was in Monday. They did better on Wednesday. I'm sorry, I was heated. I want to give you a Friday, sorry for that one right now. Write it down.

I can get you a new daytimeer. You're writing all these I'm sorrys down. You got like 40 deep on those bad boys. It's okay. I want to transition to an online calendar. No, you don't. I can't do it. No, no, no.

It's much better. I guess I'm just too old school. Too old. I don't know. 713, 2, 1,2-1-2-790. Jay and Vince, we'll get to you next. Plus, if you missed our visit with Brian McTaggart, more on the baseball on the Astros.

He's our Thursday guest with us, and we'll have that conversation for you as well in about 15 minutes here on Sports Talk 790. We're Willey's at 290 in Barker, Cyprus. We're also run through some of the specials here in a couple of minutes, but if you want to come by, half hour left to take my notepads from me and maybe win rocket tickets. I'm about to get real happy coming up at 2 o'clock.

Why is that, my friend? $3.3.3.3.3.5. apps, $3 wine. We'll get a little wine drunk and get Willie's, let's go, baby. I'll have your finest cabernet and a frozen Jack and Coke, five bucks. Sources close to the show say

those are dangerous. The second, plan for a safe ride home. If you drink one, you must eat. If you drink two of them, you must not drive. So yes, Willys, Grill, and Ice House, we're at Barker, Cyprus, and 290 shows here until

2 o'clock. Everybody's getting excited about this rocket's drawing that coming up in one. I know, very, very nervous. KJ and Cyprus, KJ, what's going on? Fellows, fellas, fellas. He was usually a love to show. Long time and listen to comment when I can. Real quick.

I got one comment about Durant. It seems like every time I go in about Durant, Ross acts like he needs a CPAP machine. So do you guys realize that with the exception of the third quarter last night, the last five quarters of NBA basketball, Kevin Durant has scored a whopping seven points, correct? Do you realize that he was getting double-teamed every time he touched the ball, and it's hard to score points when they are playing, game planning,

to double you and then take the ball out of your hands? I get that. I also saw Luca get a double-team. I also saw Luca get double-team heavily last night. Lucas is better than 37-year-old Kevin Durant. I'm with you on that. No, stop, stop. Better dribbler, better brawl handler.

He's got a better stepback game. He lose quickly, laterally better. He's better and more athletic than Kevin Durant is right now. Hello? No, can I finish it? Hello. Go ahead, KJ. No, I'm going to put him on home for a second.

Uh-oh. Okay? Because, again, you keep saying these incorrect things, so it's like, yeah, yeah, I'm with you. Kevin Durant's not as good as Luca Donchich. He's not. He can't handle the double team as better as Luke and Donchitz. Luca Donchis has a better handle. He's a better dribbler.

He's a better passer. So yes, absolutely. Luca Dongeantz handles a double team better than Kevin Durant. Go ahead, KJ. KJ, the floor is yours. See what I mean? I can't make a comment without him telling me up. You have multiple hours.

I have limited time, bro. Go, go, go, go. He's like, wait a minute, Rose, stop. Chew! That wasn't Ross. I'm just saying, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

See, what's going on. He literally, he literally is not the first superstar to get a double team. It happens to every superstar to lead. But again, the primary reason I called in wasn't necessarily about the rent. The primary reason I call it, I'm a big fan of continuity. I'm a big fan of chemistry. And one of the reasons I think we had the success we had last year as a team was because we had chemistry. That was a, there was a continuity there just not existed this year.

But in addition to Jaylen Green's shortcomings in the Go to State Series and the playoffs, the thing that stood out the most to me in that series was nobody was able to make shots. Our line of going into the season with the Fred Land Eaters was a Kogi, a men Thompson, the starting lineup, Jabari, Durant, and Tim Ngo. Nobody in that lineup can shoot three, with the exception of the Red. Jabari is riding the heater now, but Jabari's even going to the Midrans game more lately because he doesn't have confidence in his shot. He's been decent

the past couple of games, but for the most part, he's not shooting the threes at the same clip. His shot him consistent. Our bench primarily was Red Sheppard, Stephen Adams, and Tarry Easton. Rich Sheppard, decent three-point shooters.

There's nobody in this lineup consistently with an exception of Table of the Rand and Reed Sheppard that's locking down three. So I think our primary issue with this team is when you do do driving kickouts, When you do get double teams to Kevin Durant, you don't have anybody on this roster who can

consistently lie down in shock. And that's a referee on Stone team. And for him to make the comment earlier this, you know, everyone will know that was when he said this may just not be our year, dude, what are you doing? We have a 37-year-old superstar who's surrounded by a bunch of bricklids.

And in the current time in the NBA, if you don't have at least two or three good shooters on your team, consistent shooters. not guys who get hot and clean. Consistent shooters, they're not going to thrive. I can go on about some other things. I think that is a major fraud with the way this team is constructed, and it kind of makes me wonder how much of the same page,

rap me up stone and email dunker-on. Again, fellas, love to show. Me and you're going to go out of one day, Ross. I love it, bad. Y'all can throw hands later. I don't care. I'm a lover, not a fighter. I can throw hands.

Go ahead. If this team would have done, done nothing but run it back, the complaint would have been you ran it back with a team that doesn't have a fourth quarter shooter, a clutch shooter. Kevin Durant's a clutch shooter. I'm not going to take the sample size of the last couple of games and say that Kevin Durant has not been clutched for this basketball team. He has saved this team's baking Rossi on numerous occasions. I'm not going to, I, you cannot dispute that with me. You just can't. You needed a fourth quarter score. Jalen Green couldn't do it. Jalen Green is really not

in Phoenix. Jalen Green's the same player in Phoenix he is. He just is. Ask Sun's fans how they're feeling about the Jalen Green experience right now. It's up and it's down. It's what we've seen from him the entire time. You needed something more consistent. And you and folks, you all were again, let's not revisit history here. Yeah. You were ready to run him out of town after that Golden State series.

Absolutely. So they went all in with Kevin Durant and unfortunately two of your major rotation players got hurt. Oppren Shingoon has been missing for a couple of games and hasn't been playing well up to par. Tari Isan is regressing hard and Dorian Finney Smith has been a bust of a signing as of this moment. So, yeah, it's not going so hot.

And they're still fourth in the West. It's not a disaster season. They're just... We can save... Honestly, we can save some of this conversation for when the season ends. I'm going to say, we can talk about this all off season. Final score!

TCU 66. Oh, God. Ohio State 64. Oh, my gosh. Everybody's brackets are busted now. I'm not. What, Jonathan, you can't get. You can't chime in.

We're hurting you for an hour. I had it with my bracket. I'm going to start a show. All right. Congratulations. We're proud of you. It's great. Oh, wait.

Half court, he for Ohio State for the win of the backboard. They had four seconds to get up court. What are they doing? That's TCU stifling defense? As a long time. Hey, I've been watching Ohio State basketball. I'm going to take. you how long for two hours you know i am i just started big 12 greater than big 10 i tell you this

every single day whatever i'm gonna cry oh us fk oh no never mind i misread the score they're still down 10 i thought it's at 37 37 37 but it's a 27 37 vent you're on 790 go ahead hey guys so i have many thoughts on the rocket but i'm good i'm gonna inundate you with all that but just one of the things that's really standing out to me is just the lack of fundamentals and I can't blame that on Nudoka because those guys, they're professional basketball players. I mean, Kevin Durant, the two back court deals that he's done, Albert Finney Smith, and he still is Albert Phiddy Smith, in my opinion.

He threw, they had an easy fast break. He threw the ball way behind the guy. They teach you to throw the guy the ball ahead of the guy. And it's just the fundamentals, most of the turnovers are, Unforced, eighth grade type turnovers that you see eighth graders do. And I don't know who's accountable. Who holds them accountable for that? Stop crawfishing on Reed Shepherd, man.

I heard you hyping them up early. Oh, sorry. We're getting a call. Yeah, people talking to us on the show. That's all right. Sorry, bids. Thank you. It's not about fun.

I mean, these are NBA players. These are guys that are playing 40 minutes a game at the highest level possible, fundamentals at Sonti H. Now, are there turnovers that will drive you nuts? Absolutely. The behind the back pass that goes to the second row or that one turnover that Alpi had last night that he threw behind. Was it a man on the baseline, I guess it was,

or Jabari? Those kill you. Look, this has been a high turnover team this year. I'm not going to guarantee anything, but I can feel very confident saying that if Fred Van Vleek comes back next year and they maybe do get another additional point guard to back him up a true

prototypical point, the turnovers will go down. This still may be a high turnover team. But Fred not only was a good ball handler, he gave you major minutes, but he also was the assist turnover ratio. One of the things that made him so good is his turnover number was so low. You lose that. You're putting ball in hands of guys that

have higher turnover counts. It's just it's never going to change. It's been that way this entire season. And I'm sorry to say it, but it is a component of this team. Yeah. And you don't expect Kevin Durant to have to carry as much of the load of ball handling and initiating offense that he's had to. And it's been by committee.

It's been some of them in. It's been Alpi. It's been Kevin Durant. It's been a bunch of different guys. And it's everybody trying to shore up for missing your point cards. So yes, it leads to the bad turnovers. Because you just have guys, they're not going to have the handle and the passing ability of like Prime Chris Paul. It's just not.

Passes are going to be missed. Guys are going to pass inaccurately. You have good playmakers and decent passers, but you just don't. have anybody doing that necessarily at an elite level consistently. All right, let's take a quick time out. We're going to talk to Jim in the Heights, and then we'll get a little bit of the Brian McTaggart conversation. I love it that we had earlier today with him.

He's our Astros Insider from MLB.com and Astros.com. We'll hear that next. 130. Sports Talk 790 from Willies, 290 and Barker Cyprus. Jim in the Heights on 790. Go ahead, Jim. Hey, you guys know me as a regular caller. Jim from the Heights.

I grew up in Tomball, currently. live in Cyprus, born in Heights Hospital. But I'm also a member of the LDS Church. So I'll fill your guys in a little bit on what goes on. These guys send people out all over the world to do missionary work. And so they end up, you know, all over the world. So almost everybody that I go to church with over in Cyprus didn't grow up in Houston, or the fair amount of them didn't.

And so I love being that guy from Texas. They could play anybody from Texas. Texas. BYU plays U-TEP. And, man, I'm talking about the minors. They can play, you know, the Padre Island Pelicans for all I care. And I'm talking smack to these guys because they do get a little obnoxious. I will tell you, and that's from inside the circle.

So a little bit of information there for you guys. I know you're talking about it earlier, but I couldn't get in. All right. Thanks for the phone call. Thank you. Obnoxious to BYU fans. They are obnoxious. What do they have to be obnoxious about?

How do I put this delicately? Oh, damn, Troy got their ass-wooked. Yeah. They may... How do I do this? You know, I'm not going to do it. Okay. I'll just say there's hypocrisy and everything.

And I think BYUu fan can be a little hypocritical. About how they portray their lives, but when they become sports persons, they're a little bit different. Oh, okay. I'm going to leave it at that. Brian McTaggart, MLB.com, was a guest with us earlier today. He's with us every Tuesday live at 11 o'clock, and your chance right now to catch some of the conversation.

And I think, Jonathan, help me out. Did we start talking about the outfield conditions yesterday and Jupiter that forced a lot of the players off? I think that's where we got our visit with him about. And here is some of our visit Ross and I had with Brian McTaggart earlier today. Yeah, I don't think they were, super terrible. I mean, it was just sort of it's rained here for a couple of days

pretty much nonstop. And so there was a drizzle during the game. So I just don't think they wanted to take any chances. I mean, look at the lineup they had out there. I mean, they had pretty much their opening day lineup out there except for Jeremy Pena. So they just wanted to take zero chances. And when I saw

Paredes come off the field in the middle of the third, I was like, okay, I think I see what's going on here. And then Alvarez left and then Altuvae. And yeah, they just, he wanted those guys I think to get four, five at three, four bats. They ended up getting just two, but they just didn't want to take any chances. So ironically, enough, all the Twitter nervousness was nothing, correct?

Everybody's doing okay, no injuries report of as it this morning? Yeah, no injuries. Yeah, everybody, I mean, the Astros play a night game, so none of the players are here yet. They do have the spring breakout prospect game's about to start, but, yeah, the Major League Club hasn't even reported yet. All right, before we get to the big picture on the current 26, tell me about Walter Yannick, and tell me where he is, where he's going to be, and is he slow to move up the Astros organizational chart?

Well, he probably opened more eyes here in this camp than anybody else, especially when it came to prospects. I mean, he really came in here and did a really good job. I think everybody knew what he could do defensively, the elite pop time, the arm strength. He showed all that. throwing behind runners at first base, showing off the arm. I mean, it's all there.

I think he's got major league ready, defensive skills, handled the pitchers pretty well. So they were really, really pleased with what he did. And then he swung the bat, too. Hit a home run, made more contact, just looked very comfortable up here against the pitching. So, you know, he's a guy that has spent pretty much the last two years ever since he got drafted at high A.

And so, yeah, he's going to start the season. say at AAA Corpus Christi. He's from Corpus Christi, his hometown, so some home cooking, but I could see him in AAA by the end of the year. And, you know, who knows? I mean, we all know the Astros have a little bit of a drop-off in catching depth after Yiner. But we could, I wouldn't rule out seeing him in the big leagues by the end of the year, but I think certainly next year he's in the big leagues. All right, staying with the catcher's spot, is Vasquez, the leader in the clubhouse in your mind to be the number two catcher behind Yonnier? I wouldn't necessarily say that, Matt.

I mean, I think the fact that Salazar's been here all camp, and he's so widely respected in the clubhouse. You know, he's worked with these pitchers all spring. You know, he does swing a left-handed bat, although, you know, he hasn't swung much of a bat. I'm not ready to say this is Baskas' job to lose. So, you know, Christian's first game, I think, was over in Brayton the other day.

He did pretty well. So I think right now it's a coin toss. It's 50-50. depending what they're looking for. But I'm not ready to rule out Salazar making the opening day roster. Yeah, but either way, Brian, it just doesn't seem like a great option. I mean, Yiner Diaz came into camp with that foot sprain. Your one aggravation or any kind of injury away from having to put Salazar or even a Vasquez,

who hasn't put up good numbers in a couple of years, out there every single day. I mean, how much of a lot? Should alarm bells be going off? I mean, it feels like it's not necessarily something we're talking about every, day, but you could be in a bad situation here with just one injury. Yeah, you could. I mean, they do have some depth with the position. You know, they got Carlos Perez,

who's been in the big leagues, but I get it. I mean, it's not the drop-off after Diaz is there's nobody you'd feel comfortable with getting the everyday starts. But, you know, I'll keep an eye over the next week. Some guys are going to be getting cut from camps right at the end the camp. You know, maybe if there's a catcher

that they like, who they feel maybe is a better option for their backup catcher. They can go and try to nab somebody off waivers or make a trade or whatever. But yeah, it is a concern, but you're right. They have to hope YonRD stays healthy at a position that's very demanding and you're one foul tip away from going on the IL. So I think it's something they're going to be keeping an eye on other team's

rosters here for the next few days. Brian McTaggart with us here on a Sports Talk 790 covering the Astros for MLB.com. Tell me what you're seeing, hearing everything about Bryce Matthews in terms of his work in the field, at the plate, and what type of role he could possibly carve out? I know you had him making the roster in your projection. Yeah, I had him making the roster if Pena starts the season on the IL, which I think right now, again, is probably a 50-50 proposition.

He's supposed to grab a bat and start swinging this weekend, which leads me to believe that he might be ready for the start of the season. But, you know, Bryce has had a pretty good spring. You know, he's got a Homer driven in some runs. He's stolen some bases. and drawn some watch, which they'd really like. If he makes this club, it'll be, obviously, is kind of the last guy off the bench.

He can play some second if they have to, you know, maybe put Altuve in D.H. He can certainly play center field as well. So I don't think he would get a ton of the bats. You know, he's probably a better serve to go to AAA and then be ready for a call-up. They don't seem really motivated to play him at shortstop going forward, the position he was drafted at.

But he's looked pretty good in the outfield. He's, I mean, he's very athletic. We know he was a stark quarterback at a Tascat. So he can certainly, he certainly has the athleticism to handle center field. Ryan McTaggart with us from West Palm Beach, our MLB Astros Insider with us every Thursday at 11 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. Is Ted or Tramel fighting for a spot or am I just looking at March numbers and going, man, a nice camp, but we know who he is ultimately. I think he's got a really good shot to make the team.

not on the 40 man, so they would have to create a spot for him. But if you look at the guys that are battling for those four outfield spots, I mean, Jake Myers, of course, has made the team. I think, I think Cam Smith has made the team at this point. He's had a pretty good spring, 871 OPS. Joey Lopropitos had a great spring. So I think he's a lot. So I think it'll come down to Tremel or Zach Cole.

They both hit left-handed, both have a little bit of pop. Can both play all three outfield positions. but Cole just has not swung the bat very well this spring. He's six for 32 with 16 strikeouts, which I think is a big concern. So he hasn't even played at AAA yet very much. So I think Cole right now begins the season in AAA. And I think Tremel makes this team because he has had a solid camp. You do know what you're getting, but you also know what you're getting.

And you know you can put him in any of those outfield spots. He's going to give you some good defense. and he will give you a good at bat off the bench from the left side. When you said 16 strikeouts, my jaw drop. Brian, that's a terrible. That's a terrible number. It's 50%. I mean, and that was the thing on him coming up is he's very aggressive at the plate.

You know, a swing hard, and he makes contact, and he hits the ball hard. And he has hit the ball hard this spring, but he's hit the ball hard on the ground. But there's just too much swing and miss yet. So I know it's something that they're working on with. him but that's that's just a lot of swinging this so yeah i i think he'll be in triple a and they'll try to get that ironed out before we see him back up here staying with the outfield uh yordawn's been pulled twice because of weather to play the outfield uh how anxious when you walk around the clubhouse is he's like man i got this glove i want to use it uh is he

getting enough working left field for his satisfaction my guess is probably the answer is no to that yeah i mean he's done a lot of work on the backfields too So Yoran likes to play outfield. I mean, he would like to be out there a couple of times a week. And when they sign him to that big contract, they didn't sign them as a D-AX. They signed him as an outfielder. And, you know, he really likes to do it. Is he a great outfielder?

No. Is he a butcher? No. But I think the Astros know that they would like to get a little more athletic out there, which is kind of their goal with the way their outfield is configured right now. So we can still see him out here next few games. being they only have, what, four games left here, a couple of Diken Park. So he is going to play outfield this year, not a ton, but yeah, we will see him out there,

and he wants to do it, and I think Joe's going to keep him out there enough to keep him fresh in left field. You mentioned, or we were talking about Jake Myers, we were talking about the outfield earlier. It's funny to me, it was all off-season. It just seemed like the naturality that he was going to be traded away. And then, of course, on the East Hoc Paratus thing, I mean, is that, are we just as soon? that neither or either of those trades are just not going to be made? Yeah, I mean, I thought all offseason that Myers would get traded, and I wrote that several times. I mean, I wasn't guessing.

You know, these are things I was being told. I mean, they obviously were shipping him around. It didn't happen. You know, obviously they've tried to trade Paredes this spring as well. You know, the chances I keep getting told are slim is just, there's just a fine margin with what the Astros want in return. So yeah, I mean, it looks like unless something happens, we're a week from opening day, but this next week, like I said, is going to be, rosters are going to be changing here left and right. Some guys are going to get cut from teams.

Some teams are going to get desperate. You know, maybe somebody needs a center fielder and wants to make a deal with the Astros or maybe the Red Sox say, hey, we would like Paredes after all, so maybe they can make a deal. So I would say more likely than not just because where we're at in the calendar that both Myers and Porettes. are on the opening day roster, but some things could happen here in the next few days with other teams that could force the Astros maybe to make a deal and change their roster up a little bit as well. That again, Brian McTaggart. And real quick, Ross were going to break. If we just heard Tags say this, it sounded like to me he thinks that there could be something happening the next handful of days. I wonder if that is something that's on the cusp and that they're waiting to figure out if Jeremy Payne can open up the year? Or do you hold back in the second? something like that until you know exactly when Jeremy Pena is coming back. Very, very interesting.

This guy has to happen. I think Joe Spada goes into Dana's office every day and says, you got to do something. I'm sure they've been trying to, but Dana also wants to get fair value. And he knows teams around the league. And other teams know that aren't going to ready to do it. Leveraging than high. That's right. Back to wrap things up here from Willies, where Ross is going to go through the menu for you next here on Sports Talk 790.

Oh, Ross, he got a little sun beat. Cream, you got a lot of cream gravy on there. You love that cream, don't you? Ross, Philadelphia, L. America's cream gravy expert. Delicious. Come a bite? I want with some roast. You better get off my steak.

Get off my meat. Congratulations to our winners. Joe and Trevor are going to the Rockets game on April the 1st. All right. You get on emailing them. I'll handle this. You know what? You handled the rest of show. My food just got here.

All right. So let's say about tomorrow. We've got about two minutes left. We're going to hear from Joseph Tortay because he's going to talk about the Cougars big win against Idaho tonight. Yes. We'll join him from Oklahoma City. We're going to, I'm going to schedule IMA Adoka for a few minutes tomorrow as well. Oof.

It'd be fine. How many double team questions did he take in that pre-game avail yesterday? Press conference. You know what? I respect the hell of him because he answers the questions. He answers him. So we'll talk to him tomorrow on the show. And then Wex is going to go against Jonathan.

Yes. On the Fantasy 5. Yes. Master's meal. Appetizer. Oh, with the master's theme. Oh, for sure. On 790.

Two entrees, a side and a dessert. And Jonathan, just to let you know, you can go to any order you want to. Oh, yeah, that's smart. Well, what would be? Banana cream for dessert. French onion soup for the appetite. It might be what I got here. I got chicken fried steak, man.

Potatoes, vegetables. French onion soup, rib eye. Uh-huh. Shrimp scampi. Well, since I'm from Texas, you know, I'd probably get some brisket. Maybe some enchiladas. Maybe some tamales, something like that. Show some Texas flair with some tamales.

French onion soup, ribby, shrimp scamping. And with some sweet tea. Side dish dish would be hash brown potatoes, the shredded ones. Uh-huh. And dessert would be the banana cream pie. And on that note, I go with pecan pie for dessert. Texas. I went four hours today.

With Ross, Mr. Texas saying goodbye. The A. Shut your bum asses up. He's getting boost from the galleries. The A team is next on 790.