The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - USA WINS GOLD! Rockets vs Jazz Tonight, Does Houston Want NHL?

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

USA WINS GOLD! Rockets vs Jazz Tonight, Does Houston Want NHL? 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10-01 in H-Town. Good morning, and welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. First of all, the highlights are good, but I like this song because I'm a hulkermaniac. Brother.

Me, rest and peace. 103 on 790. Good morning, Houston. Good morning, America. And if you listen to us on the IHeartRadio app, Chris Gordy is going to stay with me for a couple hours today. Our good friend Ross, remember the other day, Ross mentioned that he was sitting next to somebody that was sneezing the entire flight from Fort Allardell back to Houston? Well, you got the old flu. I got officially diagnosed with that yesterday.

So hopefully he is feeling better today or at least has proper medication do so. Hopefully getting back tomorrow, if not maybe on Wednesday. So Gordy comes in. He is our ultimate. You know what you are? You are the ESAC paredes of the. be 790 Air Staff. You could play any of the positions.

I don't if I'd put you in morning drive. Maybe I'm... Well, you're better for the middays. How are you? But being the PD of the station, I'm almost like... Like, it would be like asking Dana Brown to go take some hits. Like, you're going to oversee the operation, but then you're also going to be part of the operation. I like... I like her.

Your reference is better than mine. I... Yeah, the other thing with Ross is, it doesn't help when we're 75 one day and 38 the next. Like, what is this crap? I know. Stop. Well, how about this? Yesterday, we leave New York City.

I mean, literally hours before the blizzard comes in. It was starting to snow. They put so much de-icing stuff that the wings of our plane were green. Oh, I guess that's good. It's good. I mean, I guess you can't have enough, right? Yeah. So we'd had that.

So we got out of there just in time before. I don't know if they named it a storm or just a good old-fashioned blizzard. but the thing about blizzards, for those that don't know, it's blizzards are wind and snow combined, drifting snow, and I think it's 30 miles an hour or more they call blizzard. And that just doesn't what happened in the East Coast. Certainly doesn't happen in New York, but they're getting it.

And I think flights to New York have been canceled for the most part all the way and through to about 7 or 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. So good luck if you're trying to get the East Coast, really from Washington, D.C. northward, northward up to Boston, all that area, too, is really messed up. Gordon, how was your weekend? It was good. I, once every four years, get into soccer,

once every four years get into hockey and, you know, all these sports. So, yeah, I didn't, the Winter Olympics are just completely off my radar. I don't give a damn. I'd rather watch, I mean, I honestly watch, I watch more spring training game. I watch both Asteroon spring training games all the way through. But I got into the hockey yesterday. I was cool. Because, you know why?

Because it matters so much to Canada. And most of us, we just don't, we wouldn't, given a damn. Had we lost? I'm like, oh, okay. Oh, well. The fact we broke their hearts just made it extra more special. Yeah, they're really cranky about it this morning. Now, again, when I lived in Minneapolis, St. Paul,

I did a show for three years there where a hockey team was in town, and I was really worried when I took the job in 2007. I said, you know, I don't know Jack Squad about hockey, and they're like, it's not going to kill you. All you got to do is just be willing,

to put people on that do know about hockey and are willing to embrace it because people just, even in the Twin Cities, which is a huge hockey community, you just can't get on the sports radio and talk about hockey because it just doesn't gravitate towards being something that will be a talk show topic. So I did it for three years. I went to probably four or five games, maybe even six or seven games a year. My kids liked it. I certainly enjoyed it. The interviews from the players were significantly better than anything from a football, basketball, or baseball perspective. They just, they appreciated the coverage. But they also at the end of the day, you realize they're also multi-millionaires. It is a very successful sport, but of the four major

sports, it's the number four. For those that don't know that have tried to go to games in other cities, it's a very expensive sport. You're going to pay probably as much or if not more than you would for a hockey game than you would for an NBA game. There's no $11 upper deck cheap seats. Everything is, as everything would you expect for an NBA franchise. So with that being said, and I was teasing the morning show about this because they're young into this kind of thing. You get the OG with you here and kind of been through this.

I could take the conversation our morning show had. I told them this morning, I said, why don't you all save this, record this? And then four years from now, you can play it again. because the big story, I shouldn't say big, a story today here in the market is, man, that was so awesome. I can't wait to get Houston and get a hockey team. It's got to be now. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer to you.

I want to be a Reggie realist to you. Yeah, I just coined that one to me. The reality is, I think at some point we're going to get hockey here. But, Gordy, I've been saying that for 15, 20 years. there is a variety of things that have to happen in order for the NHL to come here. The first and most important thing is you've got to find an ownership group, and there are two different people in this town that at least have shown some interest in it. How deep in the interest?

I'm not going to use the Twitter street to tell me how interested two different rich people are. I'm going to see when Gary Bettman says something, the commissioner of the NHL. I'm going to see when Tillman Fertito or the Freakin family says something about it. that's when I will start to gain any sort of real traction towards whether or not the NHL is coming here. But those two sides, the two richest groups of people that have at least talked about or at least been mentioned with NHL, when they say something, then I'll take it seriously. But I know there's fan sites out there, and there's Hockey Day in Houston, and there's the NHL, the Houston Twitter account. And God love those nice people.

I've never met any of them, but they're really, they love their sport. And for that, I appreciate that. But the reality is it's not just if you build it, they will come. That is not how business works. It's just not. And the reality is it's not about trying to get a team here because people will gravitate toward it. It's towards filling up a building 45 times a year. It's about corporate sponsorships and sweet sales and all that other stuff that really drives the economic window that would be bringing a team here.

and then ultimately you have to decide if you're a building like the TOTA center do you want to give up 45 dates for concerts and other events to put an NHL team in there not knowing whether or not is going to have 17,000 people to building 45 times? Well, it's one of those things I think it's if you, you know, the idea of if you build it, they will come.

Like you know it's not going to be a hit right off the bat. But I look at Vegas and the Golden Knights, I mean, they were skepticism all around that. And the team got good and won a championship. Almost immediately. Yeah. And that attracted the fans. So that's part of it.

But again, like it worked for Las Vegas. It's worked for some other cities. I think there's interest. The question is how much interest? And again, I think the caveat is the team would have to be good or on a path to getting good. But you can't guarantee that. I know. But as far as company support, I mean, look at all the companies like Exxon Mobil, Chevron,

Philip 66, Memorial Hermann, somebody will step up and they'll write the check for. I don't know. They're ExxonMobil? I don't see them plastered all over all the sports scenes in this town. Yeah. I mean, you have to have a medical provider. That goes without saying.

Right. But if you're Methodist or Memorial Herman, the two main ones in this town, you've already spent a lot of money on the relationships you have between the Astros, the Rockets, and the Texans. The Fertina family has made it known, though. I mean, they are interested. They have...

But they've made them interesting. known, but to me, they've made it way more known they want a WMBA team than they want an NHL team. And, you know, if they're going to expand, which Gary Betman would like to see expansion from maybe 32 to 34 teams, you're then asking your 30 to 32, whatever it is. It's, they're thinking about two, is how much is the expansion fee going to cost? So you're going to create this expansion fee because that's, the NHL ain't going to want to share any of their money of the other owners unless they get money right up the top from the teams that's coming in. and how much is that going to cost? How much are going to cost to create an upstart organization from scratch, filling it out?

What building? I would assume that if obviously the Fortitas own the team, if they were to really get into one day, it would be the Toyota Center. I don't know if the freaking family would want to have a building where they would be a tenant to a landlord. Now, there is a caveat to it because they're the primary people behind the Toyota Center sponsorship. So maybe there is a business door meeting that's closed with the door locked, and we'll figure it out there.

But why wouldn't, if the Freakins really wanted to do something crazy, they could probably try to build their own arena themselves and try to compete with the Toto Center for events. Yeah, I still think downtown's your best bet. I mean, yeah, you could do the woodlands or Sugar Land and create your own thing out there and just be that community's die-hard supporter. That's exactly what they do in Florida. Yeah.

The Florida Panthers are not in Miami. They are outside of Fort Lauderdale. So it's even further north out of the Miami metro area. I just, I don't know, I, I struggle with as a Houston sports fan, I'm tapped out enough with Texans Rockets Astros year round. And the time table works out pretty well, right? When the Rockets season kind of ends, the Astros start to pick up and vice versa. Right. And then football season's football season.

But I don't know. Do we, do we have enough capacity to, and there's the diehards, there's the Cole Thompson's that all be in every game. Okay, great, good for you. But the average Houstonian, would they buy season tickets? You know what I mean? Oh, I bet there would be probably five or six thousand people that would do it, which means you got to fill up 10,000 per night. Now, again, the first couple of years will be the newness of it,

and that sounds cool, and it's maybe the place to be. But having been in sports for a long time and knowing a lot of people, the seat filling is cool, Gordy, but it's those 30 to 40 suites in and around that really drive the economic window and the world that is sports business. If those suites are empty, that's the problem. And that's where you have to kind of figure out, is there enough corporate support? Because that's not the Gordy family bringing all your friends and family from Baton Rouge to hang out in the game.

That's XYZ company spending $35,000, $40,000 for one night of NHL hockey. Now, again, early on it could be. But sustained, I just know, having been around a long time, if this was a 100% guarantee, can't miss, respect. There'd be NHL hockey in this team Houston already. How does Dallas make it work? It works in Dallas. They got all the major teams as well.

Well, Stars have had some success, too. Can I give you the answer that you don't want to hear? We'll do it for you next. 1014. You're not going to like it. 1014 of the Matt Thomas show with Ross Ross. He used to under the weather today. Our friend Gordy is going to hang out with us until noon.

Coming up today in the noon hour, you can win a pair of tickets for tonight's Rockets versus Utah Jazz game. It's an 8.30 start. So if you want to go, get a nap in before the game today. But we'll be giving way a pair of tickets for that today between noon and 1 o'clock. Joseph D'Worte is going to join me at 120. He is in Lawrence, Kansas for today's game between the Cougars and the Kansas Jayhawks. The Houston Cougars on a rare two-game losing streak.

We'll get to that. Plus a little baseball chatter, rockets on the agenda, plus obviously, How much do you translate what you saw over the Olympics to what could be happening here in town? My answer to that is, unfortunately, for those of you that are diehard fans, not much. 1014 on Sports Talk 790. All right, Gordy is in today for us. Ross is a little under the weather. He has, I mean, I don't give out of his business.

He's got flu. There's two strains. Are both obviously are bad? Is one worse than the other one? I don't even know. Like there's flu A and flu B, right? I guess so. I take a lot of vitamin C and regular vitamins every day, and I don't get sick.

That's lucky. I've not been sick. Knock on wood since early November, I was up in Milwaukee. Now, this weather situation, like we're going to Orlando, Miami for a Thursday, Saturday game, and then we go to Washington, D.C. for their Monday. So I'm guarantee I'm back sick Tuesday. That's a guarantee. Oh, yeah, because it's going to be 80s in Florida.

Correct. 36 in Washington. That's right. All right. So part of that, what I sent Gordon, I said, hey, can you come in for a couple hours? should be so glad to. He's also going to do it to tell the truth. Jonathan, do you hear this?

This will be a gorty inspired to tell the truth. Now, I gave him the option of either three truths and one lie or one truth and three lies. Now, I know you're a busy man, so you probably haven't thought of this yet, but what are you leaning towards at this point? Three truths, one lie. Three truths, one lie. Now, I don't normally get put in this position, Jonathan. So I'm kind of anxious to be to see how this thing's going to turn out. not today.

You got to be confident, man. You've got to be confident. That's right. All right, if you'd like to join us today at 713212-5790, 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-790. All right, so the question you asked me before the break was about why can Dallas do it. Don't hit me. You're not going to say they're better sports town. They have greater support for their teams.

Well, maybe history. Okay, now let's put it this perspective. When the Cowboys suck, they still show up. The Cowboys are suck-proof. They can lose 17 games a year, and it wouldn't matter. The stadium would be full. Season ticket waiting list. Correct.

I mean, it's... Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. I mean, Jerry Jones will go to his grave, Gordy, as the greatest sports marketer in the history of sports marketing. Yeah, sure. Okay. Now, winning three Super Bowl is fairly early helped, but he hadn't done squads. squat for 30 years and they still are the number one team in America in terms of television. They have a full stadium. They're the envy of every NFL team and they are the most powerful

sports franchise perhaps in the least for the United States when it comes to sports. All right. Now, what Houston has over Dallas is that now this has been going on for 10 years, but there has been a leaner time in Astros history. The Astros are a more powerful product in Houston than they are in Arlington. And that again goes along the lines of winning. I think the Rockets and the Mavericks are about even, but I just think not having lived in Dallas, except when I was a freshman in college, so that's not a great example. I think it is a more passionate fan base, and I'll leave it at that. That has a greater group of people that would be willing.

Now remember, they also took and they inherited a team from Minneapolis, the North Stars, actually it was St. Paul. So they got a ready-made franchise out of the gateco. Would things have been dramatically different if it was the Dallas Monarchs or what are the Dallas, you know? And they've been there since the early 90s too, right?

So they've been there a long time that they're ingrained. But Minneapolis, St. Paul, North Stars chose Dallas. They didn't choose Houston. Well, why would that be the case? I'll say too. I got a buddy, his family there, die-hard Rangers fans.

I mean, even when the Rangers suck, They were die hard at every game loud. I mean, you know, I give Dallas credit on that front. But Cole kind of said the same thing. So the Seattle Crack and sucked their first year, made the playoffs and their second. He said, Matt's right. You have to be good within three years to make it work. But there's not yet.

And there's also franchises. Las Vegas, thirsty for sports. Seattle, thirsty for sports. Salt Lake City, thirsty for sports. We're pretty good here. We're pretty happy. We are football number one, baseball two, basketball three. And everything else, well, we got time for it.

I'll say I was shocked when I moved here to Houston and, God, 13 years ago, whatever it's been now. And the Texans were good. And the Texans were playing on a Sunday. And I had to go grab something at the grocery. And I went to an H-E-B packed. And I was just like, wow. Like, you could walk around this city, while pro sports teams play and not even realize. Like, people don't even realize that team's playing.

You're in Pittsburgh. You can go shopping. You can go play golf. You can go to a grocery store and you're fine. Yeah. No, I mean, think about it. The Texans have an issue getting people in the seats at kickoff. The Rockets have an issue at kickoff. I don't really use baseball, or tip time.

I don't even really use baseball because it's 81 games. If you miss the first two innings, largely you're going to be okay. I mean, there may be a few nights where they're off to a fast start. But we're passionate, but we're not nearly as passionate as other places. Yeah. Well, how many times you go to a damn Rockets game, they're playing the Lakers? And there's all these Lakers. It's like, you live in Houston.

What are you doing? We've got a team here. Roof for this team. A little kids wearing Steph Curry jerseys? No. Stop. And even though you, you know, obviously when things get going and buzzing and the team is doing well, there'll be rocket gear left and right up and down the floor.

But that takes winning. And if people are worried about disposable income, you taking your date is two tickets at, you know, $100 bucks a pop, $200 plus the parking and the drinks and the food, you're looking at a $300 night for date now. If you want a family of four to go, multiply that times four. Now maybe you're not sitting in the lower level. You're in the upper deck, but those are probably going to be $60, $70, $80 a ticket up there as well. It's for something that's unknown, that's a hard ask.

Yeah. And not to mention, I mean, I think this is part of it, too. The players, a lot of them are Canadian. A lot of them have hard names to pronounce, Russian names. Oh, you let me tell you something. Like, you've got to educate yourself big time. If they win, you will come. but they're not looking for ready-made.

There's nobody right now. Phoenix franchise moved. Atlanta moved to Winnipeg. Phoenix moved to Utah. The next logical step at this point is expansion. So generally speaking, they have made it easier when the crack and the Golden Knights were new. That was an easy way to get them involved. But if you're going to get these teams to be good right away, guess what the NHL is going to ask?

More money, because you're going to then ask for expansion draft to have fewer players protected, which means you can go cherry pick some of the great players from other teams. And so they're going to say, you're going to take one of our good players away. You're going to have to pay the price for that. Yeah. It's just, and again, like I said this before. Like if we got a team, we'd almost have to have like a summit to have someone explain the rules. And by the way, if we found out tomorrow that one of the two groups wants to own a team,

I'd be more than happy for it. I think it'd be great. I mean, first of all, we are in a sports industry. The more sports we have in a town, the better. But here's where I get. When does their season run? It's exactly as the, it starts about a week earlier than the NBA schedule starts. So it almost runs concurrently.

So is there a way to make it where they're not playing on the same nights? No, because if you have the rockets at home, the XYZ team is on the road. Yeah. It's just tough. It's a tough ass there. There's a lot of things that do it, but let's face it. It's New York's Chicago. No, I mean, there's quite a few actually that do it.

but I just I've been in this and we have a lot of people who've lived here a long time. The reality is it would have to be really good, really fast, or it would be a lot of amon of a lot of apathy because we don't have a foundation behind a history of anything knowing hockey except for the people that are transient people. I was just looking up some of the names. So this is, here's a glimpse into the future five years from now. Tune into the Matt Thomas show. Matt, I just couldn't believe last night.

Coutheroff. I mean, he was, he was, he got called for icing and Drezati was, he was right in his face. I know. Or that all sides call from Clutterbuck? That was a bad call, too. Let's talk to Matt on 7. Dyer at 1028. Matt, good morning to you. Hey, good morning, Matt. Love your show. Thank you. I was just calling about both of the hockey finals. It's phenomenal. I mean, my dad was from Michigan. We grew up, you know, going to the arrows games downtown in the San Houston, Kossium. following all that and it was just i couldn't sit it was just unbelievable two great finals um but i wanted to touch on something you think i think you touched on about a week ago uh in announcers terrico is so smooth i mean the guy's got so much range you can cover all these events but uh kenny uh albert i don't know boy kenny albert my guy he's growing on me man he handled both

of those games all of those games really well but you know his voice will be the one associated with forever now with both games. Yep. So if you calling games, I always wondered, I was thinking about this when that happened in your show, as an announcer, as a guy calling the game, how do you keep your wits? And this is like big moments like that that you are just trying to do your job and you want to just jump out of your seat and go crazy, you know? And lastly, legendary sports guys, I remember when Vern Lundquist,

retired. He was the voice of college football and Saturday. He seems like you always call it SEC games and stuff. If there was one or two of those guys you could sit down with, have a beer, share dinner and just ask him, man, what's the biggest event you called? Was this

SEC final or was it this basketball game or is it whatever? So I just wanted to pick your brain if you had any of those kind of moments that you called one and two, who were your broadcasts, quote, icon that if you could sit down and just share stories with, who would they be?

Great question, Matt. Thank you for listening. I will give you the answer to those when we come back. 1030 is our time. It is Matt and Gordy in for Ross today. To tell the truth at 1130 in the noon hour, we will be giving away a pair of tickets for the Rockets versus the Utah Jazz. We can skip maybe talking about the fourth quarter against the Nix on Saturday if you want to,

but I think we have a responsible host. We have to do that. So we get that. We have NFL win totals are early four out, early. out so far and those things will always be changing plus a little early astros chatter as well and again the social media interests for NHL hockey in houston is there does it translate to people going to their checkbooks and right nobody has checks anymore going to their ATM card or their credit card and saying yes I'll put it down for season tickets and high sponsorships 1031 on 790 1036 on 790 it is

Matt and Gordy in and Gorda be with us till noon today. We're going to go to Lawrence Kansas at 120 for a little Cougar conversation. My squad lost two in a row. We don't lose two in these days very often. Yeah, Arizona, they just, man, everything kind of went their way. Like how many basketball shots did Emmanuel Sharp, those guys make, where the ball's like halfway in and then just comes out? I hate that. Yep. Well, they turn it all over, foul troubles and issue, all those sort of things. We'll get more on that coming up later on the

show. And again, in the noon hour, today, I have a pair of tickets for the Rockets and the Utah Jazz will be giving away today. So if you can go to the Rockets game tonight, it's 830 against the Utah Jazz. We will give those away for you noon. All right. So to discuss Kenny Albert. We were talking about that. With Sondor off here, he is synonymous now with that call. Kenny Albert here. I've never been a mega Albert family fan. Marve's been good. Obviously respect for the generations of NBA back. basketball he's called and football and done a lot of things in hockey too. Yes. Is that good Mark Albert? It was okay. It wasn't great. Very, very funny guy. I've always appreciated his wit.

Kenny was always to me just okay. I mean, he obviously got in through nepotism, but he's been doing this for 30 years. He does NFL, basketball, baseball, hockey. He does it all. I don't even know. I was telling us a gory off air. my wife gets mad at me for the amount of time I travel. I don't think Kenny Albert's ever home more than two days in a row.

He does the Knicks on T.A. backup on the Knicks games. He will do NFL football. He's the main announcer for the Rangers. Then he also does T&T hockey. He's never home. He never gets the good NFL games to. It's always like, Panthers and Falcons.

Kenny Albert here. Like, God. Well, I mean, yeah, there's a pecking order. So, yeah. But he certainly had did himself. well. And by the way, when he's not working all those networks, he gets to take a little day job or an extra shift

at the NBC network broadcasting Olympics. And he was great. But yeah, so he and Shaw McDonough right now are the top two announcers in hockey because each of run their own number one crews for their own networks, and they're all fantastic. So, and then as far as who I'd sit down with, now

am I going to sit down Gordy with somebody that's going to tell me stories about being around the game, or am I going to sit around and talk about with these guys nuances of play-by-play broadcasting. Yeah.

Two very different. Two very, very different things. I don't even know, Gordy, if I could even narrow it down. Because if I'm looking for the dramatic, what's the call that's going to stick? It's going to be Kevin Harlan.

It's going to be Jim Nance. It's going to be Iron Eagle. If I'm looking for great stories, of yesteryear I'm going to somehow try to get a table for four above us for guys like Vince Scully and Keith Jackson

Yeah may they rest May they rest So it's and I don't mean not to give an answer to our to our caller But It's two different things Yeah Do I am I always working on my craft Yes as a matter of fact I'll tell you a little small story

Do you remember For those of you that are old school astro radio fans Vince Cotronio it has been a long time majorly broadcaster. Now he's teaching a sports broadcasting class at Arizona State University. And he sent me a text over the weekend and says, hey, would you send me your spotting boards

for your Rockets game sometime soon? And can you send me maybe five or ten minutes to your work? So I had him record, I had the station here record the fourth quarter with the Rockets Knicks game on Saturday, which wasn't great. I mean, it was just an 18-point deficit or lead gone away in a matter of minutes.

and there were lots of turnovers. But so I listened to myself on the plane coming home yesterday from New York. And I've always said this to my audience and to you guys on multiplications. I've never done a perfect broadcast. And I've been doing this as a broadcaster for the NBA and for college basketball and football and baseball for about almost 30 years now. And I'm still searching. And I don't know if other people do the exact same thing, but I am always my heart is critic. So I was listening to it.

I was like, oh, that sounded great. I fit the moment. And then there was something that I said like, oh, why did I say that? It make no sense. The one thing you do a good job of, and it bugs the hell out of me when listening to games on the radio, is give me the score. Like, I need score updates. All the time.

And like how many times I'll put on a game and listening for two minutes, three minutes go about, and I don't know the score. Yeah. It's, yeah. Good God. There's fundamentals. Wilson lays this one up and it's in. Give me the score. I've got to know what the score.

is that? And the time too, by the way. Time's also important. Yes. Where are we? What's the quarter? Yeah. So, it was really, it's odd that you brought that up because the caller brought up is because I was like, man, I listened like, damn, that was awesome. Like the moment, for me now, in the way social media goes, I always feel like Gore, we've said that more times in the last 15 years we ever said in our life. The way social media treats it, you have to,

you have to hit the big note. Yeah. You know, if you are singing a song and the chorus is coming up and you, You know, if you mess up a word or two here, or maybe you're off a note on the buildup. But if it's the chorus, you've got to nail it. If there is a big call to be made in a regular season basketball game or a playoff game, I'm talking about any of the sports, you got to hit that. You got to hit it. When Robert Ford calls a home run, he needs flyball, left field, that's gone.

Yorda Nalvarez just helped the Astros win the World Series. You know, that doesn't do it. But if he sells it and has the emotion to it, it'll be forever ingrained in people's minds. what I want to do when I'm doing Rockets games. Hopefully, if there's a deep playoff run, there'll be some of those quote-unquote magical moments that we'll have on here on this radio station. Yeah, I thought, I thought Kenny Albert did a pretty good job

yesterday. You also got to let those moments breathe a little bit too. Like, have your call, and then give me like 20, 30 seconds of just the crowd roaring. You know, like, just let it breathe. In television, you can do that. Radio's harder to do, but yeah, you're right. You're right about that. So, all right, but thank you for that phone call. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-9-0 if you'd like to join us today. We got to tell the truth at 1130, the news at noon, and again, we'll visit with Joseph Dorte at 120 this afternoon here on Sports Talks.

And believe it or not, today is highly Googlable. It does involve Team USA and Team Canada in the gold medal game yesterday morning. By the way, people were complaining, they gave us a lousy time, folks. It's Italy. It's a time difference. Yeah, I had a... Nothing you can do about that. No, but I mean, like, I know most of the sports bars,

they've become accustomed, especially on Sundays, Saturdays and Sundays with the Premier League and all that crap. Oh, yeah, getting up early. Some of them are seasoned with that now. So I think, yeah, I had buddies in New Orleans. They were going to a bar down there. It opened at like 6 a.m. And they were serving up Guinness and everything else.

So, yeah, I'm not... That stuff doesn't bother me anymore. Now, if you live in L.A., might have been a little bit tougher. Because it was, what time was it here? 730 that started here local time? Yeah, it was like 7 or 8. So that's 530 in the West. Then Hawaiian time, well, you're probably not watching.

Yeah. You're in Hawaii. Hawaii, I feel like you're DVRing everything. That's what I would do. All right, hey, yeah, the Rockets on Saturday. I don't know if I meant you that if you caught Gordy, but it was ugly. We'll get to some of that in a moment. Plus the Rockets take on Utah tonight.

That in more. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is a little under the weather. Gordy's hanging out with us until noon. This is Sports Talk 790. You saw it Sports Talk 790. 790. Gordy's in today for Ross. A little under the weather.

He said he got him some Tamiflu. That, by the way, is gold. I wish Tamiflu could fix everything in your life. And what are the antibiotics? Like that amoxicillin? That's good stuff, too. The other one is a Z-pack. Oh, the Z-pack.

Oh, I got a Z-pack. I feel great. Yeah. Like, I'm kind of crabby today. Oh, Z-Pack will fix that. You'll be in a much better mood. You know what's becoming more and more of a trend now. I see it in Vegas now.

They have those groups that will come to your hotel with the liquid IV or whatever and put it in your arm and you're good to go. So I'm glad you brought that up. About a year ago, I was really very sick and dehydrated and my wife called one of those mobile ones. They came right to my house. I laid on my couch. It's a copay on that. I think it was $150, which was money well spent, honestly. I don't see it was.

All right. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to chime in, 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-9, you can't tell the truth coming up in about 40 minutes from now. Saturday night in New York City. Way too many turnovers, Chris Gordy. Yep. Yeah, that one felt...

And Jose Alvarado, God, I want to strangle him. I mean, I wanted to be on my team, but I want to strangle them, too. Well, my buddies in New Orleans, they're pissed because their team is just... Terrible, right. Giving away good players. Yep. But that one, like, the Wednesday night game against L.A., that you let slip away, and then this one on Saturday.

There's just, there's a handful of these now, Matt, that we're going to get to the end of you're going to look back and go, God, the Rockets just missed the three seed by a game, you know, or whatever. We're going to look back and go just missed, or even worse, they're the five seed. They were this close to being the four seed. And these stupid games, they let slip away. Well, here's the crazy part of it. So last night, you know, I'm a standings watching horror, right? I can watch the standings at 1 and 0 and 2 in all in the season. last night, Phoenix loses.

Last night, the Lakers lose. So if the Rockets could have just held on to that 14-point lead, they would have had a little bit of more breathing room and their aspirations to being at least a top three C in the Western Conference. Instead, they lose, the other teams lose, and now they're still a jumbled mess. How about the Spurs have won eight in a row? Oh, God.

Why are they good all of a sudden? I don't know. I mean, we knew Wembe was going to be good, but it's like, that's just insane. Was Popovich holding them? back the last few years? No. Is this guy who's the coach incredible?

Top five draft picks usually help that. It does, but... Darren Fox has been good for them. I was reading something recently. They were like, it's been forever since a team went from like that bad to this good all of a sudden. I know. There's no way.

They are clearly the second best team in the Western Conference. Do you hear that, Houston? That little squirly bunch of people in three hours west of us had a basketball team that is the second best record in the Weston. We have co-workers here that are just like bragging wearing their Spurs lanyard around the office, i.e. missing the Spurs fan. These turnovers are going to, if I had hair, Gordy they would gray me. Maybe my beard is getting grayer by the day because of this.

What did they give up for Deer and Fox? It still doesn't feel like they give up enough. That's unbelievable. Yeah. So, Rock is, thankfully, we've got two piece of cake games coming up tonight against Utah. who's trying to tank, and then you got Sacramento who's trying to tank. Sacramento's lost 16 in a row.

Shout out. Let's go Kings after Wednesday night. The Rockets, did they lose to Sacramento this year? Twice. Oh, yeah, that overtime game. Remember that one? We have losses to Utah, two to Sacramento,

two to Dallas. And you had two weeks ago, you went to OKC and beat them in their class. Correct. Now, they were without SGA and Deon Williams, but we were without Amanda Thompson. Right. It's frustrating. It's aggravating.

Orlando's decent, though, right? Orlando's okay. Yeah, they won, I think they played Portland last night, I think, or somebody around the way. Oh, they put the L.A. Clippers. I don't know how that you turn out. Oh, them in the heat are the seven and the eight and east. So those are winnable. Come on.

Three game winning streaks, which are calling your shot out. I don't like how you think. Well, Miami and then in Washington, I mean, this could be a five-game win streak coming up. Yeah, imagine one at the Clippers yesterday. Trailblazers beat the sun, so the rockets win, win. The 76ers beat the crap out of the Timberwolves. That helps. Lakers destroyed the Lakers.

So everything helped out yesterday, even though the rockets were not playing, they were able to further solidify their spot. What was the garden lie? I mean, with the Knicks being good, it feels like the garden is a tough place to play, right? Tough place to play, although they had lost two games in a row at home before the rockets were there Saturday. it's celebrity filled as you would expect Tracy Morgan I didn't see Tracy but

Ben Stiller was there cheering up and down a bunch Spike Lee Spike Lee was definitely Spike Lee carries a MERS with him I give him credit though he was there he's there when they suck he's there no matter what that's a true fan

Let's go back to the more important question How do you feel about Merses? Not a big fan We've been to Europe There are a lot of those like carry the cross-your-body little like bags. Oh, this was from right shoulder

down to the left hip, is what this was. Okay. It's very European. If you're a guy, anything you need should be able to fit in your pockets. Yeah, I mean, you can carry a briefcase. To a basketball game. But that wouldn't be the case.

I'm just saying, if I gave you a MERS and I said, Gordy, you have to wear it. What are you putting in there? I don't, I mean, I've been a man, obviously all my life clearly. I've never carried something like that before. What would I need as a man that I couldn't put in my pockets?

The only thing I can think is you have multiple cell phones. Or I got one for you. If it's cold, you put your gloves in your MERS. Maybe a scarf. All right, I'm going to ask this question. I don't even know if anybody out there. Do any of you carry a MERS with you? There's no way.

Now, I'm not going to be super judgy. I mean, I'd be a little bit judgy, but not super judgy. If you're, okay, so let's say, if I said, Gordy, for Christmas or your birthday, here's a MERS. I'm never going to wear it. You don't need gloves in Houston, but maybe three days a year. Right. Your daytime is probably on your phone unless you write things out like I do. I don't know what I would put it in mine.

Jum was... Chapstick. That again, he put in my pocket. That seems like Jonathan, you ever carry the MERS? Jonathan, you're MERS? You know anybody's wearing a MERS? Tell the truth. Um, like, um, man purse?

Yes. I mean, I'll wear a fanny pack style. That's for style. Is that what you're saying? When you put the, when you put the fanny pack on, I'm starting to style in Houston. Yeah, it's street. Guys, you're listening to Matt for fashion advice. Don't do this.

It's a style. It's pretty street wear. You got to get you. It started with the NBA. Remember James Hardin would carry his little bag in. Oh, yeah. It came in. I mean, I get it from like grooming stuff.

The fanny pack I can get. The comb, the, the, brush, the gum, the hose cell phone, because you got the one that bros in your hand. You got the hose in the bag, right? Jonathan, I'm going to be speaking on a turn on this. What would you put it at, Jonathan? He described every single thing I have in there.

A comb? I got my brush, comb, I got my digital camera. Oh, you got a digital camera with you? What was this? 1998. Everything I need in there. Charger. Second phone or no? Oh, that was your first phone? Is that your bro's phone or your hose phone?

That was right on time That was perfect I love that Your AirPods Yeah exactly By way Do I have an own air Oh no

Airpods Do I myself Oh no You're wired I'm wired And that's because It's not because I'm anti The wireless

It's just I lose things all the time Yeah And so I've told my kids for years Do not buy me Airbuds Last not this past Christmas The Christmas before They did

And I lost it within about three weeks You can get the ones like these that go over your head that are wireless and Bluetooth. Those are a little bit harder to lose. I'm fine with cheap wired. Matter of fact, these wired earphones I'm wearing now, I got on a plane yesterday. It gets tangled. Yeah, and they're going to break in like two weeks, man. I know, but I didn't pay for them.

So the earbuds I paid for because even though my kids said, Merry Christmas, Dad, I'm the one that paid for him. 713-212-5-79 if you want to get in. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90 while I was... This is the... to Matt Thomas show with Ross. Our friend Ross is under the weather, i.e. flu. Flu ain't no joke.

I remember one year I went to cover the twins down in spring training in about 2008. And I remember not feeling well getting on the plane. And I got to Fort Myers where the team had their spring training still does. And I went right to the hospital and I said, I don't feel good. And they go, you have flu. And I didn't leave the room for three days. It was a total wasted trip. You don't get that for me.

here in I heart Houston. You get me down there. I'm talking to the players, talking to the people of the Astro Spring Training. Yeah. You are a man of the people. I'm trying. Hey, so what did you think the last couple of dates? Any initial observations? Let's start with pitching. Colton Gord. This is the game on Saturday. Colton Gordon gave

you a scoreless inning. That was good. He started. AJ Blueball followed him with a scoreless inning. That was good. Miguel Uliola. Yeah, I can never say it. I'm butchering it. It's probably wrong. Iloa, however they said. But he got roughed up a little.

Three walks, gave up a run. He's the one that I know last year was knocking on the door. AAA was so good that they thought he was ready to come up. So I still think he comes up at some point this season. And then yesterday, how about Mike Burroughs? Two shutout innings? Give up a hit.

One walk, two strikeouts, pretty good. So, again, very small sample size. But overall, I think, at least the guys that you're going to rely on. Now, here's an interesting one, Munoz, Roddy Munoz, I think. He was their Rule 5 draft guy that they protected. He got roughed up. He had four earned in an inning yesterday, right behind Burroughs. So, again, it's just going to be interesting to watch.

This is, we're not going to put a ton of stock in the spring training games, but we know the surplus of pitching they have right now. There were only so many spots for that five or six-man rotation. Yep. And there's only so many spots for the bullpen. So, yeah, I would put a little bit more stock into what we see in these spring training games because they're going to have some tough decisions to make. And if you go out there and give up runs every time you go out there, guess what?

One way, take it to Sugar Land. Well, the reality is this. You have a logjam of pitching. So every start should be not like, oh, my God, this guy is going to make the team or not going to make a team, but it probably needs a little bit more observation than it would be in years past. And you go to, in the corner outfield spots. I think Jake Myers has nothing to worry about because he has the proven track record. The other two guys do not.

So that to me is the storyline. And obviously, again, I will not use how Joe uses the infield in spring training games because Pena is going to be leaving soon for the WBC. You got other guys moving around and whatnot. So that I cannot judge under any circumstance. So anything that happens in the infield will not help me decide how Joe is going to make. manage these things in 2026. The corner outfield, the pitching staff, and how fast it will be

for a decision to be made to send guys to the minor league camp will be the obviously the story lines for this spring training of 20206. Now, if you're looking for an overreaction from the first two games... No, I'm not. Your everyday starters haven't done much at the plate. Jeremy Payne got his first start yesterday. He starts off with striking out on three pitches.

He then comes up with a man on base, grounds into a double play. And an error. It has an error in the field. So, again, the theme of that is this is why we have spring training to work out these kinks. But I will say one level of, you know, kind of shot in the arm excitement for game two of spring training. Ethan Fry, part of the LSU National Championship team last summer. Oh, here we go.

Here this, folks. There's something exciting that involves Gordy and LSU staff. It was a second round pick for the Astros. 95th overall, I believe. He did not get a spring training invite. but all those young guys are all over, they call it the backfields, they're over the back fields.

Well, apparently he's been crushing over the backfields. So Steve Sparks drops a hint on Saturday. He goes, hey, heard they might bring over Ethan Fry to play on Sunday. Well, sure enough, he batted forth yesterday. D, was the DH. Just look at the box score. He's 0 for 3 with a walk in 2Ks. But his first two at bats, he worked full counts.

His thing at LSU was he has a really good eye, and he would work counts. and then his third at bat, I believe, it was a 3-1 count, and he took a ball for a walk. So that's just one of those things to watch with a guy like that. You know he's got poppy, he's got power, but the one thing, and remember the one thing we loved about Bregman was

Breggman could work some counts. Bregman would work walks. He wouldn't force it. So just something to keep it on. I'd like to see a little bit more of Ethan Fry, but got plenty of guys to work in. All right, 713, 212-790. Again, the Astros, by the way, today are completely off.

I think Joe Espada basically said Do not show up at any of any of the back fields, front fields, side fields, go get away from baseball. That's the first official off day of spring training. Let's go to the phones and talk to the people of Houston. Terry with us on 790. Terry, good morning to you.

Hey, how you doing, Matt? Good, Terry. What's going on? Hey, congratulations. I listened to the game on Sports Stock 790. And all I got to say, Matt, is move over Doris Books and Mike Green. What did you say about Doris Burke and Mike Breen?

I said you did such a good job. I said move over. Oh, that's nice you to say that. Thank you very much. I really enjoy that. That's nice you to say. All right. Have a good day.

Thank you. How about that? No, Terry, we need about here. We don't need them on ESPN. Oh, but the money is so much better. Yeah. It's good here. How more crap you got to deal with?

Oh, for sure, for sure. 713-212-5-7-19. Do you hear Tim Legler on the show on Friday? He was so good. I'm going to try to get him again before, maybe come playoff time. But he's, the right decision was made by ESPN. I'm not anti-Dorris Berk, I think Doris is a great job, too. But they needed to shake things up.

There was just a little bit of a chemistry issue. And they got Tim Leger, and he was good. I don't know how he treated the rockets in the fourth quarter, because I was calling the game. But, oh, Ross. It said, Gordie, there were just way too many turnovers. Oh.

And Jose freaking Alvarado. Jose Alvarado helped the Pelicans overcome a 25-point deficit in New Orleans and beat the Rockets. Yep. And then he helps the Knicks overcome an 18-point deficit and beats the Rockets in New York City. Did you think it was kind of a story last week,

but the whole Durant thing, did you think that too much was made of that crap with the burner accounts and all that crap? The answer is obviously, yes, too much. Let's just say Kevin just runs differently. And I think I brought this up the day after all that stuff came down. It feels like to me Kevin likes the intrigue of people always trying to guess what he's doing to do next. And, you know, he could have easily said, no, that wasn't me.

But he dismissed it to say, you know what, keep talking about me. here's another thing that bugs the hell on me i see Saturday night Sunday morning something pops up on my Twitter timeline Eme Adoka throws Reed Shepard and Amman Thompson under the bus and I'm like I like that's that's that's cheap headline yeah I like EMA and he tells it like it is and look if a guy plays bad

I'm totally fine with him saying this guy didn't play well like what world are we living in where we want to hear our coaches go yeah i'm not going to talk about anybody specific. I just, you know, like, no, call it out. You just did a Jeff Van Gundy there. That's a little bit. Do that again. Do it again. I'm not going to call out of anybody. Yeah, I'm going to just, yeah, that

was like, that was good, that was nice job by you. I just, uh, I just think it's so stupid. Like, anytime any coach names a player by name, he threw him under the bus. Shut up. I was a shoot around on Saturday. I don't get to go during the week because I'm obviously doing the show. I was, we were,

we were at, uh, Nike's basketball facility in Midtown. And, everybody's fine. And they're dancing in between shooting shots and high-fiving each other. It was just one of those things that it just felt like it was a little... Again, not legitimate sources got the story. It had to be asked. It was answered.

And oh, by the way, the next night, Kevin Durant scores 35 points. Rockets win in Charlotte. I just think it's so low-hanging fruit, though, to say it. And here's how it works. A media member asked the coach. Emah, what did you think of Amin Thompson late in the game? Well, you know, he's got to play better, and he knows that. He threw him under the bus.

No, he didn't. He answered a question about that player. By the way, anybody is criticizing the Rockets need to make a change with Emma Adoka. I am muting that account immediately. There are some of those Twitter folks. They jumped into it. Yeah.

I'll tell you what, Astor's Twitter is the worst. You rocket Twitter, you're getting not far behind. Oh, yeah. being delusional. Play, play Reed Shepherd more. You're playing Reed Shepherd too much. I mean,

it's all, it's all both ends of the spectrum. Yeah. But that's, at least you're interested. I can't, I can't complain about that. Max, Patrick James.

We'll get to you folks. Tell the truth at the bottom of the hour. It is 1112 here on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 1116 on 790. It is Matt and Gordy. Ross is under the weather today. I'm going to go solo between noon and two, but we do have a couple of things at 120. We will have Joseph D'Worte joining us from Lawrence, Rockets, and Rockets. Cougars against Kansas. Either Kansas is going to lose a second straight home game or the Cougars are going to have a three-game losing streak. Something happens here today. Yeah, man, it's going to be tough for the Couges. That's a tough place to play. I know. A place gets rocking.

no. The Arizona game, they should have found a way to, they gutted out, second half they come out, they get the weed. I was like, oh, here we go. And they couldn't make shots. Yep, I'm foul trouble too. It's going to happen.

Turnovers too. And some dude from Australia for Arizona who's got terrible hair, just knocking down jumpers all over the place. Guy averaged about eight points a game. He had like 18 or 20 or something awful. That was mad. That was a bad day for me. I was in the hotel.

It was a nonstop snowmageddon blizzard coverage coming, and then they lose, and they go to MSG, and the rockets lose the Knicks. By the way, MSG, they call it the world's most famous arena. It's the world's most overrated arena. It is. It was cool being there. It's cool because of things that have been there before. Right, but there's nothing special about it. In fact, we were in Boston over the summer and did a tour of the garden.

The garden, the whatever, TD Ameritray, whatever the hell it is now. The Boston Garden is way more impressive than Madison Square Garden. Well, it's also significantly not nearly as old. Right. But I did give me a corned beef sandwich at MSG. It was $19. No chips or he got a pickle with it, though. I don't know how people live.

How do people live in New York? The prices of everything. Well, California. I say something about California, too. Same thing. Like, if you're a teacher. And you're a teacher in San Francisco. And I'm going to, what does the average teacher make here?

about 65 or 70. So let's say they get it to 85 or 90. Yeah. What's that going to get you in? You can't buy a house in San Francisco if your base salary is $90,000. Or L.A. Or L.A. or anything.

Eat a lot of In-and-Out burger for every meal. Maybe you're living in like Sacramento or something. I remember talking, I think Greg Toey, who produces the Colin Cowherd show, he lives in Burbank, I believe. A lot of these guys live in Burbank. Burbank is way more affordable than anyway. Well, it's really, the further you go away from L.A.,

a better off you are. Yeah. Like Orange County, but that's even pricey too. Then you can't, you go west, you get to like Calabasas. That's pricey. Kardashians. A lot of there. Big fan.

Let's go to Patrick on 790-1119. Patrick, good morning to you. Morning, guys. I'm going to first off, start by saying, that gold medal match yesterday. I'm from South Louisiana. I've never followed hockey, but by God, I'm interested in hockey now. and our tigers look good, Gordy. Pitchin's shaking, but I think we're going to be fine.

But no, my question is about the Astros. So you figure 25-man roster, guaranteed 13 pitchers, 12 squads, you leave, you have about eight guaranteed spots to our usual suspect. Who do you all think those four spots? Who do you think is guaranteed out of, like, Tam Smith, Zach Cole, Nick Allen, people like that, or who do you think is fighting for a spot? I'll hang up and listen. Thank you.

Well, it's, I think Cam and Cole make it. You think Zach Cole and Camp Smith? I do. I do believe they do. Well, Jake Myers has to be there too, right? Jake Myers makes three. You're going to carry, what, one or two extra outfielders? I know he DHS, but Yordon is considered an outfielder. So then if that's the case, you need one more outfielder, my guess. It's Joey Lopes.

Little Profito or DeSenzo, one of the two? Do you know, I'm looking at MLB.com? they look Shea Whitcomb as an outfielder. I think he's more of an infielder. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are my outfield guys. On the infield, it's the new guy. Nick Allen, who, by the way, is really short.

Yes, he's shorter than me. Not saying something. Not as sure as El Tuvae. No, nobody's as short as Altupe. God love him. Greatest Astro of him all. He's, I think that's the only guy you go on. Perthus will be your second utility guy.

Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, so it's Walker, Altuva Pena Correa. Those are your starters. And then, you securitas. And then, yeah, Nick Allen's supposed to be the ultimate utility guy, like, because he basically was a swap for Dubon.

But Dubon could at least play some outfield. Nick Allen's most of the same field. Yeah. So, and then there's, you know, I had, I had hopes for the, look, local kid. Love the kid. He's been a great interview every time we had him. Bryce Matthews, if he, I was like, if he has a really hot spring, maybe.

but I think he's starting in Sugarland Well, if Matthews is hot Allen's not, you can't you can't carry Alan Right. And, uh, Perettus and, you know, Matthew. Shouldn't they try Paratus though? Like, what are we doing here? Yeah, I don't disagree. And I know people don't want to hear that.

But the reality is you are at a lack of quality power and experience in the outfield And you have too much of it in the infield. So you got it. But again, Dana feels like he has to be super. patient with this and I understand that. My biggest pause with it though is when we keep talking about this crowded infield, crowded infield,

injuries happen every year. I do. You are going to... So again, you know what happens? Well, it's going to happen the moment they get traded. The next day, Carlos Cray has back issues, he's sidelined indefinitely. I know. And it's just, you know, so I think... But you can't stash. Who stashes anymore in baseball? Nobody stashes.

Yeah. But I just feel like what I always say, these things always work itself out. I think just hang on to them. these things will work itself out because we're going to get into Jeremy Payne, a broken thumb out for a month. Hey, don't speak that in the... I'm just saying something like that is going to happen.

It happens. It happens way too much with this team in recent years. Let's go to Max on 790, 1123. Max, good morning to you. Morning, Matt. Morning, Chris. First of all, I had to just knock on wood the moment I heard Chris talk about a broken thumb for Jeremy.

Seriously, what is wrong with you? We do not need those bad vibes. right now. We really don't. After everything that happened last year, like it's a complete negative. But I did want to say, though, Matt, obviously great props to you and your work obviously on Saturday and then obviously Thursday and basically just not being

home basically all week. I did, though, was curious about this. I know you guys maybe don't talk about maybe on the show or maybe even on much of your programming at all, but obviously, Chris, you being the czar programming, you could obviously be an influencer in this. When I was coming home

from on Saturday night, listening to the fourth quarter and seeing the collapse unfold, I was actually coming home from a Shell Energy Stadium because it was match day one of the Major League Soccer season. And got to be honest, the Houston Dynamo fell down behind early against Chicago Fire, came back Guillermo, who was a literally his name, he's one name. He has like five names, but he's this Brazilian signing. He's like 30 years old.

Just got signed in his Dynamo debut, scores a brace, scores two goals, and the Dynamo end up winning 2-1 in a 4. final on Saturday night. So obviously I'm assuming that neither of you might have been possibly aware of that in the moment with all of the rocket stuff going on, but just curious if you guys have any thoughts to that, big matchup coming next, this coming Saturday night

when they host L.EFC who just absolutely throttled Lennel Metsi and Miami on Saturday for a day now. So wanted to see if you guys had missed any thoughts on that as well as the fact that, yeah, we just don't need any bad vibes with the Astros injury stuff, man. Geez, but I was in, thanks so much you guys. We'll see you later.

Yeah, Matt, thoughts. on the DITAMOS, big win, two to one over Chicago? You know what? I have to save my words. I do a four-hour show, plus I got this two-and-a-half-hour rocket game tonight. I'm going to just defer to you on this. I'll put it this way.

No one cares. And the caller, two callers ago who brought up LSU baseball. I'm a diehard college baseball fan, SEC baseball. I've watched a ton of games over the weekend. But you know what, man? I'm not going to bring that to these airwaves and talk about it because frankly, it's not a lot of

ton of public interest. It's kind of the same thing with the Dynamo. I shouldn't say no one cares. Appreciate the here. No, I had a friend who was at the game. I saw pictures. Look like they had a great turnout and all that. But it's just still a little too niche.

Like, it's just that. Until more people give a damn about it, I mean, we're not going to talk about it. Even my partner, Ross Villarale, who loves soccer, thinks it's Bush League. First of all,

the Dynamo is a bad organization. They don't know what they have had. had numerous ownership changes, numerous front office changes. They let my guy Glenn Davis go. Who's the biggest advocate for soccer? They are a poorly run organization. So if I gave a damn, I'd want to give a damn to a team that actually, it was a good run organization. I don't.

So, you know, I just, I just, good for them. My son, my oldest, Cameron was trying to get tickets the other night. And I don't know what the crowd was. I look at the box score on it, but he said he couldn't get any tickets at face value. I'm sorry, match one should not be scoring scalper prices for a high for a soccer game. Good for them. Glad they're here, win as many games as possible, but the amount of time we'll be dedicating to talk about them on a regular basis. It'll be zero.

Not much. I think that's the first call we've had on the soccer in seven years. Let's talk to Jim in the Heights on seven out of. Hello, Jim. Hey guys I apologize If you already talked about it I just got in the car

I usually get you guys right at 10 o'clock Thank you Man Mike Burroughs And that changeup looks really good Off that fastball I was really impressed I thought he was going to be a middle

middle inning guy But man I sure would like to see that On the mound at the start of games This season And just just see what develops from that. How many years of team control do the Stros have on him? He just had his rookie year.

Yeah, by the way, he was brought here to be, hold on, Jim. He was here to be brought here as a starter. He's in the starting rotation. There's no middle relief to this. I just thought that it was overcrowded. I just thought it was overcrowded. It is overcrowded. It is overcrowded.

It is over crowded. No, no, no, no. Mike Burles was brought here to be a starting pit. The reason why it's crowded is because Mike Burroughs was acquired by Dana Brown. This was a acquisition because they liked him. As a matter of fact, even Joe Espottis told us last week down in Florida, when the Pirates and the Astros played last year and Burroughs was so good, they kind of put him on the radar and said,

hey, if this guy ever becomes available, we need to kick the tires on him. So he has been on the Astros site for quite some time. Well, what do you see the starting lineup, the five starters, maybe six, whatever it's going to be? Is McCuller's the odd man out? No, we'll give you. Thank you, Jim, for the phone call. Let's go on, let's go here. Let's go in no particular order. No, do, do, no. Number one.

Brown. Hunter Brown. Javier, too. I would put Christian Javier there just because of track record. I can see where EMI slides in there eventually. So EMI's three. Then Burroughs four. Yes. Then probably Erigetti five.

Yes. And McCuller, six. That's where I. I would go, well, I would, I might lean right now. Colton Gordon looked really good the other day. A.J. Blue ball looked really good the other day. Those guys keep pitching well. And McCullors goes out there and doesn't look great. I think, I think one of those other guys can steal that six spot away.

That is accurate. But if you're asking today, that's a six-man rotation. Yeah. All right, Adrian and James, hang tight. We'll get to you guys in a couple of minutes. Stand by. But up next, Jonathan, I'm kind of nervous. This is Gordy's first attempt at to tell the truth. He's going to do bad or you're going to do bad? No, I'm the ace of this. So you have three truths and one lie.

Is that correct? Yes. All right. So three of the four things, Jonathan, he believes which one of the things is he not telling the truth? We'll find out next at 1128 on 790. Eve Gordy does know how to tell the truth. He tells the truth about LSU sports. He lies about Alabama because he hates.

but we're asking you to go outside the box here for the debut edition of Chris Gordy's to tell the truth. He has four sports opinions. These are not facts. These are sports opinions. He believes three of them. It is up for Jonathan and I to figure out which of the four he does not believe. Yes, sir. Which of the three?

Of all, what three of the four does he tell the truth? When does he tell the lie? So not any further ado, Gordy, the floor is yours. Yeah, careful with the, some of this might. seem hyperbole. Oh, oh, I love hyperbole, Gordy. I believe some of these. Okay.

We'll start with after watching Team USA Olympic hockey yesterday, I'm convinced Houston needs a hockey team in right now. I think the wave of excitement, everything we saw yesterday, again, we've heard the Fertitas and the interest here. There are Twitter accounts dedicated to bring hockey to Houston. I'm with them. exciting match yesterday, exciting run.

Let's get an NHL team here in Houston. Okay. Number two, two spring training games in, I get it, small sample size, don't want to overreact. A little worried about the Astros offense. Zach Cole, O for one, Cam Smith, O for two, Bryce Matthews, O for three, Loperfeito, O for one, Zach Dzenzo, O for three, Jeremy Pena, O'Fer 2, Taylor Tremel, O for two. majority of the asteris contributors they don't even have a hit yet and at Matt that was compounded on Saturday

when I watched the New York Yankees score 20 runs 18 hits in a spring training game against Tampa I believe a little worried about the Astros offense two spring training games in well these

well these are so hot takey so far Jonathan I'm getting nervous oh Lord Rockets need to keep Reed Shepard in late in games. His offense, too important in crunch time. I get it. He's not the best defender out there.

But Emo I doka, you got to come around on it. You need this kid in there. His offense is a plus. He can hit. I play Reed Shepard more in crunch time if I'm Emeo doka. Okay. And lastly, it's NFL Combine Week, Matt. think we need to move the combine around. No offense to

Indianapolis, but I saw the weather today is 27 degrees and snow flurries. Can we move this thing to Miami? Tampa, New Orleans? Heck, bring it to Houston. The NFL Combine should move around, and it's so stupid when I talk to my friends every year that go, they go, oh, it's just so

great, you can walk through the tunnels and you don't have to even go outside. Then why are we in Indianapolis then? That tells me right there we can have it in any city. Why don't have it in a warm city? When you want to be with these scouts that you go watch guys run 40s and you go spend the rest of the afternoon on the beach instead of huddling up from the cold weather in Indianapolis,

I think it's time to move the NFL Combine around. All right, so recap the four again. Number one, I think Houston needs an NHL team. Now, number two, worried about the Astor's offense, spring training. Number three, rockets need to keep re-chepard in latent games, and four need to move the NFL Combine around. All right.

First of all, the last one is such a who gives that I can't imagine you having this much fire and brimstone for that. That's an easy low-hanging one. So I'm going to say you believe that. I do believe you could believe that Reed Shepard should be put in a game's light in a contest, looking for perimeter game. That seems easy to believe. The only thing I'm worried about, Jonathan, is would he go with something he wouldn't believe so early when he doesn't do it very much? We're on the same page. We're on the same page.

But, I mean, he made a good point. I don't know if he believes, though. I do believe Gordy's a little bit of an overreactor. Okay. I'm not too sure, though. I think he's more realist. So, like, would he really say that he's really worried about the Ash's office? But he can't, I mean, he's, he's been doing the radio a long time.

You can't be worried about the spring training offense after two games. But he knows, because Gordy is behind the scenes in business. He knows that it's not just about filling the stadium up. Oh, gosh. What am I going to do here? I'm going to say... All right. And he's going to try to trick us.

I believe he's lying about he's ready for the NHL to come to Houston. Would be my thought. Now, again, when you do this, do the three that you believe first. So we can build some drama. What do you say, Jonathan? I think I can't get past him being worried about the Astros' offense. It's two games in.

I'm sticking with that. Oh, wow. So you go with, he's worried about the offense. I go with he's ready. for NHL hockey. So those are the two, we believe it would be the two lies. All right, go ahead. The truth, I do absolutely believe they should move the NFL Combine around.

I think it's so stupid. Oh, what's that stupid steak house in Indianapolis? Oh, St. Elmo's delicious. Oh, you got a steak at St. Elmo's. I don't care. Move the Combine around. I don't think, but people aren't bump, okay. We can do that in Massachusetts here in Houston.

Okay, all right, sure. Why not? Every time I see people bundled up, and it's like, no, you don't even have to go outside. Well, then that defeats the whole purpose. Why are we in Indianapolis? Move it to Miami. I believe that one. I do believe Reed Shepard needs to play more late in games.

He's had games where he's shot very efficiently and then E. May pulls him out because of defense. I would agree. Dorian Finney Smith ain't hitting him shots. Sorry. And my last truth. I do think Houston needs a hockey team. Oh, damn!

Yeah, right here, I have lie. Wait a minute. Can't overreact the two-spring training games. I'm told you he's more realist, man. I was going to say, that would come from Cole and from Dan. I wouldn't, you know, I'll try that. I'll talk myself on that one. Now, if we're two weeks in, the Astro starters still have no hits,

then I'll be a little bit more worried. All right. Two games. Relax. That was good, though, Gordon. I'm not going to lie. That was hard. Well, you know, I made it harder than it should have been.

Because, again, if there's people talking about hockey and we're a big city, and we have seven million people, blah, blah, we can find people that could support. I should have thought of that. Because I thought, you know, you couldn't be that nuts about them being O for two and worried. But, yeah, again, maybe you're hanging out with Dan and Cole too much. I'm not, like, super convicted, but I do, I mean, look, why not? Let's try our hand at the NHL.

There's been enough talk about it. Yeah, but you don't try your hand at something like when it costs you a couple billion to get started here. Yeah, why not? All right. Thank you very much, Gordy. That is to tell the truth. Jonathan, you get credit for that, by the way. I don't know how many wins you have so far this year.

That's that? That's four. But that's not, we're in February and you got four wins already? I'm pretty impressed with you. I'm pulling the Christian Rocker, man. That's what he's going to do. You know what? You are Mr. Second Half.

You wouldn't care if the Combine came to Houston. I wouldn't care. That'd be cool. Why? No, people can't go. The General Public can't go. No, but we could be there and go watch some 40-yard dashes. Oh.

We can curse and we can discuss some 40 times. You won't do that? I like the Combine blows. I just get, I hate the people like, brag about being Indianapolis. Oh, we're at St. was the last thing you know who I saw John Elway. John Owens. Who does that? Who are you who are these people you're following? I don't follow

anybody that says, man, this is a great time in St. Elmo. First of all, St. Amos is a wonderful steakhouse. It has the best shrimp cocktail in America and it's got a great ambiance to it. We got better steakhouses in Houston. I got news for you. Indianapolis is a better downtown than we do. Hell, every city I go to has got a better downtown. Indianapolis? Absolutely.

What do they have? They have restaurants and bars that are busy. And people walk to and go. We got restaurants. Name five. in downtown? Yes, let's go. Spaghetti Western. Oh my God.

Oh my God. See, you can't even do it. Our downtown blows. Let me tell you something. I love our city. I love our people. I love the food. I love the friendliness.

Like New York sucks in terms of friendly people. I like to be around friendly people. That's what they call me Mr. Friendly. I want to be around friendly people. But our downtown blows. We go to sporting events. We go in and we go out. uptown is okay

Midtown is okay but downtown in itself Nope We got to get that Jim Crane What was it like Thing that he was going to build outside the ballpark There's a reason why He knew when he made no matter to go

Well I think he's making some good money off the parking lots But Sounds like he's a pretty sage businessman to me then I'll tell you right now Some of those World Series runs There was no more fun place to be pregame then Home plate barn grill People vomiting on themselves

and urinating in public. I love that. That was great. Yeah, that happened for six games, six days of the year. We need more Let me ask you this. Who's going downtown the night to go out and have dinner and have some drinks and water around town a little bit? Nobody. No, there are people. There's places. No.

We do every time. We have theater tickets every time we go do dinner somewhere downtown. Okay, well, that's nice. But if there's not there, if people are not running downtown just to run the downtown. There's got to be a reason for it. There's plenty of people. downtown. Like if you want to go to a seven, ten Astros game, where are you eating at 5.30? See, they've added so many options in the ballpark. That's just the easy. But I think that's the

reason they keep adding all these great food options because they know you have no options around the ballpark anymore. Indianapolis downtown greater than Houston downtown. Yeah, except when it's 27 degrees out. Houston weather, much greater than Indianapolis. In Indianapolis right now, you're running from your Uber to get inside. That doesn't sound like You know what, it's a bunch of grumpy, stodgy football media. But no, not to them stay up there in the Apples. Even better. Bring the combine to Miami? Let's do it outdoors. How fun would that be?

140-yard dashes in the sunshine outside? All right. I'm going to tell you something. I watch two minutes a year of the combine. Maybe it's the fault of mine. We got to get you up on your football evaluations. We will discuss that next. 1143. Adrian will talk.

He says, can Pernis play first base? Camie? We'll discuss that next year on 790. 1149. Our final segment with Gorda today, we appreciate him stepping in. Rossi is on Tamiflu right now. I'm just going to say, this is just me. I don't like over-the-counter stuff

because it feels like 99% of the time it doesn't work. If you're ever sick, I can't run a doctor fast enough. The medclinics, you know, the one in the grocery stores and whatnot, the ones at the CBS. Yeah, you'll be paying very much out of pocket. Correct. That's fine. But I just need to, I mean, I got too much. stuff going on in my life work-wise that I just don't want to miss any time when I can't.

And so if I can go get this stuff done quick, like is the best over-the-counter medicine? Obviously aspirin and Advils and Tylenol's for fevers, those do a good job. Yeah. Is Mucinex, would you guys say, the best way to cure the cold as best they can? That's, that, that, Mucinx has never worked for me. Really? It's never. And if I have people swear by it, I can't do it.

Benadryl. Benadryl is for allergies more or anything else, right? Yeah, I just can't. The mucinac doesn't work. Benadryl is like, like I pop some Benadryl. I'm like Michael Jackson, you know, when they used to like put the IV in to go to sleep. That's me. I'm out.

Very fast story about Benadryl. I was not feeling well when I was, I did a University of Utah versus Washington basketball game in Seattle. And I take a Benadryl, this has got to be. 2004. I didn't really know what was in it. And my radio partner, Mark Rydell, he says, Matt, you know, it's going to make you sleep. I said, okay, it's got an easy flight. I fell asleep in the terminal before the flight. He picks me up. He walks me to the plane. He puts me in my seat, buckles me up. And the next thing I remember is I've landed at Salt Lake International Airport. Wow. So if I, I, I I've only done very few overseas trips. I think only one. I've only been to London one time, never been anywhere else.

I know that if I really want to get some deep sleep, I'm popping some Benadryl. Now, can you take Benadryl even if you're not feeling good? I mean, if you're feeling fine? My wife does the, when she needs a good night sleep, she just takes NyQuil, even when she's not, like, sick.

Hmm. Now, I don't think you want to make a habit of that. I don't think you want to make that public either. But that's fine. I appreciate you peel the curtain back in your life. Sometimes you need a little, little guide. A little nicole fix?

Yeah. There's probably a lot of people listening. They're like, oh, I did the same thing. Probably don't want to mix it with alcohol or something. Now, I will do a Tylenolp.m. if I needed some sleep. Melatonin doesn't do much for me. It makes me very groggy in the morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Supposed to not do it. No, it's supposed to get clean sleep. That's right. Let's talk to Adrian's been patiently waiting at 11.51 on Sports Talk 790. Adrian, thanks for waiting and good morning to you. Good morning, Matt. You don't sound like an Adrian to me. It was an E or an A.

A-D-R-I-E-N-N-E. Oh, Adrian. Like, okay, not like Adrian the boy. Okay, I got you. We had you Miss Phil. Like Rocky Balboa. You know who the most famous Adrian of all time is, of course, next to Rocky's wife would be Adrian Barbeau. You know who that is?

Exactly. Yes, of course I do. All right, good. I can't say that to the young kids anymore. No, you cannot. But let me tell you some. Yes, Adrian. Like, you know.

Eight-year-old Matt Thomas loved him, so Adrian Barbo, if you know what I'm saying. Yeah. Okay. Well, I have to tell you, I totally agree with you on downtown. Our downtown sucks. I don't want to say that because I love Houston. I really, let me tell you, when I travel around these MBA streets, I love coming home. I love everything about Houston except the downtown sucks. That's a pretty good place.

And traffic blows. Yep. What else you got? So I have a dumb question about the Astros. Okay. Can Parades not play first, or is it just that we won't get enough? for Walker. If we trade.

Here's the thing. Esoc pretense can absolutely play first base. He hasn't done much of it or second. He's been primarily a third baseman in his career, but he can absolutely play first base. The reason why Christian Walker is not being brought up in trade conversations is because he carries two years left in a contract at $20 million and the numbers in production have not been good.

So it's easier to trade a guy who has got manageable arbitration years remaining and is cheap. Yeah. that's what I thought but I you know every time we talk about trading paredes I'm like no I like him he's he's got great plate discipline and he's just a fan fave he's a fan fame that is for sure yeah okay well that's all I've had yeah thank you for the phone call I mean think about this paredes in the trade last year with with the Kyle Tucker move that was not necessarily a throwaway but it was you were getting a first round

pick player Cam Smith who was phenomenal at Florida State. Well, we knew they wanted him at the trade deadline a year prior. So, you know, there were some people who were saying, look, the Cam Smith move, yes, but like that trade was made almost as much for Esoc Paredes as it was for Camp Smith. Like, they really like Paredes. Yeah, well, Pradis, the only reason why people were a little worried about Pradis that he'd been traded twice already. Like, what's going on with that?

Now, I'm looking at two years ago, he played, he had about 50 at batts as a first basement. and same thing the year prior. In fact, you go back two years ago, 380 of bets as a third baseman, 50 as a first basement, 47 as a second basement. I believe that was when he was in Tampa. So, I mean, he can play any of those spots on the infield. Yeah, he can't.

I think they're going to move him around a good bit. Until they trade him. Gordy, there are very few absolutes in life. And again, the only reason why I say this is unless there is a trade, I mean, excuse me, an injury that precludes this. If everybody stays relatively healthy in the infield in 2026, by August 1st, Eastside Pradesh will be traded. Well, the big thing with that is you need Christian Walker to beat Christian Walker. If he gets back to looking like his old self, then that makes that decision easier, I guess you would say.

Yeah. Yeah. If Christian Walker hits well, then that's really going to push the envelope because the teams will call and say, well, you've got a guy sitting on your bench. It's not being able to play every day. Now, if Altuva slow, I mean, how much does Altuve not play? second base? Well, you can deach him, but that means you got to put all your art on Alvarez in left field, and I don't think the Astros want to do that. And then suddenly we hear Carlos Krea, it's having some lower back discomfort. Yeah, but he's always got lower back to discomfort. Day to day,

week to week, month to month. You've been around the Astros too long. Gary and Spring, before we get to the top of the hour. Hello, Gary. Hey, good morning, guys. Greg show, as usual. And, man, if I hear any more, about the hockey gold gold medal and everything i appreciate them doing it i'm proud of them and everything but every talk show is just on and on and on with it so but anyway it was a good thing hey uh about uptown you're talking about what was indianapolis downtown downtown indapolis is very good yeah and then you mentioned why you know name five of five places uptown houston well you know why people don't go uptown houston why

because uptown funk you up man uptown funk you up you don't believe me just watch you don't believe me just watch and that's why man we were talking we were talking about downtown no he he wanted to get that song in no matter how bad the conversation got ladies gentlemen thank you thank you Gary we'll see Gary in spring I'm going to presume he's in 60s well this is considered uptown right where we are we're in uptown yeah this this area is fine. Yes. I like downtown. Gary and Spring wanted to get that song in.

We had an adult, white male in his 60s singing that song on our show. We get a show in the marketplace and give that to you. We got a Tom's watch bar downtown. Downtown's on its way. It's coming back up. Okay. That's Chris Gordy in 2002 talking to you right there.

COVID messed it up. It was on its way before COVID. That set us back. Okay. All right. Gordy, thank you for hanging out with us. We really appreciate it. All right. And

you, so it's Jonathan and meeting the next hour. How good is that going to be? We can talk about Jonathan's Mers. Who's doing the news at noon? I'm going to do it. Unless Jonathan, you want to do the news at noon? I don't know.

You tell me what you want to do here. I'm not going to lie. I don't know if it's hot right here. That's why I've been talking. Oh, my God. Yeah, so I'm trying to. Oh, my God. Am I the only one healthy one?

I don't want to say anything. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to be. Hey, I'm the one traveled around this country. Eating my vitamins and saying my prayers. All right. I got the news at noon next year on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

A real American, fight for the rights of every man. I am a real American. As I said, as a television broadcaster, you have to nail the call, and Kenny Albert nailed the call for the first time since 1980. The gold medal belongs to. to the United States.

Rick Derringer, may he rest in peace? Hulk Hogan, that was his song he came out to. May he rest in peace? Oh, man, I'm depressed. All right, it's 1205 on Sports Talk 7.90. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm flying solo this hour. Jonathan is less than 100%.

Ross is like a 12%. I'm going to fight for you. I'm still here. I love that. True grit. I appreciate that very much. 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Let's get to the news at noon.

And we will start with the Houston Rockets. Tonight they entertain the Utah Jazz. It's an 8.30 start. Oh, wolf. We'll have the Rockets launch pad at 7.30. 8.30 will be tip-time. I'll have the call for you here on Sports Talk 790. Speaking of the Rockets, Kevin Durant telling ESPN that he plans to play for the Olympic team in 2028 in Los Angeles.

He is a four-time gold medalist and the USA men's all-time leading score. Rockets coming out that difficult loss blowing the lead fourth quarter, 18 points to the Knicks on Saturday. Lindsay Vaughn had a little get together with the Instagram over the weekend and says that she nearly lost her left leg following a crash in the women's downhill at the Milan Olympics. Her injuries went far beyond the complex tibia fracture in the leg she initially hurt. Vaughn says the trauma from the crash led to the compartment syndrome in her leg and involves excessive pressure building up inside a muscle from bleeding or swelling, high pressure, restricts blood flow and can lead to permanent injury if not treated quickly.

Lindsay Vaughn, I never want you going on a mountain again. I don't care of us with your best friends on a little joyride. My God, stop it. You are very lucky you to lose your leg. Yish. Man, oh man, oh man, oh man, oh man. Houston Cougars taking on the Kansas Jayhawks tonight. 8 o'clock start time in Lawrence.

We'll have Joseph Torte joining us at 120. day to give us an update on what's going on. The Cougars Houston dropping a game Saturday to Arizona. And tonight's playing a two-game losing streak. The Kansas Jayhawks got beaten up badly at home by Cincinnati on Saturday on Saturday. So that's going on there. And let's see, what else here? Four high-level soccer matches were postponed yesterday in Mexico City after the Mexican Army killed the leader of a powerful drug cartel. Have you seen what's going on over there? I have not tell me all about it you can. Okay, we got...

We got welfare banks blowing up over there. I saw, like, people that are Americans that are resorts. They're stuck there. They took hostas of the airport. Oh, no, uh-uh. I've been to Mexico City one time and I'm never going back. I'm done. They're blowing up cars and vans to block off streets so people can't go there anyway.

No, thank you. I'm good. It's real bad. It's real bad. I can't even describe it to you. You know, what's probably going to affect, too, is future professional sports games there? Well, I mean, what about the World Cup that's happening? There's a game over there. A lot of World Cup game, is there?

Yeah, it's all the North American countries. Canada. Oh, really? I forgot about that. And Mexico. Yeah, well, I don't know how that's going to happen. Bring them to Houston. It'll be fine.

And that's the news at noon. Astros, by the way, off today. They'll be taken on the Mets tomorrow in spring training. action and that'll be a tape delay game at 7 o'clock right here on sports talk 790. All right, 713, 212, 5, 790. 713, 212, 5, 790. We are kind of resetting the issues of the day. I'm just going to say this and I brought this up at 10 o'clock this morning. I am very excited that so many of you got fired up for the Olympics, the hockey. Speed skating, I don't know. and every single time, meaning every four years, that something intriguing happens in hockey,

all you hear about from a vocal, I don't know what the minority is, but it's a vocal minority of its time. We've got to bring hockey to Houston. What are we waiting for? The reality is this. It takes multiple people to tango. one, the NHL saying yes, we're going to expand. Two, finding ownership. And sounds like to me there's two main groups that would be showing some interest.

And then number three, where are you going to put it? Are you going to put in Toyota Center? Are you going to have another arena? Whatever the case may be. I'm just telling you, it ain't a no-brainer. And it's not about filling up 16, 17, 18,000 seats. The reality to me is, when you're doing a deep dive, into bringing another major professional sports team to this community.

It's not about filling the seats, which obviously it's a factor, but in my mind, it's not the main factor. The main factor is, how about those 40 to 50 suites in this facility, whether it be TOTA center or new arena? Are those going to be full? Because that's where you make your money. Is the corporate support going to be there? Are you going to go ask your corporate partners to pony up another $2, $3, $4 million

so they can have their signs on the boards in the rink and around the arena. And then you got to worry about television, how the television deal are going to be. Then you have to worry about on top of that. Whether or not you giving up 41 or 45 or 47 or 50 dates in your building is better than putting in 30 or 40 concerts or other special events. These are things that are going to be talked about and have been talked about. I'm telling you, gang, it ain't as easy as I've been calling radio shows for all these years and it works out. People need it.

All my buddies are dying for it. I follow NHO to Houston on Twitter. There's thousands of people on there. It's more than that. Significantly more than that. It's expansion fees. It's how are you going to be able to get good players right? right away because you don't want to spend

several Billy getting this thing started and then sitting there looking at 25 wins for the first four seasons. And if you want to say other cities can do it, I don't disagree with you. But the expansion has gone to cities that were not flooded with sports teams.

Seattle had two teams. Doesn't have an NBA team. Didn't have a false sport to go to focus on except for football. Las Vegas, they're just looking to add teams left and right there anyway. If it was a no-brainer, and I think you all know this. If it was a no-brainer, it would have already happened.

It's going to take some group of people, whether it be the Frita family or the Freakin family or somebody else we don't even know about saying, yeah, I'm going to take that chance. I just can't guarantee you that 18,000 people are going to pay NBA prices for a sport they just don't know. Six or seven thousand of you might do it.

Maybe you own a company that will buy a suite for two or three games, but those suites need to be full every single time. You have to capitalize on things just beyond the fact that you've got fans out there going, I will go, I love it, I wear hockey sweaters to work. They've been hearing that.

Houston's business people have been hearing that for 25 years. And if you went to the Aeros games back in the day for Minor League, that's one thing that's cool. But you're going to be paying, I don't know, seven times more. And when you went to Arrow games, it was fun, it was cool,

was hockey. You didn't care about the end result. You're spending $145.25 a ticket. You're going care about the end result. 1214 of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is under the weather today. 713-212-790. Coming up this hour, sometime between now and 1 o'clock, you'll be getting an opportunity to win two tickets to see the Utah Jazz, but the Houston Rockets. Tonight inside Tota Center is an 830 tip time. If you can go, I'll have a chance for you to get that pair of tickets from me in about 30 to 45 minutes right here on Sports Talk 790. It is 1220 on Sports Talk 790. Good afternoon to you.

It is Matt without Ross. Ross a little under the weather. Probably going to be out another day or so. We'll get him back on Wednesday, which means we'll put in a variety of different guest opportunities to jump in for a little bit on the show tomorrow. But we are here today until 2. Joseph Dwarthe is going to stop by and say hello to us at about 120.

He'll join us from the Kansas City metropolitan area for the Cougars. We'll take on the Kansas Jayhawks. And again, I mentioned this a little or a while ago. Something's happening tonight that doesn't happen for much for both Kansas and Houston in the last decade. Kansas might lose a second straight home game or the Cougars suffer a three-game losing streak. One of those things happens tonight. We'll have it for you on our sister station, 950 KPRC. Back on the phones we go, we have Allison says that she went to spring training.

Allison, good afternoon. How are things? Hey, they're great. So I'm reporting back to tell you, Matt, that you were like half right. So you said we wouldn't see anybody we knew and just enjoy yourself. So we go to the first game against the nationals. We're just four rows back, slightly left of home plate. I can see everybody.

And I'm thinking, who are these people? And it was also a little disconcerning that they seemed to be about three quarters of the size of the Washington Nationals. I'm like, oh my. So we lost the first game, as you probably well know. So the next day, we came back, you know, early to see the guy's workout. And so the first person we see is Alvarez in the batting box. And I'm here to report, he looks healthy.

So that was good. And then we saw Al-Tuvae and Christian Walker doing some fielding drills. So that was kind of fun. So we were late coming back to the second game, which was against the Cardinals. But the ninth inning rally was kind of what you'd come for. You know, it's fun. And we just, we almost, you know, we almost pulled it out. So the weather was great and the field was really friendly.

and I completely recommend it. How long are you there for? For two days. Okay. I tell you, it's not cheap down there, is it? It's pretty expensive down there in the West Palm Beach area. Well, you know what? And we were in an expensive hotel, but by God, we had enough Marriott.

That's smart on your part. That's really smart on your part. Hey, Allison, thank you for the report. I appreciate it very much. We'll see you later. Thank you, Allison. Yeah, I will tell you this. If you're going to go see the Astros in spring training,

which obviously would be a few more weeks here, and I'm presuming that most people have already made their plans, but if you're just like, yeah, yeah, I got three or four days off at the office or one of a little surprise trip for my wife or my kids, staying in like north Fort Lauderdale wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. There are hotels north of the west.

Fort Lauderdale Airport that will get you to West Palm Beach in 45 minutes and it will save you significant amounts of money. That's just a little inside information. Now, if you're going to stay in West Palm Beach, if you're staying on the, where the closer you are to the water, the more expensive you're going to pay, which really goes without saying. But I mean, one side of I-95 is the left-hand side. That's where all the, let's say, fast food restaurants and, um, pawn shops and strip clubs are, you're going to be okay there.

I mean, it's still going to be expensive. I mean, you're still looking at over $200 a night for something you would want to sleep in. You go right of I-95 closer towards downtown West Palm Beach. You're looking at about $4, $500, $600 a night. But Matt's travel tip of the day is, if you don't mind driving a little bit, staying, flying into Fort Lauderdale will be cheaper than flying into West Palm Beach, and then staying about north of the airport, which will make it about a 45-minute drive

between your hotel and the stadium and you will save significant money. So, yeah, but in terms of seeing guys, it's hot and cold, depending on what their workout days are, depending on whether or not they're playing or not. I would say it's a little harder than it used to be, but it's still not impossible to get autographs

and have guys stop and sign for you. They know this part of the drill. 713-212-5-7-90. Let's go to our buddy Stunna in Umbul-on-7-N-E. Stunner, what do you got today? What's up, man? I hate my boy sick, but, hey, man, I think we could use the NHL, not I-HL now.

We use the NHL. No, we're not, if there's hockey coming back to this town Sunday, it's going to be the NHL. Well, they're not going to waste their time of the minor league stuff anymore. because I follow hockey religiously, man. I like hockey, especially when they get to that overtime. Yeah, well, how'd you like the three-on-three? Hey, man, that's cool.

I like that. You know, it's interesting, man. It's exciting. It's exciting. But like I said, we can use a team here and we can actually make it work because, I mean, Florida got a team. Seattle, Utah? Come on.

But Stana, wait a minute. If that's what you're saying, then why have we had hockey in the last 20 years in this town? If that's your argument. Well, because, hey, man, don't nobody really want to invest here, man, for some reason. I mean, we've been having the same stuff we've been having for a while. I mean, I knew we got that I-HL team. I was thinking, okay, that's going to branch into a hockey team, you know. But once they left, I was like, oh, man, it's a wrap.

I don't know. I mean, we don't have WNBA anymore. I don't know what happened to that. I'm just telling you and thank you standing for the phone call. I appreciate it, friend. The reality is if you are a multi-multimillionaire-slash-billionaire and you want to get into sports ownership, You do a lot of research.

You take and test everything from the marketplace to the population. You do focus groups. You do all the little things to figure out if indeed it's worth it. And guess who's also doing the exact same thing? The NHL. You just think it's just coincidence that they chose Seattle and they chose Salt Lake City and they chose Winnipeg? No. Now there's nothing really holding us back except the people that it would be the, you know, again, we're talking about two main groups here in Houston, apparently the Freakin family and the Fertitas, but there's nothing that precludes any other multi-billionaire that wants to own an NHL team. It says, hey, I live in Saskatchewan, but I love hockey and I think I've found a place in this country that can be a great city, a place for it. Houston, Texas. There isn't anybody. but it's telling it has to be Houston-centric ownership.

But I can tell you this. If you're going out of town to find that investing group, that investor or that owner, they're going to want their own building. Other owners don't like to be landlore or rentees to other owners. Now, if Fritia purchases the team and gets a team with a third expansion, then it's easy. You put it at the totus and you call it a day.

But if the freaking group gets, it, maybe they would want their own arena. I guarantee them to anybody that lives outside of the Houston metropolitan area that was thinking about bringing hockey to Houston, they would want their own arena too. And then that creates another level of conversation. Do we need another 16, 17, 18,000 C arena in Houston, Texas? And who's going to pay for that? See, Yang, it's not a no-brainer.

Just because you love it doesn't mean we have to have it. And I don't want to besmirch the past. passion that some of you have for it. Because I do believe there are a lot of you that have called this show over the years and have sent me tweets and emails and messages and say, Hey, Matt, why don't we have it? Because I'd support it. And I'm sure you would.

I guarantee you that if you, if we found out tomorrow, the NHL was coming to Houston, there would be plenty of people on a phone bank would be like, yep, I'm in. I'm going to, here's my money for deposit of season tickets. Let's go. But it's just, it's much more than that. It's about arena placement. It's about funding. It's about television deals.

It's about the corporate. community. And that's why it isn't a no-brainer. And that's why it's taken so long for this going. And the reality is this, and I hate to say this again, but I'm just, all I want to speak the truth to y'all. We had this conversation four years ago when USA was playing the Olympics hockey. We had this conversation eight years ago. What we're talking about today ain't anything different than we haven't talked about different before. 1230 on Sports Talk 790. If you want to chime in. 713,

212 5-790. 7-13 2-1-2-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 5 on Sports Talk 790. It is Matt and no Ross.

Hope Ross is feeling better. He was pretty miserable yesterday. And I don't about y'all, but you know, he's like, I got 101 temperature. I got the flu. I'm like, okay. Go to sleep. Get some rest.

Have some sweet dreams. So, Ross, hopefully you're not listening to this show. Chance of him listening are 0%. So we'll get him back in the next couple days. This week, by the way, full show tomorrow for four hours, 10 o'clock until 2. And then Wednesday and Thursday, we have shows shorter until 1150 and 1155

because we're going to carry some live Astrospring training-free midweek. And then Friday, a full show as well. So if you like us, we're here every day, 10 o'clock until 2. And a little shorter shows on Wednesday and Thursday, but we appreciate it. By the way, coming up the next half hour, I've got a pair of tickets to give away. Between me and you, they're my seats. Jonathan, tell them how good my seats, sir.

Y'all want these seats, man. Y'all want these seats. Y'all do want these seats. 8.30 start time, so you gotta get a nap in first. 713-212. 8-30. That's what I'm saying. I mean, I need to die hard to go to the game.

I need to die hard to go to this game. 8.30 tonight against the sucky Utah Jazz. 713-212-5-790 Vince is with us at 1236 Vince what's going on man man I watched that Rockets game I can't I mean they've had some probably about four or five those games there

where they just kind of cough up the lead and they you know it's very frustrating and then they were looking like like really really very much title contenders most of that game and then boom it just fell apart and I was going to ask

I don't understand why E-May in the fourth quarter stopped wrapping Brunson, because that was very effective. Then all of a sudden Brunson goes off on us. And number two, why is Sengoon sometimes our main ball handler on the perimeter? And it just, I couldn't sleep after that game. I was so frustrated. Well, just based on the fact of how how went from them. looking like title contenders to all of a sudden like what the heck just happens yeah a lot of that

problem with that would not double teaming him the way that they were earlier is because they kept turning the ball over and you can't adjust your defense that way you know when there's when they're stealing the basketball away or there's turnovers because of charges taken it doesn't let you get back to what you do best and that was giving uh uh you know brunson a lot of hassle uh alberato was running more point in the fourth quarter than even brunson was for long stretches i thought he was a really good facilitator and that angered me a little bit. And as far as Alpe is concerned, the Rockets don't necessarily lose a whole lot about that when he brings the ball up in a front court.

I mean, frankly, he probably carries the ball across the timeline second behind, well, third behind Reed Shepard and behind a man Thompson. So to me, it doesn't take him out of this game. What I like for him to do is once it gets rid of that ball, attack the basket, put his rear end of the back to the post position, and hit those five and six foot shots. so he hits on a regular. The more that he spends outside 15 feet, the more makes me uncomfortable.

Yeah, well, no, no, so, I mean, what's the fix, man? And now I'll hang up. Hmm. I wish I knew. I'll ask Eme Adocas, if you can help us out. Thank you for the phone call. You know, Eme was pretty much saying, you know, I want to, you know what, let me do this.

Let me get you the quote because I don't want to erroneously say what he said. I think it's important to speak right from the coach's mouth on this. So when I give you the quote, this is where I wish Ross is with me here. I can segue here. Let's see here. I'm screening, screening, screening, screening. I can't find it right now.

I'm on the live on the show. There was a quote about him in Thompson. And I don't want to say he needs to focus more because that's not what he was trying to say. So I will try to find the quote about him in Tom. and that I think was one of the things that was pointing to of getting a team into its offense. But to me, and I'm not trying to dumb it down here,

you just got to take better care of the basketball. I mean, my gosh. Now, granted, you had Jalen Brunson who attracted four, he took four charges in that game. That doesn't happen very often. and if you know you've got a guy on the team like the Knicks that has Brunson who likes to take charges,

you got to stay away from that. He leads the NBA in charges taken for a reason. He stands his ground, he's willing to take the contact, and when you have guys like Bulls and Jynosop, sometimes Kevin Durant can be or sometimes the men Thompson can be, Jayland knows that and he plays with strengths.

But there was just no ebb and flow to the Rockets' offense in the fourth quarter. A lot of it was because of the fact, again, they had a hard time. They had limited possessions because they just couldn't, they were not holding out of the basketball. Steels, bad passes, travelings, offensive fouls, all sorts of things that were just driving and crazy. You could get no flow whatsoever at all from the Rockets in the fourth quarter.

And the rocket, this has been, unfortunately, it's been a season long issue for them. We have seen a 25 point league game. I mean, the numbers bear it out. They're one of the worst clutch teams in the NBA, meaning the games within five, within five minutes left to go in the game. game. That's not a stat that you want to have. And it's up to E-May and the coaching staff and the players ultimately to handle that responsibility of figuring out what it has to do to not take the foot off the pedal. It's the reason why Kevin Durant and men, Thompson blanks so many minutes. There have been too many games where you can't just sit back and relax and let your reserves come in.

You know, unfortunately, you don't have much scoring coming off the bench. You got Reed and that's about it. Dorian Finney Smith has not scored well this year for this team. you have seen, you know, Clint Capella doesn't provide the nil of the rebounding numbers that even Stephen Adams had and doesn't provide much scoring. And, you know, I'm trying to think anybody else am I forgetting about here. It's really reading that's about it.

You don't have much of a presence from your reserve group. And that's what has to happen. And that's what I think was part of the reason why they were able to overcome that deficit with the Knicks because they had guys like Jose Alvarado coming off the bench and scorings in baskets. Mitchell Robinson was doing a fairly decent job. Very, very aggravating. Let's talk to James and Klein on 790 and 1242. James, what do you have?

Yeah, in the beginning of the season, before the season started with the Cougars and the Rockets, everybody was on Cloud 9, like, this is going to be our year. And now here we are. I don't know what, you know, it's kind of depressing, but the injuries have hurt us, the ability to prick people away, like you said, you know, we're better than you, and we're going to show we're better than you, and we're just going to preach your ways. They just don't have their ability right now.

I don't understand while, but they don't. But, I mean, last year when we had Jaylon Green, and I'm not saying Kevin Durant's not a great player he is, and he is, we're glad, we're lucky to have him, but Jaylen Green, we'd push the ball up the court, and we just blow people away. It was a run, running offense, and we just, and then,

um, man Thompson, I mean, he was just Mr. Automatic as far as offense with that offense. I think this half-court offense we're playing just isn't suited for him. Just get your take and I'll listen. Yeah, I mean, the loss of Jeff Van, not Jeff, I didn't know, of Fred Van, I was going with a van of somebody.

Jeff Van Vleet, or Fred Van Vleet, is, I mean, you just cannot put enough on it. He calmed things down when teams would go on a run. He would hit an occasional three that would stop a rally. And that's another thing. I mean, I love a man Thompson. There's so many things about his game that I love, but the perimeter shot just isn't there.

I mean, he's shooting, I think, less than 20% from three-point range. And really outside about 10 feet, it's not the most guaranteed thing in the world. So you've lost a Supreme ball handler in Fred, and you've lost a perimeter game. It wears on you. So teams are going to sag off, and that's exactly what they do with the men Thompson.

They dare him to take shots outside of his comfort. zone and unfortunately there's not been enough of that that's gone through. Jabari can play up and down. The most consistent score on the team in the starting five for sure, really if you go back to the starting, if you go with the six, if you include Reed and Shepard, is Kevin Duran. Now, he may have a high volume game once in a while, like he said, the last couple of games, but there are also times like he was against Charlotte where he was incredibly

efficient. Alpi, generally speaking, can get you the buckets most times that he hits, but there are nights where he gets starts off two for. This team is in And it can't be fixed now But it's in team of a Supreme Ball Handler Facilator who can bury you from the outside

And what I just described to you Is recuperating from a torn ACL So for everybody that was taking shots at Fred last year for being old And taking bad shots and killing them in game I think all those people were probably saying Yeah, I probably should have changed my tune on this by now because you feel it every single game.

You also feel it too with no Dylan Brooks. You know, that moxie that he had, that toughness, that getting in guys' faces, and maybe try to stop a drive. But I will say this. I know many of you miss Jalen Green. I know many of you miss Dylan Brooks. I am not dissatisfied with the trade, and Kevin Durant has been everything is advertised. 1245 of the Matt Thomas Show with Ross 713-212-5-790.

Today's edition of Believe it or not is highly Googled. It is about Team USA and Team Canada. So we'll have that for you today before the close of the show. 713-212-5-7-90. When we come back, your chance to win my tickets to tonight's Utah Rockets game. 1246 on 790. All right. Tonight, the Rockets play the Utah Jazz.

It's an 8.30 start time. So if you can take a nap and you don't be at work at 7 o'clock in the morning, the first person to call in with the correct answer. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90 will win my tickets for tonight's game between the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets. The question is this. There is one player on the Houston Rockets that has played for both the Houston Rockets, obviously, and the Utah Jazz. Who is that player?

7-13-212-5-7-90. If you know the answer, 7-13-212-5-7-0. 9-0. Now, Emmanuel, you're calling from California, correct? Yes, sir. So you can't go to the game tonight because you won't be here in time. No, I'm sorry. I was calling in advance before this for... I know. I just want to make sure that I was being fair to you. I just want to make sure I was being fair. All right. Well, you want me to hold on.

No, no, I want you to talk cougars with me right this second. Well, you know what? There was that Arizona shutdown, swarming deep. I mean, he had 10 minutes without a basket. I thought it's almost an hurdle. I have never seen that. I watched college football and basketball for like over 20-something years in my life. I've never seen that before. That was crazy.

And, you know, you guys brought it, though, man. Your D is as good as advertised. But we got that big 7-2 boy in the middle. He was flying everything around. Who's that guy from Australia that was knocking down jump shots left and right? I thought about Osor Adele Yeah he was great

Yeah he used to be really Like he was He was starting lineup And he was on fire But then Last year So he's been kind of taken aback Because he had gotten better talent

On the on the feeding guards But you know It's good to see him come back And like he probably You probably don't work on his game a lot And he's just When he's just rolling he's a

he's a he's a he's a shot shooter out there and that kid he has he has well ice water

and he has been a race for a freshman for walking to heat center and play that level that I was

I was really impressed by him because I know he was good but I didn't think he was that good already for a freshman

he handled himself very well and I mean you guys are going to do great in the crowd but I think just think a lot of people

a lot of the players were just traumated themselves to me in a convict and then in Texas Tech there really threw a fire underneath them. But they were really

wanted to win that game a lot on Saturday. I know. I know. That was the best defense I've ever seen them playing, like, I'm not lying like, at least people a year. That defense was like all over.

Basically, I thought them he could be in the final floor. It's terrible. Overall, I'm sorry for the city's on Saturday. That's fine. That was a disgrace for the Rock.

that I mean, I'm sorry. I know it's a regular season game, but I'm really just, just blacked. I hate to say that word, but I'm very disappointed and get blessed. Like, you're professional athletes. Learn how to get around guys standing in the middle.

I mean, you think one of them, I love to get to one, but one of them was tiki top. I think one of them should have been a charge that Brinson got. I think one of them was a little bit of a garbage call, but,

I mean, come on, you got to be better than that. You're a professional athlete. Come on. I know I love him. He's got so much more. But you got to rise up ahead of a jumper to win a game. I mean, come on. He's supposed to be one of the top 10 of all time.

You got to rise up. At that moment, and you've got to rise up ahead of jumper in somebody's face and win the game. You know, I'm just very special. You're just very special. We're up 18 points in the fourth quarter. When I know things happen, they're pro too, but you've got to rise up and, you know,

you've got a jumper, hit some free throws. win again. Now, Manuel, free throws were not the issue. Thank you for the phone call. You're just speaking in generics. Yeah, the free throws were not the issue. It was the fact that Carl Anthony Towns

was hitting side pocket threes. You had Jose Alvarado going off and running the offense. You had Jalen Brunson finally woke up in the fourth quarter. McHale Bridges was really good. O.G. Nenonobie's Athletic as hell. although he was really more hot in the first half than he was in the second.

Landry Shamet was... Why don't you bring this up to me? I'm calling Landry Shammit baskets. Landry shamans sounds like a guy that should be my dry cleaner. Well, Matt, where are you taking it closer? I'm going to shamet dry cleaning. Seriously. I hate that that was funny because that's lucky you kind of accurate.

Oh, that's the guy, Landry. Landry, the shamit, dry cleaning. He's really a good dude. Carl Anthony Towns with 10 to 15. He knocking down threes like they were layups. 33 to 15 in the 4th. I'm staring at the box score now. I'm just pissed up.

Now you all got me mad. Not your fault, but you get it. 20 turnovers into 30 points. Will we say 9 in the 4th quarter alone? Oh, God. Deep breath, Matt. I took my blood pressure medicine. I'm happy about that.

Good. I feel like sometimes you forget. I know, I do forget too much. Can't play around with your health. You got to take care of yourself. I know, so I'm saying. Ross, now he's out. Yeah, just me and myself and I.

It's why you're going to be my caretaker and you're sick too. I got to take care of your ass now. I can't get close to you. Yeah, stay away from me too. All you people are staying away from me. Put some mask on. All right. We're going to check you.

Speaking of the Cougars, we're going to check him with the Cougars in about 25 minutes from now. Our buddy Joseph Torte is in Lawrence, Kansas. I don't know if he's staying there or not. Another thing, If you're going to see a game at Kansas, you can fly to Kansas City and just stay in the Kansas City, much more stuff to do.

I don't want, let me tell you some. I need Jaldo. I need two wins tonight. I need the Rockets to kick the Jazz's ass. And then I need the Cougars to beat Kansas. I don't need the damn three game losing sure. By the way, the Cougars are that believe now are number six in a poll, if I'm not mistaken, if I saw that correctly.

We're still good. We're still a two seed, according to Bracketology. But this tonight would be in the number. nice way to get this victory. Yeah. Duke number one, oh, number five. Top five, Duke won, Arizona two, Michigan three, Iowa State four. Houston drops from two down to five. Kansas number 14. That's associated press polls. Nobody really cares. Congratulations to our winner, Gio. He got it right. And the question was, who is the only rocket to have played for both the rockets and the Utah Jazz? And the answer is Jeff Green, who probably has played for about 90% of the teams in the NBA. So that was kind of

easy one for you. Geo, good luck, my man. You're going to the Rockets game sitting in my seats tonight, so behave yourself. 1258, final hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross is next. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Have I been corrected on something? I've got to find this out. All right, let me go over to line number two here. Now I'm curious.

Easy, did I screw something up? Antoine Carr didn't play for the Rockets also, sir? No, I said current. Oh, okay. I thought you said the only one ever to play for both teams. No, no, no. One current rocket was on the Utah Jazz. Okay, but is that a factor?

That is a fact. Antoine Carr did play for the Rockets and for the Jazz. Big dog. Yeah, the glasses. Hey, just a quick, another thing, Matt, what do you think Alpe does not get the respect on the calls that he's supposed to get? Is it because he's young or is it because the officials just let them play? or how that happens.

I don't hang up a listen to you. All right. Well, there's a couple things going against him. One is he wants the call every time. And you're not going to get the call every time. So if you watch the body language of Alper and Shangoon, and every time contact comes his way, you would then assume that he's not getting calls.

If you watch a player, and I'm not saying Alpi, it does this by himself. There's others to do it. it. That if Alpi gets touched 10 times, my guess is Alpi's nine of those 10 times going to say I was fouled. So if you watch his demeanor, you think, well, he's not getting

calls. But very rarely do I ever worry about Alpi not getting calls. He's, you know, he's not the one guy I don't worry about.

Kevin Durant gets a lot of contact. A men, Tom, against a lot of contact. But Alpi, he gets the free throw line plenty of times. And the problem is, here's the thing about he, he shoot less 70% with the free throw line.

I don't know if I want him going to the free throw line every single time. A lot of things are really good at. Excellent passers. Second best basing big man in the NBA behind Nicole Yokic. That little jump hook he's got from five feet is just about automatic.

But, yeah, to me, I don't I don't, I don't want to necessarily be thinking about a situation where I'm worried about Alpi getting mad. He's not getting calls. Alpi's getting calls. And I can say that is from guys a huge Alpy fan.

All right. Now you all are throwing me off big time. Let me go to Josh and Lake Jackson here. Josh, what's going on with you, Josh? Hey, Matt. Isn't Stephen Adams? Wasn't he a Utah Jazz and currently playing for the Rockets as well? If you're wrong, you're going on me a big apology.

I'm not wrong. Google ain't wrong. He never played for the Utah Jazz. Josh, listen to me right now. I put you on my radio show because I'm by myself and I'm a little hesitant about being wrong about trivia questions.

That's why I don't do trivia a lot because I'm always scared I get it wrong. And I put you on the top of the list and you tell me that Stephen Adams play for the Utah Jazz. I never thought he'd play for the Utah Jazz. But you know what, Josh and Lake Jackson, And maybe you know something I don't know.

Maybe I missed something. Maybe there was a 10-day contract. Maybe it was a one-year deal. So I go to you out of the faith of my value of my life. And you let me down. Oh, man. Then the car before me says, didn't Antoine car? Yes, he did.

I said one current rocket. Did I not, Jonathan, did I say current? Yeah. Did I say current? Josh, what are you doing? Say your sorry. right now. My apologies.

Mr. Texas. I'll take it. Thank you very much. You did call me Mr. Texas. He called you Mr. Texas. That's what he did. That's why I love that man. That's why

Jonathan peeling the curtain back. I don't do trivia very much because there's, you think you're right every time, but I've been wrong. I know. I can see the angst every time they. I was like, oh, uh-oh,

I missed something. Oh, that's funny. Man, y'all convince me do anything now. Hey Matt, I swear to God, Kevin Durant was once a Cleveland Cavalier. He was? It just shows how much faith do you have in your listeners? You're like, oh, you know what? I can trust them a little bit. That's exactly right. Now of the people in this marketplace, they won't take your time calls. They won't take your time. I'll give you an opportunity to say your peace. And then I got a fact check you and then I'm going to embarrass you.

Or I got embarrassed myself. I get something wrong. So there you have it. Only rocket current on the roster that used to play for the Utah Jazz is Jeff Green. And Gio's going to go the Rockets game because of that. Good for him. Now I'm all discombobulated. Give me something else. Give me a random topic, Jonathan. We got Jonathan, we got Joseph Dorsey coming up in five minutes.

You were talking about earlier. Oh, I don't want to go. You first. No, no. You figured out. I was just going to help you jogging mine. I mean. Well, let me just. I got to play this for you. Okay, okay. I saw that. Remember I told you all last week what a putch Jeff Kent was

and how I'm not happy. going to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He's just a bad dude. He was a bad dude when I was a young sportscaster. He did nothing to me personally, except I was in a media scrum, and he just was just disrespectful. He was an A-hole. Sorry.

I know he's going to the Hall of Fame. Congrats those family. He's still an A-hole. Once you're an A-ho, you're always an A-hole. True. So Jeff Kent was at Giant Spring Training, and how do I set this up, Jonathan? Make sure I get this right here.

he was to talk outspoken maybe outspoken as the term he was on the broadcast with John Miller and he was talking about um well Alex Rodriguez

and here's the audio Arod who was he was your size and he came in hard on you and and you know you survived it but I think he got banged up a little bit and he went on the deal for a little bit yeah I did he tore him knee up he went she slipped and rolled his fat ass past the base the son of a bitch and put me out for a little while i was

yeah i was not happy about that because he was a middle infielder and we were beating him up pretty good he didn't need to be doing that so not that you've thought about it much since then that's half empty right there john but that was the one time i do remember that uh a guy really came in hard on you but anyway. I would throw the ball. I would literally throw the ball between their eyes. If they came in and they weren't ducking down, I was throwing the ball right between their eyes.

They better get down. And that's the way it got. Am I wrong? Wow. That was. He said, if they don't duck, when they're coming in hard to me at second, I'm going to throw it at their eyes.

You know, I didn't know, maybe because I'm young. I didn't know pitchers actually do that. He's the second baseman. He was talking about turning from second to first base. Like a double play is that kind of thing. Still. Let me tell you something about me, okay. Jonathan, you're getting to know me little by little here.

I make mistakes. We all do. We are not perfect. And when I make mistakes, you're more than welcome to call me out on them. But what I don't make mistakes on, generally speaking in life, and I tell this to my friends all fear.

I don't make mistakes very often on judge a character. Right. And Jeff Kent has no character. It's a funny story. But do you think there was any lightheartedness in what he said? Nope. It's like they made a smart comment to him just talking about like, oh, obviously you've moved past that. Because dude, that didn't sound like you.

No. Like that was bad. Like, I know they're all awkward in the room. Like, oh, snap. So you know what, Jeff, you don't know this recently. Jeff Kent's son. I don't know if he's still at A&M or graduated, but a couple of years ago, Jeff, A&M went to the college world series. And Jeff Kent's son, I don't think he was a full-time.

starter, but he was a like a pinch runner, occasional starter utility player for them. Again, I don't have a great grasp of A&M baseball, but I just know he played. So a couple of years ago, they're at the College World Series and they're playing the best of three final.

And Jeff Kent's son got picked off at first base. And everybody knows who, I think the kid's name is Caden, if I'm not mistaken. So Kent gets picked off at first. Everybody in their mother knows that Jeff Kent's in the building. So anytime Kaden Kent does something, they pan the camera over to Jeff.

Right. So he gets picked off. Now, what would you have done if that was your son at first base? Knowing that you're a famous athlete, you probably would have just clapped, you know, or clapped or just done nothing to gain any intention. You know what he did instead? He took his index finger and he put it to the temples of his head and said, you've got to think. Like this?

Yeah. Do you think that Cain can't, after getting picked off at first base, the very first thing that this 20-year-old is trying to do is go up to see the stands and see if his father appreciated the move or not? No, he did it because that's just who he is. My daughter has made mistakes on the volleyball court. I mean, some pretty obvious ones. Guess what this dad's not doing?

And we're all not built the same. I don't ever cheer for her too loud when things are going great. and I certainly don't criticize her when things are going bad because I feel like if I do that if I only applaud her when things are good that when she does something good I don't applaud then she's not wigging out did my dad appreciate what I did

especially in volleyball that's a whole mental sport absolutely it is I just think being even keeled is where it's at and I just didn't think again zero surprise that Jeff Kent would do that knowing that he was going to be at national television and guess what you can go find a video of him doing that over and over and over again

after his son who was already embarrassed as it was, got picked off a first base. As you can tell, I'm not a big Jeff Ken fan. All right, 113 is our time. We go to Kansas next. It's the Cougars and the Jayhawks. We've got a preview of that with our friend Joseph D'orte from the Houston Chronicle.

It's 113 on Sports Talk 790. 119. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is off today. Let's spend 10, quarter minutes with our good friend, Joseph Dwarte, he covers the University of Houston. He is in. Now, is the move to stay in Kansas City, or did you actually stay and find a hotel in Lawrence, Kansas? I'm curious. Lawrence is a big town, buddy. I'm in Lawrence. Yeah, there's no Kansas City. That's an hour drive.

All right. I don't know if that Chronicle expense account can handle things, so I just want to make sure you're all right on that. Oh, you can then know me. I don't think that's going to happen all. All right. So I've been bringing this up a couple of times today. something that's going to happen tonight that doesn't happen a lot. Kansas either going to lose their second straight at Allen Fieldhouse or the Cougars are going to have a three-game losing streak. So, man, there's a lot, not necessarily a lot running in the line, but an interesting storyline for the team to lose this game. Yeah, and also throw in Kansas is 40 and O at home during big Monday,

ESPN games under Bill itself. So, yeah, that's another plot for tonight. But, yeah, I mean, you look at the way Saturday, went down. Obviously, Houston losing Arizona, that was a tough matchup, a two versus four. Losing home to Arizona is not, you know, there's no shame in that, but on the

other side, you know, you saw Cincinnati go into Allen Philadelphia and beat Kansas by, I believe it was 16 or 18 points. So, yeah, one team's coming off of this tough stretch and Kansas it's coming off a really bad loss, so strange things

happen in the fog. So I would think that tonight we're going to be in for a pretty good game. Look, Joseph, you've covered Kevin for a long time. He doesn't mince words, but I'm going to give you an opportunity to give him some additional truth serum. Does he love his team, or is he a little nervous about this year's group because you are relying so much on Fleming's to do with so much of the heavy lifting?

No, I think it's the unknown. He likes the team. I mean, he put it together. He knew what he had. He knew that. there was no way Chris and Ack was going to sit at the bench or come off the bench. And really with Fleming's, you knew what you had,

but you maybe thought you were a year away from him being the point guard and not sort of moving in and forcing it to be a co-point guard or really him being the go-to guy in games to score. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's an adjustment for him because in 35, 37 years, whatever it's been, he hasn't been this young and the things that made them so good last year and got him to the championship game

was that they were a veteran team they don't have that right now and sort of games like tonight or Arizona those are still learning games those are games that Fleming's and Snack and Harwell and those guys haven't been in yet so you're going to have that little

trial, you know, baptism by fire type deal so yeah I mean I think he liked it He likes the progress. I've seen the progress since November, and he always has his team playing better going into March. Maybe if they're a little behind around, because there are things that you hear him say that maybe defensively were not as good or we're having the offensive problem.

So, yeah, there's some things as a young team he's still trying to figure out. You mentioned CNAC. How would you grade out his season? because obviously he's still being considered to be probably a late first round pick if he decided to go after this year. A thought or two about what you've seen from him because obviously Fleming's gets all the headlines

and Kingston's probably going to be a top five selection that goes without saying and he's lived up to expectations. He's been just fantastic. But Cinec to me was also pretty highly recruited coming out of high school. Oh, absolutely. And if you look at beginning of the season, he was in that lottery range, maybe 12 to 15. got off to a little bit of a slow start.

I thought he's actually improved his stock the last three weeks or so. You know, this is a guy who played the five in high school and, you know, you dominate and when you're that type of guy. And he has to come in here and play the four. And he sort of has been feeling his way out on that and learning how what comes with that. But the biggest improvement, I think, has been on the rebounding side. He's got 13 and 12 in the last two games. He's really going after the offensive rebounds.

He had three on one possession against Iowa State. So things like that, you see the improvement. I mean, he's got a nice, you know, mid-range shot, and he can step out, hit a three when you need them. So you see that progress. So while Fleming's has been more consistent, had a few hiccups here and there, I thought Chris has really done a nice job the last few weeks. too. I wouldn't be surprised if he creeps back into that lottery. And when the last time, you know, Houston had two lottery picks that could go

and possibly maybe another one late in the first round. So it'll be interesting to see, you know, how this plays out. Joseph Dwarte covers the Cougars for the Chronicle, joining us from Lawrence, Kansas. It'll be the Cougars and the Jayhawks over a 950 KPRC tonight. 8 o'clock will be the tip time. Hey, um, so I had to do. Kelvin on Friday, and I mentioned about Jojo, and he's always had foul trouble.

That just goes without saying. And it's always the easy, low-hanging fruit for Cougar fans. Why is this the issue? As you've seen 99% of his basketball games in person, is he right place, wrong

place, wrong time? Is it still too much reaching in? There are a lot of fouls, say, 30 feet beyond the basket, because he does ask his big man to go out there and guard some of those guards. when can you see a night and will you see a night where jojo doesn't have to constantly face foul trouble well to me it's sort of split down the middle because jojo is a product of jojo things and then i think he's sort of gotten a reputation where they called stuff on him and some of the calls

have been questionable i mean i'm i'm not a jump on the referee kind of guy but i've seen some pretty ticky-tack ones that have come at the worst times. And, you know, Joe Joe's admitted he played a lot of playground ball where you don't call foul. And I think some of that catches up that aggressiveness, that overexcitement, because he's such a physical change the direction of games just with his defense. So that's where you run into problems. And whether it was last year and

the national championship game or these last two two games, when he sits on the bench, things change for the Cougars. They can't do things without him in there. They're not as good defensively. So, you know, he's had some games. And, you know, Kelvin's tried to do some things like he brings in Khalifa Sacco at the four-minute mark every game. It's a chance to get Jojo in there, get him going, but get him out for a few minutes so that you

don't pick up a second or a third. foul in the first half. So, I mean, Jojo's just going to, they're going to have to, you know, Kelvin really didn't want to talk about it when I asked about it yesterday. And it seems like it's just something that you're going to have to put Jojo out there and say, hey, look, you got to try to stay out of foul trouble. And I don't know if that's possible, but they're going to need him every game from here on out.

Joseph, the early NCAA top seedings were announced on Saturday. Those things are obviously fluid. did I read it right? They don't have the cougars staying in the South. Is that what they originally thought? Yeah, just for your listeners, Houston was the host for the South, which is at the Toyota Center.

They gave that up to Rice, and by doing that, that makes them eligible if they're eligible to go play at Toyota Center. Most people say, oh, how can you be so close and play? Well, they can. They're eligible. So in the first bracket revealed,

they're in the Midwest. which is Chicago, and that's the same region right now that Michigan is the number one overall seat. Now, things are going to change with the ones. Houston was considered the six overall, which puts them, you know, two back of getting into the four number ones. But with teams losing, you know, if you win the Big 12 or if you win the Big 12 tournament, I think you could still get in there. I don't know if the South right now is realistic because with Iowa State being the number one in the South,

they can't even be the number two because you can't have big 12 teams like that in the same region top two seed and stuff so a lot of a lot of things have to sort of sort its way out they're eligible though and that's what counts if i'm them just get into the region i don't care if i'm a two a three or a one because what if yukon is the one in the south i wouldn't want to come to houston and have the cougars playing two miles from their campus and what's going to be a home game in the suite 16 of the elite you guys. date. How much of that talk? And that could be for, and I'm just using an example, Duke playing in Charlotte or saying USC playing in Los Angeles, how much of that, and you've been talking to those folks over the years, how much of that becomes a real conversation piece of a non-number-one having a chance to play in their region or very close to it? Oh, it's big. I mean, look at Purdue last year. They played in Indianapolis. You know, it's not in West Lafayette, but it's pretty darn close. So you've had those situations.

Kansas has played some opening round regionals right in their backyard. So, I mean, yeah, that's talked about a lot. I think from the national media standpoint, a lot of them weren't quite understanding and sure about how the South worked. And now people are starting to figure out that, yeah, Houston can play in that regional, so you see more projections that have had Houston in the South. but in terms of the NCAA selection committee, you know, that that will be weighed heavily. And, you know, there were, I believe there were three teams that were in position for that final number one seed when it was announced Saturday.

And Houston was one of them. So if you stay in that discussion, you have a good chance if you're not the one in the South. Because also bad, you have to look at it. Who are the other number ones? If Dukes are one, they're out east. If Michigan's the one, they're in the Midwest. if Arizona's a one they're out west, where does that leave you? You have the south and that's it.

So it's almost like you're put in there because that's just the way the proximity and the destinations are going to play out. So, you know, well, this thing will sort of tough. I think you'll have a better pitcher going into the conference tournament if Houston is even, you know, in that discussion after, you know, wrapping up this game tonight against Kansas and some of the other games that play out over the next week. All right, we're going to bother you again in Kansas City for the Big 12th tournament, but first things first tonight. How do you see things? What has to happen in order for the Cougars and this little two-game skid? Well, they can't let Ball Gala and Fieldhouse, you know, rattle them. You know, they're a young team. That's the concern.

This isn't a veteran team that came in there last year and won the double overtime. I think you have to force some turnovers. They haven't done that the last two games. Their offense is built up. on their defense and forcing turnover. So you do that, you play with them on the boards. And I think overall, you can make this a game. I don't see it being a blowout.

And, of course, there's the Darren Peterson situation. How much does he play for Kansas and how good is he? Because when he's played, he's been good. But the minutes just haven't been there for whatever reason, injuries and what have you. So I think this is probably a five-point game tonight. That'd be my guess. All right, my man, safe travels back.

Thank you very much for the time. And we will see you back in Houston very shortly. Thank you for the visit. Okay, buddy. Thanks, man. Joseph Dorote, joining us from Lawrence, Kansas, where tonight the Cougars will take on the Kansas Jayhawks. And if you're a television viewer, you get the Rockets,

and you have the Cougars, both tonight in action. KJ and Cyprus, I know you're listening. If you want to call back in one, the Rockets, we'll get you that. You're taking just a second on that. If you want to, if you don't want to, and somebody else wants to come in and say hello. You may do so at 132 here on Sports Talk 790.

713-213-5-790 is how you reach the show if you want to get in. That's 7-13-212-5-7-90. Right now, before we get to more of you talking about a variety of sports issues for this Monday. Thanks again to Josu-Torte for joining us for a few minutes on the show. Final segment for us to visit if you want to call in and say hello, argue with me or yell at me or telling me how great I am. I'll do all the above. 713-212-1-2-5-7-90.

I got a little disagreement with somebody on Twitter about the Jeff Kent putting the temple, the finger against the temple. It's like if that was a reasonable thing to do. No, your son just got picked off on the College World Series. Let the man, let the kid, you know, he's fine. Does someone defending that, really? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, somebody called a Jose Altovae season on Twitter. He says, I mean, that's a complete, irresponsible response from Kent after being picked off on the college world series. Seems like a class hater, Mr. Thomas. He did say Mr. Thomas. And then I said, I responded back to him. I said, yeah, that embarrass your kid even more makes perfect sense. And then he says, soft if you think that's embarrassment.

I don't know. I just don't feel like these guys are athletes, and that's just they've never gotten that far in sports. And you obviously have a Division I daughter. You know how it takes. When you are not on your mental, any case, you're just going to ruin the game worse for that athlete. Like, they have to be supported, you know. If you're mad at your kid, go. Tell them after the game.

There have been, I'll tell you, John, you know, this. You played sports all your life in the kid. Carly and I have had some good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-out arguments. Guess what they've been, in the car. Yeah. That's not supposed to be. Yeah, because you know what? Look, I've been around youth sports all my life with my son's playing,

and my daughter obviously playing as much. You know, if you're there to, because you're the, You think you're the assistant coach or something? Or you think you are, you know more than the coach does or you're the general manager of the team. You're just going to embarrass yourself. And I'll say this just from my experience growing up, like playing sports and just playing like little league football. Like my mom never wanted me to play the tackle football ever, right? And I was one of the start running backs, you know, was very athletic.

But I was a little on the smaller side. And these kids will, you know, they'll hit hard, hit late. Oh, yeah. And so one time I got hit so late, I couldn't breathe anymore. I was like, probably like 10. And I had a single mom at the time, right? And she got on the field and took me off the field because she was so worried because no one was caring, you know, and all these other older men are you yelling at their sons, this and this. I'd say all this is to say, you grow up, those kids get burnt out.

They don't love, they don't feel love from their parents, this, this and that. And they don't, there's no nurturing it. And this guy's saying, oh, it's perfect reasonable response. I mean, it's not your life. It's your kid's life. You're saying it because you are mad that's your son and that's a reasonable response for you. And I'm not saying that Jeff Kent does this a lot But it was just

You just know if you're Jeff Kent You're going to be on national television Because you are the most famous person in that stadium And your son just got picked off But cool as a cucumber would have been You know what You know how this conversation after I can only imagine

You go into a Carly's game And being like I can't believe you missed that set Yeah I just couldn't Like why you back sent in to her But going to my index finger saying think, that's all that she wants to hear. I'm just telling you, for any of you that have young families that you've got kids involved in sports,

just trust me on this. Look, I don't know everything. And I could be wrong. And maybe most of you drive around going, Matt, you know what the hell you're talking about. I'm just saying for me that raised three children, two of the rich were playing some, you know, competitive sports. If you're going to chew out and sometimes the kids need to chew out, you do in the car. And not that index finger to the temple is a chewout, but

sight being, you know, knowing the TV cameras are watching every, every time Kaelin, Jalen, whatever is Kent's name, is always up there, you know that that was going to be on the big screen. I just think there's a difference between tough love and like making your kid better to just, like you said, plan out embarrassing and just degrading your kid. You know what I mean? So, again, we can always agree to disagree. That's what the point of the show is.

but I just was like, you know, it was a bad look back then. And then, again, with my bias towards what Jeff Kent was, I wasn't totally surprised. Obviously, wanted to call Alex Rodriguez a fat ass too, which was, I mean, pretty bold on his part. Jeff Kent held on a player, though. World Series, I mean, Hall of Fame, I don't know about that. But he gets you, he's in.

And congratulations, the entire Kent family. Oh, deep breath. Okay, Rockets against the Utah Jazz Tonight 830. looking forward to having you on the broadcast for that. Tomorrow will be on for a full four hours again tomorrow. And then we've got shorter shows Wednesday and Thursday and then back Friday for a full four hour to get together. So we're going to be here every single day,

whether there's spring training games or not. Shorter shows a couple days this week. What else is going on? The NFL Combine starts. I think Nick Assyrio, if I'm not mistaken, let me look at my email here to make sure I'm right about this. Again, live email checking is not great as the show is moving along, but I'm going to do it anyway.

and Nick Asero is meeting with the media tomorrow at 11 o'clock. You'll figure out where we should carry that or not. I think so. How about this for a quick guess? Percentage of questions that Nick Asario gets tomorrow about C.J. Stroud. Ooh.

I will say less than 50%. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How about this? Does he even address what I believe to be silly rumors about the Texans trying to trade him. I'm going to go ahead and make a guess on this

that he's going to do the following. He's going to go, hey, I don't believe internet rumors, nor should you. He's our guy. We look forward to having him lead our team in 2026. And I'm here to talk about the draft. Because that's what he's primarily there for. The combine in Indianapolis is there to discuss what he's about to see, what kind of players.

Now, he won't give up what kind of players looking for who he's looking at. I mean, no general manager would do that. I'm not expecting him to do that. But it's just, I'd be very interested to see how that works out, whether it becomes a primary conversation piece if it gets brought up at all. Because, again, the rumor of C.J. Stroud being traded is not a rumor. It's a podcaster. It's what's his face. McShay, he used to work at a.

ESPN basically saying, hey, I wouldn't be a surprise of a guy like CJ is being thrown on in trade rumors. That to me is not a rumor. That's to me a guy trying to fill up five minutes on a podcast. Because do you understand something, gang, before we get to believe it or not? That with this microphone does bear responsibility. I could come up with 10 things per day if I wanted to, even more. I'm hearing this. I've been told this. Wouldn't it be interesting if this happened? That to me is kind of irresponsible.

Now, I don't think that McShay was doing it to spike things up, but clearly there are some people in this town that went with it and said, oh, maybe Cacero's kicking the tires, I'm moving him. Has there been a phone conversation? Probably. Would the Texans be assidivide? to trade for him right now?

Yes, they would, even though he has had or did have two terrible football games in a row during the postseason. You've got to let this play out at least through 2026 before you really do commit serious money his way. Let's play, believe it or not next. It is highly Googledable. It's involving Team Canada and Team USA. If you'd like to play, 713, 212, 5790, 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790 for today's edition of Believe It or Not It is highly Googled, so I can't give you the real essence of it

But we are going to be playing for, you're saying what? What are we playing for, Matt? Pair tickets to see Rascal Flats at Rodeo Houston Or a pair of tickets to see the Santana and the Doobie Brothers at the Woodlands Pavilion. How good is that? I may go see that myself. If you want to play, 713-212-5-7-90. One quick note, Tarek Skubel, your AL-Sai-Yong winner, over and over and over again.

We'll be having some more. Announced, apparently in the last day or so, maybe even today, that he is going to pitch for the WBC for Team USA, but he's only going to make one start, and he'll do it in pool play. That's it. And then he said, once he's done with that,

he's going back to the Tigers. So there you go. A little interesting note about that. Again, the only astro of note that you will miss will be Carlos, or Jeremy Pena, who will be playing for his DR team at the World Base Base Ball. Classic, that's why you're seeing a lot of Jeremy Payne playing some early games

for the Astros before he sets off. Love Jeremy. One of my favorite Astros. Certainly have tremendous respect for him. He loves the WBC. He knows there's history to it. I know it's been about a decade old. He still appreciates it. My perspective, I don't think it's a great idea, but they never ask my opinion, and that's okay.

Those guys take it very seriously. Just say if you're a big Astro fan, like I'm sure, 99% of you are, say a small parade that can get hurt. You're saying, well, Madigan get hurt in a spring training game. You're right. But at least it's on company time. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do?

We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it be, leaving or not. And here's how it works. You call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or not is all things about whether or not, this player plays for either Team USA

or Team Canada. If they play for one of the two teams, you'll say this. Jonathan, you'll say this. Believe it. If they don't, and I come up with somebody else, just a random person's name, you'll say this. If you get two Bel Air Nauts in a row, you'll get a choice of either a 7-90 t-shirt,

a pair of tickets to see Rascal Flats, March 4th at Rodeo Houston. That's at Rodeo Houston.com for 10. tickets on that or the pair of tickets to see Santana and the Doobie Brothers, August 21st at the Willans Pavilion. Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.com. Let's play, believe it or not. We'll start with Scott on 790. Scott, you're ready to play Believe it or not?

Believe it. Scott, good luck to you. Matt Boldie is a forward on Team USA. Boldie. Believe it or not? Believe it. That's right. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Austin Matthews is a forward on Team USA.

say, believe it or not? Not. He is. I'm sorry. Thank you for playing, though. I guess I should have written down what NHL team there are, but we're short of time. Eddie on 790, Eddie, you ready to play, believe it or not? I'm ready, believe it.

Eddie, Mark Carney is a forward on Team Canada. Believe it or not. Mark Carney. Hurry. Believe it. No, he's a prime minister there, but thank you for playing. Brian on 790. Brian, you ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. Quinn Hughes, defenseman, team USA. Believe it or not? Not. He is. Well, that Rosser very well, do you? Nelson on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it.

Mitch Marner, forward team Canada. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yes. Statement number two for the win. Logan Thompson, goaltender, team Canada. Believe it or not? Not.

He is. Thank you for playing. I know. George, John Sevedani, ready to play, believe it or not. Always, Matt. Goose tonight. I'll be a good weekend.

Hey, I'll keep it quick. I'm going, not, not. Are you sure you want to do that? What should I do? Sean Duffy, defenseman, team USA. Believe it or not? Not.

Yeah, he's a U.S. Department of Education leader. Oh, well, I said yes. Now, you're right. You're right. Number two for the win. Thomas Harley, defenseman Canada. Believe it or not. No, but I got a good Harley, though. My dad has a great Harley truck.

Bye, see you. Goodbye. Chris on 790. Chris, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Let's go. Kelly Armstrong, forward Team USA. Believe it or not? Not.

That's right. He's the governor of North Dakota. Statement number two for the win, Andrew Nack, defenseman, team Canada. Believe it or not. Leave it. No, he's the mayor of Edmonton, Alberta. Thank you, I know, I know.

We gave away nothing today? Hold on, we got one more shot here. Let's try, Rob. Rob, you got one guess. All you got to do is win this one. You ready? Sure. Jim Craig, goaltender, Team USA.

A long time ago, so not. That's right. He was the goalie of the 1980 team. Oh, Rob, that warms the cockles of my heart, my friend. thank you very much. You're a winner. Congratulations. All right, there you go. The last guy gets in and wins. All right, tomorrow, deep breakdown, Cougars, Jayhawks, Rockets, Jazz, Spring Training, Combine.

But up next is Clanton. It's Wexler. It's the team. Talk to you for Rockets at 830 on 790.