The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1155 - PK Subban, Nick Bienz, Celtics President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens, Karl Ravech, Darius Butler, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

On today’s show, Pat, Darius Butler, AJ Hawk, and the boys chat about the Florida Panthers clinching their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, and Tennessee winning their first College World Series in progrum history, and how both championship games lived up to the hype. Joining the progrum to recap the hockey season as a whole, and if the Panthers have the potential to have a dynastic type run is 13 year NHL veteran, 3x All-Star, and ESPN NHL analyst, PK Subban (12:40-32:12). Next, former Head Coach of the Butler Bulldogs and Boston Celtics and now Celtics President of Basketball Operations, Brad Stevens joins the show to chat about crafting a championship team, the parade, how being in the front office differs from coaching, and much more in an incredible conversation (1:11:41-1:42:58). Later, the voice of baseball on ESPN, ESPN employee since 1993, Karl Ravech joins the show to chat about why the College World Series is so special, if he thinks the changes made to MLB are making the game more palatable to younger fans, and more (1:44:09-2:04:18). Make sure you subscribe to YouTube.com/thepatmcafeeshow to watch the show. Or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you. We’ll see you tomorrow. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode the thunderdome on this new champs tuesday june 25th 2024 this program starts now sports are the greatest thing on earth sports make us all feel better whenever we're going through stuff sports unify the entire world and sports crown champions in new places every single year, seemingly. Last night, two new teams are able to celebrate being the greatest in the world at their particular sport. We'll start a College World Series. Tennessee Volunteers, congrats.

We'll break that down in a matter of moments. We'll also have Carl Ravitch, obviously baseball legend from ESPN, who was on the call last night for the third game in the Best of Three Series in which the Tennessee Volunteers became champs. He'll be joining us in the second hour. And then down in South Florida, ladies and gentlemen, we knew history was going to be made. If the Edmonton Oilers were able to get the big game seven win down in Florida, they'd be the first team since 1942 to go down three zip in a series and then come storming back and win four straight in a stanley cup championship instead it's the first time since 1945 that a team has been up three then given up

three and then winning game seven and that's the florida panthers who are stanley cup champions for the first time in the franchise it was a kg affair It was a great game. 2-1, they end up getting the big-time dub. Bob Brofsky, Kachuk, Barkov, and the boys have been celebrating all night and all morning with the Stanley Cup down there in South Florida. We will visit some of the scenes down there and where Lordo

is taking some trips to. Shout out to the Elbow Room, seemingly being the hub of the Stanley Cup and also the atlantic ocean i'm not alone here today no no i'm with a great group of dudes the toxic table is here at boston corner at ty schmidt and we're calling this new champs tuesday and obviously it's because the florida panthers are brand new champions and the tennessee volunteers are brand new college baseball champions but also joining us today in the second hour brad stevens of the

boston celtics first time he has won a Lario championship. Con man, you've got to be pretty excited. Yeah, I feel fantastic. I had a press conference earlier today, too. He said a lot about the future of the Celtics. So I have a feeling that we might have to make some room on this stage for a couple more of these real, very legitimate Larry O'Brien trophies. Well, that might not be the only trophies that need to be made.

Some room on this particular stage. And not because of one half of the hammer. God. Cowboys turn digs in the teams that he cheers for. No, no. It's because there's a nine-year NFL vet. A man who's been a diehard The Hockey fan for a long, long time. Darius J. Bullard.

Yeah. D-Bud. D-Bud. Congrats on a Stanley Cup, D-Bud. You got Lordo, pal, down in South Florida. And it's because of fans like you. Gary Bettman said it while he was handing out. Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL,

gave a couple great speeches last night afterwards. Looked a little bit nervous early when he was talking about the consmith because he was about to award it to an opposing team player, and Connor McDavid, who ended up winning the consmith. First time since 19-something. Forever. Forever. Four goaltenders and now two players have been able to win the Conn Smythe, which is the MVP of the NHL

playoffs throughout its entirety without winning the Stanley Cup. Connor McDavid wins it. Gary Bettman had to give that speech in Florida's barn about somebody else winning it when they all wanted Bobrovsky, the goalie of the Panthers, to win. Turns out, voting-wise, he was, like, fourth on the list. He wouldn't have won it anyways.

But then Gary Bettman cut an entire promo about the Florida Panthers franchise and the team and the fans and the ownership, and then he handed that lordo off to Barkov. And he said multiple times, aside from the players, the most important part of this entire championship run has been the fans of Florida Panthers, which you have certainly been one of them. So congrats. It was a loud barn.

A lot of people thought it was going to be an Edmonton Oilers home game because how many tickets were sold and videos on the internet before the game with a lot of Oilers fans walking in there. A lot of Florida Panther right in there. And that place was loud. Congrats to you guys. I was never worried about them. Glass and people made some money selling their tickets to other Florida fans.

I've seen Chucky talked about it last time he was on the show, how special the environment's been, how the energy's been down there. It was people texting me, calling me, uh, my brother, my friends down there kind of in the areas, uh, celebrating and like people who never watched hockey was never in the hockey until a couple of years ago or three or four years ago. You boys, I shout out you boys really get me, you boys for really getting me into the game. Obviously, they've been down there 30 years now, so to win it, just bring that energy.

Obviously, you know, Dolphins are on the clock now. But, hey, shout out to the Panthers, Chucky, Barky, who survived. 30 years. Barky survived a nasty fall yesterday. All odds were against us. The coin, you know, Roberto Luongo, we were talking trash about him. He odds were against us. The coin. Yeah. You know, Roberto Luongo. We were talking trash about him. He reversed the coach.

He came out. Congrats him. Big win in game seven for Luongo. He beat the shit out of that drum, man. Bob, obviously, stood on his head. Obviously, Rhino. Game winning goal. You know, swag.

You got to start. Always shows up when we need him most, man. But shout out to the guys, man. Bill Zito, obviously. You saw how, obviously, emotional he's been throughout the whole playoff run. But then to see him kind of let it all out and celebrate. Paul Maurice as well gave a legendary kind of post-game speech, man. But the sport is awesome.

Obviously, a lot of new people talking about it. I don't know about your timelines. A lot of new guys and gals are getting into the game, so it's great for the sport. Obviously, this show, I think, has a huge part of it as well, obviously what ESPN is doing. But, hey, shout-out to the game. Shout-out to the Panthers.

Hey, this is for you guys, man. Yeah. Congratulations. Go, go, D-Boy. Congratulations to the Florida Panthers getting a chance to experience Lordo for the first time in its 30-year history. I had no idea you guys were down there for 30 years. I think if it's been 30 years, go ahead and have yourself a nice Modelo. Out of the top of the Lordo. Just like the boys are

doing down in South Florida as we speak right now. None of the Panthers have slept. They've seemingly have been living large. Congrats, D-Bud. If you're gonna be doing white boy shit, you've got to do it. Yeah, that's hockey. That's go, baby. I hope it tasted damn good. I hope you savored every single drop. There's a chance it never happens again.

And that's the greatness of the Stanley Cup. And Gary Bettman talked about 120-year history of the Stanley Cup and how it's the first Finnish captain that has ever led their team to a Stanley Cup championships in Barkov. He actually said that in a speech and then he talked about obviously South Florida getting

it for the first time and you said there's a lot of new people talking about the sport. It's incredible because hockey is awesome, but I think it's also because South Florida wins it. Miami obviously has a lot of humans in it. Miami has a lot of notable people that probably aren't normally hockey fans, but right now they're all getting a chance to celebrate something

and people enjoy celebrating shit and if you can enjoy and celebrate a Stanley Cup especially the environments that have been created down there good for hockey, good for South Florida good for the Panthers. Florida is now home to like three of the last five champs in hockey with Tampa obviously winning a couple now Florida Panthers winning one

it's like is Florida the new state of hockey? Minnesota's not going to be happy about that. No, they're not. Michigan's not going to be happy about that. Pennsylvania's not going to be thrilled about anything. But Florida is seemingly the place for champions. Arizona has a lot of ex-NHL guys who kind of all live there, and their kids play hockey there.

Arizona State, I think hockey is kind of on the rise. They got nothing on Florida. Florida just wins Stanley Cups. That's literally seemingly what Florida does. And hopefully that will change and hopefully a real hockey town will win. Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's their hockey town. No, no, no.

You're right. You're right. And when we talk about real hockey towns, I mean. Did you see that live shot from Las Olas Boulevard, Fort Lauderdale Beach, palm trees, ocean? I mean, that's hockey town if I ever seen it. Listen, D-Bud is obviously feeding the narrative here. But with the celebration that's been taking place down there,

I got nothing but respect for how South Florida is celebrating this. And the boys have been taking it. Obviously, the elbow room has made some difference. Kachuk's got a WWE title around his waist. He is also drowning people in beer from the Stanley Cup from the second floor of the Elbow Room. Obviously, we've chatted about the Elbow Room. It's a Fort Lauderdale staple, pretty much. So if you go down to Fort Lauderdale, you're going to

end up in the Elbow Room. My wife thought it was a strip club we were talking about the entire time. It's like, nobody's getting naked in the Elbow Room. And if they are, they're not remembering it. Elbow Room is a fantastic time. Not only has it been at the Elbow Room, obviously, it's made its way into the Atlantic Ocean. Okay.

Yeah, Kachuk took that thing into the Atlantic Ocean earlier today and took his title off, obviously. Let's make sure that doesn't touch the sand. Somebody needs to hold this. I don't want to throw this thing down. Shout out to the WWE. But I think Lordo needs to take a trip into the ocean, don't you? Yup. Dives in. Back bump. Steinle is in there. Now, right in front of us.ley is in there now right in front of us pause that please right in front of us here with the purse she's got socks and shoes on she is a social media person for somewhere always going to get the shot thank you for your attention to detail lady

as well uh and then obviously it was uh stanley cup was at one of the boys houses this morning as people were boating by and they were celebrating with the fine people of South Florida. And I think there's some people that maybe didn't even know that they won the Stanley Cup until this morning, and then they saw it, and they're like, yeah, we're champions. This is going to help grow the game. This is incredible for the game. And we got brand-new champions in the Florida Panthers.

I actually love the fact that they won. You know, the Edmonton Oilers would have been a fantastic story. Connor McDavid, with everything he was able to accomplish this playoff series, with how many points he scored, breaking Wayne Gretzky's records, he was on the rise. The world got introduced to Connor McDavid, the greatest player on ice right now, and he was certainly quite a spectacle.

He was dazzling with how fast he was. He was magical with his mitts, and what he did was certainly bring a team all the way back to a Game 7 that we didn't think was going to be possible at one point. And inevitably, he loses. Now, the entire world was introduced to this particular character. Next year, we're going to be watching, okay, can he put his team back on his back and lead them back to the Stanley Cup like Kachuk and the boys were able to do

down in Florida this past season. But I appreciate the fact that they gave it up. They were up 3-0. They gave it up. And if you listen to Paul in his speech afterwards, Coach Paul, he was giving a Q&A with Emily Kaplan, whose timing of people she was questioning, it's not her fault.

They obviously don't. Kachuk gets the Stanley Cup first time. They're interviewing a guy that got traded down there at the deadline. He's been around a long time. And then we have a camera on Kachuk getting it. Her interview seemingly not even her. Just like, hey, Kachuk just got the cup for the first time.

We need to be paying attention to that. Not on her. But she's talking to Paul, head coach of the Florida Panthers. And she asked him one question. And all of a sudden, the last player just got done with the cup and goes right over to him. And he just turns around so calm, cool, and collective and does what he does. And he gets right back into the interview. And you're now a Stanley Cup champion.

Describe your emotions right now. I can't. I don't know what... Hang on for a second. We got a visitor. Hold on one second. Two visitors. Kiss him on the cheek. Let's get a close look at this thing. Is this real? Look at that pose.

Yeah, that's awesome. Drink it down, soak it in, and obviously he goes to kiss the Stanley Cup. They cut away to go to the crowd. I mean, there was a lot of things that happened last night during the coverage of the Stanley Cup celebration, but Paul Murray's getting his opportunity to do that, and then he goes right back to the interview,

and he says, that's florida panther way right there we had to make it hard on ourselves nothing's easy he talked about the entire year and then they interviewed i think another player i forget who it was and they said we don't like anything easy we like it hard it's almost like the messaging going into game seven was like hey this is exactly how we would want this this is exactly the story of the florida panthers this is exactly the story of this particular team we could have done it the story of this particular team. We could have done it the easy way. Yeah, but that's not us. We do things the hard way because the hard way is what leads to great challenges

and to great accomplishments in the Florida Panthers winning game seven at home. Magical moment. Paul Murray seems to be the perfect coach for that. I think he's lost the most games as a head coach in the NHL's history. I think that is a record that he has. He has the most losses in NHL history as a head coach. I think there was only one person that really wanted to hire him at that particular stage. It was Bill Zito. So this is going to be my guy. He's been loyal to him. Paul Maurice has

obviously been loyal to the Florida Panthers. He's been loyal to that dressing room, that change room, and now they're champions. It all paid off, and what a magical night. I've had the opportunity in Pittsburgh to be a couple of these, be a part of a couple of these celebrations where beers are getting tossed out of it. It brings the city together. And I'm happy people are getting introduced to hockey in this particular fashion. Joining us now is a man who's been covering this sport all throughout playoffs and obviously throughout the entire season.

He's been on every single sports talk show for good reason. What a great ambassador for the sport of hockey. Ladies and gentlemen, front of the program, P.K. Subban. Yeah, P.K. How you doing, brother? I'm great. I'm great. Just licking my wounds. Had a long night last night, early morning

tonight, but all good. All good in the world of hockey. I know yesterday you were campaigning hard to be a part of Stanley Cup celebrations last night, whether it was the Oilers or the team that you picked, the Florida Panthers, in seven games. Did any of the boys remember and appreciate that you picked them in game seven? And did you have a chance to celebrate last night with any of the Florida Panthers? Didn't get the call for the Stanley Cup celebration at all last night. No. Did not get the call for the Stanley Cup celebration. Oh, no.

Did not get the call. Actually, had a couple of Florida Panthers fans actually let me know that I suck, which is pretty awesome. They were screaming that at me in the building. So that was the highlight of my night, actually. But you know what? Last night got to catch up with all the ESPN folks. We had a couple barley sandwiches, tied one on.

Great night. Last night with Mess. Mess had his son in the mix last night, watched the game with us the whole night. Had a couple barley sandwiches with him. And, yeah, we're off. Did it turn into a gong show with the ESPN crew? Because this is a wrap-up of a hell of a season, right? You guys have been on the road for the last three weeks, too.

Or four weeks, maybe. So this was kind of a wrap-up for you guys. You did a great job. I hope you guys celebrated how great you guys did for the sport, PK. Yeah, no, you know what? The whole team, it was a celebratory night. I think for us, that was our Stanley Cup, you know. It's a long road, and it's a huge responsibility at ESPN,

specifically with hockey. You know, we're trying to grow the game. We're trying to highlight the superstars, highlight all the bright spots in our game. And, you know, as much as it's got to be entertaining, it's got to be educational too. We had a lot of new fans, I think, learn things about our game and about the players in it.

And, you know, we're pretty happy at where we sit right now. We're pretty excited about next season and the future for hockey. But what a day this is for hockey. I mean, the first Stanley Cup in Florida Panthers history, well-deserved. You know, couldn't have gone to a better team. They earned it. They deserved it. They went to the final last year.

They lost. They learned. They got back there, and they got it done. And as you heard, Paul Maurice said they didn't want it any other way. They knew it was going to be tough. And that is the way it should be. It's the hardest trophy to win. And it took everything they had to get it done. And that's what stays with you forever. That's why it's a brotherhood. That's why it's not a Mark Messier said this on the broadcast yesterday. He's sick and tired of hearing people say group. You know, he doesn't even think of it as a team. He thinks of it as a family. And you could see that last night with all the families and the kids on the ice and wives and girlfriends, all the people you could just see sort of that Charlotte's web of everybody that was touched and connected to the Florida Panthers organization and those players that helped get it done. Because it's a long journey, man.

Like, that's a long road to get there. It's 82-game season, four really hard rounds, lots of travel, lots of ups and downs. You know, people have lives too. Lots of things going on in your personal life with family and all that stuff. So to get there, it's their moment now, and they should be enjoying it. I'll tell you this right now. You know, listen, I could easily party my way out of the league after winning the Cup.

So I hope those guys enjoy it and get back in the gym because I think they're going to have a good enough team to potentially do it again. I don't know if you saw there at the bottom, a Candadian team has not won since 1993. It's our sport. That's right. It's our sport. And we are, yep.

Sorry, it's hot in the oven. When you go against the United States of America, especially if you're from Candadia, you got no shot. That's what I'm learning. That's what stats are telling us. First time since 1945 a team goes up three zip in a series, lets the other team come back, and then ends up winning in Game 7. The Toronto Maple Leafs did that to the Detroit Red Wings in 1945. I think a big reason why they won Game 7 is obviously they came out a little

different and yada yada yada but Bobrovsky hey old Bob was getting Bobby chants throughout the third period and there was numerous saves where if you're watching along live you couldn't help but think to yourself well if Bob's gonna stop that or if they're not gonna score on that I guess the hockey gods are with the Florida Panthers tonight was Bobrovsky all the way back in full form whenever you're watching him live? And when Connor McDavid has this one here in a matter of moments, right in front, wide open, and Bob gets the big – here, I think it's going to be right here.

Bang. Connor McDavid. Stop. Stop. Diving bodies in front of the net, and it doesn't go in. And they were under a barrage all third period. Did you think that Bobrovsky was going to be the difference maker early in this? And how did you feel watching Bobby do his thing?

Well, I was confident in that. People thought I was nuts for picking Florida to win that game last night. But a couple things. One, Sergei Bobrovsky has been the best defensive player on the best defensive team the past two seasons. The Florida Panthers have been the best defensive team and the hardest team to play against the past two years, and he's a big part of that.

This guy, as great as Florida is, he covered up a lot of mistakes. He plugged a lot of holes for that team, and I think what we saw in the latter part of the the stanley cup final was him just mentally and physically exhausted and i'm going to tell you this whole clip here is like the season in a nutshell for them it's desperation these guys blocked a ton of shots they sacrificed sacrificed their body. They played the right way. I mean, that's Vladimir Tarasenko at the top of your screen there, who is a superstar, has won a Stanley Cup for St. Louis, had scored goals.

Guys would kill to have the skill that that guy has. But everything that you're seeing in this clip has nothing to do with skill. It has to do with heart, will, and, you know, those guys laid it all on the line. They emptied the tank last night, and that's who they are in a nutshell. They had to get back to their identity, and that's defense first, but it starts with Bob, and Bob was phenomenal. He was phenomenal in this game. I knew once he got a little bit of rest and some recovery time for one game, he could do it, and he made all the saves when he needed to do it, but Gustav Forsling, I said he was the best shutdown defenseman in the game. Well, he made the biggest play of his life on Conor McDavid when he had that empty net.

If you watch carefully, it's stick on stick, it's man on man, and he saves their season, really. I mean, Edmonton ties that up. It's going to be very, very difficult to beat Connor McDavid in extra time. Edmonton was putting on the pressure, but they bet they didn't break. Look at that stick by Forsling. Unbelievable. I think it's a little sauce afterwards. Dumps it into the net.

Let's go ahead and eat that. You talk about Tarasenko up in the front. These dudes are putting their faces in front of a puck that could be going like 100 miles an hour. This isn't just like, oh, they're trying to block a shot. Like people say that, and I think people new to hockey are like, yeah, block a shot. They got a bunch of pad on. It's like they don't have a bunch of pads on.

There's a lot of exposed areas where there isn't pads because they have to for the way they skate. And also their faces are wide open. And if you see most hockey players smile, they got busted grills. Just faces just been hit with pucks all over the place. So that type of dedication, that type of grit, that type of will to win is beautiful. It's great for the sport and it's great for Florida Panther fans. Darius J. Baller.

Absolutely. I got to ask you, PK. Sorry, Barky. I told you. I told you. Hey, you're on the right side. You're on the right side of history. I told you. I told you. Hey, you were on the right side. Didn't I tell you? You were on the right side of history.

I appreciate you. But started off, looked like it might have been a high-scoring one, obviously quick back-to-back goals. But like you said earlier, got back to kind of Florida Panther hockey. What was different, you know, being able to stifle Connor McDavid and those guys for this game and kind of some of the last game as well as far as regards to Connor? What was different as far as regards to Connor.

What was different as far as getting back to our defensive game-planning mentality? Well, defense wins championships. It doesn't matter what sport you're in. You need offense, and I think that performance last night showed what winning in the NHL is all about. You have to have skill. You have to have a mix of all of it. But if your players don't have the testicular fortitude, man-to-man, to outwork your opponent

and beat the guy across from you, and that means putting it all on the line. If you've got to block shots, if you've got to get physical, you've got to win puck battles. I think that the Florida Panthers, out of any team in the league, had the most buy-in. Those guys all bought in. And what you have to give credit for, there's a lot of guys on that team that did not play in the Stanley Cup final last year.

I think it's like eight or nine guys. Luster Eden was there. He had a broken leg. He didn't play. So they had guys who had to come in and get that experience quickly. And I think the culture that they built in that locker room, starting with Matthew Kachuk, that was the difference. That is the difference. That's what you lean on when you face adversity,

is do I trust the guys in this locker room? And that's why I picked them. I felt that they were the best team and the closest team because of what they went through last season. To go to a Stanley Cup final and get back in this situation, be up 3-0 and have that team come back, the only thing you can lean on are your past experiences and looking around that locker room.

Do I know the guys that are in here? Do I believe in those guys? And I truly believe that they had a tight group and they believed in each other. They just needed to reset and get back to their identity. And that's meat and potatoes. You know, not trying to make it look pretty. You know, just get your hands dirty and get it done.

And they did. Protein and starch. Let's get out there. Let's do some grit and jam and some sandpaper and do this entire thing. Paul Maurice, whenever he was asked in a follow-up question after he took the cup and lifted it and looked at it and did the whole thing, goes back to his interview and he talks about everything being hard and that's how we won it. It's Florida Panther way. And then she followed up and said, why do you think this group of guys or whatever? And he talks about how close they are. They're

like, this team is incredibly close. Like sign guys at the trade deadline. They fit in perfectly. Like we have a crew, leads to ty schmidt's question for you pk yeah pk obviously hate doing this the night after they win but you know it's yeah you have to do it and you just mentioned you know like them they look good to potentially repeat next year but a lot of their key guys they have signed for multiple years here and you just mentioned it with you know mentioned it with what they have in the locker room and how close they are and the chemistry and all that kind of stuff.

Are we looking at a potential dynasty with the Panthers here? How do we approach this? Well, I'll say this. They're going to have to retweak their defense a little bit. I think they're going to have to sure that up. Obviously, I think Montour's contract's up. They're going to have to retool that. I think that they're going to have to continue to get some speed

and skill in that lineup. Their power play was nonexistent. That's an issue. They're going to have to address the power play quarterback at the top. Oliver Ekren-Larsen was put into that situation. I don't know if that's someone that they're going to look at to run the power play next year, maybe to start the season, but they're going to need somebody back there that can log those minutes and play that power play

because for them to win another Stanley Cup, they're going to need special teams to get it done. And the way that they played, though, the brand of hockey that they played was a very, very tough brand of hockey. We haven't seen a team play that way in a long time in the National Hockey League, man to man. So is it potential that they can be a dynasty? Maybe.

But there's a lot of hockey left to be played. I wouldn't be saying that's necessarily sure. Connor McDavid might have something to say about that. Speaking of Connor McDavid, that's brand right there. That's Jim Harbaugh football. That's Florida Patriots

hockey. There's numerous other teams. Pittsburgh Penguins, obviously. We've got one guy that does this. He's actually a lefty. He's named Sidney Crosby. He's our best player. So our best player is also our toughest guy, which is certainly a problem in Pittsburgh. We don't need to talk about Pittsburgh today. We don't need to talk about Pittsburgh. They're never winning the Cubs, so don't worry.

Well, they have. We already have. Sorry, again. Sorry. Never again. Anyway, that Lorto that D-Bud is drinking out of today, come this side. That came from right here. What? That came from right here. Oh, yeah, but they have it.

It actually came from right here. From right here. I did taste that sweet nectar last year. Yeah, but that thing was lifted quickly right back to Hockey Town, right over here. I mean, that's where it's hanging. Indiana? Boston next year.

No, no, Pittsburgh. Detroit? Detroit. Listen, 1945, 1942, I don't have to revisit this. But history was made last night, and the losers, no matter how it went, were both Detroit Red Wings. So if you wanted to just dive into that whole thing. No, we don't have to.

Okay, all right. Sweet. We'll talk about teams that made the Stanley Cup final because they played great hockey all year. Let's go to Con, man. Yeah, PK, obviously a lot of the conversation on the broadcast was talking about how the Oilers towards the end kind of ran out of gas. Was that something that you saw from them?

And how long did McDavid actually spend on the ice? Because it did feel as though at least watching 18 of those 20 minutes in the third period he was on there. And then did you see Leon Dreisaitl's comments as well? I might be getting got about this, but is there a chance that he doesn't re-sign with Edmonton after everything that happened? Well, Connor McDavid definitely looked tired in the third, but he played half of the third period. So I mean, any human that plays that much in the third period after that long of a run, I don't care how fast you skate or how good you are,

you're going to be exhausted. And you could see he was visibly exhausted. And they still had opportunities to tie that game. They had their looks. They had their looks. They could have tied it, but Florida bent. They didn't break. And the best defensive team got it done.

As far as Leon Dreisaitl goes, you know, obviously he's going to reflect, you know, on the Stanley Cup final and his performance. It's a grind, man. It's a grind. Like, you know, you got to see what his injury report is. Was he banged up or not? But I'll tell you this, who isn't banged up, you know,

come the Stanley Cup final? Everybody's got bumps and bruises. This guy is a top 10 player in the National Hockey League. He's that good. But when you win the Stanley Cup, you realize, when you get to the Stanley Cup final, you realize how difficult it is because it's a physical grind. And for me, you could see he had one game maybe in the series where I felt that his skating, he was skating like you normally see Leon do, through the middle of the eyes, penetrating, creating. He's a facilitator. He's got to be a facilitator.

And I didn't think he could find that confidence in his game enough. So, you know, personally for him, I'm sure he's going to look back and want to be better in his next Stanley Cup final. He'll have an opportunity to do it again. Will it be in Edmonton? I'll tell you this. You know, it's difficult, man. When you go somewhere and you're the number one guy, it's a lot different than playing behind Connor McDavid. And if I was Leon Dreisaitl, I'd want to be riding shotgun with Connor McDavid all day long because the game

ain't going to get any easier than that. He's the best player in the world. And you know, if he's in Edmonton, they're going to continue to put great players around him and build a winning team around him. And the goal is to win a Stanley Cup. He's already started his career in Edmonton. He's got a great legacy there you know if i was him i'd want to stay with conor mcdavid but that's the choice he's earned his independence he's that great of a hockey player he can go wherever the hell he wants to go and play um more power to him he's elite but he's gonna have to look at his game reflect and get better the next time he gets an opportunity he goes from conor McDavid to Sidney Crosby.

Congratulations. Welcome to Pittsburgh, Tri-Citle. Welcome to Pittsburgh. Once you win a cup, you go ahead and do that. We started rattling off hockey players in here whenever you said he's a top-ten player, and it's like there's a lot of really good players that haven't been playing in the playoffs,

so maybe you forget about them because it's much like the NBA. If you're not playing in the playoffs, you are very much forgotten about. Like, McKinnon, obviously. I mean, he has not played for, like, a month, seemingly, or two months. So, he is out of sight, out of mind. And then Nick in the back, old Nicky Skates, was like – Drysaddle's, like, top 10 in points literally every single year. And then you talk about him playing alongside McDavid.

It's like we saw Gensel doing that with Sidney Crosby. And I thought to myself, if I'm Gensel, I'm taking less money so I can continue to play next to Sidney Crosby. Then he gets traded to Carolina and he becomes their star and he obviously leads them to this deal. So I assume Drysaddle's also potentially seeing that whole thing take place. And I'll tell you, I can't wait to see what the moves are this offseason. I can't wait to see what the moves are this offseason i can't wait to see what the injuries have been for both these oilers and florida panthers whenever they're

inevitably announced because i think a lot of people new to hockey don't understand there could be like a broken sternum yeah that on one of these teams that was just playing last year that was literally just playing last night like uh oh god was playing through like a rolled ankle or something no actually he had a broken femur. Well, what do you mean? He's going to be out for eight months. He's actually missing the beginning of next season because of the game he played last night, knowing that it was going to happen.

You hockey players are the best. It was a phenomenal year. Congrats on the great coverage, and we appreciate the hell out of you, man. Thanks, Pat. Love coming on the show, and thank you for everything that you've done for the league this year.

It's been a huge difference. The amount of people over the course of the Stanley Cup final that talk about me coming on your show and just your show in general was pretty awesome. So continue to do the great work, man. Love watching you guys. We're lucky to do it. You make our show much better. We appreciate the hell out of you.

Ladies and gentlemen, NHL legend... Jay Tatum. Hey, Pat, hold on. Yesterday, so I went down to Elbow Room for one drink. So we went there. That's all anybody goes down for. It's a quick one. It was already a gong show in there. It was already a gong show in there. And there must have been

like 10 guys in the bar that they just said, hey, PK. They yelled. And I thought they were going to say like, and they started going like this. And then I just didn't even say anything. I just went like this. That's awesome. It's been an incredible gimmick.

We'll be talking to Brad Stevens next hour. I wonder if he has seen your Jay Tatum impersonation throughout this entire year. You're the man. Ladies and gentlemen, P.K. Subban. Yay! P.K. has done a fantastic job for the sport. Yeah, weapon.

Yeah, he really has. Him, Moose, Levy, they really get along. Oh, yeah. You can see that kind of radiating through. They know the opportunity here. With ESPN having the rights, having the Stanley Cup rights, and with what hockey is doing right now, I think the ratings are up like 54% or something like that.

That's huge. That's just obviously linear rating. Then you go to all the streaming and then the social media now has kicked up a notch. The NHL was once in the stone ages when it came to social media, sharing of clips and everything like that. Now it's up. It's like the acknowledgement of the NHL being top three

sport. If you go NFL, college football, and then NBA, NHL battling. The NBA obviously has an advantage. Many more millions of viewers whenever you're talking about the playoffs. But if you're Gary Bettman in the NHL, and Gary,

phenomenal job. His promo last night was sweet. I'm telling you, he was trying to get the crowd to go crazy, as opposed to just customary commissioner bullshit speech. Like he was talking about, and nobody's more important than you fans. And they obviously all go, and then the handoff of Lourdes, fantastic. But if you're Gary Bettman in the NHL, you have to be looking at the trends for hockey,

and you've got to be looking at the trends for the NBA, and you've got to be like... Wait a minute. Hold the phone. Good spot. We are in a good spot. We were climbing. We were hot. That's good news for all of us.

Because if the NBA, who just got a $7 billion investment from NBC, Amazon, and ESPN into their rights, and the NHL has got a massive investment. And these sports are catching fire. We've got new young stars that are about to take the reins of the entire thing. We've got potential dynasties being built in certain places. It's like we're in a great spot. Congrats to sports. Congrats to hockey. Elliot, and that's why it's so awesome that Edmonton made it.

People that didn't watch hockey, that have never seen Connor McDavid play hockey, must have been watching that like, this is a completely different sport when that guy's on the ice. Like the highlights of him, you know, in game five when he's dancing through everybody and dishing the puck, like him being on the biggest stage is awesome. And also like a team like Florida

that isn't known as a hockey state or town at least now kind of cementing themselves as a premier team in the NHL is sweet. You remember when we were down in Tampa during their Stanley Cup? Oh, my God. You walked in and out of gas stations. You're go boats. Go boats.

Go boats. Go boats. Wags. And obviously that's whenever Tampa Bay Buccaneers had Tom Brady and they're doing their thing as well. So it's like Tampa became the sports hub, and you would hear a lot of people say go boats, go boats. And I'm not saying that Tampa hasn't been a hockey town for a long time.

I'm just saying whenever you have't been a hockey town for a long time. I'm just saying, whenever you have success, more people buy in. More people. And everybody says, well, you're bandwagon, you're bandwagon. I like to think those people just like happiness. So whenever they see something that could potentially bring them happiness, they're going to get on board, especially if it represents

them and their town. It's like, Florida Panthers are going to have many more fans next year just strictly by osmosis as a celebration and people talking. It's like, Florida Panthers are going to have many more fans next year just strictly by osmosis as a celebration and people talking. That's good for hockey everywhere. And it was also kind of, I mean, for us, you know, we didn't really talk about it that way because it sucks because there's not as much sports on, but like, it was

huge that the NBA ended when it did because then like hockey kind of came to the center stage for the last two games. All eyes on hockey. Exactly. And like, obviously, you know, there was the College World Series last night, but I don't think that's bringing in a casual fan the same way. Because people, even if you don't watch hockey,

you know what the Stanley Cup is. You've heard of it. And it's easier to find. And I think more people be like, okay, this is the only game in town. I guess I'll check this out. I saw way more people saying last night on social media and everything, like, oh, this is actually awesome. I haven't been paying attention to this

at all, but this is incredible. If we have the NBA still going on at the same time, who knows if we're getting that. How about the Florida Panthers trailblazing the way into the future of a bigger, better hockey as a whole? I love it, man. You mentioned being down in Tampa. It's

harder for teams in areas where there's so much shit to do or it's just nice weather all the time. Like Vegas, you've got to be good if you're going to be in Vegas. You've got to be good if you're going to be down south or L.A. You've got to be good in these places for people to care, unless you're like the Lakers. But the Clippers, they won't have a real fan base. Even the Chargers, teams like that, you struggle in these nice, you know, nice cities.

It's easier when you're in these blue-collar cities when it's cold, you know, half the year. And it's like, hey, my team is, this is what I got. This is what I look for. Something to do. Yeah, it's so much tougher. But it's great, like you said, it's great for the sport to have a superstar like Conor McDavid, obviously, as the centerpiece. And then a team like Florida back-to-back Stanley Cup champions. Now, I'm not obviously a hockey aficionado,

but how often does the Conn Smith Award or Smythe Award go to the losing? Almost never. This is the sixth time in history. Only second time it's a skater. Now you guys feel like you're getting... No, no, no. Hasn't happened since the 40s. There's an issue.

I understand he was up there with the great one. And I understand that is an award given to the player over all of his playoff series. But, I mean, sheesh. That's tough. That's a tough spot for Gary to be in. Maybe I owe Gary an apology. I did call for more booze.

I heard the broadcast muted, so I'm sure, you know, the crowd was giving some pledges. Yeah, I wonder what they were saying because I saw Mouth saying Bobby, and then I saw it getting muted. I'm like, so they're not saying Bobby something. So is it Connor they were going after? Was it Bettman they were going after? I heard Bobby.

I was watching voices say Bobby as well, but it was muted for like a good 20 seconds. There was like a 20-second mute that took place. And our show understands that the mute is brought out for one particular word. Right. It starts with F. Yeah, but it was on ABC, so maybe it's a couple others.

You're right. But Gary Bettman walking out there, so maybe it's a couple others. You're right. But Gary Bettman walking out there, first thing he's got, all right, first order of business. Let's get this over with, quick. I need Connor McDavid to come back from the locker room. You're the best player in this whole series. Fuck all these guys. And that's a tough – it wasn't his vote.

He's got to speak. We've seen in other sports like LeBron when he led both teams in points, rebounds, assists and everything against the Warriors. He's like,

all right, if it's ever a time, Jerry West, we talked about a great Jerry West when he won. I guess it happens or it should happen

at times, but I was just confused. There's an issue with the voting process. Oh, no. McDavid, obviously, incredible, incredible, incredible playoffs. Okay? After game five, I was like, sure, give him the cons, man,

no matter what happens. Doesn't have a shot in game six. Doesn't have any points in game seven or whatever. What you're listening to right now, by the way, is a guy that unloaded. Yes, yes, yes. So, about ten minutes left last night, I'm like, that's all the story is, okay? So, I made a deposit in a new account. You pulled money into a account?

Oh, yeah. There's no way they're going to give it to a guy that hasn't had a shot. Bob hit it on his head. So I put a bunch of money on Bob to win the conspite. He wouldn't have won it anyways. Barky would have won it. So it's a mute point. But Nick told me this morning, voting cuts off with ten minutes left in the game.

So at that point, it's 2-1 Panthers. How's that even happen? 2-1 Panthers How's that even happen? 2-1 Panthers Gary! You gotta ask the journalists So if Edmonton scores They've got it all figured out Hey puppets, just do what you're told

I don't blame the voters because it's 2-1 at that point Say you vote for a Panther And Edmonton comes back and wins And McDavid's not the conspire What if he scores two goals in the final three minutes? So the voting is flawed. That's why he had to win, though. He was clearly, and I get the player on the winning team should win.

I understand that thought process completely. This was a generational, hasn't been done in forever since, Gretzky type of performance in the playoffs. I do understand, as a Celtics fan, if if Luca were to one after, you know, a four one victory for the Celtics, I would have been pissed. But if Luca had a triple double every damn game in his entire, you know, finals run had hadn't been seen since a Michael Jordan, then it's like, okay, well it's kind of undeniable how great that guy is.

Like, and it's the same thing with McDavid. Like as a Panthers fan, I'd be pissed. It was such an awkward moment. It just looked awkward. So Gary having to do that entire thing when Conor's not on there is the situation we're talking about. Once again, Conor McDavid,

when he was minus 5,000, I was like, yep, that is... We're watching history right now. Clear, exactly. We were watching history happen in front of us. But the whole 10 minutes left voting thing, that can't happen. He was minus 200 when I placed

my bet, so his odds did drop a little bit. But the whole, like the NBA, I think does texting just immediately after the game ends. That's what they told us. They just group text into a group. That's how it should be. Because with 10 minutes left, come on you puppets, come on, you guys can't send a text after a thing.

Well, we have to type it up first, and then we've got to send it to our editors to approve whether or not our vote is okay. Then we've got to put it in there. Just send a text. Make that happen. Could you imagine if they did? What if Bobrovsky scores the game winner? What if Bobrovsky stands on his head somehow,

goes all the way down the ice, and Skinner falls. Beats through Skinner. And he goes in. The goalie's the shooter. He has the game-winning goal and also stands on his head. And then, let's get Connor McDavid out here. Just moments later, that would have been – Gary Bevan's going to get that sorted because he was on the –

he was – listen, we were figuring. Yeah, I'm not doing that again, okay? And it's tough on Connor, too. It's tough. I was like... Because once again, I haven't watched many of these. I'm like,

is he going to skate back out here? No. It's like that. That's tough. They were waiting on him, though. They were starting to show like the crowd. Okay, we'll wait for him.

We'll wait for Gary. What if Nick David and Rory come back out? Rory? You know, because everyone's pissed at Rory for just peeling tire and getting out of there. Rory McIlroy. Oh, okay.

It's like, Rory? Yep. I appreciate that. He shows up in Rory's car. The last guy this happened to, J.S. Jaguar, John Sebastian Jaguar, was the Ducks goalie in, what, 2003? On the losing team, he got the consummate, and he went out and took the trophy, and there are pictures of it.

He's with Gary. He looks miserable. It's just not a good presentation. It looks awful. It's a shame. To your point, if Bob were to have done that goal, what about the opposite? What if they voted Bob and he lets in two muffins?

The Harvard-David stand at the blue line. Yeah, exactly. The Oilers are about to get the Stanley Cup. Yeah, come on out, Bob. Yeah, let's see it. That's my point. With ten minutes left, anything could have happened. That's a lot of time.

So dumb. Before we get to our next guest, Nick Benz. And wait until you hear this story. It's going to be about two minutes. We have to talk about the College World Series. Last night, game three in a best-of-three series between Tennessee and Texas A&M in beautiful Omaha, Nebraska. We had a thriller. Now, listen, early, it was like this Tennessee Volunteers team, the number one team in the country, meant business.

They win game two in dominant fashion. And in game three, the national champion deciding game. First batter. Dom shot. Yeah. Christian Moore's a stud. We are up 1-0. Peyton Manning celebrating.

Morgan Wallen. Also Rick Barnes and Highball. Highball are in there. Tennessee Royalty is in Omaha drinking, boozing, celebrating, and opening. Not pitch. I guess there was a couple pitches. Dome shot to go one zip. Now, we fast forward a little bit later into the boom.

Seventh inning. Out of there. Two-run dinger from. Dylan Dreiling, who is the most outstanding player of the tournament. Congratulations, Dylan, with a two-run shot in the seventh. It goes from 3-1 to 5-1.

Now, let's stay in the seventh inning for the play of the game. Obviously, it is 5-1 still. We were just chatting about that. Ball gets hit off the wall. That's a double. What's going on?

Is somebody rounding third? He's going to get home. Throws on time. Dodge is the catcher. Tag home plate. Spikes helmet. 6-1 Tennessee. That would go to review, but it would find that Hunter Ensley.

Hunter Ensley is safe. Look at this play. Catch closes his eyes. Look at this play. Catcher closed his eyes. I think he did. He thought he, old school, they would have thought they were getting run over, but new school, you can't get run over,

so I don't know why you would close your eyes. The mustache man. Jukes the shit out of the catcher. Tags home plate. Wow. Six to one. Hey, why is that important? Well, not only because it's sweet and it's sick and it's something we don't normally see,

and there was an incredible helmet spike, but this is because going into the eighth, it was 6-1. Then what? Two runs for Texas A&M. It's 6-3. Then in the ninth, two runs for Texas A&M. It's 6-5. This game would inevitably end 6-5.

Tennessee Volunteers beat Texas A&M in a late thriller in Omaha. And we have a brand new national champion. The Volunteers win the College World Series for the first time in program history. And it got tight late. And a lot of people were thinking, is Tennessee going to blow this? Instead, nasty pitch to end this and back in Rocky Top they're celebrating all summer long Ty what a game yeah it was incredible I mean I think that's why the College World Series is so sweet because typically you know like when

it's 6-1 late in these games it's like all right this thing's over you really don't but like you could tell because a lot of these kids and we were talking about this a little bit before the show like I think people are assumed they look last year and you got Paul Skeens pitching who is now one of the best pitchers in the majors. So you just assume that a lot of these guys who are in the championship, it's like these guys are going to be playing in the majors, like without, you know, within a couple months here. Like that's not the case.

A lot of these guys probably will never play baseball again or won't go and play in the pros. So, like, there's some nervy situations here. I mean, you never see something like that. Like, that is a routine. I mean. That's game-winning. Yeah, exactly.

Being heady to be able to get around there and miss the tag and probably knowing, too, that, like, hey, you know, 6-1, whatever. Like, we're going to need every insurance run we can get because that's just kind of the way these things go. Like, once the avalanche kind of starts there late and they start putting runners on, guys for Tennessee start getting tight. They have to go to the bullpen, and pitchers can't really get into a groove because their coach said, you know, before the game,

I think we talked to McGee, he was like, hey, we're leaving nothing to chance here, you know. So if you see a guy walk someone and someone gets on base, we're yanking him, we're bringing someone else in. And it really did, I mean, it got to a point there where it's like, So if you see a guy walk someone and someone gets on base, we're yanking him, we're bringing someone else in. And it really did. I mean, it got to a point there where it's like, oh, shit, Texas A&M is going to, like, they're going to come back and win this thing. And then ultimately, you know, after that, it is kind of tough because, I mean,

just a wicked little slider. But they did. They went through, you know, four pitchers in late innings, and it felt like, okay, this one might get away from Tennessee. But, I mean, it was. It was an incredible game. All you could ask for from a college baseball game. How many pitchers for Tennessee?

Tennessee used five guys. How many Texas A&M pitchers? Three. Okay, so we saw eight different pitchers last night, obviously 11 runs, a lot of them coming late. And that's been the M.O. of this College World Series is games get tight late. So no matter what's happening, you've got to stay on the edge of your seat

before you can go celebrate. I couldn't even fathom the amount of shots that were bought at Rocco's. Morgan Wallen and Peyton. That crowd was awesome. Big thousands. The crowd was awesome. Every song that Morgan Wallen sings is about boozing. Yeah.

So whenever something happens, you know, where a chair happens, everybody's like, all right, yep. He's boozed up. Born with a beard and a face. Obviously a mistake. Can't be doing that shit. We got to, you know, come yeah. He's boozed up. Born with a beer in his hand. Obviously a mistake. Can't be doing that shit. We got to, you know, come on. Morgan, obviously a weapon.

And Peyton Manning, known celebrator. He's a known celebrator. I think Hypo gets down too, probably. And then, let's not, Hypo definitely. What about Ryan McGee? Oh, my God. Ryan McGee's, I mean, the amount of drink. I assume Omaha has been drank dry before, and I assume last night is no different.

Congrats, everybody down here on Rock the Top and associated with Rock the Top. Also, congratulations to this man that's going to be joining us right now. Salesman at Golf Galaxy here in Indianapolis, Indiana. That's right. Has found his way into qualifying for the Rocket Mortgage Classic this weekend, a PGA-sanctioned event. How did he do it? Well, on the Monday qualifier, he won seven under.

Whoa. Yeah, pretty good. Then there was five people tied for four spots open in the PGA-sanctioned event this weekend. So through eight holes of overtime play, he secured a spot by getting a birdie on like the eighth hole or whatever. So not only is he an Indianapolis legend, not only did he fight and battle his way to get into a PGA Tour event, he did those entire extra holes, eight of them, boozed up. Had three beers before he went out there. Ladies and

gentlemen, our new favorite golfer nick benz how you doing nick how you doing brother doing good how are you great not as good as you were feeling on a first bonus hole after you have three beers hey what type of beer we drink in there what type of beer was that and this is normal opera operating procedure for you here nick yeah this was uh this is just another day it was a summer shandy that i decided to i had three of them uh the first one was anticipated to be a little bit of a celebratory beer thinking i was already safely in and when i realized that oh nope not safe i decided you know what the only thing good for the nervous system is two more why maybe a little vodka why if that thing doesn't start at

a time you're going to continue to drink or did you have a preparation of just three no matter when the starting extra holes were? Well, it all happened so fast because I thought I was in until maybe two or three groups left. So I was mid-third beer. I probably had like a quarter of it left. And I quickly refreshed the scoreboard. And there was five guys all of a sudden tied for four spots. And I looked at the guys that I was sitting next to at the table took a quick drink finished it real quick i was like we gotta go warm up we got more golf to play all right boys one more no three's good let's go

do this thing and obviously you play phenomenal golf eight extra holes to secure a spot in this weekend's tourney so are you going to be boozing before is this like and why does the pga feel about this because i think what was it joel joel dom and joel dom and did something where he drank like a uh for the u.s opening white claws and then he won like five under for the back nine and he ended up qualifying into this entire thing so i feel like these stories happen john daly right here in indiana at crooked stick whenever he was kind of called in on a tuesday drove in from arkansas was nervous as shit was drinking beers in styrofoam cups while walking down fairways, ends up winning the entire tournament or whatever in his first ever tournament.

Is this something you normally do? Like when you're at Golf Galaxy, giving lessons or selling clubs, you're like, here's the first thing you need to do. Get a little boozy, get a little swing juice, get a little lubrication in you. Is that your go-to? Is that your MO or no? No, I mean, everybody needs a little bit of swing oil. He's got to find the right balance.

For me, it just happened to be three this week. He's gone. PGA. PGA say he can't be talking about getting boozed up. Come on. We got enough battles right now. Did you hear what Saudi's doing? You're a qualifier.

We don't need you guys. We don't need you out here talking about how boozed up you are in this entire thing I think we got a point across yeah yeah that guy qualified for the Monday thing plays seven under goes five birdies and an eagle to go 700 plays I assume one of the best rounds he's ever played I'm in a PGA event for the first time in my entire life and then all of a sudden, not so fast, my friend. I'll even be busy golfing our whole lives. Who cares? Let's do that. We're happy for him. Congratulations, Nick Benz. Can't wait to

come buy some clubs off you at Golf Galaxy. Or even better, win this thing that you don't have to sell clubs ever again. You can just get into every tournament like you're Michael Block. Thank you. I don't know what place he would have to get, and I don't know what he makes at Golf Galaxy, but I would assume, hey, you finish top 30 in this, like that's two years worth of working at Golf Galaxy.

What a feel-good story coming out of Andy. We got beer, we got golf, we got a long shot. We got a Golf Galaxy employee. Guy loves the game. Loves the game. Loves the game. And then to get to that Monday qualifier, he had to hit a pre-qualifier to get to the qualifier.

So we're talking about a qualifier, I think, last Thursday, then a qualifier on Monday, then some beers, then some eight extra holes. That's 25 holes or 26 holes in one day, three beers in one qualification for a PGA event. Nice little Monday for Nick Benz. Yeah, that's all. And then I can imagine, too, you're playing eight extra holes. You know, you're just waiting like, okay. But, like, the amount of tension when you get that close, it's like, too. You're playing eight extra holes. You're just waiting. But the amount of tension, when you get that close, it's like, okay, listen.

If I play seven holes here and I'm the one guy who doesn't qualify for this, you're never coming back from that. So thank God he got it done and he's going to go play in the Rocket Mortgage. Yeah, because people would say, well, he's an alcoholic. Bingo. This guy's a booze bag. Exactly. This guy ruined his entire opportunity. He's been

he's almost been like old buddy from Kevin Costner. Tin Cup. Tin Cup. Yeah. This guy's been grinding away his whole life for this. Exactly. Working at Golf Galaxy, giving out terrible lessons in a golf simulator by a bunch of bum-ass golfers. Finally gets his

opportunity. Shoots a 7-under. Yeah. This guy shoots a 7-under. Filthy. No bogeys. Five birdies and an eagle to qualify. And then he gets reminded about an hour and a half later that this is not a guarantee, sir. You shouldn't have drank those four beers. These are for you. Me and the boys already.

Summer shanties? It's the summer. I'm in a PGA event. I love that he finished the third one, though. Halfway done. I gotta go back. Let'm in a PGA event. I love that he finished the third one, though. Halfway done, I got to go back. All right. All right, let's go ahead and do this. Let's do this, boys. Listen, if Rocket Mortgage starts off rough throwing Nicky Benz here,

he needs to stop at a house on the side of the course. Like he's in Top of Lordo. Just go ahead and do that. Yeah, house it. We need just a hammer drunk golfer to win this thing. So bad. That'd be huge for the PGA. He might win it.

Yeah, he might. Who's playing it? Tom Kim's your favorite. Oh, fresh off last week. Tom Kim's playing good golf right now. Tom Kim's a hell of a player. Tom Kim's got a lot to prove right now, too. Cam Young is your second favorite.

He shot a 59 on Saturday, I believe, to get back in the running. These are letdown weeks for these guys. I feel good about Nicky Benz. Yeah, potentially Nicky Benz going on a run this weekend, and we will obviously be pulling for him. Now, I couldn't lead the show with this because there was still

information being told by my wife and her family to friends and close people to her family. But now that I've been given the go-ahead, yesterday was a day that is obviously a day that will be remembered forever in our family. Because my father-in-law passed away unexpectedly after the show ended yesterday in a hospital here in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had been in the hospital fighting an infection. And on Friday, we were told that he was probably going to be discharged by Sunday. They had figured it out and he was going to be okay. So we are all in high hopes with incredible optimism. And then yesterday, literally as the

show is ending, my wife calls me and says that I have to get to the hospital because there had been an emergency. So I head over there and what my wife and her mom and her aunt and everybody in her family saw go on was her dad being a badass and trying to kick ass and inevitably losing his fight in this particular day. losing his fight in this particular day. And whenever something blindsides an entire family like that, obviously it can be wildly devastating. My wife is a daddy's girl. She actually has a bear tattooed on her because she calls her dad Papa Bear. She has her dad's quotes all over her. So last night was obviously a very difficult night for our family. And it was a nice reminder to, and thankfully my wife and her mom with her dad, the last things they said to Bob, who was a great man, was I love you. And I think this is a nice piece of perspective and a moment to tell everybody, like, hey, tell your people you love them.

You literally have no idea what's going to come. It can literally be the last time you see somebody anytime you see them and a lot of people tell us that our show helps them escape from things and get away from things well that's what it is for me today and i can't thank you all enough at desjardins we speak business we speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do. Business.

So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us. And contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Sports! Sports are the greatest thing on Earth. Sports help distract you from anything happening in your life. Sports help unify the world. And sports bring championships

and celebrations to cities all around the world. More specifically, last night, South Florida, whether it's sunrise for La-di-da-di or Miami, I assume, will see the Cup at some point. And then down there in Knoxville, Tennessee, in Omaha, Nebraska, with the Tennessee Volunteers winning their first ever College World Series. The Talks at Table is here at Boston Corner and at Ty Schmidt. Call man, I know you got that Larry O sitting right next to you. Brad Stevens will be joining us in about 10 minutes. Are you excited to deliver a question to him perfectly,

just like you have done in the past with all the other Boston heroes? Oh, good Lord, I blow at questions. So, no, I'm not really kind of excited for that. Now, you don't blow at questions. It does seem like you do get a little starstruck every once in a while. Which was the one where your friends texted you and said you should have just – That O'Neal. That wasn't starstruck.

That was just like, ah, Jesus Christ, I suck at this. What am I doing up here? But, I mean, Brady, you could say for sure. Bill, you can make an argument. I don't know if I'd go that far. But, no, Brad, you know, I'm more so just looking forward to thanking them for the domination. A lot of teams, like we mentioned throughout the playoffs,

every single round the Celtics won, it was never about the Celtics. It was more so about why the Celtics won't win, not about how great and dominant they truly were. And to go from coach to president of basketball operations, I assume that was a move

so i'm more of excited to hear what you know he has to say about the squad about the future of the team and more so about stacking a few more banners because it's packed up there in the garden more you just want to let them know hey this ain't no this ain't this is cool but but one's nice okay hey i saw you with the backwards hat having fun talking about the team and celebrating everything like that. We're past that. We're going to need a couple more or you're going to get the hell out. Is that what you're going to tell Brad? I'm not going to tell him to get out.

No, lifetime contract, NBA executive of the year, possibly the greatest NBA exec in the history of the NBA. But I will say what separates dominant teams is dominant dynasties, and that's what we need to go for. The last six years there's been a different nba champion every year it's time we have another run of one team being that team in the nba well it's funny you say that so the las vegas aces uh the yukon huskies and the kansas city chiefs have all won back to back i just saw in first take earlier says which team is most likely to win three in a row i mean the chiefs obviously have had their eye on it since the

beginning las vegas aces there's a chance with asia wilson still being the best player in basketball is most likely to win three in a row. I mean, the Chiefs obviously have had their eye on it since the beginning. Las Vegas Aces, there's a chance with Aja Wilson still being the best player in basketball. The WNBA is certainly in a different place now than it was the last two years, and that's because there's one player. I'm not going to do it. Sorry, real quick. Did you see the graphic that was put together?

The one we made No no Because that one didn't get seen Because I was a dumbass There's a different one Put together About a comparison Of two players

And they combined One stat That was just an asinine Stat to combine But again Sorry No no no No point

We don't know enough about Even though we've invested Forty thousand dollars In season tickets In the Indiana Fever As any other journalist Do that You tell us puppets

You know in your entire chit-chatting, this entire thing. Yeah, boots on a wood. Everything you guys are talking about in WNBA right now, if you go back to, like, the first month of WNBA season, you probably hear everything you guys are addressing right now from one group of dumbasses in this entire thing. Nonetheless, Kalen Clark's going to figure it out, I think, next year.

Good luck to everybody. They made it. They're starting to cook right now, to be fair. They're making a run. I was going to say. They're going through Boston. Yeah, this year is not over yet. Melissa.

They're changing. Kalen's rolling. Christy Sides is actually big. Cooking up. We need Katie Lou to get some more shots up. Well, and Samuelson as well. Bingo. Katie Lou.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Samuelson is the beast. She drains threes. Yes. Legitimately. Anyways, or the UConn Huskies Sam said he's the beast. She drains threes. Yes. Legitimately. Anyways, or the UConn Huskies of the men's college basketball. I think we all agreed that men's college basketball is probably the most gettable in this. I would say.

For sure. After those back-to-back dominant runs that we've seen in March Madness, that's who I will have the most faith in. Well, is there any... And I'm maybe a little biased. Is there any chance... Yeah, you're a UConn Husky. Is there any chance that nine-time NFL vet Darius J. Butler's Florida Panthers

go back to back? We've been there back to back. We figured it out. Obviously, been there. Like PK said, we got some things to figure out. But, yeah, with that court, with that coach, Paul Maurice, with Bill Zito, all those guys, that whole family down there at Sunrise. Well, we got to win two first before we get into this conference.

Oh, of course. Of course, yeah. Got to go back to back. Easy as that. That's the lower third tomorrow, by the way. We've got to win two first before we get into this. Of course. I've got to go back-to-back. That's the lower third tomorrow, by the way. Who goes back-to-back? Who's more likely to go back-to-back? The Florida Panthers? Or the Indiana Fever? Or the Boston Celtics?

One half of the hammer. Cowboys 10 digs this year. He unloaded his account on Bobrovsky to win the consmice last night in the third period. Instead, Connor McDavid becomes the sixth player in Stanley Cup history to be on the losing side of the Stanley Cup while winning the playoff MVP award, which is the consmice. Sports are wonderful.

Joining us now is a man who's a college football national champion and a Super Bowl champion. Ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawke. A.J., we got two new teams becoming champs for the first time in their history. I'm pumped up about it. Congrats to Tennessee. Congrats to the Florida Panthers, A.J. Yeah, I think both games actually delivered, too.

And I know you said earlier it was a bit of a cagey affair in the hockey game, two to one, but you could kind of feel it. Like every single thing mattered. And I enjoyed hearing PK and Mess and everybody, and Levy in the intermissions talk about how, like, I think Mess said, hey, if you're behind your guy by two feet, it might as well be two miles. Like, everything is magnified,

and everyone is playing, like, such elite hockey. It was, honestly, it was really fun to watch. What a goal right there, too, by the way. Filthy deflection, obviously. That is a tactic used in hockey, for those that don't know, is get in front of the goalie and deflect, deflect, deflect to completely change the direction of the puck from missing the net to being five-hole goal.

Massive skill set and big goal, obviously. Stanley Cup Game 7. And Ryan puts one in for the 2-1 lead as Bobrovsky would stand on his head the rest of the way and secure the Stanley Cup for the Florida Panthers. And then for that College World Series, A.J., hey, four runs by Texas A&M in the last two innings, 6-5. All of a sudden, we got an overthrow.

Somebody basically just walks in 6-5. Holy shit, the tension in all the orange that was around Omaha was very palpable and very real. Peyton Manning and Morgan Wallen went from saluting and cheers into arms crossed, what do we have here? What do we have here? Instead, they hold on, get a big-time dub. What a game, what a win.

Yeah, I was thinking of all these kids' parents sitting in the stands, honestly. I was like, man, if any of these people were my kids, how nervous would you be? And then the absolute relief and excitement for the team that wins. Yeah, I'm happy for them, man. College baseball, it's a cool atmosphere. They need to figure a way to bring that into the major leagues somehow. Well, that's never going to happen.

I mean, that's like college football, you know, in the NFL. It's just not – I mean, the NFL makes so much more money, obviously, because they're a phenomenal business and the ratings are crazy. But if you just talk about environments, you're talking night and day there. Yes. And I think, obviously, you went to Ohio State, so you got to experience this and you grew up in the state of Ohio. You're basically a Buckeye from birth. And I think they actually give you Buckeye-like things as soon as you're born in the state of Ohio.

Like, you're going to be a Buckeye. But, like, college football atmospheres are just different, especially at those big schools. West Virginia, our fans are obviously absurd. But you go to some of these cult-like, religion-like college football places, and it is a different ballgame. It's like a religion for these people. College baseball in the South, I think, not everywhere.

College baseball in the South, though, very similar. And whenever you hear that ding off the bat everybody it's an instant pavlov's dogs lose your shit some of these videos that come from the regular season games are bananas and then the omaha uh entire omaha thing is beautifully done packed house feels like the city is ready for it hospitality through like here in indianapolis i got nothing but respect for what omaha did because all the workers there have to buy in like, yeah, we're going to deal with drunk idiots that aren't from here. So like a lot of cities like in Pittsburgh, drunk idiots not from Pittsburgh, not handled well. Normally, ass beat kicked out of bar. Don't come back

here. In Indianapolis, it's like a part of the gig. Hey, there's a lot of conventions here. There's a lot of events here. There's going to be a lot of drunk doofuses from other walks of life in other cities wandering our streets. And the people of Indianapolis are cool with it. That's why, yeah, good to see you. You should head over there. Okay, let's stay away from that particular group there. Let's go somewhere else. Omaha is the same damn thing.

They're dealing with the drunkest of drunk alumni and richest of rich alumni from all of these schools. And everybody sings their praises so shout to Omaha shouts college baseball for having a remarkable year yet again yeah I mean like we've been talking about the shot counter like that's one of the big things like they're encouraging people to come in and like buy a thousand shots for people and they're keeping track of it and I think one of the big things too is you get down there and like you said in the south I mean there are four teams from the SEC and four teams from the ACC that made it. But, like, for the most part, obviously, there's always going to be, you know, drunk assholes and stuff like that.

But with how much people are boozing down there and doing all that, like, you don't hear a lot of, like, fights. There's not a lot. Like, you don't see videos of, like, physical altercations. It's like a lot of people who genuinely just do love college baseball. And, like, they go to Omaha to kind of celebrate it together, and who wins is kind of secondary, which you don't get that a lot in sports anymore. And what a play by Hunter Ainsley.

Do you see that, AJ? He gave a yeet. I mean, did the catcher assume that he was going to run him over, even though you know you're not allowed to run him over? The rules are weird now. I think D-Buck questions athleticism. I mean, I just think he closes his eyes. He might be a great athlete, but it's kind of a bang-bang.

I mean, it's happened to me before. I missed a tackle. I missed a tackle on Tyreek Hill that same way. Screen pass, thought I had him. Kind of closed my eyes right before, and boom, he was gone. Yeah, Antonio Brown got me. Yeah, same exact thing. I was on the ground.

Bang, bang. But how far outside the line is he allowed to go? I mean, you're really not supposed to stray from the baseline. Because that was good usage, I think, of the – For sure. He was coming wide. That's why the catcher was set up wide. That's where he was coming.

He was coming. This is a great play. It's a great running, I think. Yeah. He set him up. It's like kick returner. He set up his block almost and then gets around. It was a phenomenal

play and this is the game-winning run yeah yeah right here so it's gonna be i assume there's gonna be a photo of him going like this oh yeah for sure right there yeah always across all the tennessee volunteer baseball shit whatever it is weight room dugout facility i don't know what all they have clubhouse you can tell the catcher is preparing for contact and then he realized at the last second, oh, he's not going to contact me and then tries to reach. If he contacts him, it's an automatic out, right?

So the catcher, if he takes that... So body part counts? I thought you had to touch him. With a ball. If you run him over now... The ball has to touch him so like if the ball's in glove but like if he just like clips him with like a like part of like no it he has to make contact okay so i think i saw in game two second base guy got tagged in the face did you

see this with the bruise and his third yep then ball fell out safe no he gets this guy is in between first and second he like came to what's that second baseman or shortstop on the right side second yeah second baseman then so somebody hits it to second baseman there's somebody on first he gets ball guys running from first to second he goes to tag him okay pretty good contact he's on the inside of the guy guys on the outside and ball ends up skirting free but this guy gets punched in face with glove so he's laying on dirt ball skirts out underneath in my head i was like i think a baseball he could get up and go yeah guy picks up ball tags him he gets up busted busted open

just walks off i'm like baseball's pretty sick i didn't know we're punching people in the face while we're running the bases out here so if let's say old buddy there isn't able to get around him, but he hits him hard enough, which I don't think you guys are acting like is not possible anymore, and that ball comes out, he's safe? That's how it used to be. Like back in the day. Showing some clips from the majors, yeah. The dude's protecting the plate.

Now they changed everything after what, Maurer or whoever got hurt? You used to just be able to run over the catcher. Like full speed collision and guys would block the plate and get absolutely destroyed and drop the ball. Then the guy's safe. I think it was Buster Posey who was one of the best catchers in the majors. He got blown

up, got hurt for the season. They're like, we're not doing this anymore. He's not allowed to. His intent can't be to run over the catcher. Correct. He has to act like he's getting around him. So he's not allowed to, his intent can't be to run over that. Correct. He has to act like he's getting around him. Yeah. But he could have easily.

Yeah, if they make contact, I think a lot of times it's like, it's the umpire's discretion as to whether or not there was intent to knock him over. But most of the time, yeah, like no contact is allowed. That was filthy. Yeah. Big time. That was absolutely filthy.

And the fact that that's the game winner and you got that that mustache on your face, you're going to feel good. You're going to feel really good. You're going to feel great. You're going to feel good about your time at Omaha. Afterwards, he was probably up there with Morgan. Last night, he let the layer down. Him and Peyton, probably. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. McGee. That was me, yeah. McGee. I was this one here. Then McGee came in. I was this one here. Then McGee came in. I've seen that 1979.

You remember Bo Jangles? Bo Jangles for you, right? He actually had the same exact move. All right, let's pivot away from college. World Series, congrats to the volunteers. Great school, great university. I've been down there a lot with College Game Day. It is fantastic. So I'm happy they won.

And Texas A&M, what a run. They've never won a title either. Hopefully next year. It was fun getting to learn about your team. Speaking about learning about teams, all year we didn't hear shit about one team, okay, because they were considered too good. This team's already got into the playoffs. This team's so far ahead of everybody in the East.

Let's not even talk about them. Now, granted, we are a football program. We don't cover the NBA as much as we should, although it seems like in the future with the relationships we are building, we will certainly do it. But the folks that cover the NBA refuse to cover this team because they were too good. Let's not even talk about it. We'll talk about

them in the playoffs. And it got to the playoffs, it was like, ah, they're not that good. They're actually just playing. And then what do they do? Well, they have the most dominant run in recent history to a championship. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, Indiana man, who's leading the Boston Celtics, formerly as their coach, now president of operations, ladies and gentlemen, Brad Stevens. Hey, guys.

How we doing? Coach, people still call you coach or no? They do. And then they usually say afterwards, they usually say, I don't know why I still call you coach. Well? They do. And then they usually say afterwards, they usually say, I don't know why I still call you coach. Well, that's because once a coach, always a coach. And I think that's right. I think that's a compliment more so than anything. And we saw, you know, Zionsville High School photo of you the other day on the internet. You've always had so much swagger that the world could not handle it. Let's talk about your life right now.

You obviously go from coach to front office, and that's been something I handle it. Let's talk about your life right now. You obviously go from coach to front office, and that's been something I assume you've had to talk about at length or ad nauseum. For me, as a guy that was in Indiana whenever you were in your run at Butler and how much all these people love you in Indiana and how much respect everybody has for your basketball brain, watching you leave the sidelines to go up to the front office, I didn't fully understand it.

Now, obviously, it's like the greatest decision any person's made in sports at this point. But when you make the transition from coach to executive, was there nerves? Were you ready for it? I think there's been numerous people that have said, like, you were ready for it. But did you know that all this was coming?

And that's, like, such a crazy question. But was there nerves? Did you expect this? And how has it gone since the transition has taken place versus what you thought it was going to be? No, I mean, yeah, there were nerves, um, cause it's totally different, right? You spend 21 years, um, coaching and that's kind of what you build up, you know, your knowledge base in and, and, you know, that's the old rule of 10,000 hours. Coaches get to that pretty quick with how many hours you put in. But I really love to build team.

I really like to fit pieces together. We had an amazing staff in the front office that I knew could help me get better at understanding the intricacies and the nuances of, you know, the cap and the CBA and understanding all the different decisions that you have to make along the way. But I felt like I had a good base of knowledge about our basketball team and specifically our best players and what would complement them. And hopefully, hopefully we could put the right pieces around and just continue continue to be sustainably good i don't think you ever you know you always want to win uh championships you always want to be in the mix for that and that's you know that's what we've tried to do and we also recognize how much good fortune

you have to have to actually do it right and so um it's been fun plus my my calendars a little bit more open up pat during the year like i didn't miss very many, my calendar's a little bit more open up, Pat, during the year. Like, I didn't miss very many of my son's high school games. My golf game's gotten better. I've been to a lot of my daughter's soccer games. And, you know, coaches, as much as we try to be present, we miss a lot. And so it's been the best of both worlds for me. Well, I'm happy to hear the golf game's gotten better.

Happy to chance to hang out with your kids and not have to be fully immersed in basketball and how do we get better all the time and what play sets should we run? What is this team going to do? What did you see in Joe Mazzola? Because I went to school at West Virginia at the same time as Joe.

Joe was known as an incredibly cerebral, smart guy. Everybody loved him on the basketball team. And obviously his jump and the youngest coach known as an incredibly cerebral, smart guy. Everybody loved him on the basketball team. And obviously his jump and the youngest coach to make the finals since 1969 or something like that. What did you see in Joe? And does Joe ask you questions? I saw Pep was there. I think he tried to pick Pep's brain. Who's the Manchester City? No. Yeah. Manchester City coach. Does he talk to you? Do you chat with Joe? And how is your relationship coach to coach, seemingly? Well, I love Joe. I hired him as an assistant long ago,

and he's been an assistant here prior to being the head coach under unique circumstances last year. And I thought he did an amazing job last year, and he backed it up with an even better job this year. And that's to be expected. We're supposed to improve as time goes on on especially when you have kind of the growth mindset that joe has joe is an incredible leader he knows the game he makes good decisions in the game on both ends of the floor but i think his his impact goes way beyond that he's amazing in the locker room. He's amazing with the guys. He's not afraid to challenge people. And he has the stamina to work. And, you know, that coaching thing, when you're talking

about 200 some odd days or 250 some odd days in a season, we started September 28th, the coaching brain never kicks off, right? And so to end in 17th um and to be on that whole time and to have that kind of stamina and that kind of work ethic is real and and he's got it his his motor is is always going um he's got great uh he's done a great job of creating a network of people like pep in sports that he likes outside of basketball that I think he really, you know, really tries to learn from. You never worry one minute about Joe Mazzulla feeling like he's got it all figured out.

He's always trying to learn, grow, get better, and he brings a great energy to the building, and we're lucky he's here. Yeah, there was a story that came out about him winning coach of the month or whatever, and he's, nobody cares. He just kept walking by. It's like. He's a story that came out about him winning coach of the month or whatever and he's nobody cares and they're just walking by it's like like that yeah that that like humility is something that all coaches have to have and you talk about 200 and some odd days that's not just like at work that's like on road oh yeah travel that's like the yeah and always thinking about it like it never leaves your mind right like even when you're trying to disassociate and get, you know, hang out and go to dinner or whatever the case may be with your family or be at a kid's game. You know, you're always thinking about the team because that is you're just trying to figure out how to get the pieces all to work together as well as humanly possible.

is all to work together as well as humanly possible it's a big difference between my job now and his job is you don't you don't get into the weeds of the every day in this job like you do as a coach you're more of the 10,000 foot view and how it's all going to fit together and thinking about what's next and um but i just got a great respect for his motor he brings it every day yeah set it and forget it you know and not forget it as in like uh don't think about it for you but it is like rotisserie chicken let's just put that thing in there and then mazula is the one he's the one that's spinning the the chick you guys are great tag team it's been fun to watch so incredibly dominant go ahead aj coach why do you think in professional sports it's so tough to have sustained success pat and i talk talk about it all the time, like what the Patriots did,

what it seems like the Chiefs are in the middle of right now in the NFL, what you guys are hopefully going on. What's the plan, and how do you continue to kind of push the envelope and continue to get better? Well, I've been really fortunate. I studied a lot of football, A.J., and my time at Butler when I was in Indianapolis, the sustained success of the Colts through the Peyton Manning years, and then in transitioning to Andrew and all the great

players on offense and defense that you played with. And special teams, yeah. I counted you as defense for some of those tackles. Oh, okay. Okay. I actually wore a defensive jersey at practice. My bad. Hey, Brad, you know, yeah, this guy did study. You know, he's got a ball. Yeah, sorry about that. My bad, my bad. And then, you know, I move out here, and you're right in the middle of the Patriots dynasty.

Real one. You know, the quarterback room when I went and sat down with those guys were, you know, it's Brady and Garoppolo and Brissette and Josh, and you have all these future head coaches walking all over that building and bill is obviously you know the most amazing resource you could ever have here and um so you learn a lot from those people and i think what we've been fortunate with in our long run of playoffs is that we had a chance to be good and at the same time had a couple of other picks that we were able to that we knew were there right and danny just had to get them right

and boy did he ever and so when you get in back-to-back years jaylen and jason then you have a head start on being sustainably good and then it's about you know we've had different iterations of our team as they were growing and going from 19 year olds and 20 year olds with a little bit less responsibility to kind of carry in the torch for us but it's about finding the people that fit best around them how we can accentuate them you know i think of like how you know the receivers that the colts could put out there for for Peyton or the the receivers or the running backs that the Pats could put out there for Brady like that's what you're just trying to do that's the way you're thinking about it let's talk about Tatum and Brown obviously

it was a big piece of conversation in the sports media world um is Tatum doing enough or is this Brown's team I'll tell you what if i'm brown i'm thinking to myself why is tatum still on the marquee with me like there is a lot of that from the outside right that that was they didn't talk about your team i don't know how much you pay attention you can't pay attention you gotta do your thing nobody really talked about your team now granted connor was screaming for a long time trying to anytime we brought up basketball because he is obviously a massive fan of yours he was an absolute asshole walking in here the other day after you guys won. So thank you for creating another championship for this guy to celebrate.

But they've been trying to drive a wedge between those two seemingly since you guys became uber successful. Why do you think those two get along so well? Why do you think those two are going to continue to be pillars for you? And how do you maintain this? I don't want to say, oh, something just happened. Yeah, it was neat. Yeah, it was sweet. Something just happened right behind you.

It was pretty cool. But how do you – why do you think they are that way? And how does this – is this possible forever, I guess, with the way these two operate? We're so far into the tax, we're saving money on my lights and my office. You've got to pay one of those guys. Yeah, you've got to pay one of those guys. Yeah, you got to pay one of those guys. If I don't move for five minutes, the lights automatically go out. You know what?

Save the world. Yeah, this all starts, Pat, with the character of the two people. And at the end of the day, these guys are workers, great teammates, awesome players, but competitors. And, you know, you know, it's funny because now that you win it, you know, all the narrative is, is, man, they're way ahead of schedule when you look at their age versus what they've accomplished versus the rest of the league. And they were ahead of schedule the whole time. And that's, again, why we've been fortunate enough to kind of build around them.

They're the kind of teammates you want to have on your team. They're the kind of teammates you want to build around. And we ask them to do a lot. They're not, you know, when you think about it, a lot of times scoring and the ability to put the ball in the basket gets all the attention. And, you know, Jalen Brown is picking up Luka full court. You know, Jason Tatum in our last three series guards the center so we can switch all the center picking roles on Luka and Kyrie,

and he's got the size, strength, and ability to communicate and direct the defense from behind to do it. And those are the types of things that winners do. And those are the types of things that winners do. And so we don't have time for all of the talk about breaking apart. We're too busy trying to work together to win. And those two guys have to lead the way in that. They'll continue to lead the way in that.

And that's just who they are. Their families are amazing. They're amazing. And we're lucky they're Celtics. Yeah, hell yeah. I love your answer. That's the way winners operate. A lot of losers saying a lot of things, it seems like.

Winners are operating in this particular fashion. I think everybody in Boston loves the way you and your team operate as a whole. Speaking of, Masshole, Connor has a question for you, Brad. Yeah, Mr. President, I just want to say thank you for everything you've done for Boston, of course, as both a coach and now the president of basketball of basketball operations but you know going forward here you know one's nice you know I'm gonna hold on to this one for a while but like uh like Joe said there's room up in these rafters there's room on this desk for a couple more maybe three or four so something to think about but as you do kind of prepare and transition into the next season and I think you said the night of the championship like

hey we got we got draft workouts tomorrow so i'm pretty jacked up about that but how often during the season and obviously now are you trying to kind of pick and place other guys in spots that we may need and are you worried about the potential that when you start calling teams they're going to pick up and say go to hell and hang up because they know if they trade with you that the Celtics are going to continue to dominate everybody. Oh, you're talking about Drew Holliday. Yeah, Drew Holliday. I mean, you could argue Derek White, Kristaps Porzingis.

It kind of happened to Danny Ainge, actually, right before you took over, where people were like, hey, if Danny Ainge calls, you tell that son of a bitch to go to hell because he's making a bad deal for you. Are you worried about that, Mr. President? I'm not because every trade we've done, I think, has been good for the other team. They were all in different ages and phases and trying to maximize assets and those type of things.

And so, listen, we haven't had a first-round pick yet in the three years I've been here. Tomorrow we have number 30 for now. And so, you know, we'll see what happens. But I think, you know, at the end of the day, there's a lot of smart people around the league. And there's a lot of teams that are looking at wherever, whatever window they're in with regard to building or trying to maximize it right now. And we certainly, again, you know, when we've got Jason and Jalen, we've got to find the right people to build around them. And so from my standpoint, our job, and I think I, you know, I don't have all the expertise that a lot of these

front office people do around the league or even in our building. My only background is in coaching and how teams function together. So we try to make it as easy for a team to complement one another, to bring out the best in one another, and for, you know, the coaches to, you know, have a group that you can easily create roles and role definition around. And I think that that's kind of what we try to do. And, yes, you're always thinking about it. Tomorrow, whoever we draft, wherever we draft, in the next couple of days, I think that we're just going to try to keep adding people that are really good people, that are interested in competing, and that are ready for the responsibility of wearing this uniform, which is not normal. It is a real responsibility when you play for the Boston Celtics, and it hits you pretty quick. Most championships in the history of the NBA that happened this year, 18.

Hell yeah. 17. Congratulations. When you talk about the pressure of being a Celtic and you said you got 30 for now and then you said wherever we pick tomorrow or the next couple of days and with all the money, you got a lot of money out there. More money on the way from what I've been told. Yeah, that's right.

You got a lot of money and I don't know how your nba salary cap works feels like you guys just pay fucking everybody yeah i don't know i don't know how it works it feels like yeah let's pay luxury tax whatever we need we can do it and you guys obviously you're in a standpoint where you got incredible players but i would assume being able to draft somebody who's potentially young and cheap would be great addition to a team that has a lot of money but is that how you're viewing it and whenever you i i should know this I should have done more research before this conversation. You're trying to move up in the draft from 30. I don't want to give away your entire leverage, but you're obviously trying to move. Is that a known story?

I would say there are certain scenarios where maybe we look at moving up and there are certain scenarios where maybe we look at moving back. You know, the way that the draft works in basketball is, is all of the salaries are slotted in the first round. So it's slotted 1 through 30, exactly what those contracts will look like really over the course of four years. And then in the second round, you can be a little bit more creative with contracts. And even to the point where later in the second round, there's a lot of people that will be drafted that in the past will either continue to play overseas for a while or will be on two-way contracts in the G League. So there's all kinds of things that we could do on draft night. But if the right person's there and we feel like they'll come in and help and somebody we can invest in, then, you know, we're looking forward to making that pick. And if not, then we'll, you know, we'll think and obviously talk to everybody

in the league about moving around. It's going to be – it's fun. I mean, if we get everybody back and we hope, you know, that we look pretty similar to last year, barring any health issues, then, you know, it's going to be hard for whoever we draft to crack the rotation. But we've got to start – we've got to continue to build issues, then it's going to be hard for whoever we draft to crack the rotation. But we've got to continue to build and grow some of these young guys so that when we do have to transition, we can do so while, again, trying to be sustainable.

I didn't even know there was more than 30 guys getting drafted, right? Isn't it just that one French guy? Yeah, Saar. Saar and Brawny. And Brawny. And Brawny. They're the only two eligible guys. Yeah, I thought that was literally the only two. right and it just it's that one french guy yes or sorry and then there's another braun and braun and braun they're the only two eligible guys yeah i thought that was literally the only two right so congrats on one i guess congrats holy shit one of those guys going to the south he's gonna do it he's drafting somebody i didn't know there's anybody else to get drafted i had somebody from purdue perhaps oh big tall guy yeah big zone big zone big. Whoa! Look out, Indiana.

Hey, he can move, too. You saw him. He got in great shape for his last year here. He's moving around. He's got good moxie, too. You guys, did you jump, Pat, did you jump on the Purdue bandwagon when they went to the final this year? Yeah.

That was sweet, huh? Yeah. I mean, Coach, I will hop on a bandwagon if we're going to have a good time. You know, I'm here for it. Toot, toot. You know, we can boil her up if we have to. And Butler, let's go Bulldogs whenever you guys need to. Good.

Need to get over there to some games. No, it was so much fun to see Paint and that Purdue team go to the final. They ran into a juggernaut. Damn right. I was really happy for Coach Painter. He's one of the best. Okay, Coach Painter, obviously awesome guy, and there was a lot of doubts about the Purdue team ever getting

over the hump, so them making it to the finals is obviously a huge combo. Taking on Dan Hurley in the Huskies. Okay, do you pay attention to all the shit that's happening around the NBA? I guess you would have to in president of basketball ops. Dan Hurley, right in your backyard, seemingly there, at UConn, in the area.

Is there a thought of, like, because Joe Mazzulla, young, he coached in college,. Did, is there a thought of like these cause Joe Mazzola young, he coached in college, I think. And then he's assisting with you guys. And then bang, he becomes head coach. Dan Hurley was potentially going to be the coach of the Lakers.

JJ Redick. Now the coach of the Lakers, like whenever you have Joe Mazzola, is there like certain traits you're looking for in these young guys? And are you scouting all of these people that are potentially coaches or players because you never know what's going to happen in the future while it's taking place yeah i don't think that i actually go into gyms thinking about it in terms of scouting um but i leave practices you know you know incredibly impressed a lot and one of the things i really enjoy about my new job is going to college practices and watching different people work. And that could be the head coaches,

the assistant coaches running the offense or defense, whatever, whatever the case may be. With Joe in particular, we had Joe in Maine on our G League staff in, I believe, 2014 or 2015. But after he left, I used to do a round table where we'd bring in coaches from across the country in the summer so i could learn it was it was pretty selfish right it was i wanted to bring people in to talk and learn and i would steal things or plays or defensive drills or whatever the case may be but it also became something where we tried to have a couple of speakers a year that were these kind of young coaches that you needed to keep an eye on and joe actually was one of our speakers i think in 18 or 19 and um and then we hired him i think it must have been in 18 because we hired him in 1920 and

he's been with us ever since but yeah you're you got to keep your eyes open. And, you know, Danny obviously is a great coach. And great coaching is not monopolized at any level. There are great coaches in the youth basketball area. There's great coaches in high school and middle school and college. And you've got to keep your eyes open. And certainly if Danny ever wants to make that transition, I think he'll do that well. Hey, there's a fourth grade basketball team that had J.J. Redick coaching it though.

Yeah. Before he got up here to the NBA and they were. They're good. Splash, splash, splash. They can shoot the rock. Yeah. These fourth graders were traveling a bit. I think there was a little bit of travel, but that's going to happen, but they are shooting a rock. I don't want to give things away, but I think the Lakers, they're going to be running like that fourth grade team. You talk about the Celtics and obviously the weight of the logo being on your jersey it also

happens i assume to everybody go ahead ty yeah coach how jarring was that when you first leave butler and you go from just being like the lovable cinderella and obviously everyone knows fans in indiana are basketball craze but kind of just affable people in general and everyone wanted to see you guys win and then you go to the cics where, let's just say, you know, people on the East Coast maybe have a little bit more hard edge. And like the expectation is, hey, you're going to win. You're coaching now for not just one of the most historic teams in the NBA, but in all of sports. How jarring was that jump from just like, like hey we're just kind of happy to be here in the final four to like okay that's great coach like let's go win a title now and uh

how long did it kind of take for you to to kind of get used to that and and just like that entire culture change of going from Butler to the Celtics well one of the things that really drew me to the Celtics was that Danny and the ownership group had always really stuck by coaches. And really, like they were patient with the process and they understood that they weren't going to ride the roller coaster of an 82 games, even in this market where, you know, obviously people always will have an opinion and, you know, are enormous fans. But I think that one of the things that, and I've said this before, I don't know why this is the case. And maybe it was because when I was coaching at Butler, I was, you know, between 30 and 36. And maybe it was just my age, but coaching in your hometown,

where you went to high school, you know, basically where you went to college, and then where you've worked your whole professional life, that's a pressure too and um in moving out here the responsibility of putting on the celtics jersey and having um was a was was an intriguing part of doing it and at the same time you know i think that the pressure of coaching in your hometown really prepared me well that this there have been so many you know pinch yourself moments as a member of the celtics organization in 2013 when i became the head coach we had just traded pearson garnett we weren't expected to be very good at least in that first year and we you know we got better soon thereafter but that first year was tough, but you knew the weight of the, of the Jersey when, you know, Tommy Heinsohn would stop by practice when Satch Sanders would come by John

Havlicek, you know, would come off the Cape before he headed down to Florida and would swing by. And, you know, Bill Russell's at the first game i coached um you know these are like like as a kid from indiana who grew up only about basketball those are like incredible moments but also you just you talk about imposter syndrome you're like yeah i really don't belong here you know i i didn't think i was good enough to be the coach at butler there's no way in hell i'm good enough to be the coach here. But those are moments that I'll never forget.

And I think our guys embrace that. Like Tatum knows that and Brown know. They know the responsibility that they have in being the Celtics that everybody looks towards. And they've always – I think they've always done a great job with that. How old – you were 37? I was – I think I was 36 when I moved here. But it was hard to leave there, man. It was hard to leave there.

No, but I'm saying you looking in the mirror as a 36-year-old. You got Bill Russell. You look up in there, seven years. Okay, so this is my team, and we're getting rid of... All of our players are gone. Yeah, see, they're going to be out. One thing I will tell you very certainly i have never once thought or said this is my team as as connor knows this is boston's team hell yeah it'll be great long it was great before we got here it'll

be great long after we're here but man it's uh it's it's pretty cool to be a part of you're a holder of a seat. I appreciate the fact that you acknowledge that, especially with where you guys are now, because the past is littered with Hall of Famers. Go ahead, D-Bud. Absolutely, and it pains me to say this as a Heat fan, but congratulations on 18.

Congratulations. Congratulations on 18. A lot of things that come with greatness, obviously, as a Heat fan. I'm going to look for some potential problems down the road possibly you've been a former coach former player you know how important jersey numbers are what you guys having so many damn jersey numbers retire and chip brown and tatum may be the next two has those conversations ever come up in free agents or trade talks with players like wanting a certain number because you know how important those are to players i mean it's hilarious when we get guys sign a minimum contract

or get traded here in the middle of the season. It's like, hey, you got six numbers to choose from. None of them are traditional numbers. My goal, Barry, is let's be good enough for long enough that we don't have enough left. Let's just get them all up there and make it all so special. But I see the Florida Panthers jersey. Hell, yeah.

Congratulations to you. That was a night, huh? Hell, yeah. Great night. First one. First one. 17-4. Tatum and Kachuk, Chaminade High School in St. Louis.

Hell, yeah. Pretty good class a few years ago. How did you feel about the boys heading down to Miami immediately after winning? Flight is at noon to Miami. How'd you feel about that? I got the old, hey, you want to go? I said, nope, I'm good. Pat, I am an Indiana guy

that has grown to love the Northeast. I'm good. Hey, our type of Caucasian skin burns quick down there in Miami. Yeah, yeah. Smart decision. Smart decision. Because you had that parade right around.

Hey, that parade was epic. I assume you guys knew that while you were in the middle of it. You were looking around going, holy shit, this has got to be one of the greatest parades of all time. It was. It was awesome. Man, I'll tell you. We turned the corner onto Causeway Street. We were underneath the garden, and we come up the ramp and turned the corner onto Causeway Street. We were underneath the garden, and we come up the ramp

and turned the corner onto Causeway Street. And to see the mass of people, to see people every walk of life, every age, all wearing Celtics gear, all smiling, all happy, all together. And think about all the worlds world's been through in the last five years just to see that yeah was super special to see them all wearing Celtics gear and celebrating this team um yeah that of all the things like I think winning you know winning it had you know you move on to the next day you try to to get better. You try to do it again, whatever. But, man, that parade will be maybe the most memorable part of the experience for me. It was unbelievable.

Sports are amazing. There's nothing else on earth except for, I guess, Taylor Swift. If Taylor Swift comes to town, you could have one of these moments where— My daughter would agree with that. Yeah, my wife. I mean, literally everybody that we know. But whenever those parades happen, it is like a celebration of a city. Like, look what we

did. It's a beautiful thing. Can't wait to see how South Florida does. Florida fans, you're going to follow Boston. We'll have the beach in the background in A1A. It'll be beautiful. Yeah, of course. Have you found the ring, though? Has Jalen Brown found his pinky ring?

Coach, how are we figuring it out? I can't keep track of everything. Have you found the ring, though? Has Jalen Brown found his pinky ring? Yeah, Coach, how are we figuring that out? I can't keep track of everything. AJ's got the last question for you here, Brad. Coach, when you look at your roster, you guys have a great mix, I think. Obviously, some vets giving you huge minutes and huge plays for you, Horford and Holiday and everyone else. When you're putting a roster together, how important is it to have not only vets that are playing but also some vets you know that maybe don't get as much time just to kind of

help the young guys along and kind of teach people what it means to be a pro yeah i think i think i think the right vets um aj are really important and i think you know i'm 47 now so the the older we, the more self-awareness we gain. And I think, you know, kind of how you fit what's important, what really matters, being a part of a team, being able to communicate that, you know, I'm willing to give a little bit for the benefit of the team. You know, I think if you look at 30-plus-year-olds in the league, you'd be hard-pressed to find any people better to lead a group than Al Horford and Drew Holiday. Incredible players, but just totally selfless, willing to do whatever it takes, play both ends of the floor,

and I think are great role models for not only our players, but, you know, our G League affiliates and really every other kid that wants to aspire to be a part of a team and be part of something bigger than themselves. And so, yeah, that to me is what a vet can bring to the table. You know, it's not always easy as people transition to later on in their career to not have the same individual responsibility that they once had. And so some guys struggle to let go of that. And we're just lucky that our guys still do it at a high level and they're also willing to give. You know, that sets a tone.

Don't you think Drew Holiday was way too old to be playing the defense that he was playing more specifically against like the Pacers? What? That he was playing right here in India. Hey. What? The Pacers were really? He was playing right here in India. Hey. What? The Pacers were really good. Oh, shut up.

Yeah. No, listen. I said today we could have come back to Boston down 3-1. Yeah, we know. Yeah, we were there. Could have, should have. Yeah, we were there, Rad. They had a heck of a team.

I thought Drew was unbelievable the whole playoffs. But that game three where he had the and one on Siakam and then took the ball in transition, I think it was from them hard at the end. Happy you have a great memory, dude. All right, happy you have a – that's really good news. You know, that should serve you well. Hey, I was a kid. It was nothing – I was the, like, most excited person on our whole travel party

that we were going to play Saturday night race weekend and then play game for Monday. That was when I was a kid, it was Pacers, Knicks race weekend, Eastern conference finals. And those were like the best weekends of, you know, ever. So it was cool to be on the other side. And ruin. Yeah. Yeah. You did great. Thanks. Yeah. We appreciate it. Hey, congratulations on all the success. Obviously everybody here in Indiana loves you, is incredibly proud of you, and hopefully next year you guys lose to the Pacers.

All right. We appreciate you so much, man. Good luck the rest of the way. All right, guys. Be well. Thanks. And also, thank you for the heads up that the draft is tomorrow. Yeah.

We knew that. We knew that. We knew that. We're a sports show. We knew that. Ladies and gentlemen, president of basketball ops, Brad Stevens. Huge draft tomorrow. Huge.

I thought we were doing a show for it, like the NFL draft. Yeah, AJ, I think you're hosting, right? AJ's hosting it live from the attic. Greg Popovich is sitting with him in the attic, I think. Yeah, I think we'll actually. Look at these names. We could pronounce the names. Yeah, there's the kid.

He's also French. We know Clayton Cone. Zachary. Zachary. Yeah, we do know Clayton Cone. Yeah. We know John Connect. Yeah, but dude, Matas, Boozless.

Yeah, Boozless is good. Whenever your booze full, good times. You're Boozless, you're getting buckets. That's right. That's what Matas is all about. That's boo's full, good times. Your boo's lish, you're getting buckets. That's right. That's what Matas is all about. That's Matas football, baby. That's also not real. Okay, they just took Nikola Jokic and changed the J to a T.

This guy, he's available. Nikola Topic. How about the Connect? That's a dude in Tennessee. That's Tennessee's guy, yeah. Oh, he's a dog. He's going top ten. He's no Steph Castle. Castle, yeah, Klingon are both UConn guys. Yeah, but when you talk about Alexandre Saar, you're talking about a guy who gets to the paint, gets his shot,

and then smacks the wood on the way back. That's right. Next one. Joining us right now is a man whose voice played over a historic evening last night in Omaha, Nebraska. The Tennessee Volunteers won their first ever World Series. And a man calling it is a baseball icon. Ladies and gentlemen, Carl Ravitch. All right, boys, how are you guys doing?

I want to let you know, immediately after COVID, you were one of the first voices we heard because you were covering baseball in Korea. Yeah, you were one of the first voices of sports post-COVID. So it's great to get a chance to chat with you. Great to get a chance to chat. Remember they had all the sex dolls lined up behind home plate? And you guys had to act like you didn't see them. And then we're watching baseball with the dinosaurs. Is that what those were?

Sex dolls? I don't know what the heck they were. Yeah, you guys did a fantastic job talking around it. I'll tell you one thing, Pat, too. Since then, we've been back there. We didn't see any sex dolls, but we opened the season over there with the Dodgers and the Padres and the whole Otani gambling thing. So we were in Korea for that, too. Well, you guys do a fantastic job.

We appreciate the hell out of you. And Omaha seems to be the place to be during this World Series. Last night, Texas A&M and Tennessee in their third game in the best-of-three series to decide the World Series champion lived up to hype. Is that the right way to describe the game last night? And could you feel it all throughout the day that that was going to be the the situation yeah yeah look i mean college

baseball is is becoming more and more popular um we had a game three last year the final score was 18 to 4 lsu had paul skeens hanging around like they didn't even need him in that game uh so sometimes you know you you get a break that each team has pitchers available. This thing is such a long slog for these guys. Tennessee played over 70 baseball games. They won 60 of them. I mean, that's how dominant they were. You know, and they have superstar players like the guy you're watching there. Christian Moore is going to be a major league player within the next couple of years. Leads off the bottom of the first for the Vols with a homer. It's a sport that's on fire, and part of that's seen right there

with Barnes and Peipel and Manning. It's contagious, and the SEC, which you know really well, has taken to it. It's not only Arkansas, Alabama, and Kentucky basketball. It's all these schools in baseball. Kentucky was at the College World Series this year. They were nothing years ago, and here they are at the College World Series. It is getting bigger.

NIL helps a lot, and the SEC is a dang powerhouse. They've won seven of the last eight of these things. Do you believe their first one was in 1990? That's their first one. It feels like they win every year now, but the first one was Georgia inia in 1990 and for me i didn't really pay attention enough to college baseball i don't think i i didn't play baseball i'm from pittsburgh the pirates were terrible until lsu legend paul schemes gets the town and lights up the entire sport over there for pittsburgh reignites pirates fans but i think it was post-covid once again post, post-COVID. I think Ole Miss hit a dinger. And I saw their entire outfield lose their shit.

And I was like, wait a minute. I did not know this was possible in baseball. It feels like the South, it's different down there. And now they're starting to rally and win every single title. Ty, massive baseball fan and fan of yours, has a question for you. Yeah, Carl, why do you think that the College World Series, and I know you also do the Little League World Series, why do you think that the College World Series, and I know you also do the Little League World Series, why do you think that that is so much more special

than a Sunday night baseball game between the Yankees and the Red Sox in the middle of July? It just feels different, I think, even for the average fan. If you had to kind of encapsulate that, why would you say that those are more special than just a massive big league matchup? Well, I'd answer it by you know just listening to your question kind of suggested a sunday night regular season game in july when

you try to have the two best teams on whether it's the phillies or the braves or the dodgers like in that in that case we're chasing the teams in the case of little league world series college world series that's that becomes binge viewing for about a week and a half and literally like everybody consumes um content now you can watch a series in 10 days meaning a series of a show you watch ozarks and you're done in a week in this case you're watching these two uh two events and you get to know the people you get to know the players and it ends in a championship. That's the goal of all of us that do this stuff.

You want to end with a dang championship. And if you can call a championship, people are invested in that a lot more than they would be, you know, a regular season game, whether it be a Sunday night game with marquee teams or anywhere else. It ends with a trophy. That's the most important thing. And with regards to college, the passion that those fan bases have. We have two major league groups right now in sports.

We have the major leagues, and I don't mean baseball. I mean professional sports, and we have professional college teams. Those teams have the massive fan bases. Pat, you see them every weekend. You know what that's like. They just keep re introducing themselves another group of freshmen come in we're with tennessee another group comes five years from now so this stuff just feeds on itself and that's why the college game is different and the south is very different than a new york on a sunday night those they love their sports the

college thing is different. I grew up in Massachusetts. You grew up in Pittsburgh. College sports weren't huge. I've come to appreciate how big they are. Amen. And it's the entire thing. It's the experience.

It's the entertainment value. It's a religion for these people. It really is. Their fodder, their fodder's fodder, their fodder's fodder, their fodder's fodder's fodder has been sitting in this exact seat doing this for so long. It's all they know at some of these places,

and it is fantastic to watch. Now, you talk about professional college teams. That leads to what Coach Paisan said from Tennessee the other day. Go ahead, Tom. Yeah, I know Coach took an exception to an NIL question a couple weeks back, and he talked about how stars are staying in college baseball because of NIL.

Do you think the popularity of the College World Series is because more people are staying in college baseball because of NIL? And then I know a big thing, like when we were coming out of high school, was if you were getting drafted out of high school, a lot of guys were going to play in the minor strictly because you were getting a paycheck now are a lot more guys now going to college because you get a paycheck going to college instead of just going to the minors you know it's interesting i i think college baseball uh for years and major league baseball recognized that college baseball the premier programs prepared kids for major league baseball, probably better than the minor leagues did.

And certainly in the last couple of years, what you can get from a college baseball program, when it comes to coaching, when it comes to all the machines, the track mans, et cetera, that they use when it comes to nutrition, when it comes to travel,

when it comes to competition, you have now seen schemes.ens as just one example. Wyatt Lankford last year was in the College World Series for Florida. He's on the opening day roster in the opening day lineup for the Rangers because they are so prepared. They face dudes. There was a guy this weekend throwing 101 miles an hour on average. I mean, this is on average.

So you're getting everything that you want and likely at a higher level than you were at the minor leagues. Major League Baseball is trying to address it, but I think that has to do with it. The NIL has to do with it. The exposure has to do with it. And, look, there's a lot of people. If I could stay in college for three more years, I'd do that too.

Go ahead, Ty. Yeah, Carl, not to switch gears but i'm a diehard yankees fan you've obviously had them on sunday night baseball a couple times this year um with how popular the college world series is like around this time of year and we see like the nhl their their ratings are going through the roof do you think with the changes that have been made to baseball and when you've got a team like the Yankees who are exciting, they've got five guys in the lineup who could hit a 500-foot home run and any at bat, do you think we're kind of getting to a tipping point where more people

are starting to watch the MLB as opposed to just an afterthought, it's too boring, the games take too long? Do you think the pitch clock and everything they're doing and guys like judge and otani do you think and skeins now obviously do you do you think that's starting to kind of change the way people uh younger people especially are viewing baseball i don't think there's any doubt about it when we went to the seven inning double headers uh post covid uh you'd be shocked once we started to say we're going to get away from seven inning double headers, how many players, and I mean, big name players would say to me, I love the seven inning double header. The game had gotten stale. It had gotten slow. It had gotten boring. There weren't balls in play. There was no action. Um, the Yankees, when Aaron Boone had a bunch of guys go down, the team changed. They actually did put the ball in play they ran the bases it was a

more exciting brand of baseball Juan Soto puts the ball in play they're a little more athletic and there's more athletes coming we're doing the Orioles on Sunday night uh against the Rangers and you know we do these little cartoons leading into these games the cartoon's going to be about uh isn't it about time that we got rid of the adult table and the kids' table? These birds, you know, the baby birds have shown they can swim in the deep end. They can handle a splash party. It's a young man's game now, and it's more athletic. The answer to your question emphatically is a yes.

All the changes are making a big difference, and it helps a lot. These guys are throwing gas, Carl. What a guy at 105. What was it? The athletics guy? Mason Miller throws about 104. They're saying Skeens is only going to get faster. It'll get stronger and faster

and better. That's the beautiful part about all these athletes. They get better, especially the young ones. That's why it's a young man's game. The best part about Skeens is I saw that thing thing on x yesterday he's sitting there in a boat with livy and living his best life in the allegheny river who's better than paul skeins is well you don't want to get in that water paul i'm sure everybody told him that in that photo it was livy paul skeins and then four dead people floating in the river behind him that's classic allegheny river football right there but i I appreciate that Paul Skeens is like the perfect guy for Pittsburgh to

bring him back as well. He's electric. He's lived up to the hype and he is humble as shit. And his mustache in Pittsburgh, love. So like everything, he's doing huge things for baseball in Pittsburgh, a city that was once very proudful of being a baseball town. He's like one guy is single handedly bringing back a lot of injuries. It's a beautiful thing for the sport, I think, Carl. I love the injuries. Pat, we were there when was it Cueto who dropped the ball during the wild card? You know, we know how great Pittsburgh baseball can be.

What Skeens is also doing is letting everyone know again, he was pitching at the College World Series last year. He may be the best pitcher in the major leagues right now. He's in the top five. You go from college to the pros and that guy is as dominant and overpowering as anybody we have. So there's just not that much distinction between the premier programs in college and a major league team like the pirates he's that damn good and it shows why college baseball is so popular that's good news for omaha no kidding hey how about we've never been obviously we have to make our way there i think mcgee has tried to force us i saw mcgee tell you that yeah you should go okay all right so you saw everybody got the same i thought he was forcing us to go publicly like say hey you guys go right

here you know and then people would do it and the college baseball community kind of told us we need So you saw everybody got the same. I thought he was forcing us to go publicly, like, say, hey, you guys go right here. And then people would do it. And the college baseball community kind of told us we need to go, but it wasn't really an overwhelming amount of like, yeah, you have to go. But after watching it and seeing it, and then the behind-the-scenes footage, and this Rocco's place, I have no idea how much booze they sell, but it seems like it's an immense amount. That's a hosting city? Omaha is a – because we live here in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis is a hosting city. Everybody at the bar knows that there's going to be out-of-town drunks here. You just got to handle it. In some cities, that's not great. Omaha, I've never heard a bad word about it being the host of the World Series, and it seems like everybody gets shit-faced and has a great

time. Is that an accurate description? It seems like Omaha might be one of the best towns in America. Well, for a lot of reasons. They opened their arms to this event. It's been there since 1950. It used to be at Rosenblatt Stadium. The guy that owns Pauly's Bar. Pauly's Bar was the most famous bar in sports for a while when it was at the College World Series at Rosenblatt. And Pauly and his wife Karen are very much involved. I think you talk about NIL deals. I think they're trying to get him.

They're trying to pay him to open up another bar downtown and just name it Pauly's. I said, shit, that's an NIL deal. They want to use your name, image, and likeness. License it. You don't have to do anything. It's unbelievable. The people are great. The food scene is great.

And when you go there, you don't generally go for a day. I mean, they know they're going there. And if you're Tennessee, if you're LSU, they buy tickets and go whether their team is there or not, hoping and thinking that they're going to be good enough to get there. It's always it's always a scene. And when you have SEC teams there, it's even better. And we've had we've had like 11 different winners the last 12 years. And the SEC has not had a repeat winner. The last six years, it's a different SEC team. It's a home run. I saw the commissioner this morning.

He was getting on a plane. It's a no-lose situation for Greg Sankey and the SEC. And it's only getting better and bigger. It's cool. You would like it. You guys would really like it. All right, we'll have to go. We won't do the show. We'll go experience it.

I'd rather not work. I'd rather go and live a little bit. I'd rather have a Morgan Wall and Peyton Manning than a Carl Ravage. No offense taken. You've got to work and be with it. I think we need to be boozed up out there.

It sounds like a blast. Sankey, he's never going to be in a losing situation ever. Greg Sankey, that guy. Weapon. You want to go back to COVID years. I mean, that's where we learned of Greg Sankey. And he said, that's cute, Big Ten, Pac-12. You guys aren't playing football, huh?

We are. We're going to fill up these stadiums. Well, you're not allowed to. Of course, they'll be six feet apart we were at the sec basketball tournament that was that was the morning of the end of the sec basketball tournament and we had a 20-minute interview with sankey about the decision to pull the plug they were already had played games the teams were on the court warming up and we interviewed him about the decision to shut it down and as you all know and everybody does no no one knew what this meant.

We're coming back tomorrow. What are we doing? But he was the first guy we talked to. March Madness was delayed. Remember, it was delayed. Yeah, yeah. It was only going to be a couple weeks. And then I think our first vivid sports memory, was it Utah?

Yeah. In OKC, yeah. Was it Utah in OKC? Because Utah was the interview. The MC. People are in there for the game. People are in there for the game. Yeah, yeah. Was it Utah in OKC? Because Utah was the interview. The MC. People are in there for the game. People are in there for the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We need everybody to exit the arena immediately. What? Please stay calm. Get the hell out of here ASAP. And you hear people yelling, and it's like, what are we witnessing here? And then March march madness is delayed and then all of a sudden all we had was uh yeah uh rudy no rudy gobert obviously had a different uh i assume he we were in a restaurant that night we watched the rudy book we watched rudy gobert

at his press conference and we knew he said we're we're in trouble and the next morning next morning we go there and they're warming up and all of a sudden the whole thing ends and calipari gets on a bus and he everybody just didn't know we know what to do but that was the morning we were about to set i think it was a noon tip off and this is probably 11 20 in the morning and they said we're we're done so i don't want to you know do this brainstorm right now but obviously covid terrible. We can't, we can't lost so many people and everything that's take place and ripple effects of what's taking place to people.

And how about the juniors and seniors in high school who they, you know, their actual life is the internet. Cause that was what their, they didn't have real life. They didn't have it. But I think people grew up like an appreciation for going to live events. Like, I think that's why our sports and our attendance for things is through, like, I think people are more likely to go live right now than ever before. So obviously you have to try to find a silver lining in everything. I think because we had the withoutness of sports and events for so long,

now it's made everything even bigger and better. Watch why we have Florida Panthers games being sold out in the way that they are, why Omaha is the way it is, why all ratings for sports and attendance and everything is through the roof. I think the world needed something that unified us and brought us together, and your voice does that a lot for us. So we appreciate the hell out of you for joining us, Carl,

and we hope you have a phenomenal rest of the baseball season. Who's going to win it? What do we need to pay attention to? Act like you're somebody who only watches when Paul Skeens throws. That would be me. What do I need to pay attention to? Are the Pirates actually going to maybe go here? I was going to lead

with not Paul Skeens' team yet. No, you don't need to. It's a Paul Skeens day. Watch him pitch. What you're going to need to watch out for are the Orioles and the Phillies and the Yankees and the Dodgers and maybe the Braves. Those are the five teams that would likely win. I'd take those five teams over the field. Okay. Well, we appreciate that.

I'm going to try to catch up. I'll talk baseball with you guys. The questions that we got were great. I'll talk baseball with you anytime you want. Carl, you've been with ESPN since 1993. We just assumed you hated us. Because everybody else that had that amount of time certainly has that under their belt.

We appreciate you so much for making time. Great call last night, ladies and gentlemen. Hey, how about old buddy, Dodgen Ketcher? What a move. I heard you guys talking about that. And you said, why the hell don't you run the guy over? He was a quarterback. And he learned how to avoid getting tackled as opposed to you know he's not the big quarterback he he needed to avoid it and utter angely made an unbelievable play to go on the

inside of that bag and it was his football skills that helped him that's one of the things we hear a lot about guys is these coaches tell you don't just play one sport, play a lot. And his football background is what helped him make that play right there. No, Carl, there's a bunch of these specialized camps that, yeah, they charge thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars and say you'll get a scholarship and also don't be a better athlete and play any other sport, Carl. Remember, that's happening right now. Oh, I know it's happening.

You should have heard. I was with Chris Burke, who, of course, played for the Astros, and he does the games with us in Omaha. He was so pissed off about his 8U team trying to play as many games they could in the summer when he's like, dude, take the summer off. Just play minimal games. Go back in the fall. Don't burn these kids out.

You talk to major leaguers. You talk to college coaches, major league coaches. They are so into the multi-sport athlete. Learn how to skate. Learn how to kick a soccer ball. Learn how to juggle. Punt to football. All of those things help you in baseball. All of them. Love all those

things. Punting? Yeah, punting. You've got to catch a snap. You've got to see the laces. Hit a golf ball. Go play pickleball okay watch knees though they're saying people are blowing their knees out ladies and gentlemen Legend Carl Ravish thank you buddy he's like voice of baseball yeah oh yeah I spent a lot of late nights on baseball tonight with Carl Ravis growing up oh wait he has one last thing Carl sorry I thought we were wasting your time. I know.

I just wanted to say I am sorry to hear about your father-in-law. I heard about that on the ride this afternoon, so sorry to hear about that. Hey, well, I appreciate you mentioning that, and obviously these types of things put life into perspective quickly, and I would like to let you know in return, we appreciate the hell out of everything you've done for baseball, sport, and for our program here today.

Carl, you're the man. Thanks. good to be with you guys thank you that is a wild thing uh whenever something like that takes place there's obviously a lot of chaos and devastation and uh like my wife is an absolute badass she had to make a lot of decisions yesterday quickly and the way she handled it all was i'm nothing short of proud and then her mom obviously so Sam's an only child so the family obviously just the three of them so there was a lot of things and Aunt Kathy was there it was uh it was a wild scene and uh obviously today this particular program has helped me out immensely I'm about to go head back to my wife there's a lot of decisions that have to be made now like as we're walking out there, it's like things that I've never even known have to

happen, have to take place. It's like, obviously that has to happen. This decision has to be made. You got to figure out whether you want to do this or this. And it's like, holy hell, a lot of things are coming here quickly. And my wife has kicked ass and, uh, let's remind, you know, ourselves through these types of situations to tell people you appreciate them. And you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. I think a lot of us kind of get into the mundane of the routine and just expect things to continue to go the way they are. I'll wake up tomorrow. I'll be able to do this.

Tonight, I'll do this. Then tomorrow, it'll be this. And then the next day, it'll be this and this, this, this, this, this, this, this. I'll catch up with this person at this time. Maybe next year I'll get back to this. You never know. You literally have no idea. On Friday, we thought my father-in-law was going to be discharged.

On Monday, we find out he's unresponsive out of nowhere. And it's just like that is a true reality adjustment about what is real and what is not. And in this world, it can all change immediately. So I appreciate the hell out of everybody that allows us to do this every day. I appreciate all you, obviously, for being able to work alongside of you. And yeah, we'll be back tomorrow with another

program, chit-chatting about what's going on in sport. Obviously, we're off next week celebrating the holiday, but you all are the greatest people on earth for allowing us to do this every day. I heard the Y Six had a box for me last night. They did. They did. Didn't look like a good box.

So that wasn't Foxy then that was doing that stuff on our show? Well, I don't know. Unless Foxy's part of it. Could be. Could be a little bit. Foxy might be on their side. I'm on your guys' side. You know that.

We'll see. He walked in this morning and his eyes were just like white. What else would he say? Yeah, I don't know what else. That's something that somebody that was a part of it would say. You were acting all weird last night, folks. What am I supposed to say then? I'm on your team.

You were wearing antlers last night. Why were you wearing antlers last night? Just be honest. Get a lie detector machine. He had to leave, actually, conveniently right before the Y86 came out. Yeah, because all the boys went to the show. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good show. Great show. It was a great show. Okay, sweet. I'll went to the show. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good show.

Great show. It was a great show. Okay, sweet. I'll catch it, yeah. I'm going to watch it all. I'm going to see where Foxy goes whenever. I told Colton not to open it. Yeah, don't even touch it.

We said there might be anthrax or something on it. Yeah, Toc's brain almost exploded. Toc was going through it back there. What? Is he okay? He's a special human. Yeah. I think that's his last,

might be his last WWE event. Whoa. What do you mean? It's not like maybe, maybe the one before that could have been his last one too. What? When I saw his name

on the list of people that were going, I was certainly surprised. Wow, all right, we got Taco on again. He had a WrestleMania experience where they were talking about somebody battling through cancer

and him and Mitt were in the back Oh no I was like boys read the room Just for one second I don't know how It's not a room We're in a stadium

Wrestlemania Wrestlemania baby Alright tell your people you love them Please do it honestly It is 100% worth it And if you have any grudges You might as well get rid of them Mania, baby. That's Mania, baby. All right. Tell your people you love them. Please do it. Honestly. It is 100% worth it. And if you have any grudges, you might as well get rid of them. Because in the end, are you going to hold on?

No. At some point, you're going to say, that was stupid. Let's move along. Make that point now. We appreciate you. Be a friend. Tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. We're back here tomorrow.

And I'm going to make sure I got clean cheeks through this whole process. You know what I mean? Absolutely. Available at Costco.com, I do believe. Some Costco's. Remember, they're in Alaska. Yeah, right. Select Costco's. They got an email like,

we've gotten into a couple Costco's. We're also at Costco.com. I'm like, sick. Which Costco's did you get into? I'll go buy one of these boxes. You know, support the's. We're also at Costco.com. I'm like sick. Which Costco's you get into? I'll go buy one of these boxes, you know, support the biz. We're in Alaska, Hawaii.

Shit. There's a far cost. North Dakota. Okay. You're in far. Shout out to dude wipes. They've been an incredible partner since they've joined us. Same with C geek.

Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. It might change their life. Legitimately. We're in this thing together. Team on me. Team on three. One,

two, three. Goodbye.