The Ryen Russillo Podcast - CFB Players vs. Media: Who’s Right?, NBA Ballot, Ohio State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Chris Holtmann on the (Hopefully) Upcoming Season

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on CFB media coverage and the new visitor rules for the NBA bubble in Orlando (1:15), before he is joined by Ohio State men’s basketball head coach Chris Holtmann to discuss whether the 2020 season will be canceled, Big Ten coaches’ plan for the 2021 season, recruiting at Ohio State, and more (18:14). Finally, Russillo shares his would-be NBA awards ballot, and brings back a rebranded segment, Stats to Impress Other People, before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (48:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossola podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to the state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected i have some unexpected stats for you coming up a little bit later on. It's going to blow your mind. Today's podcast, by the way, is going to be brought to you by kicking ass because no offense to people that are non-ass kickers, but today's podcast is going to be great. Early prediction. And it's not already taped where I'm doing this. I'm saying it now. I'm a minute in and that's how hot I feel right now. 33 seconds in. All right. So unpredictable

game. Maybe just the suns being undefeated. All right, let's keep it simple. Get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. And how about the good friends at Buffalo Wild Wings, Marty and Aaron with their New England franchises. Shout out to the 802. Sports are finally back.

And the only way to celebrate the return is with Buffalo Wild Wings, where the wings come in 24 sauces and seasonings. When you watch at home, make sure you watch with a wing bundle. Sports are back, and there's no better way to watch than Buffalo Wild Wings. The plan for today. A little bit of open, bunch of topics. Chris Holtman, the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team. We've spent a lot of time talking college football. Not sure that I've helped at all, but we have. Chris Holtman, the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team.

We spent a lot of time talking college football. Not sure that I've helped at all, but we have. And I thought, hey, you know what? Considering everything the Big Ten is going through, which I think right now is sort of being unfairly criticized, and we'll get to some of that maybe a little bit later, but let's get a basketball guy's perspective on it. So let's do that.

Holtman's been on the job a couple years. And then we have a new segment that's an old segment, but I'm bringing it back. We've talked to our branding people about titling. It used to be stats to impress the ladies. Now it's just going to be stats to impress other people. That's what we're going to do. Just everybody's involved. Very gender neutral on the whole stats thing. And then life advice at the very end, a little bit more rapid fire. But we start with, again, college football. I'll be brief because I think I've been, I don't know. It's not just repeating myself because some of the stuff isn't new, but concepts, theories, just the way I feel about certain things. So I don't want to keep going over and over and over it again. Anyway, as of now, I'll believe the SEC plays football when the ball is in the air on a Saturday night. So even though right now there's this angst of,

wait, the South is going to do it. And it's just kind of like we had said, you could tell geographically, depending on which news source you watch, or maybe you watch a lot of them, it's very predictable which states may have been more ready to go compared to other states, depending on how that state was executing its regulations throughout this entire pandemic. And so a part of the angst from the Midwest and certainly the Pac-12 has been, well, if the SEC and the ACC and Big 12 and the Texas Oklahoma's like, you know, those guys are just going to go ahead and kick the football off. That puts us at a massive disadvantage. I have seen people that I like and that I respect saying how far this will put other

teams, really other conferences behind those conferences in the South. Hold off. I saw somebody use the death penalty, someone I used to work with and I'm like, are you serious? You really think that's going to happen now to set this up further? Say the SEC, ACC, Big 12 actually do play some version of a fall college football season. And well, that means that one of those schools is going to win a title. Let's say the SEC just continues to win titles for the next five, three of the next five. That's not some ridiculous prediction. It's very well a reality without the pandemic. But say that happens,

then at least give Big Ten and Pac-12 fans an excuse to be like, well, the only reason they're winning is because they played during the pandemic and we didn't. All right. But what I do know is that I think in the moment, like a lot of this stuff,

it's a total, total overreaction. It is the Dallas Cowboys Stadium scoreboard reaction. What happens on third and 10? If the guy drops back and throws it to the scoreboard, it's a do over. It never happens. No one ever had to worry about it, but we had problems. And I bring that example up as one of the best examples of time spent wasted on something that you didn't have to be worried about yet. Could there be a slight recruiting bump from the schools in the South if they play this fall? Yes. But to think that all of a sudden, all the kids that grew up loving Michigan, loving Ohio State, Penn State, Wisconsin, all the great Big Ten schools and Nebraska,

who if they had gone back to the Big 12, we're like, dude, we can do seven and five here again. We're Nebraska. We could do that. And then all the West Coast kids who probably look at the South the way the South looks at the West Coast being like, you know what? I'm just not a good fit. I have a hard time believing that every single good recruit all over the country that originally wasn't thinking about schools in the South is going to leave. And there's going to be this mass exodus from these geographical areas for high school talent. So I just don't buy that. Another thing that's actually more frustrating for me, and I'm not on the side that should be frustrated, but I'm trying to think of what other industries that exist where the people that did it are told by the people that never did it that they're wrong.

Now, you're like, wait a minute. Didn't you not play any professional sports and that's literally your entire living? Yes, but you, me, most people we know can watch games and go, this guy's good, this guy's bad, this guy's bad. Almost like a movie. Do you like movies? Yeah. Do you like good ones? How do you know?

You're not an actor, you're not a director, but you know a good movie. But what's happened with guys that have played college football at a high level, and again, guys that I've worked with, some guys that I would actually consider friends, whether it's a Danny Connell, Matt Liner, Booger McFarlane, Bobby Carpenter, I don't know that well, but I know he's been kind of going off lately about Ohio State and all that. And there's so many more people that I could name that I've worked with that all look at the criticism of this process going, yeah, you know what? Can't they find a way to get these kids out there and play football? That's what I would want to do.

And we've touched on this early in the week. But that is met with a collective eye roll from so many college football media members that are like, eh, this guy. What do you mean this guy? This guy played. And I don't, trust me, I don't love the I played, you didn't attitude of so many analysts, especially newer analysts, because there's plenty of guys that played in the NBA. And I listened to their takes, be like, you're terrible at this. Like like how like what i'm talking about simply the person that decided at some point to sign a letter of intent show up scholarship go through the whole thing and go you know what this is actually a really good experience and i love it i would hate to have younger players be denied that experience we all seem to really like and

talking to different teams being like all of our guys want to play but yet there is this uh do you hear this matt liner cap actually thinks guys should want to play football this year in college? This fucking idiot. That's how it feels like. And I can't, I've been, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what other industries, like what if I did instead of life advice, parent advice with no kids every week, would you like that segment?

What if I walked up to you in the mall? All right. You're in the courtyard. You got three kids, boogers everywhere. One guy's got a diaper that you don't want to deal with. And it's just a shit show. And all they want is chicken fingers and the chicken. And then it's just a mess. Right. And the kids are out of control and you've had them all day. Right. Those are your really kids are like your own social media feed where somebody walks by you being like, why are you so upset? And you're like, cause I've been dealing with this all day,

asshole. All right. But the point is, what if I rolled up probably in a tank top hat on backwards, sorry, cow herd and said to you, as you were struggling with your three kids that are driving you crazy and said, you know, look, I don't have any kids, but have you thought about sort of a task reward system? Can you imagine if I said that to you? What if every week I look, I have some thoughts on parenting. I'm the oldest of five. I've been around kids. I really like kids, but I'm not going to tell you specifically that you're doing it wrong. I mean, there's extremes where I could say, yeah, that's probably not a great idea.

And I'm not even going to use any examples, but it's really interesting how so many college football players that are big names. We all know we watched them and now we've watched them on TV with opinions and the majority of their opinions are can more be done to try to save a season. And maybe the season can't even be saved. I'm conceding that I've conceded that the entire time, but that is where you get a lot of the ex players being like, are you guys serious? Why are you right? Why are you so convinced you're right?

I don't know what else I could think of. I was thinking of, you know, is there a cooking show where, yes, I know what a good meal is, but if I had never been a chef, and then I sat there and told the guy that his inspiration for the dish was wrong, like, how does that play? I mean, God, chef to chef, I don't think you can do that.

All right, chef analogy, not as good as the parent, Rosillo stopping by at the mall, task-reward analogy. But just something to think about as you see more and more of these guys fighting with each other. A little NBA here. I don't like the bubble invitation thing. Hey, non-family guy, transition right into that.

It scares me a little bit. This has gone so well for the nba and you know it's it's tough especially with these guys that have young kids and you just love being around the young guys and maybe even like some of your kids a little bit older than that young pre-attitude stage but it just scares me that it's all agreed to because i think the optics to say you can't have your family come visit or no one can watch you especially as we're getting closer to like naming an nba champion here and there's the nba finals and it's playing out and no one from your family can be in the stands and watching it stuff when media members can that doesn't seem fair but there's some real maybe they they pull it off, but I don't know why you'd invite in something that could derail this whole deal other than the league can't.

Adam Silver is not the type of commissioner that would say, I'm against you guys having family members. And some players I'm sure are like, look, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be away from my family for three months. I'm sure some guys are like, I'm good with it. Imagine the guy that has a serious girlfriend that he can't stand and want to break up with before the bubble. And now she's like, all right, well, I guess I'll see you at the end of August. I was like, uh. And then she's calling him.

She's like, didn't you get eliminated? Be like, no, that's series A. Like series A? What the fuck, man? You're in the East. No, no, they changed it. Soccer stuff. What?

Oh, yeah, yeah. We're in group east no no they changed it soccer stuff what oh yeah yeah we're in group j now what yeah yeah no no it's i'll send you a link later so i'm not coming to the bubble nah and then you realize like oh you got eliminated he's in he's in greece without you uh that's that's gonna be a tough one wanting to break up not being able to break up because of the pandemic and then you figure whatever i'll be in the bubble i'll get away from her and then now she's packing up all the accessories and you now like that's the kind of stuff where that alone is more of a hassle and if i were a coach i'd be like how many of our guys have been really stress-free through this whole

thing, the isolation? I got to understand, look, I'm not trying to be a complete jerk about this, but I can understand the guys that miss their significant others and want their family around. But I'm just being real with you here that there's a whole crew of dudes that are like this hassle. How about the guys got like three girlfriends that all think they're coming to the bubble? And before you say, well, that that's not that true i can't believe some of the nba stories i hear about dudes i'm talking hey i need tickets for my wife and my mistress but just make sure they're not in the same section and it's cool like whenever i hear that i've heard it all the time with different i heard it about a coach once i'm like why would you even want to invite that

hassle in unless everybody just sort of i don't know where people meet people where it's just like, yeah, you know, I just, he's got his mistress, but you know, as long as, as long as someone takes care of the lawn. Um, but yeah, that, that stuff happens all the time. I heard about one player one time who had wife, mistress, and then like a new girl he had just met. And it was like, just make sure they're all set up differently and i was like my god that's that's a high risk individual that's the jason bourne nba rosters like he doesn't care i don't even like getting tagged and stuff when i'm not doing anything wrong you know so i i can't i can't fathom what's going to happen here in the bubble and how tough those conversations are going to be.

And some of the people, the number of people that think they're getting invited to the bubble versus the number that's not. And then on the final thing, where basically the NBA is like, no DM IG models. You have to know.

Who's proving the two people knew each other? That's going to be one of the easiest lies to ever make. No, no. Florida. Niagara Falls. Nah. Like, what are you going to be one of the easiest lies to ever make no no florida niagara falls nah like what are you going to do ferris bueller roll her old bones down here that you can't do you have to i don't know i don't know how you're going to sit there and and deem like do you really want to tell an nba player yeah you know what you two guys haven't known each other

long enough you haven't proved enough like i need more evidence do we have any time stamped can we do any carbon dating on some pictures here i don't i guess there's gonna be somebody from the nba office that scrolls through feeds like we don't see anything here prior to august 1st she's out so there you go please subscribe rate and review ryan russell the podcast don't worry. It's not over now. We're going to do more than 14 minutes. I promise. But before we do that, who's getting a workout in today?

I did 100 squats yesterday, Kyle. 10. Very lightweight. Lightweight. Lightweight. One minute off in between. 10. One minute off in between.

Try to get it done in 20 minutes. It doesn't always work out that way. It should go quicker than that with one minute off between try to get it done in 20 minutes it doesn't always work out that way it should go quicker than that with one minute off but sometimes sometimes this old this old warrior's knees get a little creaky leg day is the worst day man oh it's the best day actually no no no that's what you guys have to tell yourselves to get it through it but it's the worst day man i love it it sucks david pollock said to me in the weight room once he was like what are you doing today chest or something

i was like yeah and he goes i was like what are you doing like legs cool guys that i'm actually kind of making fun of myself because i'm you know the injury things it just they don't apparently they're just not going to go away like if i pull my right arm back behind my head like a tricep stretch and i do it on the right side there's just this thing that goes down my shoulder and through my tricep that's toast it's been like that since super bowl week yeah so i'm actually saying this christ when it happened i was like oh that sucks so like the last two significant ones like i just like oh this is fine so now i'm doing this stupid peck band thing are we still taping right now yeah we're doing anyway no no so the point i was going to make about legs and then we're going to quickly move on is this is sort of a whoop read

um pollock after he made fun of me and it's still david pollock who's i think i've shared this with you before such a psychopath about his fitness that when somebody brought cupcakes by the studio, he would lick them so that he wouldn't eat them. You're like, okay, but you could have just not eaten them also and had other people eat the non-licked ones. Had you thought of that? It's like when Cowherd used to,

he would finger rip off pieces of donuts and leave the rest of it there and you would be like did somebody take a bite out of that cowherd cowherd just ruins the donuts by touching them all you know like he'll take like four bites from different donuts and it looks like but he did it with his hands i'm like yeah that's probably not as bad as just taking bites out of them but you know people have different eating styles that's something crazy about learning about different people as you get older you go out to eat with them and like we had a dude who licked his plate licked his plate out damn yeah like what the hell is that oliver you know when he

goes up for a little bit more porridge yes that's oliver right over twist yeah yes yeah twist i've seen that movie it was a long time ago it's very dusty I don't know how it would hold up in HD but he licked his plate and I remember Cannell and I being like what the we're out to dinner and we're like hungry dude so anyway people eat differently and that's what Pollock does so back to leg day I promise the story's over. He said, well, you know, he goes leg day. He goes, can't be a legendary day without leg day. I went, wow. Put it on a hoodie.

Boom. Let's talk about fitness. Whoop is a fitness wearable that I've been using for the last few months to track my training, sleep, and recovery. It's been awesome. By the way, the workouts have just been better. Best stretch I've had despite the injuries. Best stretch I've probably had in a long time because I've made myself go faster in between every set. So if you guys want a little pick-me-up, just keep track of it. Put the phone down. Stop looking at her. The key to whoop is that you wear it all day long and never miss a beat. They have a really smart charging system where their battery pack slides right on top of the strap,

so you never have to take it off to charge. You won't ever have to worry about losing a night of sleep or missing a workout. Whoop has been all over the news lately after the PGA Tour procured 1,000 straps for its golfers, caddies, and staff to help everyone at tournament stay safe throughout the pandemic. WHOOP has been using respiratory rate to help members detect potential signs of illness before other symptoms develop. With WHOOP, you receive workout goals from its strain coach that pairs your recovery to a certain strain level.

If your body is recovering, you're going to want to take a rest day. If you're ready to go, it's going to recommend you push it. Stop overtraining and start catering your workouts to your body's recovery. You can track your stages of sleep down to the minute. The sleep thing is incredible. I'm telling you guys, each morning, check out how much REM or deep sleep you got from the previous night and actually understand how well you're sleeping, not just how many hours you were in bed for. Whoop custom tailors its sleep recommendations to each member based on their baselines, and how active they were during the day. With Whoop, you're really getting a personal trainer on your wrist

that helps you learn your body and make smarter lifestyle choices. For my listeners, Whoop is offering 15% off with the code RASILLO, R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O, at checkout. Go to Whoop, that's W-H-O-O-P.com, and enter RASILLO, that's R-U-S-S-I-L-L-O at checkout to save 50%. Sleep better, recover faster, train smarter, optimize your performance with

Whoop. Three years with the Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball team. Also at Butler. He's an All-American for those that remember his run at Taylor back in college. Chris Holtman joins us now on the podcast. Thanks a lot for doing this.

I really appreciate it. How are you? Yeah, great being with you, Ryan. I'm looking forward to it, man. So what are your days like now? I'd say it's hadn't been strange for all of us. I think the I told somebody yesterday, I think our guys, the happiest our guys, our players have been is the seven weeks they were with us in the summer because they had some level of routine to their days.

So honestly, right now, I'm actually away for a few days at the beach seeing my brother and his family. But, you know, real simple. I get up every day now. I get up and try to do some type of workout. It probably doesn't look quite like yours, Ryan, but I do try to do some type of workout and get my body moving. It's usually about 30 to 45 minutes.

And, you know, I'm a big podcast guy. So I'll listen to entertaining podcasts, but I'll also listen to some really Angela Duckworth, whatever she puts out, I follow and listen to. But yeah, some type of personal growth deal. I'll get my day started with those two things. Okay. I like that. The physical and the mental got it covered early on. Your team, I would say your team had an up and down kind of weird year, but yet that was everybody that was ranked.

I mean, the number of teams that were losing to unranked teams, it was basically like, let's just cycle them all out. So you could have expectations, and certainly we know how rabid that fan base is. But what was it like when you had to tell the guys, because you probably didn't know that much either, where it comes from the top down. Hey, the season's over. The NCAA is doing this. No tournaments, no NCAA tournament, and now it's over. What was that like?

Well, listen, I remember driving to the Big Ten. We took the bus from Columbus to Indianapolis for the Big Ten tournament. I called my athletic director, Gene Smith, and I said, hey, I'm hearing that there could be some cancellation. Because, right, there were games while we were traveling. There were games going on that night, some of the earlier games. And so I kept hearing that, hey, this could happen. At that time, I think we were both convinced it wasn't going to happen. We go through that evening, and there's still some uncertainty. It was the night that Rudy Gobert, that happened. So you started to hear a trickle down from the NBA. got up early that morning and watched film um we were playing purdue so i watched film um and i got

a pretty early text message from urban meyer that came in and you know he's pretty tied into our season and he said you know really all he said was a lot going on right now focus and you know like in caps you know typical urban like hey listen like you know like focus on, you know, typical urban, like, Hey, listen, like, you know, like focus on what you're doing. Don't worry about what's going, what's going on other places. And that kind of snapped me to it right there. I said, all right, coach, and watch a little more film. We went through a walkthrough. You're right. Our season, we had a really good year, but we had some, we had a really tough January. We had a great non-conference, tough January.

And then we were playing terrific, right? And our numbers, all of the metrics really put us as we were eighth in Ken Palm. So it was hard telling a group that was playing so well down the stretch that it was over. But, you know, that's what we all had to do. And they had to think kind think big picture at that point. There are so many different arguments going on at the same time right now, it's hard to keep track of them. One thing that I mentioned at the top,

and I've mentioned it times before, is that I never was good enough to play anywhere, but I can't imagine people that have never played telling me I shouldn't play. I can understand the safety part of this, but I also look at my friends that have played at big, say, college football programs that have said this is this great experience. And yet the people that never did it are saying, you know what, it's wrong. The kids are used. How do you feel?

Because sometimes I'll struggle with, does the media member actually do a better job of keeping people in check? Or are they absolutely clueless about what the process is like and what the players actually want to do? absolutely clueless about what the process is like and what the players actually want to do. You know, I think we had a great example of our players, our football players, and some of our other fall athletes, Ryan, as you know, probably a week ago, became really outspoken about their viewpoint. And in a day and age where we're all trying to empower players and we're encouraging their voices to be heard, whether it's along the lines of social justice or just in this case where they're saying, hey, listen, we feel our safest in this moment between the regular testing. We get tested as a program every Monday and Thursday morning at 7 a.m. That was for basketball guys that were just here. You

can imagine that obviously football, it was that, at least that. I know it was twice a week. So I think all the protocols that were in place gave our players, our football players, and I give them a ton of credit because it was some of the most prominent players on the team were really outspoken. I think it was pretty organic. I think they just said, hey, listen, they might have sensed the winds where this thing was headed with potentially a delay or an end to their season.

And they said, let our voices be heard. You know, whether or not they were fully heard or not, I know they were by our athletic department. But beyond that, it's a tough question. Is there a disconnect then between the coaches, athletic department, and the school administrators? No, I think our school was in alignment. And I don't want to speak for Ryan and the football staff there.

Ryan based on an outstanding job. And I don't want to speak for Ryan and the football staff there. Ryan based on an outstanding job. And I don't want to speak for him. But I do think that the communication between Gene Smith and us throughout these last few weeks has been really throughout the pandemic has been phenomenal. Like we know exactly where we're where we're at. I just think. Because of and you mentioned it, probably because of media, in particular social media, right? This is the first time, you know, we've went through a pandemic in an age of social media and 24-hour news cycles. So every argument gets exponentially greater because of the element of social media.

of the element of social media. But I think that our school was in alignment on wanting a delay for fall sports. Unfortunately, that's not the direction it went. What are you being told as far as basketball then for a Big Ten program? It's interesting. I got a call with Gene this afternoon. It's the first time we're going to touch base. we meet every Thursday as Big Ten coaches in the morning to talk through this cycle of okay what's next we compare testing at all of the schools all of the protocols are in

place we're really you know I think coaches we're all pretty territorial you know that We're really, you know, I think coaches, we're all pretty territorial. You know that we're really like, what's this guy doing? And I don't want to say too much. And that all ends with something as serious as this, you know, we think we're giving away state secrets, you know, by talking about, you know, how we defend a ball screen in a clinic. In reality, we're not, um, we take ourselves too seriously. But we've been really transparent. Izzo and Painter and those guys have kind of led the way about being an open book because it's the safety of our players. So I don't know. What I do know is this. You know as well as I do the amount of money at stake. And that's just the reality with an NCAA tournament.

For all of the schools involved much less the NCAA tournament I mean you're talking what over 800 million um so the reality is we'll have a tournament I really believe that I think we'll have a season but I think it's going to look completely different how that's a great point though like on the beginning you almost start from a position on a conference call with all these other guys you're competing against other games recruiting bases all these different things you start from this complete position of apprehension to then kind of coming to a common ground but we've even seen it on the football side how how divided the schools can be and that's i sort of love that about conferences, that conferences kind of have this

identity in comparison to other conferences. But then when you go inside the conference, it's okay. Are we, are we in the same direction for the conference or are you thinking specifically about your chances as a football team, your chances as a basketball team? I'm just curious how not divisive it is, but have there been moments where it feels like we may be in a conference, but we're on different pages? Absolutely. And I think that's been clear here of late, really, when you watch kind of how the football thing has moved, Ryan. Because now it seems there's so many differing opinions. There's not really a voice. Now, the difference for college basketball, as you well know,

is that the NCAA controls the NCAA tournament and much of college basketball. And Dan Gavitt does an unbelievable job. So while we may not have, quote unquote, a commissioner of college basketball, we do have kind of a centralized voice that will be making some decisions because they control the tournament. So, you know, while we can talk about a league in the Pac-12, obviously, eliminated non-conference college basketball games until January 1, I think the NCAA will have a major voice in what this looks like. And that's so different than football because you do see in football, you know, leagues kind of operating on their own.

Cause there's not a centralized force. Can a basketball guy talk to a football guy, especially at Ohio state, or do you have to let Ryan day be the alpha in the conversation? especially at Ohio State, or do you have to let Ryan Day be the alpha in the conversation? I know where I'm at. That's what a perfect, what a perfectly concise answer. That was great. I know where I'm at. I know, uh, I know where I'm at and I know what really, really, really matters here. It's not to say that basketball doesn't.

It's certainly important to our fan base. But listen, I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. I grew up in blue blood college basketball country. Like that's a part of me. I've coached in North Carolina. I've coached in Indiana. So I've been in these basketball centric States, but listen, there's nothing like, the only thing comparable to Columbus is Lexington, Kentucky, when it comes to college basketball there, I've not seen anything like the fervor of Columbus in this state for football. So the short answer would be, yeah,

he, I let him control a lot of the conversation, but, but he's a great guy. We've, our families have gotten to know each other. He came in in a unique time following Urban. We both have kind of followed really legendary guys in our sports. Yeah. I'm so impressed with Ryan. I mean, blown away and I'd heard good things. I knew some of the people that he worked for, but to then go ahead and do it following Urban, like we'll see. And they haven't missed a beat really. And it's not a matter of if it'll just be when they win a title. Let's go back to your background there a little bit, because you ended up in an NAI school, but you're an all-American. You're a terrific player at that level.

Did you have to have a D1 wake-up where you go, hey, Chris, this isn't happening? Or could you have maybe done that and just never played? Oh, I could have walked on. I could have sat the bench. I didn't want to do that. And I think the reality is I wasn't near good enough to ever play at the Division I.

There was a jump, as you know, between, between what that, at that time, NAIA basketball and, and, and division one. I never had that dream. Honestly, my, my dream was I fell in love with playing at a small college, loved it, loved the experience, um, and, and wouldn't trade it. Um, my coaching path has taken me kind of in a different place than I even thought it would initially. And I'm grateful for that, but it's certainly been different than I initially thought. How different is recruiting to a place like Ohio State versus a place like Butler? You know, I had great appreciation for, and obviously Brad Stevens and I are close friends so seeing him operate um at such a high level for a number of years there and he would be the first to admit that they were

good before he got there but he obviously took him to a ridiculous level um it helps right when you when you can recruit Gordon Hayward and Shelvin Mack and have the best player probably to ever play in Matt Howard and they they had an unbelievable run. I think their second year was one of the most incredible runs because their team wasn't as good. But the move to the Big East has – the difference in recruiting is the name and the branding at Ohio State is – it's more significant. So your reach potentially can go further places. The reality is, is now the level of play between, between the big East and big 10 is very comparable. Obviously it wasn't the case

when they were playing in the horizon league, but now those are two of the best leagues in the country. I was fortunate enough to coach against the Jay Wrights and Chris Mack and Ed Cooley, and it's a phenomenal league. So you're really looking for players that are of similar caliber. It's just your reach sometimes at Ohio State can be more significant. When Ohio State has been elite, our state has usually been really deep and good with players. Yeah, the geographic part of it, I can't ever, well, I try to explain to some people,

again, it's not like I'm living in this world like you are day to day, but when I go to Texas for a football game and I look at the 2D and I look at the roster and you go, they don't even have to go outside the state, specifically Louisiana that doesn't have the recruiting base in football like Georgia, Florida, Texas, or California, but then I'll look through and there may be like one kid from Alabama and

like another kid from Ohio and then it's all Louisiana well basketball it's a little different because it's more of the circuits but there'll be different programs I'll talk to be like hey were you in on this kid they just go we don't even bother we don't even bother like look where he's from look at the high school his tie into this and all these different. So will you and the staff like, yeah, let's go get every five star, but will you also kind of have this, do you have to be realistic that you're not wasting time going after every big name, knowing that some of these kids are in absolute reach, even though you're this great program? Yeah, it's a great question. It's a great question because that's finding that, um, finding that, that lane is really, really important to sustaining success.

You know, what is the type of kid you want to coach? And what is the type of kid that would be great in your system? And then not wasting your time on guys that might be outside your reach. And yet also, you know, not, you can always get take low hanging fruit. The reality is, is we're all trying to recruit a certain level of, of talent and character. But I think at a place like Ohio, I've always said, Hey, listen, at the, at the end of the day, we're not going to get every great player in our region, but the ones that we really determine, hey, this is a really good fit

and he's an elite player, you know, we've certainly got to get our share of them. And I think what we've tried to do is really recruit regionally. It's again why, you know, when Thad, when his years were, he had a phenomenal run of years, it was so much of it was really Ohio, some Indiana, Illinois. Evan Turner was from Illinois, as you know. It was that region. So we've really tried to focus on that

and be committed to it. And yet at the same time, I also realized that this may not be the place for everybody. We're going to do things a certain way and we have to be committed to, to, to the kind of, of athlete and person we want to take and not deviate from that. But it really, I think when you're at a place like, if you're at a, if you're at a true blue blood, obviously our football program is a legitimate blue blood. Well, then your national scope in recruiting is different. For us, it's still going to be relatively regionalized for the most part.

I've noticed this with younger players. Back when people were still playing outside all the time, you would notice shot selection. Even when I was doing my draft stuff for this year's class, the top guys, shot selection. Even when I was doing my draft stuff for this year's class, the top guys shot selection. I am convinced this isn't even a theory anymore, but because of what Steph Harden Lillard have done and Trey Young a little bit to extending out the acceptable shot that every kid now they don't even care if they go in, they just want to show you they're going to pull up from 30. How quick do you have to get that out of some of the kids when they show up? I'm not saying it's everyone, but it feels like a basketball phenomenon now where it's, I just need to show you I'm

pulling up from 30 to show you my game. And you're like, does it matter if it goes in or not? Because this year's class, there's a bunch of guys that it doesn't go in enough to actually take those shots. Yeah. It's unbelievable. And I mean, you watch some of these bubble games right now. I texted Brad after they played Portland a little while and and Dame was unstoppable. They I think they tried to defend them about five different ways in the fourth quarter. ever pretend to know it as well as you guys do but i could kind of see what brad's doing where he's like hell let's just pick up the screen let's make him set the screen way out like let's extend it let's extend it and then once dame gets one dribble in his step it doesn't even matter so what do you do in those moments because i think us from the outside we think there's all these solutions it's just that you haven't figured out what the solution is and i'll argue well sometimes there is no solution so what do you, like if you were with Brad, what the hell would you guys be doing trying to figure that out?

There's not. In the way the NBA is structured right now, there is no answer. The answer is try to put guys at the four and the five or however they call them that are your best pick and roll defenders and then hope that they don't hurt you defensively. And I think he feels really good about his pick and roll defenders and then hope that they don't hurt you defensively and i think he feels really good about his pick and roll defense at those times yeah yeah it's nice yeah but if you have a slow-footed big i watched him you know like porzingis he's an unbelievable

player but man did they get killed the other day yeah i killed he got killed and i you know i just i texted him and he was, you know, like typical Brad is like, he's, he's unbelievable. He's ridiculous. It's just, I don't know that there are real simple answers. Um, I do think occasionally you can give them a different look. I know some people have, you know, the, the idea of trapping hard and right now, And I think that's an interesting part of it. You're basically saying, hey, we're going to allow you to play four on three. We're just going to allow you to play four on three. We're going to trap you at half court. It's gutsy, but I think there is some of that. That's what we would do in college. I think that can translate a little bit. As you know,

the spacing is so different in the NBA. But back to your shot selection, what we try to do with guys, because it's true, they see it, is we try to hammer efficiency because efficiency matters. It matters in college. It matters to NBA scouts. It matters to NBA coaches and general managers. How efficient are you as a player? It matters to NBA coaches and general managers. How efficient are you as a player?

So you can watch what Dame and Steph and those guys are doing, but let's not forget they make more than they miss in most cases, or at least close to. And if you can't execute that, then it's really making you look like a worse player than what you are. So the idea of we hammer efficiency numbers. We just have one of our guards who said his goal was 50-40-90, which is kind of a standard efficiency rating in college. It's hard to get that, but it's good thinking along those lines.

Yeah, I love when you were talking trap because I think that's another thing we'll make mistakes about. We'll be like, you're just going to trap it. You're just going to trap it. But Harden's vision and his size, I mean, that's what thing we'll make mistakes about we'll be like you just get a trap you just gonna trap it but like harden's vision and his size i mean that's what makes lucas so good against some of these traps because he's that big and can pass over this stuff but i remember that first warriors calves finals when all the calves guys wouldn't love and kairi were hurt but they were trying to trap steph as soon as he came across and it screwed him up for

a little bit and then steph realized wait the quicker I get rid of the ball now I can just run past this trap and now they're scrambling because somebody's off and then I can come back to the ball so I love the trap thing but in a playoff series sometimes I go especially somebody like hard like you could trap hard and all you want but if you just keep sending him doubles every time on the catch he's going to end up burning you because he burns you now but uh I love that stuff because we, we, we're always convinced, you know, it's the same as that Monday morning quarterback thing where it's like, Oh, I hate play calling. And I'm always been kind of like,

well, you don't know, you don't, you don't know what they call all the stuff they may have called worked out. No, I wouldn't want to, yeah. From a, an outsider's perspective, obviously, you know, ball, but from, you know, I, I remember this, you I remember this year, for example, we had a game we lost in the last minute. It was during our tough stretch in January. And I don't get on social media, but a couple of days I did afterwards. And there was this big conversation about, they said, I can't even believe he didn't have a play for the last four seconds. It was basically a full court play. They didn't have a play for the last four seconds.

And, you know, we did. We actually ran it. Apparently, we didn't execute it very well or it didn't look very organized. But that was our play. So, you know, to that fan out there, we actually had one. We called it. We just didn't execute it. Did you want to respond when you saw it oh yeah oh i all the time all the time have you ever i don't know that i've no but but the number of times where i've said i'm gonna respond to this

dude uh and shown it to my wife or staff and then been like, no, no, no, not a good idea. Just pump the brakes, go for a walk. Um, it's been a lot. Yeah. And you only get it every single day of your life. Um, and yet the one time you do the one that makes you even matters with somebody be like, get mad much. You're like, I've deleted three. I've deleted three years of these and never sent one, but I'll tell you, you just never want to, you just won't. And if you type it out and then you erase it, you just feel that much better. Cause you're like, all right, it's a little exercise. Uh, has Brad at Steven's ever been mad? Like really not mad against a call, but like crazy. Cause he's so down the middle so many times i've been able to meet him a few times

he's been nice enough to come on the show over the years but have you ever seen him like actually really unhinged like a different version of brad does does one exist oh man it's um yeah i have um but it's been it's been few and far between his ability, his emotional control. We, we were at the, probably the maddest I've seen him is we, we, we came up and played them in a by game when I was coaching at Gardner web. And it was the year after their second final four, I believe. So, so they were in a little bit of a down year, you know, by his standards, but we had them, we had them down 20 at of a down year, you know, by his standards. But we had him down 20 at half.

It was, you know, we were guarding the web and they weren't expecting. They paid a lot of money. And he was so hot at the officials the first, you know, two or three moments of the second half in the first, like he was on them. So that's probably the angriest i've seen him but um he gets angrier and he's more fiery than i think uh people people realize you wouldn't have been as successful as as uh without having a real edge to how he coaches he very much does but he just has a great way of kind of hiding it. Yeah, whenever he does the interviews,

you would think he's the most boring person ever, but I agree that on the sidelines, when he's upset, he gets upset and he has a fierceness to him, but it's not like, he doesn't have the body language or the histrionics.

You can see it in his face that he's upset and he'll let somebody have it, but then when he does the interviews, he owns everything um sometimes to a point where i go and that's what i kind of wonder do you guys feel now as head coaches and this is true i think for college or pro maybe even more so in college that with the access to negativity that so many kids have and i don't want to call people i would i don't know if people are more sensitive now. Older people are always going to call people younger sensitive, but do you feel like you have to shield them

and take ownership of some failures that really probably aren't on you to always make it sure you're looking out for the kid where previous generations would probably dump on their players more? Yeah, I think to a degree, Ryan. I do think to a degree, but I think more than anything,

your players need to see you take criticism and ownership of your own failures in you didn't prepare them as well as you needed to. Because I think if they see you immune to all that, you're going to lose your locker room pretty quickly. Okay, last one. I feel like I'm right about this, but people always resist it. I think college basketball coaches are actually crazier than college football coaches. And maybe that's just because I've seen Mick Cronin and Jamie Dixon in person. But where would you agree with me on that one? Because many people have pushed back on this.

I think your industry gets more worked up and insane about stuff than even college football coaches do. You know what? even college football coaches do you know what it's it's it's a tough argument because being in uh being in this with with colleagues that i know um and and having the the good fortune of coaching against a guy like mick he's terrific terrific coach but i might side with you on this we're crazy lot that is for sure and uh i think you have to be to kind of do what we do i didn't even bring up creen my buddy tom i didn't even bring up Kareem, my buddy Tom. I didn't even bring up Tom yet. So he doesn't want to feel left out here.

Yeah. I will tell you, studies will show you, we get crazier in February and March. And you go back, you look at the number of technicals, they all increase in February and March. So you catch us on a bad day in February. Yeah. You, I, I would, it's, I think the argument might stand that we're a little crazier than football coaches. It makes sense. Cause you start the season in Maui and the Bahamas and everybody's relaxed. It's not cold yet. And then you come back. Oh,

this was awesome. And I, I can't thank you enough coach. And I look forward to, uh, watching you guys play hoops again. We don't know when that is, is but uh ohio state has a good one so thanks i think it'll happen uh for sure thanks a lot ryan enjoy your show and uh great being with you man sports are finally back and the only way to celebrate the return is with buffalo wild wings there's no fans in the crowd but that doesn't mean the real fans aren't at home cheering louder than ever from the edge of their seat, and they can still get that sports bar feeling with wings from B-dubs. The only thing as exciting as sports being back is crushing boneless or traditional wings at home. And any of our 24 sauces and seasonings,

like original Buffalo, wild, or Kyle? Asian zing, baby. That's right. So order a wing bundle and get a traditional wings plus boneless wings and fries for the house because sports are back and there's no better way to watch than with Buffalo Wild Wings. So order at buffalowildwings.com or through the Buffalo Wild Wings app because now more than ever we need sports and sports need us.

I just want to remind you, yes, I have two friends that have a bunch of franchises. The amount of time they put into updating the menu and stuff over the last few years, I just, I'm fascinated by it. And it's really, it's really something.

You know, the way they would kind of like actively go and, hey, can we try this? Can we try some of these different things? And these guys are like big time food background guys. So it's, if you haven't been in a while,

go check it out anyway or do the big bundle and bring it all home. So this is all at participating locations for limited time bundles only for takeout or delivery through Buffalo Wild Wings app or website and not valid with any other offer.

I want to do my ballot. I don't have one, but I'm just going to throw it out there. Giannis is your MVP. LeBron should be everybody's number two, but I just don't understand the LeBron over Giannis vote. And whether you want to get into all the normal stats or the fact that Giannis makes this thing go,

I just, the LeBron thing is weird in that it's, and he's been awesome this year. He's been awesome again. But it's almost like Anthony Davis doesn't count. And I have Anthony Davis third in my MVP voting. So I have Giannis LeBron, AD, Harden, and Kawhi. I went with Harden over Kawhi because of the games that he played.

Harden, AD, I could switch either of those. And I wouldn't argue about it. I think I've gone back and forth on it. But I think Anthony Davis' defense is so insane this year and the different things that he's done. And remember, the bubble, the seeding games never counted. So Bill on Sunday night's pod said, I just wish the NBA had given us more time because I would have changed out Ben Simmons. And it was a really good point by Bill. And it's one of those great examples where when somebody tells you kind of the one side that they understand, you immediately agree with them. And then I was looking at different things. I was like, that's right. They wanted the ballots in because they wanted this to be fair and not hold anyone else in a position of just everything has been fairness. Okay. If there's one thing about this fairness, fairness, fairness in the league, didn't want to be unfair, whether it was the seating games and the play in game with the less games or leaving a Wizards out, but they didn't want

players to have an advantage that were playing extra games. So they wanted basically all the games to count up to when they stopped playing in the beginning of March. So that actually made a little bit more sense. So I have Giannis LeBron again, AD, Harden, Kawhi. When it comes down to Giannis LeBron, Giannis, defense defense and the overall stats are there. There's some efficiency stuff that actually does favor LeBron a little bit. And I can never tell, like, do you give Giannis credit because of what his per 36 and per 40 would be considering he plays 30 minutes a night? Or do you give LeBron more credit than a 35? He's the guy that has to be out there because when he comes off the fourth of the Lakers, it hasn't been pretty. But when you look at overall

plus net rating, I'm not talking plus minus, but just straight up net rating, Giannis is number one in the league at like 12. LeBron's right there with him at 11. And then number three is Harden. So that's why I think it should be Giannis and LeBron and number three go ahead. But I don't think there should ever be anybody in those top two. The defensive part of this, I think, is eye test versus stats. Because if you look at some of the defensive plus minus stuff, LeBron's third overall in the league. And usually I feel like defensive stats tell us accurate stories at the extremes, meaning if you're at the top, that's usually a pretty good indicator. Chris Paul for years was off the charts for point guards and some of these defensive metrics. And then if you're at the bottom, and you can get dragged down by your teammates if your overall

team just sucks on defense, but some guys are just terrible at it and it proves this out. LeBron has not been as good as Giannis on defense this year. And the major argument I would make is that his assignments, which I've pointed out throughout the year, he's always guarded really the least dangerous offensive player. I mean, other than a completely ridiculous positional size matchup that doesn't make a ton of sense, but he'll guard the worst wing, even though, and I know some of you are going to say, well, whatever, what about Kawhi and Paul George?

Yeah, that was an awesome closeout at the end, and he was actually assigned to Kawhi a lot more on that one. I feel like Giannis has had to take more of a defensive burden on than LeBron but as Bill and I pointed out after the Lakers beat Milwaukee before the season shut down we're like beware of the narrative voter beware of the storyteller writers are storytellers they like stories and you're starting to hear that more and more I mean cowherd again second reference of my boy but he was making his lebron argument and i was like okay new teammate anthony davis that's actually kind of a good thing not a hard thing new coach frank vogel okay fine team hadn't made the playoffs in a bunch of years okay

fine they're probably going to make it last year lebron ends up not getting hurt um but then when he went to like reason number six new assistant coach i was like all right i'm out i'm out like you you should have stopped at four six six was a little shaky uh so even though yannis is behind some of the defensive metrics uh no there's not one person that can tell me lebron has actually been the better defensive player of those two guys rookie of the year it's jaw he played more games congrats to zion but whatever. Coach of the year, it's Nick Nurse. I wish any of you, I get it if it's somebody on who's just willing to talk about Nick Nurse and the glowing fashions people do off the record because no one's really let me say, it's almost like some other teams, I don't want him to know how much we think he's awesome, but people think he's awesome,

and Nick Nurse would be my coach of the year, even though there's a lot of great candidates, but post-Kawaii to have this team playing the way it be my coach of the year, even though there's a lot of great candidates. But post-Kawaii, to have this team playing the way it is, to have the depth, to all these interchangeable parts where you look at some teams and go, who are they? And it can be a negative. Toronto, whenever I say, who are they? It's a positive because of all these different things that they can throw at you,

and I think that's what we're going to see a lot of in the playoffs. And defensively, they're just different. They're different. Rookie of the year. Yep, I said Ja, more games than Zion. Sixth man. I'm going to quote Jay Cutler here. Don't care.

I just don't. I don't care about it this year, even though it could be Lou Williams or his teammate Montrez, who I think I would probably vote for, over Schroeder, who I've been really impressed with, as he's kind of accepted who he is, at least in this Oklahoma City lineup. And by the way, Thunder Rockets first round, can't wait. But this quad issue with Westbrook is definitely alarming. He's played only one game since August

4th. And we're going to share that with you in some of the stats stuff a little bit later. But the emotions in that first round, that might be my favorite potential playoff series of any of them, other than what's at stake for the finals but i just don't really care about six man this year because even though lou puts up big numbers and he's so important to that second unit scoring i just feel like he's so indifferent to defense at times that it's actually not always great when he's out there gunning and he's making all these buckets and you know is not, again, the seating does not count here. So this is not a Magic City. This isn't an anti-Lew vote because of Magic City because

Magic City doesn't even count. Those wings don't even count right now because we could only go up until the real regular season games. So that's my ballot. The newly rebranded stats to impress other people. I have a few for you. Hassan Whiteside is ninth in PER for the regular season. You want to know who else is in the top 10? Giannis Harden, Anthony Davis, Doncic, Kawhi, Damian Lillard, LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Trey Young rounding out the top 10. And Hassan Whiteside. Do with that whatever you want.

Let's look at offensive and defensive efficiency in the bubble. The number one offense in the bubble right now, Portland surpassing Boston and the Clippers. So that's your one, two, and three. The bottom three offenses, bubble edition, Toronto, wait a minute, Toronto, we'll get to them in a second. Washington, yes, they were in the bubble. You may have missed it. And the the Lakers the do not worry we've got this shit John Lucas Lakers so

how could Toronto be the third worst offense and be this good because their defensive efficiency in the bubble it doesn't even make any sense how good it is it's 101.8 points per 100 possessions they're five points better than the number two defense in the bubble so that means the level of defense that toronto has been playing in the bubble is absolutely off the charts in comparison small sample size me all the death honestly guys that are saying small sample size in 2020 you should be canceled along with i don't want to say jail time or the death sentence but whoever said score the basketball first and infected the rest of us, maybe like community service or something.

Score the basketball. Imagine if we said, hey, Michael Thomas, the Saints, he's really good. He's great at scoring the football. Would that catch on? I hope not. All right. So the top three defenses, Toronto, as you mentioned, off the charts, Oklahoma City and Phoenix. Speaking of Oklahoma City, there's no series I'm more emotionally excited for than the Thunder and the Rockets. I am a little worried about Westbrook, though, with that quad injury. We'll see how that develops over time. Number three, Phoenix.

Phoenix, the number three defense. No one saw that coming. The bottom three defenses, Dallas, Portland, not surprising at all. That's who they've been all year long. And even with Portland's reinforcements, they're bad defensively. And then Denver. The Portland Lakers thing

is getting too much pro Portland coverage. It really is. People, as Trudell pointed out, it was good earlier this week. It's a nice little reminder because we can all get caught up in the hysteria of, man, you know, and it sucks. Like, look, if you're the Lakers and that's your eighth seed, back to the theory of fairness, they didn't want to just rule them out. And Dame is destroying people right now.

But he's not going to get that pardoned Curry recognition. I have Dame ahead of Westbrook, but Paul is on the other side of things, but still terrific. But if Dame's the third best point guard in the league, is that a slight? Is that a slight on him? It feels like some people are still arguing that.

Sometimes you can be told or claimed, not you, not Lillard is claiming claiming this but the coverage of Lillard is that he's so underrated that it's just for the longer you keep saying somebody's so underrated when everybody knows how awesome he is you're kind of like has he become well you can't say overrated but there's a there should be an expiration on the term underrated with certain guys okay so Toronto Oklahoma City Phoenix we gave you the bottom three defenses. And this is the last one I have. I watched the Pacers-Rockets game this week. It was kind of funny, too, because the Rockets announcers,

like almost every announcing team, not afraid to build up their own team. And they were down 14, but it was still like four to five minutes left. And there was a call that could have been challenged. They go, oh, if Nate McMillan probably didn't want to call this one, you know, just pack them up and head home and take the win and i'm thinking man with the rockets you think that this is unlikely that they can come back and close a double digit deficit with a few minutes left to go and that's exactly what happened i think it was like a 12-2 14-2 run the rockets get it to two points pacers have the ball they're about 28 29

seconds left maybe 27 against a full shot clock. So you want to take that shot late. Oladipo kind of isos the top right and takes a shot with about eight or nine seconds left on the shot clock. So you could argue, even though I think the efficiency on the two for one front end is so bad

that it's just accepted like, hey, what'd you do on that one? Well, I threw it around my back with my eyes closed, but we got two for one. Ah, smart position. But Oladipo took a bad shot and there's still a lot of time left. And then guess what? The Pacers got the offensive rebound and we know how bad the Rockets are on rebounding, but they are now a league worst 43% rebound rate since the bubble started. And that was against the worst rebounding

rate team in as far as offensive rebounds go in the fourth quarter. So Pacers, not just offensive rebounds, but the worst rebounding rate fourth quarter team in the bubble got the offensive rebound that won the game. So as I've hinted at and touched on before, my mismatch theory that mismatches are overrated, big versus small, because the big ends up taking a bad shot and everybody stops playing offense. And then the number of times where I see a small get a big and they just take a step back three from third. Even when LeBron was prime LeBron, he used to just do that all the time.

And guards do it constantly. And you think everybody's going to be stretched out and he's going to drive and then kick and the guy will settle for a three so the mismatches that Houston gets isn't the problem the problem is the rebounding and if everybody's healthy I can imagine certain games against the Rockets where the Thunder will leave Steven Adams in and there's gonna be times they have to take him out of the game and it could be game to game by the way Harden 76 free throws in the level unbelievable you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house

in the south fork i have every toy you could possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required let's do uh life advice and we'll finish this podcast out kyle how are you feeling about your life today i'm feeling great man i'm feeling great just had a narrow miss with a tree in my car got it all done while we were recording so you weren't paying attention to the audio content? It got the whole thing done in about five minutes. I think that's what we should be focusing on here. Okay, cool. Alright, we have a lot of updates to the updates. I don't think we're getting 8 Figure Guy updates anymore. Some people

are accusing 8 Figure Guy of being fake. You know how I feel about the fake stuff. But I don't know. I don't know. We don't have a, a two way authenticator on this one. So Mike checks in, he goes, hi, don't tell that guy to get a room, a Roman numeral three, unless he wants to be seen as a racist three percenter,

like that Patriots kicker. Oh, see, that's, that's, I actually think that's a compliment to me. I'm so not racist that i didn't even know what that was so all right so yeah that might be something to think about

i didn't even know that is that guy still in the patrons yeah but he's still our guy okay all right our guy i don't know if you want to rephrase that one yeah i didn't know what to do on on that one it he said he didn't know what it was i don't feel like touching that topic okay all right ryan kyle fan for a while i hope i didn't read the wrong one um life advice question is a big different than uh the typical is she the one or did I make the right career choice questions you've been getting? And unfortunately, I'm not sitting on eight figures in the bank. Eight figure shout out. It's unbelievable.

I haven't encountered that problem yet. Well, let us know if you do. I have something that I've struggled with and was guessing something common among your listeners. I'm in my late 20s. My job and money situations are good, which I'm especially grateful for in the pandemic. Shout out to self-reflection. I got married a couple of years ago. My wife and I are both happy in a relationship. All right. What's the problem? Why are you emailing us, buddy? My problem is I don't really have many friends. I have a group of guys from college that I talk

with regularly, but they're spread across the country and Zoom isn't quite the same as meeting up with a buddy at a bar or backyard or some socially distanced drinks. I recently moved from one major East Coast city to another and haven't made any new friends. It's easy to blame the pandemic for that, but in the last place I lived, I also didn't make any good friends and I was there for five years. I think I'm a pretty likable and easy to get along with guy and I'm sure that those who know me would characterize me as a good friend. I'm definitely the more introverted side and have trouble putting myself out there. In my last city, I tried playing in a few sports leagues, but nothing ever got deeper than grabbing a beer after the game. Do you have any advice on how to make friends when you move to a new area? Okay. Very, very good question because this is a real,

this is why I wanted to start not Raya, the dating website for rich dudes, but Gaia, where it was just a friendship site for dudes that wanted to meet other dudes in a non-romantic way. It was just, Hey, do you like hockey? Yeah, I like hockey. Do you like beer? Sometimes way too much. Okay. Well, I'm, I'm Dave. Nice to meet you, Dave. Okay. But calm before we go too deep into what your issues may be, because you may have some, you may not have any, you may be a really nice guy and everybody's missing out. But when you said two Northeast cities cities i think that's your problem okay as somebody who's from that world i didn't meet anyone new nor did i care to ever meet anybody new like if you weren't

with me by 20 i didn't and the thing that sucks is people liked me and i still was just like what am i going to text a new guy something i didn't even want guys texting me when texts first started happening, which is weird. But I just was bad at it. I was bad at it. And I worked nonstop. And when you work nonstop and you don't have any money, really, when all my guys are doing stuff, I couldn't really do any stuff with those guys. So that was kind of on me.

But I think the Northeast part of this is part of your problem. If you lived in, say, Chicago, this wouldn't be as big of an issue. I don't know, as a transplanted Yankee in the South, how well that would go over. I get treated well in the South, but I think that's because I had a radio show for 15 years. California, the anti-Cal, some people are really anti-Cal guy. I think the Northern Cal guy, though, is taking over for Southern California guy because San Francisco Bay area tech guys way worse than lifestyle Southern California guy. That's kind of, you know,

at least like the worst versions of each other is, you know, my friends in the Northeast were like, Oh, LA guys suck. And I'm like, well, first of all,

LA is a big place. It's like saying, well, new England is kind of the same, but well, look, guy from Vermont is different than a guy from Providence. But I think it has way more to do

with the Northeast than it is you. Okay, so now here's the other problem. You brought up another thing. One of my other tenets here is that if you move thinking everything's going to be different, but you're the same, nothing's going to be different.

I've done it. I'm like, man, I can't wait to move and everything's going to be different. And like a year in, you're like, yeah, you're pretty much the same guy. You just moved and have nicer furniture. So I think it's the Northeast. Now, maybe you suck. Let's be honest. But if your wife likes you and you're successful, that doesn't mean your personality is great. Do you have zero good

stories? I remember when I first got into the mainstream of people working at a desk job, I would tell college stories and those stories were way too good. And they were like, this guy sucks. Some of these stories can't be true. And they're all true, but they were also sometimes not the most. Look, give me a break. I was 26. Maybe they weren't the right stories for the setting. So that was a bit of a turnoff. I also like being by myself, clearly, more than others. And maybe you don't like being by yourself, or maybe you do and you think you want to meet friends, but you end up making decisions that subconsciously are always steering you towards being by yourself. So if you don't suck to be around, okay,

let's cover a couple other things. Are you a bad drunk? Doesn't sound like it. I don't know. If you hit on anybody's wife like it doesn't sound like you're this guy that shows up as an absolute social tornado who you're like oh god like people are looking at their watch wondering when the hinges are going to come off some guy um let's think what else what else could it possibly be i mean you you and your wife could be on the nerdy side i don't know i mean these are questions you're gonna have does your wife have friends yeah does your wife have friends good job kyle jumping in there and i'm not doing this to be harsh i'm doing it to get to the root of the problem it is what like

are your other friends do other people invite you on vacations when the world was normal um do do you have are all your friends people that you only met like pre-college or in college and then after because again this is not somebody who has made a ton of friends after the fact but i know that i can make friends if i want to i've met people in la i just don't always do much because you know i'm over here creating uh but it's just, these are things you really got to ask yourself. But it's kind of tough. Because most, you have the self-awareness to send the email, which makes me think you have the self-awareness that you would have known if you had these terrible personality

traits. So Colin, honestly, I think I'm going to chalk it up to what the beginning was. You're in the worst part of the country to make new friends once you become an adult. My friends and I, we lived in Boston. We made jokes about that. Be like, oh, how'd you meet that guy? Be like, oh, I met him. Be like, you have a new friend after 30 like what are you fucking

psychopath and that was just a northeast thing so i think that's your problem all right enjoy that um i want to share that pod part with the wife okay banging these out here oh this guy's this guy's a real aristocrat here okay um uh Uh-oh, Matt, it's going bald. Love the show. Favorite podcast every week. Previous question about tattoos made me realize you're an expert on a similar aesthetic dilemma. I don't think I'm a tattoo expert. Okay.

How do you handle the young receding hairline? I've watched it happen to many of my peers. I'm 26 too and finally have a bald spot developing. That's right when mine started, Matt. I can cover it for now. Many people have sincerely expressed to me that they can't tell i'm balding yeah that's what my mom said and my hairdresser that was trying to sleep with me i was like i think my hair's falling out she's like no you're fine i was like no i'm not liar all right but it's happening would be less worried

if i was married or in a serious relationship but that seems to be imminent how long do you hold on before you're going to commit to the shaved look when When you do, what else do you do to keep the young vibe going? Hats, steroids, motorcycle sunglasses, what's the play? Would love a financial advice interview podcast at some point. Hey, I would love to do it too. Some of you finance dickheads will not be afraid to get really upset when I talk about finance because financial social media might be as unlikable as any lane possible. I've said repeatedly, I know I don't have that much depth to it.

I just know when somebody else has no depth, i.e. Kaepernick and the Nike stock debate where everybody looked dumb on that one. So I would love to have, I wanted to have David Faber on, but I followed him. I tweeted at him once, but I'm not going to be some weirdo

just tweeting at David Faber, asking him to come on the podcast. That's kind of who I wanted to go with. There were some other guys that I looked into, but they looked a little too self-promoting for me where I just don't want to hear

about all the sick angel investments you made. I want to talk about real guys that don't have a ton of cash. I want to put together a plan, stuff I wish that had been taught in high school or college. Like, I can't believe there's not just one mandatory,

like, hey, here's how to not fuck up your financial future the next 10 years course like what's what's so wrong with that it would make the most sense people think that i'm obsessed with money no i just want to know how to do it better because i did it wrong for a long time and the quicker you learn this shit the better off you would be but for whatever reason in this country maybe that's the whole point is we don't want to teach it so everybody makes credit card mistakes so everybody is in debt and the banks make off of us. All right. Joe Rogan style just went conspiracy on you. That was off the top of my head. So back to Matt and his

hair. That sucks. All right. I was fucking furious when I found out about it. Furious. And I didn't know what to do. Luckily, at 6'2", that's a slight advantage being balder. But I only had the spot. And then finally, I was just so sick of it. Sick of Van Pelt's looks every time he caught it at a bad angle. And I didn't work out because I was balding. I just like putting myself

through some sort of physical exertion that is painful. And then I feel like I'm right for the day. So that's really what I do. But wasn't because i was uh balding but it definitely helps if you're going to be jacked and bald and tall as opposed to skinny fat 5'8 and bald you know who are we kidding so shout out to the 5'8 skinny fat bald guys listen to the pod but i think even you would have to admit that you're not favored in this matchup so you're gonna have to invent an app and then it's bottle service time right so the propitia thing i don't know where we are with this drug or where the side effects were

i apologize if i've told this story before but i when i first got insurance finally health insurance in massachusetts and then wait a minute i don't even think I had it yet. Oh, that's right. They passed a law where you had to sign up for it, and I didn't because I couldn't afford it. And I went to a doctor because I wanted to start training to get my ass kicked in Muay Thai. And I had some injury, and I was like, hey, can you look at this injury? And the guy's like, yeah, whatever. It's a strain. You'll be fine. I was like, while we're here, doc, can I get a bottle of Propecia and a prescription? Because I'm starting to get a little thin up top. And he just looked at me. He was like, no. He just said no. He just looked at me and said no.

Like, do you realize what I may have done? I might have been hosting Dancing with the Fucking Stars. If I was this size with a full head of hair, this hot and smooth on television, Jesus Christ, game over but instead i had to choose a different path because this asshole wouldn't prescribe me propitia in my late 20s but all my friends that took it before things went too bad it worked out now that truck could be banned can we get it on that kyle can you ask them is i don't even know if it's banned

some guys that's right i have told the story once before because one of my friends said like hey I don't think you should take propitiation to the other guy and the other guy was like well if I'm bald I'd want to be dead anyway and we were like whoa that was pretty that was pretty heavy so uh I don't know your size the hat thing you can pull off because everybody's wearing hats all the time but the thing that sucks about wearing a hat if you're talking to a new girl and your hair sucks is that that moment you have to take off the hat it's even worse than when she just sees you originally so be funny be successful maybe a motorcycle start doing some curls don't be hat guy every day um i wear a hat a lot just because i like it you know people at this point are fairly aware the hair thing isn't working out. But we had another emailer that was sent to me from Kyle too that was also saying,

I love my girlfriend. She's really hot. She's out of my league and I'm losing my hair. Should I just marry her now because I'm going to be disgusting all the wrong? Yeah. And first of all, it was kind of like this thing where you're admitting she's out of your league and she's really hot and you like her. And yet you're already toying with the idea of these other opportunities that you may have. And that's the thing is like, sometimes it doesn't matter who the girl is. You just, you just aren't ready. You're just not ready. You're not emotionally stable enough to be with that one person and go, okay, this is the serious version of all of this stuff. But I did have a friend that was like, how come? I was like, well, that came out of nowhere.

He's like, yeah, I figured she'd be the hottest girl i'd ever be able to marry because my hair's falling out so i want to lock it up now straight face i'm like so are you in love he's like he's like we get along you know he's like but he goes if i waited another two years he's like i'd never be able to get her i'm like all right all right cool so sometimes the harshest stuff is the realest stuff so look i just told you a bunch of stuff there, Matt, you pick through it, sort through it,

whatever helps helps. There's going to be a lot of that that didn't. All right, everybody have a great weekend. Bill and I are going to be back on Sundays as we are throughout the NBA. And please subscribe, rate and review and be on the lookout. We have a massive guest beginning next week.

Somebody I'm so excited to work with so tell everybody and make sure you're subscribed to this podcast that you get that as soon as it comes out i promise you to be one of the biggest guests we've ever had on the ryan russo podcast so talk to you next week Thank you. you