The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The Lack of Upsets and the State of College Hoops With P.J. Carlesimo, Plus, New Red Sox 3B Alex Bregman.

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Russillo is joined by P.J. Carlesimo to share his favorite Sweet 16 teams, break down the distinct play styles of different conferences, and examine how much the transfer portal has affected the tournament (0:29). Then, Alex Bregman comes on to reveal his thoughts on changing teams, what the offseason process was like, and what he expects out of his first season with the Red Sox (37:03). Plus, Life Advice with Ceruti and Kyle (59:44)! How do I handle my wife constantly lying on Reddit? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, livestreams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: P.J. Carlesimo and Alex Bregman Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, Mike Wargon, and Jonathan Frias Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of the podcast, we get up close with Alex Fregman, the newest third baseman of the Boston Red Sox, what his off season was like, patience, the whole deal. We're going to talk tournament, we're going to do some biggie story. Of course, Louis Carneseca with our guy, PJ Carlissimo and life advice. We're gonna talk now with one of our favorite guests, the man that understands the tournament, former seat and hall head coach, and now part of the ESPN and NCAA tournament broadcast,

PJ Carlissimo. What's up, man? It's good to see you. Good to be with you, brother. This is, you know, we both did time at ESPN. This is the nicest thing they do for me. They let me go for three weeks to do the tournament every year for Westwood One. And it gives me my college fix.

I love it. I had been doing Pac-12 tournament, it seems like, for six, eight, ten years. I don't even know. But obviously, this year, they put me back in the Big East, which was kind of kind of fun being back in the garden. I hadn't been at the Big East which was kind of kind of fun being back in the garden I hadn't been at the Big East tournament in a long time, but I lucked out to get Seattle the first round So it was a home game and now we got San Francisco the West region before San Antonio so it's all all my yeah, there's enough places I've been fired so

all my, there's enough places I've been fired. So. Let's start with kind of just a general question here. Now that we're at the field of 16, is there, is it Duke, is it Florida for you, is it Houston? Do you have like the team that you go, you know what, I actually, I think it's them. And I don't know if much of that has changed since the start of the tournament.

I thought for a lot of the year, I actually thought it was Auburn. I hadn't seen them in person which is all you know again I don't see as many in person and it's hard it's different I don't I don't know why but it's just different sitting there seeing the quickness seeing a team and like you know I came out of the Big East tournament feeling I really knew those teams. I had watched a lot of games before going in. I thought it was Auburn early, then they kind of slid. I haven't seen Duke much, but like kind of the consensus and people I talk to, most people feel it's Dukes to lose.

Like if Duke plays that they're good enough to win the whole thing, Florida has really come on. Everybody's talking about them right now. Danny Hurley, my old buddy had them on the ropes. I actually thought UConn was gonna get them. They played so well, but I'm anxious to see Todd. I've known Todd for a long time. He was at Columbia.

He was assistant at USF, Todd Golden. But I'll tell you what, we were with Maryland for four days here in Seattle. Maryland's very, very good. They're very solid. They play both ends of the floor. I don't know if they're underrated defensively. They're a really good defensive team. Everybody keeps saying they only have five starters.

Their bench is not very good, but their five starters are damn good. I like them a lot. I just have kind of a feeling that one of the old horses is going to make some noise, either Izzo or Kelvin Sampson. I'm just probably pulling because they're closer to me in age than anybody else. But hopefully one of those two guys, Michigan State or Houston, will do some damage. Why is Kelvin so good? Because I mean, here State or Houston, will do some damage. Why is Kelvin so good? Because, I mean, here we go again, reloaded Houston.

And with the health questions about it, but obviously this is kind of what's expected now of Houston in a way that we're not used to really going more than five programs deep in college basketball. They are expected to be here now at this point with him. He's a machine. It doesn't matter now. They changed conferences. Everybody go, Oh, how are they going to adjust to the big 12?

They've owned it since they went into the big 12. He loses guys. It doesn't matter. He's he's an exceptional coach. He drives his he's got a great rapport with his players. I don't want to say they allow him, but I mean, he is tough. He's on them. If you go to their practices, their shoot arounds, there's no middle ground. Like if they don't do what he wants, he's very direct. He tells them, but they, you know, they love him too. His son is excellent, which

really helps an awful lot. He's always had a good staff. He's losing Qantas this year. They defend and they rebound. St. John's was very much like them, Ry. I knew St. John's had to dodge a bullet somewhere. They shoot the ball so poorly. And I thought if they got a bad whistle somewhere along, a tight whistle, I shouldn't say a

bad whistle. I thought if they got a tight whistle somewhere along, a tight whistle, I shouldn't say a bad whistle. I thought if they got a tight whistle somewhere along the way, that was the game they were going to have to find a way. There always seems to be one, if you're good enough to get to the final four and play five or six games, you got to dodge a bullet somewhere. And that was St. John's bullet against Arkansas and they couldn't do it. But they're very, very similar. They turn you over.

Their best offense is points off turnovers and offensive rebounds. Kelvin's got an expression. He talks about six hands, you know, those three guys up climbing on the glass with their each of them with two hands up in the air. They're not a good, they're a great rebounding team, especially offensively. So they generate points. They guard the hell out of you. He always has very, very good athleticism overall.

He's got length, may not necessarily have seven footers, but he's got length and he's got jumping ability, and they're strong, they get after you. He's played small guards, That hasn't made any difference. We were in the, I think it was the South region. I was in Dallas last year with Raph and those guys and Ryan Radke and I were there. I thought they were coming out of that and then Shedd got hurt. And that kept them, I thought that kept them last year.

He was their best player. Kept them from going to the Final Four. I remember him in Indianapolis. I mean, it just seems every year we have Kelvin in the round of 16 and often enough in the final four, but he's an exceptional coach. I mean, you know, he's very good technically, but you know, most guys are. It's what you get your guys to do. Those guys just play for him and they play at home they play on the road they can play you know smart teams that slow the game down they can play teams that go up and down quick it doesn't seem to matter he's really really good at adjusting I mean it's almost like a season starts and you put down 30 wins

for Houston they're gonna be in a sweet. Let's see what happens after that. Yeah. Whenever I watch Houston too, I'm always like, there's so many guys that are just dogs on this team and it's a Kelvin thing. It's a recruiting thing. It's exactly right. Philosophical thing with that program where it's like, man, like they're going to scare teams and maybe they won't as we get to the higher profile thing. But I think there's like real wake up. You can see teams in the tournament where there'll be this

wake up call moment where the intensity is not being matched, you know, whether it was, um, you know, some of the earlier games you're like, how is this team already down this big already? And it's just, they weren't prepared for this. And I always feel like Houston's just ready to go at the jump. I want to talk like a bigger thing here, cause you know, this, you see has all these teams that are in, and some of this too is just the expansion of what we're looking at here. And so towards the end, the committee's like,

I will just throw another one of these teams in. And it pisses everybody off. That's not in the SEC part of the map. Wasn't outraged by it, because I don't follow it close enough. And so now you have seven SEC teams in, the Sweet 16. And I always loved the tournament because I felt like much like college football

where there was a distinct style of play that was attributed to each conference. I felt like it was the same thing in basketball. And of course, I don't know if there's any more part of me internally that can die but having it be a big 10 matchup between Oregon and Arizona, a big 10, big 12 matchup. Like you had that game, like part of me

just once again was reminded. When you were back coaching at the hall, did you feel like, hey, this is our style from the big East. We like our style in the tournament against ACC teams, big 12, you know, like I think there's times where I thought the big 12 was the best conference. There were pack 10 runs that they had a distinct style. Do you still feel like there's anything that's a distinct style to any of the conferences?

For sure. I'll do a disclaimer first. I know the SEC the least of all, I just see them the least of all. Having been back in the Big East and watching, I'm telling you, Ry, if doing games, the few games I did this year around the country, if the referees from these other leagues refereed

any of the games in the Big East Conference, they would think they're in a different planet. Guys are tackling guys. They're unfazed. They just play that way. It's so physical. The big tend to a slightly lesser degree, incredibly physical. I don't think the SEC is like that. What the SEC is,

they're bigger and stronger and quicker. It's not NBA, but it's like, well, there are some matchups. You just look when the teams are on the floor, you go, these guys can't play with them. These guys have just bigger, stronger, quicker athletes. And I always thought that was kind of a trait of the SEC. I always thought their teams were very athletic, but I didn't know if they were as tough. Like we always felt we could beat them. We always felt that playing in the Big East all year and playing physically, you talked about Houston.

When you used to play John's teams at Georgetown, John Thompson's teams at Georgetown, the absolute first thing was if you didn't lace it up and you didn't match their intensity, to forget everything else, you weren't even in the game. Now once you did that, it was going to be a hell of a game, but you had to be ready to go at them. I still think that's a trait of the Big East to a lesser degree than it was.

Big 10 for sure, Big 10 is physical. It's a more physical brand. The SEC this year has been incredible. Everybody's telling me these teams are that good. They're as good as advertised. It's shocking to have 14 teams out of a 16 team league in the NCAA. 14 out of 16 is an incredible number. But everybody's kind of, they're not sleeping out. People are talking about it now. I'm sure you and I will get into it. There's 16 teams. It's four from the Big 10 and four from the Big 12.

So you got three conferences at 15 of the teams. And Duke's the only team from the ACC. The Big East has nobody and there's no Cinderella or even close to a Cinderella coming in. Colorado State was the last one left that people would say is it was it was a Cinderella um I do think there's a difference from league to league

I don't know. I don't know the sec well enough to typecast what they are right now But one thing they are for sure is longer and more athletic than the other leagues and it's going to be interesting to see Whether that plays out now in the tournament. Yeah. I remember, you know, again, I was getting caught up in conference championship week, but I watched Tennessee and Florida, and then I watched Michigan's big 10 title run and I was like, man, this kind of looks different. But then again, Michigan knocks off Texas A&M.

So sometimes, you know, I can be guilty of the assumption of just visually of like what I'm watching. But I wanted to ask you about the officiating thing because it was funny too. I was looking up the coaches in the early 90s voted for the Big East to have six fouls in conference games and he did it for what, three years. And I remember just as a kid, I was like, this is so smart. They're going to be able to tell recruits, come to the NBA league. You play here with six fouls.

And then I remember people were really pissed cause they were like, they're only doing this because underdogs won't be able to beat them in non-conference games or something. It didn't, the whole thing was funny. And then it felt like once tournament time came around, it's like, we already fouled the shit out of everybody to begin with.

And now all of our kids think they have an extra foul. So was it actually, you guys got rid of it pretty quickly. What were those meetings like? The meetings were interesting. It's there was no right answer or wrong answer We liked it because you had a feeling if you were a good team You had a feeling your guys were gonna be on the floor You know, they weren't gonna get into your bench teams that weren't deep liked it to The lesser teams in the league were, come on, why don't we just legislate that the better team wins the game before we even start?

You're making it impossible. You're making it impossible to win. So it always comes down to, you can talk about basketball philosophy. All it really came down to, what was the best thing for my team in a given year? And that's how guys would vote. If the guys that were down at the bottom,

and there was certainly a time when we were at the bottom, we'd go, come on, we can't compete now. You're going to let Patrick Ewing and these guys stay in the game longer than they normally would. It's not fair. And the other guys were saying, come on, the people are coming. They want to see the good players. Let's keep them on the floor. Some people were concerned that it was going to, excuse me, hurt us when you got to the tournament, but the tournament's always about adjusting. I mean, you can just get, you can get a crew and your team better be again, this has gone back the old days when you had a veteran team with juniors and

seniors in a group that had been together and had seen a lot of situations, they could adjust. Like you could get to that first time out or the second time out and go, whoa guys, they're calling everything. We gotta be careful. Like we still gotta play defense, but we have to adjust to the way this game is being called.

I don't see that as much anymore because you got, you know, kids are just, they're new to college. They really are. And so many teams, I mean, it's a joke now when I get ready to do a game. Like I have a separate column from where they were. It's at a point now where I don't even talk about what other school. I want to know where they were. But it's the teams are as bound together as they were.

The coaches got five new guys, three of his starters are transfers. He hasn't had them. When you compare that to teams in the past where you had a lineup for three or four years, like, you know, Marquette was like that this year. I actually thought it was going to be a big factor for them and it did not play out. But I think when you're a group that's been together for a while and obviously they got to be good on top of that, they just, they handle the different situations you're going to come across in a tournament so much better. Okay. Uh, a couple of things off of that.

One note on officiating as an MBA guy, when I go deep into the college stuff, and of course, when I'm prepping for the draft too, it's just the annual reminder of as much as people want to complain about NBA officiating, college officiating is a level below it. It is, I think there are certain calls that some of the college refs just love. Like they love that baseline charge. They love it.

They don't pay attention to like momentum at all. I watched the St. John's Arkansas game. And by the way, like the whistle on that one, you could argue hurt the Arkansas Bigs more than hurt anybody on St. John's. So like as a St. John's fan,. And by the way, like the whistle on that one, you could argue hurt the Arkansas Bigs more than hurt anybody on St. John's. So like as a St. John's fan, I didn't look at that game and go, oh, they lost because of the fish-shitting. They lost because their best player couldn't shoot

for a night. But I think we were up to 40 fouls in that game, combined at some point, was still a few minutes to go. So there's a real tough flow. I feel like almost any contact at the rim is called. The rebounding fouls are incredibly frustrating. But then I was going, all right, let's be fair about this. These kids are playing single elimination basketball. They are fighting their lives

for their lives on these rebounds. So there's actually probably fouls on every single rebound and contest. And so even though officiating should be more of an art than a science and flow and all of these things, it was almost a sympathetic moment that I had for the officials, even though I can get really frustrated with just how many games can get out of control with all of the whistles. And it just becomes kind of a bad watch.

It's just not that much fun to watch because it's being stopped all the time. The games are so intense that these college officials are in a tougher spot. We're in the NBA game 61 with another one in Toronto. You're like, okay, he's already got the rebound. I'm not going to sell out physically for this rebound in the third quarter of a game in March where the college kid has no choice but to play that way the entire time because he's going to get subbed out if he's not attacking that way every single contest. What is not the tournament, the NCAA tournament is very much more like the playoffs in the

NBA than the regular season. The thing about the NBA that they're able to do so much better is the consistency. I don't even know the number now I should there's 70 or 80 tops officials in the league. It's really, really closely monitored. I mean, every call they make is screwed. Not too much to be honest with you, but I mean you can control it in the NBA when you got that one group of officials when Monty McCutcheon and all the people in New York and New Jersey, they've got evaluators at every game and they, you know, what they want is consistency. Is it perfect? No, it's, I mean,

it's the hardest game in the world to referee basketball, especially on the NBA level, but they can do a great job controlling it. It's just so tough from conference to conference. I was with Chris Rastatter, who's the national rules guy, happened to be at the Big East Tournament. He's there with John Cal. Both of them were final four officials, great officials. But it's like, it's so hard for them to legislate the way the NBA does. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're Zach Zabra, if you're one of the best officials in the league, or if you're some new person just up from the, you know, the G League getting 10 games this year. They get, they get graded and taught the same way. Now, again, everybody knows who the good officials are and they're going to advance, but it's just, it's impossible.

If you hit on the physical, the rebounding is the biggest thing. There's no question. And I didn't see, I'm going to rewatch it before our games on Thursday, I didn't see what was going on in there. St. John's on the boards is like Georgetown, is like Houston, like Georgetown used to be, like Houston is now. You could call a foul every single time on the grass. Cal's guys got to be just as good. They got to be just as physical also. So a game like that, you just hope they let them play. I mean, invariably, you know, by the second time out, I'm saying to Ryan Radke or Kevin Kugler, wherever I'm with, they got to adjust.

They being both, the players got to adjust, but hopefully the officials are going to adjust too. You know, we're at the first second time out, one team's got four fouls, the other team's got five. I mean, come on, we don't want to make this a free throw game. And the refs would say, well, we got to keep it under control. That's that art that I think is very, very difficult for the players to adjust and for the officials to adjust. But to me, it's gotten to the point where it's tougher for college teams to adjust now because of the, I don't know what the word is, how changed

the rosters are from year to year, how young the rosters are, and they're just not wound as tight as they used to be. Okay, let's stay on that because the roster change and we know the transfer portal, it's not new this year, but it's, let's just say a change in the last five years. Right, okay. it's not new this year, but it's, let's just say a change in the last five years. Right. Okay. So if you look at the sweet 16 field, you go, okay, it's all the power conferences. What's going to happen now, granted you had Maryland, Colorado state.

So if Queens shot doesn't go in, then I guess you could shoot that down. But I think it's a bigger picture. Right, right, right. It's a bigger picture concern. Cause I think the Cinderella's, the thing they had is they had continuity. Like if you have continuity and especially to like the extra years that are being, um, like sometimes I'll look at a guy and I'll be like, man, I really liked this dude is like, oh shit, he's 24.

He's on his 60th. So like, I hope he's good. So the transfer portal crushes some of the smaller programs continuity. We can get into the N NI and all that stuff. Like we have the result of 16 teams from the power schools. I'd have to see this play out multiple years to think that this is the new normal. Okay. So I think they're right.

I think they're right. I think we're headed that way, unfortunately, but it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't as much like that last year, the year before. We're finally through with COVID, I think. I don't think there's any more kids playing for their ninth year because of COVID and a medical hardship and God knows what other reasons. I think we're down to just most guys playing five. You still got the elite players are gone.

Some of them can stay now. It gets interesting, you know, like now it's all of a sudden, am I going to be a lottery pick or not? Because if not, I could make a couple million coming back or transferring to this other school. So it's gotten a little crazy. I think I'm much more bothered by the transfer rule than I am the money. I'm not thrilled with the money. I think it's totally changed the college game. You know, we could have had it more. The problem was they voted this in without any rules,

anything whatsoever, no guidelines, no nothing. And they're now they're trying to go backwards. And I don't know if they're ever gonna be able to get some semblance of order. But the biggest problem is being able to go and play right away. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's a joke.

The old rule was a good rule. You want to transfer? Fine. Sit out. Sit out a year. Even in conferences, I'm amazed, Ryan. I think last we were on it, we talked about it last year. I can't tell you how many coaches have told me, you know, the shake hand, it's like a

hockey line now after a game. We never did that. You know, both teams line up and everybody shakes hands after a game. They're saying by the time the kids get to the assistant coaches at the end, the assistant coaches are going, yo, if it doesn't work out, give us a call.

Like, you know, we'd love to talk to you. In the line, in the line shaking hands after the game with other schools from their conference. Are you kidding me? It's a joke. I mean, that's why you had the rule. You couldn't transfer in conferences in the old days. So it's insanity. You can't go somewhere and play instantly, you know, multiple times. Now, hopefully they're going to address that. The other thing, and you talked about it for a mid-major, small major, whatever the hell,

it doesn't matter. It can be one of the lesser schools in a power conference. If your guy, if you recruited a guy who's a hell of a lot better than everybody thought he was, or just one of your guys just improved, him, his family, his agent, because most of them have agents now, are gonna say, hey, you're crazy.

You can make twice as much if you go to A, B, or C. And they're already talking to those other schools. So it's like, unless you're at one of the best schools with the most NIL money, and you're really cooking like you got a chance to win a national championship, or you can say to the kid, you're going to get shots. The NBA is going to love you. There's, there's no control. You can't keep a guy. The worst thing that happens is somebody blossoms cause he's going out

to find out what's available. I want to ask you about your run. Um, because when you were seeing how I get to the title game against Michigan, you know, I could talk to you about it for just two hours. I could do a three-part special on it. You know, you look through the run, you beat Indiana by 13, you beat UNLV by 23. You're actually down at the half against Duke and you just smoked him in the second half. So I guess you could argue the Duke game was your test and it's still, you made it to the final.

But like, if I look at Florida, the benefit of being tested by Yukon and maybe how that resets them coming off as everybody's kind of hottest team, um, as opposed to maybe Duke running through everybody. I don't know that we can look back and look at your run and say, cause you, you had to get to overtime to even get to that spot against Michigan. So your guys were testing everything, but was there part of it you thought, man, I would have loved to have had, you know, via Duke be tougher games. Is that something? We'd been tested again. I, I, I was always pro big East.

I always felt we'd, we'd debate with good friends. Like, you know, Mike was down in a down in Mike and V were in the ACC. ACC guys would regularly, one of them would always be saying they'd get beaten in semis or the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament. They'd say, hey, it's not the worst thing. We know who we are.

It gives our guys a couple days rest. I don't want to beat them up for two more games until play on Sunday and then have to go to the tournament. I always felt the Big East tournament was the best preparation we could possibly have for the year. I thought it was like starting the NCAA a week earlier. I said, this is great.

Play two, play three NCAA games. You're playing in the garden. It's on CBS in those days. I mean, it was like, I said, this is NCAA. And I really felt that playing in the big arena, like the Big East even this year, ready for this, right? There's only two Big East, there's 11 schools in the Big East now. There's only two play on campus, Butler at Hankel Field House and Xavier at Cintas.

Connecticut plays some games at Gample. Everybody else plays in NBA, NHL or municipal arenas. I really think there's a big plus to that. We got tested more by Southwest Missouri. Spoon was at Southwest Missouri. We were like sleepwalking and almost lost that damn game. At the time, I think when we beat UNLV and Indiana, it was the two worst losses for those two teams

in the NCAA. They had never gotten beat like that. We were just cooking. We were down 18 to Duke in the first half and came back. Robert Bricky got hurt and was a big factor in the game. Bricky got hurt on a baseline drive, got a charley horse and never came back in. And that really hurt Duke. I thought we were fine.

I mean, we were ready to go. I thought we were fine. I mean, we were ready to go. I thought we had been tested. I think that game is going to help Florida immensely because it was a team not from their league. I'm sure they, I didn't, I haven't looked yet. I'm sure they had five games this year in the, in the SEC where they were like, you know, one possession games are damn close to it at the end. Uh, but they're tested. There's no question. I think that's the big advantage. All 16, you could say due to a slightly lesser extent, but that's splitting hairs.

I mean, yeah, the ACC's down, but the ACC is still pretty good. You don't want to make a living playing all those guys in the ACC if you're any other conference but the top four. So these teams are all tested, but I do think somewhere in the tournament, there's got to be one of those nights your best player gets in foul trouble, rolls an ankle, whatever the hell, you just have a shooting night. St. John's has shooting nights like that all the time, but usually they could overcome it with their offensive rebounding or turnovers.

They couldn't do that against Arkansas. I'm a real strong believer in that. And I do think the teams that have survived one of those really, it really helps. So I think it's a big factor for Florida. I don't think it's going to help them against Maryland. I think like they better lace it up and be ready to play because Maryland's legit. And those two kids, kids, Queen and Juju are unbelievable. I'm talking about Juju. How about what happens to USC on the women's side?

And that's one of the things that, it happens more in the NBA every year. Some key player on a good team goes down and everybody forgets that the team that wins the whole thing in June was one of the luckiest or the luckiest team relative to injuries. USC goes for what odds on to win the whole thing to, and I know they're still good, but come on, they're best player.

One of the best players, if not the best player is out. Yeah. Juju Watkins, for those that don't know, as of this morning, tore ACL on that play. So, um, she's going to be out the rest of the way for a one seed USC team. I want to end on this, um, because you knew we wanted to reach out. Uh, when St. John's legend, Louis Carnesac, passed at the end of last year and knowing how

close you were with him and, and what a big thing like you and I, that's how we connected, uh, talking about this stuff. You can always tell like some people probably listen to us. I just can't wait to get to big East stories all and I, that's how we connected. Uh, talking about this stuff. You can always tell, like some people probably listen to us. I just can't wait to get to big East stories all the time, but I just wanted you to kind of go anywhere you wanted on it, just talking about Louie and maybe your favorite stories. Yeah.

He was a man. I mean, I met him when I was a young assistant in Fordham. We played them all the time. This is way before they, the only league in the East at that point was the Ivy league. We played them all the time. We played them all the time. We played them when I was at Wagner until we got good.

He stopped playing us, but when they were like drilling us, we'd come to the Lapchick tournament and we upset a really good C.M. Newton Alabama team in the first round of the Lapchick tournament at St. John's. Waco, Gary Williams is an American. If he's playing St. John's anywhere else in the world, he wins the, the finals should have been American Wagner

in a Lapchick tournament on TV. They would have like died, but St. John's had some homing pigeons there and they were able to get, get through and then they beat us by like 90 in the finals. And the stuff that Louis said to officials during a game was mind-boggling. You know, and you'd say something while you'd stand up and you wouldn't even, you'd just say something and they'd go, that's enough. I'm going, that's enough. Do you hear what he's saying to you the whole game? And he goes, that's Louis. He's like running all over

the place doing his stuff. I'll tell you two things, he had an expression, leave the chandeliers. We had a lot of young coaches in the league and we were always looking for the best ball deal and oh, let's do this or whatever. And Louis and Joe Mulaney were the old voices of reason. And Louis thing was always leave the chandeliers, like, come on, you can't have everything. Like just, use that expression all the time,

particularly to the young, uh, overly aggressive coaches that were trying to grab every dollar we could, uh, ball deals and everything else. And Louis, come on, just easy. But two things, we're playing them in Nassau Coliseum, Wagner, St. John's, one game short of going to the NCAA. I, I, V had just beaten Raff. How's that for a foursome? Iona had just beaten Seton Hall. V going to the NCAA. V had just beaten Raff. How's that for a foursome? Iona had just beaten Seton Hall.

V's in the finals. It's us and St. John's. We lead the whole game. And there's a tough call at the end. Reggie Carter ball fakes. The ball goes out of his hand. And he goes up and gets it and it becomes a jump ball. And I'm yelling, you can't do that.

Anyhow, the ball, our kid controls the tap, taps at the half court. It's a Nassau Coliseum. Ronnie Blair catches it and shoots a hook shot. If it was in a college gym, it would have hit the ceiling. It was like 80 feet in the air, but it's Nassau Coliseum. Doesn't hit a thing. Right through to send the game to overtime. Louis thinks the game's over, runs down, jumps on me like Don Nelson, Yogi Berra. I've got Louis in my arms holding him. He thinks they won. And he's like saying, good game. That's his way to say good game. And Brian Mahoney and Ronnie Rutledge, his assistants are grabbing him going, coach, we got overtime. The game's not over. It was unbelievable. He was absolutely the best.

And the last thing, he was a good loser. We had really good guys in our league. He and John Thompson were exactly the same. When you beat him, they'd come down and shake your hand, the game was over. They'd say we got outplayed. That was the end of it. Wasn't the refs, it wasn't anything else.

It was congratulations, great job. When we were, you know, we had other guys that were great winners and when they were good and we were terrible, they always had nice things to say. When we finally got good and won some games, that was the end of the nice things. Louie and John were the same when they won and when they lost.

He was the best, he made you feel good about being a basketball coach, Luke Harnus second. He really did. Like I said, I'm doing what Luke Harnus second does. That's a good thing. Yeah, man. I mean, he was, uh, he was the best. I got to meet him at the hall of fame, the induction.

I was doing a live show there and they brought him over and they were like, Hey, this guy is like a huge St. John's fan. And he, you know, the way you would expect any of you guys to spend a life of and they brought him over and they were like, hey, this guy is like a huge St. John's fan. And he, you know, the way you would expect any of you guys has spent a life of recruiting and relationships and building all that stuff. But I mean, he just sat right down

and he gave me like the full Carnesac experience for 10 minutes. And he knew exactly like what I wanted. Everybody else, like everybody else just stopped talking because it's probably the biggest smile anybody's ever seen in my face. And it was the best. Not surprising.

So many of his players were there. Last thing I just thought of, it was a great line. We had the weekly writers luncheon in Mama Leoni's in New York every Tuesday. All the area couldn't, there's so many coaches in the New York area. So it was a big press meeting with all the writers, radio, TV.

And in those days we had newspapers. We're all there at Mama Leoni's. Raff announces his retirement October 14th. We all started practice the 15th. He knew he was going to broadcasting. Dave Gavitt, you know, said, Raff, you're going to be, you're going to kill it in broadcasting. Of course, as always, Gavitt was right. But Raff waited until the 14th. So his assistant, Hadi Mahal, would get the job. So Seed and Hall had nothing but to do. Hadi was his top guy and deserved the job,

and Raph wanted to make sure. So October 14th, he announces it. The first Mama Leone's luncheon that year, everybody said, you know, Bill was with us for, whatever, 15 years, great guy, we're gonna miss him. If everybody would like, you know, wanna say something about Billy, you know, would be appreciated. Louis was always either first or last. I think he was last

that day. He got up, stood up, walked over and he goes, Raftery, addition by subtraction and sat down. That's what he called Raftery's signing and how'd he get in the job? He called it addition by subtraction and he sat down. It was like phenomenal, but it was, you know, perfect. And again, RAF laughed more than anybody else, you know, but I mean, it was just three words, three words about RAF retiring addition by subtraction. Yeah, that's, uh, I can just see RAF. I could just see him right now laughing his ass off through the whole thing.

PJ, thank you so much for the time. And again, you'll be on the West region calls on Westwood. So give us a sense here where we got Maryland, Florida is the first one, then Arkansas, Texas, Texas. So people are in the car, what time can they check you out? 440, the first one, Maryland, Florida, which is gonna be a bloodbath. And then probably 720, 730 for Texas Tech in Arkansas.

The Sweet 16 is aptly named. These games are the best games. I mean, people are, you talked about the intensity. Players are dying to get to that elite eight because then you're one away from getting to San Antonio. So really looking forward. I think we've got great games all four regions. Can't wait, man.

Enjoy it. Thank you so much again for the time. All right, Ry. Great being with you. Hey, let me tell you about one of my favorite bets that FanDuel has right now. They're called player performance doubles. If you don't know about them, you got to check them out. They're these two leg parlays

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Jaren Jackson Jr would do against Utah. Lit him up last time for 28, but the problem is Utah, obviously not very good, and Jackson's been playing less minutes this past month, so put him at over 25 points. The beauty of this, you don't have to lay the 10 1⁄2 that you're laying with Memphis going up against Utah. So let's go with the Jimmy Butler revenge game.

Golden State at Miami, Golden State's favored by 5 1⁄2. Let's just wipe that out of the equation. You're. Golden State at Miami. Golden State's favored by five and a half. Let's just wipe that out of the equation. You're picking Golden State to win and for Butler to get eight or more rebounds. If you go through the game log, he said it's a big rebound games this month. You think he'd just be motivated enough.

You can go to the 25 points if you think they're gonna ISO him the entire time. They're not gonna do that because that's the way Golden State plays basketball. So Butler revenge, basically straight up, you're picking Golden State and you're hoping he gets eight boards. And whether you want to ride my pick or make your own,

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Bonus issued as non-retributable profits boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fanDuel.com. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. He is the third baseman of the Boston Red Sox. It's Alex Bregman who joins us now.

So look, let's start with this. It's new, this is a new thing for you. The Astros have been home for a long time. So what's this like being with a new club? No, it's definitely different, but it's been great. Just first and foremost when I got there, just trying to get to know all the guys and get to know everybody's name

and kind of get to find out a little bit about everybody and kind of what makes them go and what makes them tick, you know, and trying to learn my teammates, learn the coaches, learn the front office and kind of learn everybody in the organization. And once I've learn the front office and, um, kind of learn everybody in the organization. And once, uh, been fortunate enough to get to know all these guys, it's been awesome. It's been a great time. Uh, I think everybody is the right mindset.

Everybody's motivated, um, ready to compete this year. And we got one more exhibition game, and then it's go time. I love reading spring training stuff because it's like the best possible scenario of any, every team. Like you read everything and it's incredibly positive. But the stuff about your club, you know, it's been like these guys have really connected. So I want to ask you kind of like about your role, because your resume is great. You've been in the playoffs every year that you were in the bigs full season on, right? So eight straight years of being in the playoffs and you come in and you're like, I guess I'm kind of this vet now who's this established dude with this resume, but I'm also like the new guy. So how do you figure out like what's asked of you

as somebody with your resume, but also realizing like, I don't want to just come here and pretend like I'm in charge now either. Yeah, 100%. I think a lot of it just goes to communication, talking with everybody and getting on the same page with everybody. Obviously, like you said, been fortunate enough to play in the playoffs for the last eight years and plan on continuing to do that this year here with Boston. I'm super excited. I think we've got really good ball club. And for me, I think it's just go out and do anything I can to help the team win in all aspects of the game. And yeah, just kind of have good baseball conversations, talk to everybody and, and, and try and share experiences and share things that I feel like help make good teams win.

And just being able to talk to these guys, everybody's so motivated. Everybody's locked in. Everybody's focused on what they need to do to get better at baseball and make this team successful this year. So it's been really cool, really energizing. There's a lot of young guys here,

but they got their mind in the right spot and they're focused on the right things. And this organization is in a really, really energizing. There's a lot of young guys here, but they, they got their mind in the right spot and they're, they're focused on the right things. And, um, this organization is in a really, really good spot, so I'm excited. Do you remember an older player with the Astros like talking to you, cause there's probably part of you in the beginning, like when a world series, your first full season, you're like, all right, this is normal.

Like the plan, like this is normal, but was there somebody that you remember in the way they talked to you, what they said specifically, a teammate that you kind of think about now in your role and how they handled you as a young player? Well, I think I was super fortunate to be surrounded by some great veterans right when I got there.

Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, Josh Reddick, those guys came in and they were like, Hey, don't take this for granted. The postseason is not like it's, it's very hard to get here. It's very hard to win in the postseason. Um, and they kind of sell everybody down and we're like, Hey, just, you don't have to do anything more in the postseason. You can play your game. You can, you can take your approach and it's still going to work. You got to know who you are and, and play your game and don't try and do anything more than that. And, um, they, they taught us, they taught us, uh,

they taught us how to play in the postseason and, um, we'll be forever thankful for them. And, um, hopefully we can, hopefully we can, uh, kind of give that same message to these guys here. Did you have to talk like the reason I even say third base is because, you know, those of us that were following it's like, OK, so Bregman, it's incredible third baseman. But again, the irony being that you are a shortstop coming out so that Astros have Korea. It's like, all right, so I'll move. And then I think a lot of people are looking at Boston, whether it was Campbell or whether it was Devers. Like, do you have to talk to your teammates about like, look, I know I'm coming in and maybe this changes up

the expectations of the season. I know since Devers has said like, hey, whatever the club needs, I'm good to go. But is that something you needed to do? We didn't, we never really, we never really spoke about it. We always just talked about like our team and kind of the goals for the year. And, um, just kind of getting to know each other. Um, I feel like, um, both of us from the get-go have been under the same mindset

of, Hey, we want to win baseball games this year. We want to do whatever, uh, it takes to win wherever they put us. Uh, we will play and, um and we'll play for one another. And I think it's, it's been great. Honestly, I've admired watching him play from across the field for the last eight years. I mean, he's one of the best hitters in all of baseball, just an MVP candidate every single year. So it's been, uh, it's been awesome to be his teammate now. It wasn't so fun when he was hitting homers against us, but now, uh, now that I'm on his, uh, now that I'm on his team, I'm very excited. What was the off season like for you being a free agent?

And I know having Boris as an agent also means like you have to understand patience because that's the way Scott likes to play the game and it's, and it's work. But I wonder what that's like when you feel like, Hey, it is a month later than everybody else has already signed. Like I want to know where I'm playing. How did you handle balancing, which I'm sure is like patience and impatience during that time? No doubt. Um, obviously it took in doubt. Obviously it took in a February and I was joking with everybody. It's like, hey, I signed two days

before spring training even started. So I was early like for some of his clients in the past. But I handled it good. I think the biggest thing that you have to do during that time is literally just put your head down and work and just work on the game, uh, practice the game, um, get in the gym. Um, but the non-human to be like, Hey, where am I going? Where am I going to go? Where am I going to go in the back of your mind? Um, so for all I'll say when it, when

it, when it was done, it was a, it was a, it was a big sigh of relief for myself and my wife. And we figured out, we were, I think, seven months pregnant at the time. So we had to, we were gonna have to get some stuff going into motion here pretty quickly. And they've been awesome about getting her all set up in Boston, so it's been great. I imagine it had to change a couple times though, right?

Cause like we knew there were other teams involved. We knew that Houston still had a long-term deal on the table. Basically again, I'm just going off of what I read. So I'm sure some of this stuff is maybe off when it makes it out to the public consciousness. But I had to imagine there's a couple of days where you're like, I guess I'm going here.

I guess I'm going, like, did you have moments where you were almost like mentally committed to an option that did not happen? Oh yeah. I feel like multiple times throughout the process, um, that happened and, um, we were mentally like, Hey, we're going, we're going somewhere else and, um, it ended up not happening. And then like the last second Boston came in and now,

I mean, I'm very happy they did. I'm super, I love it here. I'm super excited. The structure of the contract, the, you know, look the average annual salary based on what was, you know, out from Houston, it was longer, but it was less money. Boston steps up late and they also give you the freedom

of being able to opt out after this year or next year. Does the option structure of this give you more pressure or is it both? It's like, hey, I can either step up in what's a pseudo contract year, but at the same time I have the security of the multiple years at a big number too. No, I think that's the nice thing about the optionality in there. But I think honestly, being able to get rid of the qualifying offer was a big factor in all that.

I think the qualifying offer is part of the reason why a lot of these, a lot of these players are signing later and later into the free agency. And we'll see what happens here coming up with the qualifying offer, but yeah, it's not, it's the qualifying offer is not very good for players. So I think, I don't know. Um, I think I'm, I'm excited with it. I'm excited with the contract, but I'm super just focused on, I'm winning this year, I just want to win, win baseball games and, and do, and do that. Yeah, look, I, I get it.

I mean, it's always a little weird talking to another dude about like, so you were offered this many millions, but then you went this way and I can just tell by your answer. I also love the Boris client answer of like getting a little of the qualifying stuff in there and be like, you know, this long-term, we need to look into this. So, um, it sounds like you spend a lot of time with Scott. So that, that would make sense. All right. Let's, uh, let's have a little bit more fun. What's it going to be like being at Fenway and not being booed?

Oh, it's going to be, it's going to be great. Actually, I don't know if I'm playing bad, if I'm playing bad, like for home stand, I might need them to bring it out again. So you can get me back, give me back going or something. The Fenway numbers are nuts. I, you know, I was looking at him again this morning. I mean, I knew what kind of beating you put on that park, but there has to be your swing, you know, the, the profile of you as a hitter to get to play 81 there.

What is it about that park for you? It's, it's going to be nice. I feel like, I feel like the biggest difference is like left center and center field isn't super deep. Obviously, right field is pretty far. But kind of my bat and batted ball profile, I don't really hit the ball in the air to right field or not when I'm feeling, not when I'm playing well. I don't, when I'm, when I'm swinging a bat, well, I'm hitting

the ball high in the air to left field and low to low to right field. And I feel like that kind of fits that mold of the layout of Fenway Park, but I promise I could hit other places too. Last year. Everybody's been telling me, I can hit elsewhere too, I promise. No, I would say the back of the baseball card proves that. But last year is a down year for you in some respects. How much of that was the elbow? Um, I'm not going to make any excuses for it, but obviously,

um, it's all, it's all better now. We got it. We got it. Uh, we got it cleaned up in the off season and, um, it's feeling a hundred percent for this season. Um, but I think, yeah, I think obviously there are some things that I needed to, needed to address offensively from last year. Um, yeah, I think obviously there are some things that I needed to address offensively from last year. I, my walk rate was cut, cut in half pretty much. Contact rate went up a little bit. And so it was basically like, if I was swinging, the ball was going in play and it's a blessing

and a curse. Sometimes when you swing at good pitches, it's a blessing. When you swing at pitches around the edges of the plate, it's kind of a curse cause you're putting those ones in play. And last year, uh, I think the pitch selection, um, could have been a lot better. And uh, I think we've kind of addressed some of the reasons why, um, here in camp, why my walk rate went down a little bit. And, uh, I think it's back up over the 15% mark now here in spring training early.

So hopefully, um, continue to just swing at pitches that I can drive out of the ballpark. And if they can't, I can't drive them, um, out of the ballpark or in the gap, don't swing. It's a bit like a golf swing, right? Where you can watch a video and, you know, see something that you don't like. You're like, Oh my God, like, I can't believe that's what it looks like. But at the same time, like the golf ball is not adjusting to you. The way major league pitchers are adjusting to the tendencies they see with you.

So I've always wondered, you know, how much can an NBA coach really tell a great NBA player about what he's doing right or wrong out on the floor. You can have a system or you can say, hey, we want to do this tonight. Quarterbacks, probably a little different, but what is it like for you being this good, but also having an open mind in hearing from new voices and guys on staff about like, hey, maybe this is something you need to think about? Because I imagine that's really tough for some players. And then some players are probably listening to too many people as they try to figure things out. Yeah, they always say you don't want too many cooks in the kitchen, but at the same time,

I have a, I always like taking in as much information as I possibly can. And I feel like just a short time being able to work with the coaches in the front office here, it's been pretty awesome. They showed me some stuff with my swing, how it was different earlier on in my career and how it's changed over the course of my career. And we're going to try and get it back to where it was before. And it's pretty cool, some of the technology that they have, some like overlays of my body in different positions and some different things that I'm doing

mechanically that could be more beneficial if I went back to how I was how I was swinging about mechanically in 2018 and 2019. Whether it's my head position or the speed of which I'm loading or where my center of mass is. There's a lot of things that we've been how far, how far my hands are back when I'm swinging the bat, as opposed to like how they used to be inside my frame. Like some, some different things that they've showed me that have been really cool and really helpful that looking forward to implementing this

year this team they know they've had a massive offseason it's also a team that that fan base is not used to not being in the mix after, after like, you know, a really long run of success. Have you had any time back in Massachusetts? Have you, have you like even? Not, not yet. No, we haven't, we haven't been back there yet. We've been, we went Arizona straight to Florida. Now we're in Mexico today. We're, we're in Mexico today and then up to Texas, Baltimore and then finally home. So I can't now wait to get up there. Do you have any friends that have played there?

You know, that are there every day for multiple years that have just kind of alerted you that like, what a big deal it is to be a member of this team in that city. Cause I look, I know Houston was awesome. I know New York and at LLA. So I'm not necessarily knocking, but I think it's so important to people in Boston that it kind of takes it to another level that isn't always for everybody.

It's really cool. I feel like, um, I was, I was drafted by the Red Sox out of high school initially before I went to college. And, um, my best friends growing up, Blake Swihart was the first round pick of the Red Sox the year before me. So I got to watch. He came up to their system, top prospect, made it to the big leagues, finished in the rookie of the year voting. And I was fortunate enough to talk with him about it forever.

And I mean, he raved about it. He loved it. And he also told me how awesome like Red Sox baseball is big time in Boston. And he told me how a bunch of different things and stories about how intense it is there. And obviously playing there in the postseason against the Red Sox in 17, 18, 21 is pretty cool. It's really cool.

Do you think in 18 when Joe Kelly drilled you with a hundred mile an hour fastball? Cause it was, it was a two, two game. So it's the playoffs, but I always felt like Joe felt like he was like policing the game a little, so I don't know. It was a one, two pitch and you seemed so pissed, but I also, I called time right before that I called time. Like, and he was mid delivery and he kind of threw it up and in. And then the next pitch drilled me and I was like, Oh my gosh.

Yeah. I, he's like a hero out here in LA and I, I don't know. I have always been like, you know, like when he drilled you, I thought, why are you putting somebody on like it's a two two game? But then I guess the argument, go ahead. He's nasty. He's got, he's those a hundred. Like you said, like his, his stuff is electric. So, yeah. I want to ask you about the Red Sox thing. Cause yeah, you were 29th round pick. Was there

any chance that you were going to sign at a high school with them? No, I wasn't. I was, I was not. I had told my college coach that if I was taken in the first round, I was not, um, I had told my college coach that if I was taken in the first round, I was going to sign, but if I wasn't taking in the first round, I'll give you my word. I'm coming to school. So as soon as I didn't go in the first round, I ended up going to, uh, going to school and had a great time at LSU. So let's do that. Uh, as you know, I love being down in Baton Rouge for games. I go every year.

Uh, it's, it's one of my favorite things, just being a Northeast guy and getting to experience that. Cause if you don't experience it, you can't understand it. Uh, let's go back to a high school, Alex Bregman. What's your best recruiting story? Is it at LSU? Is there something else? Or is there another place you thought you were gonna go? Because we like to do this with all the guys that played.

Best recruiting story. I don't really, I don't know. I kind of, I was a sophomore in high school when I went on my recruiting visit to LSU. We went to a football game and I actually went with my mom on the visit and there's this song that they sing in Van Ruysen, they score a touchdown and it's called neck and I don't know if you've heard of it.

It's called neck and I don't know if you've heard of it. Oh yeah. Yeah. My mom was standing right next to me like, what are they saying? Are you kidding me? And, uh, we laugh about it as a family because by the, by year three of me going to school there, she was singing along with it. That'll happen. That'll happen if you go down there. Look man, I'm pumped for you. I know it was a long off season and it's probably weird like has it even like to not be a member of the Astros anymore? Has it sunk in yet or is it gonna be the first time you're Fenway in that uniform?

Um, it's sunk in now. Um, at first it was a little, it was a little weird, but now it's, uh, now it's, it's, it's feels, it feels good to be here. It feels normal. Um, obviously I miss all my teammates. Um, playing with them for a while is awesome. I'm going to miss playing with them and the coaches in the front office. It was a great organization. But I'm super thrilled to be here. Had a great time getting

to know all my new teammates and coaches in front office and I've loved every second of it. And I hope we can go out and get back to the post season and win some games there. Well, I can't wait for the start of the season. It's been a fun off season and I'm happy for you, man. So look forward to 25. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

And now it's time for today's winning bundle segment presented by State Farm. There's something to be said about a strong coach-player relationship. When that bond is solid, you can see the magic unfold. Players have the confidence to take risks and show off their skills, knowing their coach is in their corner. A few standout winning bundles definitely come to mind. I know what you're saying. Are you seriously gonna do Mahomes and Reed again

after the Super Bowl? No, I'm not. Although I've used it before for this illuminating piece of information I'm sharing with you. How about Jared Goff and Man Campbell? Think about it, makes sense. Jared Goff, good.

Not great with LA. Not great enough to be the long-term guy. They move them out. They send him to Detroit. Like, how long is this going to last? Well, it's going to last a long time based on one thing. And that's belief, belief from his head coach, Dan Campbell. Dan Campbell wants a captain as a backup.

That's hard to do. You don't see that a lot, but that's the kind of leadership that he inspires around him. It's a coach that treats every fourth down like a parking ticket, when you don't have any money in your checking account. He's like, you know what? I'm not gonna worry about this right now.

That's the kind of belief from the top down that gets his team to play at a level that he needs them to play to, to respond to win on Sundays. And we've seen an entirely new golf. I know it was disappointing in the playoffs this year, but come on, I still feel good about Detroit. And you should too.

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variability vary by state. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, the email address, lifeadvicerr.gmail.com before we get to helping the world. Let's at least talk about our Johnnies here for a little bit. Bill allowed me the space at the end of Sunday's pod,

but we have not heard from Kyle. I did order, I couldn't find the starter jacket because I think Spike Lee bought all of them. And so I was looking for it. I am just, I've had the worst luck with these starter jackets. Like I want this LSU offensive line one. It's like LSU, Louisiana state and cursive.

And I've seen it and I just can't. And there was some, I think some weird Asian company that was like, yeah, we can get that to you. And I was like, I don't know about this. Um, again, you'd have to understand the email correspondence, so do not judge on my assumption. So then I ordered what I could for St. John's one and I knew it was going to be cutting it close, but I figured, Hey,

if they get through the first weekend, I can wear the jacket. And it showed up yesterday after they'd been eliminated. And I ordered an XL and it showed up as a small. So I did put it on, sent the picture to Kyle and Surerti, who I noticed that that's our first ever text thread, just the three of us. No, I noticed that too. I think some things got messed up with your phone situation. I won't go into any further than that,

but we've definitely texted before. Yeah, I was gonna say. The three of us. Well, I thought maybe Wargon or Allison were always on it. So then when I sent it, and so I put the jacket on, I took the picture. It is too small and we're going to return that one. But the problem was I had them, I couldn't get that thing off for 10 minutes. I figured you're going to have to call a neighbor or something like,

Hey, listen, I'm Ryan. Just so you know, can you please help me? Get some scissors out. No, I won't go in the elevator because I live by myself. And so, or I won't go in the elevator without a phone. And you know, that'll be a weird way to go. Did almost die installing a squat rack years ago. We know that story, but I had a moment. It wasn't panic, but I remember one time I put on this wetsuit where I had to get into the top of it.

And I could not, I was fighting for like a half an hour, best car to you. You can ever do trying to get out of a wetsuit that doesn't fit you. And I was like, what am I going to do? Like, am I going to have to go to a neighbor and be like, you're going to have to just cut this thing in the back? Like I don't even care if I'm wasting however much cost of this wetsuit, like I can't go through life this way. And so I put on this jacket and I'm wasting however much cost of this wetsuit, like I can't go through life this way.

And so I put on this jacket and I could not get my arms because it was restricting my arms so bad. Once it was on, I couldn't. And I was like, am I seriously gonna, like, is this an issue? And you have that moment, you go, is this actually? Am I gonna choke to death by myself at a beach bar or something like,

it's like one of those things where like, did I just put myself in this situation? So finally got it off, but again, I'm taking up too much time. Kyle, how are you doing? I'm okay, actually, you know, I'd read a bunch of stuff from Johnny's Twitter, which has really stormed into my algorithm,

which is nice for X, but yeah, it's been fun, but I hadn't heard anyone talk about it until you did. And you basically said all the nice things I've been reading But it was nice to hear somebody say it And I really hadn't had a you know, like a real crushing sports loss in a while since the Patriots had been kind of out Of it for a while. It's just been three four years since it, you know It was like a like a real loss. It was like man that one stung like I thought we had something there

So I guess it's cool to be back in the game Just of sports relevancy. Yeah, I felt good to care again. Also, RJ Lewis, you guys need to stop being mean to our guy. He deleted his Instagram and that's because of you degenerate gamblers, I think so. Do better. Yeah, had a bad game. Yeah. Three for 17 is nuts, but still nice guy.

I do try to figure out like where you are in the loser spectrum. And I know guys are getting paid now in the NIL. So maybe that's justified it for some people, but I still think that's like the same person. It's the same person who would go on Facebook and get mad at a high school kid for turning down his college. As far as like the seeding of losers in society.

I don't know if it's a one seed, but it's, it's a good seed. Yeah, it's up there. The guy that's like it's a good seed. Yeah. It's up there. Guys. It's like, I'm going to MF. You're a final four favorite. Louis. Right.

I'm going to, I'm going to let Louis have a hard time here after a terrible shooting game. All right. So, uh, I that's talking college hoops. We already did a lot of BJ already. Uh, little Friday feedback people. Just the support of swearing is unbelievable.

Oh really? Yeah. I didn't see that coming. Nope. I'm shocked. Like people were really upset. So we'll probably let it fly whenever it happens and whenever it needs to happen.

Okay, all right. Let's get to some emails here. Brother didn't like the road, 59240, no gym stats to speak of, but I do have a membership if that counts counts in the checking account. I was listening to the podcast where you're talking about reading the road and your Kurt Vonnegut phase. I do a lot of driving work and listen to a lot of books. I just finished the road and was the middle of sirens of Titan. Uh, thinking that was interesting. I told my brother who had never read the road.

So I told him to check it out. It was fantastic. His response was, quote, it was okay. And he didn't care if the characters died. Long story short, should I disown him as a brother? Also wouldn't mind some more hockey talk. I do think you guys would be bummed out if I tried to talk hockey more often, but I appreciate it. We'll have Bucci back on before the playoffs, maybe a little Ryan Whitney. Who knows? Let's see.

We've never had Biz on. I think we talked about, I think there were some DM correspondents about maybe having Biz on one day. So maybe we'll try to do that this year. Yeah, I don't know. That's pretty much the all time, anything that's dramatic, not comedy,

because comedy, yeah, normally you wouldn't care. I mean, guess Weekend at Bernie's. I don't know if anybody was emotionally distraught that he was dead, but not caring if main characters die in a very dramatic thing, or just in general. It's kind of the test that I'll give myself. Like, do I actually care about any of these characters? And I think whenever you're trying to write a TV show or a movie, you would want to be able to create characters that people cared about. Not caring about the father son dynamic in the

road is alarming. I got to read this book. If it's going to keep coming up, I have to read the book. I watched the movie. I feel like you got a pretty good grasp on the movie, but if it's going to continue to come up, I think I got to get on it. I honestly don't know that you can do movie book on

this one. And I know everybody says like, read the book. Oh, I just, I just screwed it up. Yeah. That just creeps out. Like some people say the book is better, so aren't you gonna have a better experience reading second?

Yeah, but don't you think you now have the imagery from the movie as you'll read the words, so you're not creating, you know, when you're reading the book, you're creating like these visuals in your head because you have nothing else to go on. And if you've watched the movie first,'s just gonna replace like you're gonna be reading it is like I'll be thinking of a different color of gray for the outside

you know yeah well true there's a lot of gray I read it well I read all the Lord of the Rings books after I saw the movies and I actually thought it was a I personally I like the experience here we go here we go only because there was just like do it I'm Tom Bombadil like this guy's and even the freaking movie and he's like this incredible character in the books he's like this mysterious guy in the woods that they don't even talk about really so I don't I think it can go both ways depending on your personality I thought you were gonna be like I thought the movies were way better no I would not okay okay there'll be no Lord of the I'm not. Okay. Okay. There'll be no lower the ring sling.

I also have seen the movie of the road and not read the book. So I'm in the same camp as you go. People hated the movie. Okay. The movie did not. I thought the movie was awesome, but who I know I didn't read the book. Uh, the kid is annoying in the movie and you want to talk about like not most kids in movies kind of sucked though.

Right. I mean You're see, uh, what was it down home alone? Home alone tough one. No, what's the what's the zombie apocalypse? Why am I blanking on it? Oh No the show The walking dead Carl last bus just terrible just terrible. Just terrible. Left of us. Yeah, I just to stay on this point, because I can't let it go, because I remember we had, again,

I think the one film class I took in college. And then I remember because I was finishing up school and the guy was like, what's next? I was like, I'll probably move out to LA or not. Um, it took 20 years, but I, I remember him arguing in the class that you should always watch the movie first before read the book and we were just like, what are you talking about? But I think again, his life was, you know, whatever level of dedication it was.

But I mean, the guy was a film professor. So, you know, it kind of gets back to like, yeah, what, like where are your interests aligned? Like, this is your opinion? Okay, well, yeah, let me know more about like what you're in this, like, of course you want this to be. They think we should get more SEC teams in weird. All right.

So yeah, I would never, I personally would never We should get more SEC teams in weird. So yeah, I would never, I personally would never, I don't even wanna watch trailers. You know, I don't want, and I don't wanna know about, you know, anything as far as the story, but then I guess you could argue, well, if you don't even wanna watch a trailer for a movie, why would you wanna read the book ahead of time? I don't know.

The book is a lot better than the movie there. So yeah, I don't know why your brother said that, but we can't help them. It's a strike, but that wouldn't decide. I got a little vacation coming up. I think I'm going to grab the road. Far worse, far worse to criticize RJ Lewis. Right. Okay.

All right. Let's get to one. My wife lives on Reddit. Please don't use name. Okay. No problem, man. Uh, six foot one, one. My wife lives on Reddit. Please don't use name. Okay, no problem, man. Six foot one, 195, player comp, slower, wider, less aggressive, Steve Blake. Whiter than Steve Blake.

Sorry in advance for the lengthy email. It's always great when everybody does that. This is like literally two sentences in a paragraph. It's been weighing on my mind for months. I would love everyone's take. My wife constantly lies on Reddit. I don't know what my wife's screen time is, but she spends several hours a day on Reddit.

I don't have Reddit, nor do I fully understand it, but she will send me some comments from other people on shows that we watch that are funny, et cetera. A few months ago, we were sitting next to each other and I happened to glance over at her and she was on Reddit with her username and big bold letters at the top. Months later, she sent me something from someone with a funny username. I asked her if her username was clever. She

said, no, mine is blank. She told me a different name than what it actually is. I looked up her actual username on Reddit and there are countless posts. A lot of them are her complaining about me, which is fine. It's pretty mature dude, which is fine, right? I think I read it a little bit more dramatically, but a lot of her posts and comments are on other people's posts are just simply not true. She's made up so many stories about the most random topics.

Some are variations of the truth that are heavily exaggerated to make them more valid. Some are just straight up lies that never happen. She's not normally a political person, but she's getting in back and forth verbal flights with random people over political topics. It's a very weird side of her that I never knew existed and someone paints her in a new strange

light to me. Yeah, dude, I bet. I have three questions. One. Do you? Only three? A part of me feels knowing her screen name is an invasion of her privacy.

Do you think it is? Two, do you think this is weird as I do? Three, where do I go from here? Cheers. All right, who's the most online of the three of us? Kyle's last. Yeah, I don't think I'm you Ryan. Yeah. Yeah, I Enjoy read it

You do not I I I'll peruse through there, but usually before I go to sleep I mostly like again, I like the explain it to me like I'm five I feel like I'm learning something so it's like explain like nuclear power reactors and somebody explains it like you're five It's great I like that stuff, but there are some real, there's some real weird dark shit on Reddit that I, and they try to feed you stuff and the algorithm to really, it's like the for you page, but like just in your normal feed. And it's like, wow,

you're really just trying to mess with me right now. And occasionally I'll, you know, I'll see like the Rosilla or the bill one. And I'm like, man, I gotta stay away from that. Cause there's nothing good in there. Get out of there. Run. And, and yeah.

So I don't, this, this to me is like, this is like what, this is the stuff that we, you know, it's like, Hey, I can't believe somebody lied on the internet. And like, this is just, this is just life in 2025. Now we're like all this shit is I never know what to believe. I'm always confused. Everyone's always mad about something that doesn't really matter, but like is the biggest deal in the world. So I, this is like, I gotta be honest with you. This is like, this is a dark scene for your wife here. I'm kind of nervous for you and her.

Yeah, it's not that she's addicted to Reddit. And by the way, I can't tell if the For You page on X is the best thing or the worst thing. It's probably the best thing for the feed as far as getting people to engage in stuff that they may not see normally. Where the hell does it come from though? Like who's that?

Well, what I always think is funny is when you see somebody complaining about the For You page being like, why is this happening? It's like, cause at some point you clicked on this thing that you hated and you wanted to see something, cause I do it, I'll be like, this is fucking stupid. Let's see it. And then guess what happens?

I have seven more versions of the thing that I don't like. And at least I think I was able to figure out why I was getting more of the thing that I didn't like. And at least I think I was able to figure out why I was getting more of the thing that I didn't like. But then when people complain about it, it's like you started this, your whole thing. So when it used to just be, and you can click back, and I swear to God, when you go on the following tab for it, it pushes you back to the for you like two days later.

It used to default before you too, which was nuts. Right, right. And then they're like, all right, we can't be this bad. Okay. So back, back to this email, cause I don't know that we're doing much justice here for our guy. Uh, I don't think it's an invasion of privacy necessarily. I'm the user. Like she shared it with you. Um, it's obviously a bit of a mistake on her part and now you know something that she has no idea that you know about. So that's going to be really tough. It sounds like you get along with your wife. You didn't mention any other things.

It sounds like you have like a great disposition that you're able to see your wife complaining about you on some public forum. Again, where nobody's going to know it's your wife, we're going to know that it's you and you've handled it like a champ. Like that's not even the premise or the main concern of your email here. So I, you know, look in a very short, um, access to like where your head is at with this, like I actually think you deserve a lot of credit. Yeah. I don't think I handled that that well. Yeah. Like I'm blown away by that part of it. So it sounds like she found a keeper and you were like, yeah, I started complaining about me on this, this thread, but whatever, that's not a big deal.

So the problem is if you were ever confront her on this, like it's going to send her in a spiral, like I don't know how long that spiral lasts, but that's going to shake you up. Imagine if- It's taking the foundational bricks out. That's not the- Imagine- That's on top of the Jenga tower.

Even if your spouse were cool about the complaints, like our guy here, which I think this is really, really rare, the other person is now realizing like, oh my God, my husband, my wife, like he read, she read all of these things that I've said about him where I thought I was just kind of like venting into the abyss. Does he know about my other other burner? Right. So I don't know that you can ever really, like the only way I think you can attack this

because you need to get her off. Like I set limits on it and like the problem is I'll go to post something I'll check something out and then next thing I know I'm like I'm just kind of dicking around and it's like I've been on my stairwell for 15 minutes I'm like I don't need this right you said I am this morning that was like yeah is this gonna make my day better is gonna piss me piss me off? Well, no, it was just so dumb, I wasn't even mad. No, I know, but it's just like- So Rudy and I enjoy kind of like industry stuff.

Mutual hate of the same thing. It's usually always like an industry thing of like, well, that's not true. Like, or this is, like, I know what this person's doing here and we just have our little chuckle and we move on about our day. So I don't think it like, I don't think we're to the point of having it derail us. We don't have a problem. Yeah. Yeah. We're fine.

I feel for the guy cause you want her off of it. You don't want like, it's only probably going to get worse. So I don't know if there's a way that you could delicately be like, Hey, you're on that a ton, huh? And it's not like Hey, you need to, I know, I know, Kyle, you guys are the married guys here. So you know what? Why don't you guys just take it? Like, how would you handle this? Dude, I mean, this is one of those, like, I didn't know what you were capable of situations, you know what I mean? Depending on how far he went on that initial initial scroll and just watching the stories that had the kernel

of truth spiral into something else and you're thinking every time like, what is the gain of this? And it's like one of those things like this is insane, right, there's nothing, you can't show me the correlation to how this makes anything better for you. So if I was him, I might just like look into getting hypnotized to forget this shit.

I don't know how you move past it knowing what you know. It's like I had I had my struggles with Reddit in like 2019. You know what I mean? And just dudes weren't super nice. And it's just like it's been that's 2025. And it's like, you know, I this is how I should kick cigarettes. It's just like you learn to stay off of for a couple months and that's it. By the way, imagine when your wife is not liking Kyle and like doesn't say that's definitely rebounded.

No dude, it's an easier skill to pick up than you think, I think, but. I know, but of all the people that have a heart, like I get when people don't like me, like, yeah, all right. I don't know that I would like me if I were removed, be like, that guy's pod, fuck that dude. I just can't imagine just deciding to be like,

hey, I'm gonna start a thread on not liking Kyle. Anyway, that's just an aside. But you got through it. But to just have a real life of that. I did, yeah, I did spend a long time and it's been great and I love golf. But the like, the fact that you have a Reddit in your house is weird.

It seems like you don't care what she says about you to the world. It's the Reddit in the room with you right now. Yeah, yeah. So I would try, I mean, realistically, I try to forget this, see if there's some new technology they can set the shit out of my brain, but I don't know how to confront her on this,

unless you're just gonna go sit down like balls to the wall. This is insane, I think maybe you should see a therapist. We gotta get you off this. Like, I don't know what the gentle nudge thing is for this, if, you know. It sounds like you're cool and maybe you can just forget about it, but outside of that, I don't know how to even start here. I think you could rationalize, even if it hurts

and it would hurt me, I would not handle it as well as this guy has about, like, your spouse kind of talking, venting about you, I guess, is the nicest way to say it, right? So I think that's normal, but it's- But he's more- To a therapist. I think he's more upset about the lies that she's- That's what I'm saying. I guess it's the nicest way to say it right? So I think that's normal, but he's more About the lies that she's doing making up the making shit up on random threads like that's like crazy person behavior That's you know, there's no like game there. There's nothing can get from that. That's conspiracy theories

I that's your you're going into a weird part of the internet that I'm As you said, it's like do I even know who you are at this? But I don't even know who you are anymore. What are you saying? Like you're talking about this on this thread. That would bother me, I think long-term more than like the little like, oh, my husband bothers me because of this and this and that. I would like, can you kind of come at it from an indirect way? You say you don't have Reddit. Can you maybe get one? Not that you want to like get yourself into that field, be like, man, I did my tone of the Reddit world.

Like, what have you been like, it's crazy in there. What things do you look at? Maybe just kind of like put it in the back of her mind that like she should probably not be on there because it's insane. But she already has a fake one that she told them about, right, she told them about the mild Reddit that she has. But if you say like,

hey, there's some weird shit on there. Like what's, just swore, sorry, I felt like it was appropriate. Uh, like what's, what, is this how it normally is? Like, what do you, what places do you go on? And then if she kind of maybe just like dawns on her a little bit that like, Hey, I shouldn't be on here as much as this kind of a dumb thing. And he's right. Like this is probably sending me into it. I'm wasting time on things that aren't making me feel better.

Yeah, I know. I mean, it sounds like sure, we could sit there. Now this guy's caught up in the whole thing. But I think the only way found out she's not going to admit that she's got the crazy Reddit. I feel like she's going to use the she's going to use the mild Reddit. If you know until this is like explicitly put out in front of her, she's just this is going to be at my secrets forever until it's like on Front Street. I don't know. Is there any way you could go on it? this is going to be at my secrets forever until it's like on front street. I don't know. Is there any way you could go on it and she knows that it's your name and then

you find her anonymous one and then you knew it like a black mirror disagreement with her on it. And then she gets so mad at you. Right. She gets so mad at you that she's like, I, she's like, why did you say that? And he'd be like, what are you talking about? And then she admits, she admits that it's actually her. And then maybe it changes her tune because now she knows that you know her. Like you would have to create this thing where you end up on a forum where you get in an argument

where she knows that it's actually you. And does she admit to the whole thing? I mean, again, I was trying to side door the whole deal of is there a way to just go like, hey, you're on that a lot, like in a funny way, right? Which again, never works, but. Yeah, I don't know. There's some self-awareness

that keeps the anonymous thing like a secret. Like you're not admitting, I don't know, man. I think it's great. Like it's those like TLC, like hoarders, we're all problems. It's like, you're not gonna be able to just like passively aggressively get the lady to stop eating poop who's addicted to eating her own poop.

You know what I mean? Like there's not, there has to be something. It's so crazy that it's not just gonna be like, you can't logic them out of it. Was that an episode? I don't know. I think so. There's one lady that like, yeah, yeah.

I've seen clips. All right, all right. That's enough. Sorry. No, it's not your fault. Just my strange addiction episodes, you know, like just you can't get to the bottom of it. Just don't air that addiction.

Logic. Don't air it if that's a real thing. Although. It's on TLC, man. I think everyone knows. All right. Spirit etiquette. 35, five, seven, 165, 170 bench, 225 squat,

NBA player, I think I ran into this guy in Vegas, by the way. I met Kyle on Saturday in Las Vegas. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. AdRemo certainly starting with him by simply saying, Kyle, when I recognized him after ordering a Starbucks, we had a nice brief chat

while waiting for our coffees. I found this to be a funny chance encounter because just the night before, I desperately needed life advice at the Sphere and was thinking about how you guys would have handled the situation I was in, especially Rosilla because of his Sphere experience. I explained the situation a bit to Kyle but didn't do the best job at details because of the night that I'd had before.

This being pre-coffee and I didn't want to talk his ear off that early, but anyway, here we go. Good encounter, Kyle? Yeah, totally fine. Okay. I was at Devon Company on Friday night with friends, amazing show. Mayor seems to have a full mastery of their catalog and now visuals have gotten an upgrade and even better from last year, seemingly the perfect night, except we had two guys

right next to us in our row that were talking nonstop the entire show and not about the show, just about anything else, be it work, wives, et cetera. Maybe a few comments about the visuals or wondering out loud when an actual song was going to be played again. I feel like that's not the concert to do that at. Yeah. People take it pretty seriously. The guys, pretty standard 30 something bros

may have been in a biz relationship considering all the new info being covered. These guys in this email knows everything about it. Backwards hats, not leaders according to the cowherd, wearing these light fishing sweatshirts that block UV rays. Huck. PFG.

Definitely not deadheads or even casual fans, which for the record, it's how I would label myself. I've seen about four shows over the last few years. I feel like these guys heard good things about the sphere. Maybe they were catching a Grateful Dead Vegas style, shut up and playing the hits. Or a John Mayer concert. They were definitely not prepared for extended jams or quiet moments. Now, I've learned of this problem of people talking too much at concerts a few times at concerts throughout the years and

generally ignore it. I feel like concerts generally are a party-like environment and there's always some chatter, but I feel like everyone knows when it's too much, it just kind of mutually acknowledges it with eye rolls and head tilts in the talker's direction. But because of the high ticket prices at the sphere and heavy visual elements, I feel like we were talking about a borderline, we were talking borderline movie theater rules here.

It was clearly early on and these guys were going to be an issue. My buddy gave him a look at one point in the first set, I'm not sure they registered, multiple people in the rows around us kept looking back at them shaking heads. These guys weren't getting it based on their appearance, what they were talking about in general vibe.

I'm guessing they were from Mass or New England, where I'm from. And I knew if I said the wrong thing, i.e. hey, can you shut up? It would probably cause more problems. So when the second set started, I finally even over them and said, hey, I just wanna let you guys know

you're projecting really loudly, as gentle as I could. Gentle eyes closed and a soft open hand in the air for effect. Wow, this guy really delivered a masterpiece. It seemed to work, the guy next to me, seemingly genuinely, thank you for letting me know. My wife tells me sometimes I talk too loud, appreciate the note,

thank you for letting me know that respectfully. By the way, not from mass. If you just solve that. Yep. I heard what it sounds like. Thank you so much for saying that. Yeah. I appreciate you.

He introduced himself and tried to start some light conversation, but I politely let him know with body language I wasn't really getting into it. But of course, about 10 minutes later, they started going in and pretty much rev back up the rest of the show. Despite auditioning some more aggressive remarks in my inner monologue, I didn't say anything else then because I didn't want to start shit, but they definitely put a damper on the show. I

did get two big laughs out of it when a quiet part of drums in space, I won't explain it here for those who don't know, but spark notes, it's pretty meditative and usually has your full attention in that venue one of the guys This is actually pretty funny that during drums. He loudly proclaimed. Yeah, she's kind of a pain in the ass But at the end of the day, she's good for me in reference to his wife big breakthrough for him That's actually really funny at another point a dead head in front of me couldn't take it They're talking anymore left to go Watch from standing room then came back later when these guys had gone to get

more beers and thought they were gone and cheered toward the sky and high-fived me, only to drop his head in sadness when they returned a few minutes later. You think they were just going to leave? Well, yeah, actually, if they weren't into it. Talking during drums, though, I can kind of understand a little bit, but what would you have done or said? On one hand, of course, these guys paid a ton of money to be at the show, would be part of it, is socializing, they should be able to do that to some degree, but on the other hand, they're kind of ruining the show

for dozens of people around them. Yeah, that's a tough one. Again, the man-to-man confrontation. No one ever starts that thing. Somebody the other day, I was pulling into a parking lot and the guy decided to move his car up and I had traffic coming behind me, so I couldn't just wait to turn in. I had to make the move

and I was pulling into the parking lot and a guy didn't even look, just drove right in front of me just to move his truck from one parking spot to another parking spot. I understood why he wasn't looking, but he had to know people were turning into this parking lot, but he just didn't look. It happens to everybody.

I almost smashed into him, but I also couldn't stop because I had traffic behind me. So it was like this Indiana Jones move and I honked and then he honked back at me. And like waved his hands up in the air, like I was the asshole. And again, what's the lesson there? It's not that it's just that you don't like being told that you're doing something wrong. Okay. And I don't even think it's a that it's just that you don't like being told that you're doing something wrong Okay, and I don't even think it's a it's a male thing, right? I think there's plenty of people throughout even when the person is wrong like we all have to admit you've done something wrong

You just didn't like the messaging. Yeah, you know, this is always thing about stop signs when you're like No, the guy who screws up the stop sign never was like, you know what? You're right They just you know, no fingers as they go through No, there was like yeah, I really screwed that stop sign up. It's you know what, you're right. They just, you know, it's middle fingers as they go through. No one's ever was like, yeah, I really screwed that stop sign up. It's always, everyone else is an idiot. No, it's a lesson in humanity. When you see the stop sign thing happen,

is you just go, no one goes, man. Wish I could have that one back. Yeah, that's not me, boys. It's like an intentional ball, you put your hand up in the air like, that's me. I don't know. What would you have done, Kyle? So I was thinking in this situation,

when he was telling me at that Starbucks and early morning in Vegas, I was thinking like sizing these guys up, like, I don't know, strength in numbers, but I was realizing like, I really don't have a lot of experience with concerts. And I didn't know how big of a deal talking through a concert was or wasn't.

I mean, I just assumed- Can you talk at an Insane Clown Posse concert, the ones you've gone to? Insane Clown Posse? Did we do this before? Why is this coming up again? You've never gone to a gathering? No.

What's their nicknames? I forget. Juggalos, right? Juggalos, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, never, and just because I know that doesn't mean anything. I've never been to that. I've been to like three concerts, four concerts in my life.

Two of them being John Mayer concerts. Hell yeah. Yeah, I just assumed, there's speakers everywhere. I mean, I just didn't, I didn't realize that people talking could get under your skin that much. But again, I've never been in the sphere. And I don't think I've been to a high ticket concert, so I really don't know what to deal with.

I saw Ludacris at the FanDuel thing where they sent me to Puerto Rico for the Fantasy World Championships in 2017, 2018. And you could be talking the whole time, I wouldn't even have noticed. So I didn't really understand how big of a deal that was. I just stayed in the moment, it's like, you know, have you, like maybe you look around the section

and sort of get like a strength of number sort of thing. So maybe you can convince someone else to do it and then everyone could just be like, yeah man, this isn't how we do this. Cause if one guy tells you you're doing something wrong, I think you're probably thinking you got a 50-50 chance of actually being right. But I think if more people told you that,

then you might be like, all right, I'm gonna back down here. But again, I really don't have great concert advice. So I'm not a deadhead, although shout to Greg Korolebek, who I think is like family or something, or big, grateful, dead people, because I remember we were talking about it,

and he was like, you gotta give him a chance. He gave me a couple songs to listen to, and I'm like, actually, these guys are pretty good. Like, I'll hand it to him. And obviously, I'm a John Mayer guy, shout out to you too, Kyle. There was a story once that I saw where this girl, 20 something, like thought she was mine,

take us to a John Mayer concert, ended up being a dead in company concert, and she didn't know that until she got there. Yeah, which is pretty great. But what I, so I'm not a dead head. Do respect them. But what I do know about them is it's kind of like a musical experience. He's doing the wind horse thing right now.

Yeah. Why would you guys have... It's kind of like a musical experience, right? I mean people take their music really seriously and there's a lot of instrumental parts. I mean the drum thing, I don't know what it is but I assume it's like a big thing that people look forward to. It's when you go get beers. Okay.

Because it's ten minutes. Fair enough. Maybe I'm wrong. that people look forward to. It's when you go get beers. Okay. Cause it's 10 minutes. Fair enough. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but, but I, it's not like a concert where I think people are like singing along a ton. So like when it's a sing along concert, I feel like it's hard to talk to other people, you can do it, but it's going to be hard. Whereas I feel like at a, at a dead in company concert, you're kind of in this experience with everybody else.

And this is camaraderie. And again, I haven't been there, but what I, what my perception of it is that this, there's this camaraderie of being at the show together and experiencing what their music is. And if somebody's throwing the vibes off, I think that's, I think that's probably what happened here is like, everyone's like, dude, I'm sitting here trying to enjoy all Thea and this guy's talking about his ex or his girlfriend. You like that?

I know one song. This guy's talking about his ex or his girlfriend in front of me. You like that? I know one song. The Sphere thing I think also takes it to another level too. And shout out to our guy, Brad Sands, who set up the Les Claypool deal and managed Fish for a really long time.

And so he's a huge NBA guy. And I was in Vegas for summer league and he's like, come to the Sphere, we're going to U2. And I remember even kind of thinking like, I don't know, man, I just don't know that I care about you two anymore. And to go to a concert and I, even though I like my jam bands, I have a limit. I'll go, okay. Like when somebody's like, I hope these guys play for four hours.

I'll be like, I don't know. Nope. I don't want to see like, oh, they're going to come back and do this. Like I'll look at some tapes. I say tapes, shows where I go, would I have wanted to have been at this knowing that it was like this long? And I'm not a drug guy, so, you know,

I think that factors into all this a little bit too. So look. Is the Sphere, how much standing room is there at the Sphere? Cause I just don't want, is it more of like a theater vibe or is it like? It's definitely more of a theater deal. I mean, down in front, like anything, it's open area and especially for this kind of show,

people just noodling out, getting their wook on. So, you know, if you're down there, nobody cares like the talking part of it wouldn't. But I went to the fish show with Brad and I went on the first night, which was just awesome to be able to go. And it's a really quiet kind of scene in between the visuals and the songs.

And FISH actually played a pretty mellow set anyway for that first show. So if you were gonna be talking like these guys, eventually, I think the strength and numbers thing is the move. And you can start like this guy does and be like, hey, I don't wanna be a dick, but like, this is not the kind of show

you sit here and talk. And maybe you say it loud enough that you have other people in your regiment. You do someone a near shot, yeah. That are just gonna go, yeah. And now all of a sudden it's like 10 people looking at him instead of just the one guy, you know? That should do the trick.

The concert thing is always a little delicate. I think as you get older too, you actually, you know, as much as we can joke about it. My concert by choice sort of deal, right? How are you gonna tell me? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's always like the, if you get that kind of response, you know,

like I had something with a neighbor like a year ago where I had never seen them. And I said, hey, just so you know, like you realize like this is a thing and everybody hates it. And he starts right in on like he's already at 11. And I went, all right, fine. You know what? Fuck it.

Um, you could probably hear it during the podcast, but there's an alarm that goes off in a house that's like across the street. And if, you know, Postmates drops off food to somebody, it goes off. If an Uber comes to pick up somebody, if somebody walks by on the sidewalk and like everybody's houses are just on the sidewalk, it's not like we have driveways here. You're just in it in Manhattan beach. And so this alarm goes off all day long,

multiple times a day. And I guess it's because nobody lives there, which is, I understand wanting alarm, I have all sorts of security all over my house too, but this goes off if the wind blows. And so I had never seen it. It was like, Hey, you know, I have to tape and sometimes it shows up. And he just was like, right out chest out, right. Like all about it. Like, fuck me for even asking.

And I went, all right. I'm like, all right, man. And then he just goes, oh, you don't want to hear the rest of the story. You don't want to hear it. You don't want to know what. I go, I definitely don't. No, I don't.

That's tough. Now I know where you're at. And that's like, what am I going to do here? What's going to be solved? Nothing's going gonna be solved. All right, so there you go. Yeah, I think a strength in numbers move is there, but those guys didn't get it.

They just don't understand. They don't think they did anything wrong, it's fear, great opportunity. It is once- It's kind of like the Chipotle exhaust thing though, you said like, if one person talking at the concert, everyone can't just do that or else the concert's gonna be a disaster disaster so like these these guys have decided to break the

rules and you know kind of be douches and i don't know um yeah no all right i think we got it there the sphere thing adds to it though it's not just the dead show like outdoor whole thing i think the sphere thing the theater rules do apply a little bit more. Um, and it's not like they were just loud and like out of control to just, you know, sitting there like they're having coffee together. All right. That'll do it for the show today. Uh, thanks to Suri.

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