Jason Martin & Arnie Spanier react to Houston’s Controversial Win Over Duke, Auburn’s loss, Ja Morant Drama & MORE!

Jason Martin & Arnie Spanier (filling in for Aaron Torres) react to Houston’s controversial win over Duke to advance to the National Championship, whether or not Duke CHOKED at the end & give their picks for the BIG GAME on Monday! The guys talk to Houston F Ja’Vier Francis after their big win, then dive into the ongoing Ja Morant drama after his on the court imaginary gun celebrations & MORE! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio. Welcome in Fox
Sports Saturday Final four Game two, nearly halfway through the
second half. We get you updated on all of that,
as well as talk plenty of about the first game.
But we are live from the tiraq dot com studios.
Ti rack dot com. We'll help you get there an

(00:21):
unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, over
ten thousand recommended installers tire rack dot com, the way
tire buying should be. Every year, Torres is not here
on Final four Saturday. As he is there, I believe
he usually goes and covers it every single year, so
in his places, well, it's Arne Spaniard. I was gonna

(00:44):
say the great or I was gonna say some other
adjective that might not have been as flattering, just because
Steve de Seger is there and so I wanted to
make sure he nodded an approval. But I'll let him
actually give the descriptor during his first update. But Arnie,
what's going on? Brother? It's always how you doing? My friend?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Good to be here. But I'm sure that Aaron is
probably down at the game having a good time. Well,
you know what, I'm sure he's not having that good
of a time. This NCAA tournaments bored me to tears,
and you know, this whole not being serious and this
whole Oh, we got four number ones in there, and
number one against number one against number one against number one,
and both games are gonna be pretty much snoozers. Even

(01:24):
though it wasn't come from behind victory in the first game,
as they were down by eight at halftime, but they
pulled away. And you can see Duke Overady gonna go
and pull away in this game too.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
Wait a second, Wait a second. All right, now, I
can understand us talking about the second game, but we
got to go back. The first game was not a snoozer.
The first game was an outstanding basketball game. Not really.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
There was a lot of First of all, even when
Auburn was up by eight at halftime, you still have
the feeling like they didn't have the game in control,
that they were gonna wear down. And there was a
lot of turnovers. Auburn had a lot of second half turnovers.
It was a sloppy game. I'll give the officials credit. Yeah,
they let them play and they were consistent on that,
but they let a lot of foules call go by

(02:05):
and just swallowed their whistles. It was a physical game,
but they let both teams get away with it. Good
for Florida though they came from bide. How you can
let Clayton Junior to this beaching like that and not
getting his grill. I mean they just I mean they
couldn't slow him down at all. He sego handily wished
Florida to the finals on Monday night.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah. Well, I mean he's pretty much kept them in
two three games in this tournament, but in this particular game, man,
I mean, nobody could do anything for Florida offensively, and
he was keeping them close and then he just kind
of exploded. And when everybody woke up, Albred really just

(02:49):
didn't have an answer at that point in time. But
I mean that was a really exciting, really dramatic, really
as you mentioned, physical, just like this second game has
been just uber physical. Yes, it has led to some turno,
There's no question about that, but really hard fought and
a high level of basketball being played and Clayton. The
more you watch Clayton, the more you just see that

(03:10):
special something. If Florida wins, I mean, it's gonna be
a Walter Clayton story that we're gonna tell for a
very long time. And then on the Duke's side, we
obviously know what that's gonna be if they finish off
Houston in this game and then actually we're to win
it all on Monday night. But I mean to say
that you're already talking about the tournament in a kind

(03:32):
of a negative context here, and we're gonna spend plenty
of time over the course of the next three hours
kind of breaking it down.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
And I'm not the only one, believe me, You know
that I'm not the only one saying that, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Okay, So who else is saying it?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Oh my goodness, stop it.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Who's bored by this tournament?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Well, who isn't bored by this tournament? I mean, we
talked about the lack of buzzer beaters, We talk about
the lack of upsets. Jah, there's been one or two,
and I think there's been a couple of buzzer beaters
with the Maryland game. But now what we're accustomed to, Now,
what we're used to, now, what makes March madness March
madness not the whole all? Can you believe mcnee's won

(04:13):
a game and they're gonna advance, and this team's in
the sweet sixteen, and where's one of the IVY League
teams and we're's jail and we didn't get.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Any of that.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
That's yeah, we do, we do. And I know the look,
I know the ratings were good, but you don't know
that there's not gonna be buzzer beaters. You don't know
that there's not gonna be upset. So people are gonna
tune in anyway. It's not going to affect the whole
series or the whole package of the NCAA tournament. But yeah,
I do.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
I live.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
I live for the first round up sets. That's that,
to me is the best part of the tournament. That
that first Thursday Friday is the best two days of
sports as far as I'm concerned. And I didn't get
anything those first two days. And I even told Chris,
it's funny, even before the tournament started. We're on every
Sunday every year after the selections announced, and we get

(05:07):
we're one of the first to break it down. And
I said, Chris, I'm not even feeling the madness this year.
I don't like the matchups. I'm not feeling like there's
gonna be a lot of upsets. I didn't even like
the damn towns. They were going to spoke Cane no
offense against Smoke Camp, but you know, it's so hard
to fly up there. I think a couple of the
coaches were complaining that their fans couldn't really, you know,

(05:28):
afford to go to games they were so far away.
So I just felt maybe it was like a perfect storm, Jason,
I don't know. I just I didn't feel the madness.
I didn't feel the upsets. I didn't feel the good crowds.
I didn't get the buzzer beaters. I didn't get all that.
The only thing I got with the four number one
seeds and both games are going to be decided and

(05:48):
semi blowout fashions.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
No, that first game is not even close to a blowout.
It was up to nine.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I can't well they they got it up to nine
before they cut it down the stake because Aarburn was
going to lose that game anyway. You never felt like
they were going to come back in the final minute
or two and then pull that game out.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Well, I mean they were getting it pretty close. I
think it was then five in the final minute if
I'm not mistaken, and closed.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
And Florida missed two and they got the rebound or
but whatever, Well.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Look Texas Tech, Texas Tech could have knocked.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yes, they could have absolutely and choked.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
I mean they choked. That was the word that I
used to describe it, and I hate it. I hate
using that word, but it was the only thing to say.
They missed two front ends of one and one. They
had multiple opportunities, and then Clayton went nuts. They left
the door open for a team that was going to
take advantage and did take advantage. And that the same
thing happened today, not that Auburn left the door open,
but that I can't remember who was on the broad

(06:47):
I think it was Clark Kello actually said it. He said, Look,
the thing about Clayton in particular is he doesn't miss
his opportunities. So when you give him a chance, he
is going to beat you. And you said, you know,
getting somebody in the grill. Nobody's man, We're getting his
grill all year. Yeah, I mean, he's just he's he's
something special, man, Like, I mean, looking at it, I'm
just like I have no idea what his future is,

(07:09):
you know, past Florida. I have no idea, but he
just looks like a winner and he makes every big
shot that you could possibly want, and it seems like
everybody galvanizes around him, and he has this competitive energy.
Not to not to mention it, it comes with this kind
of it's a positive sense, like it's not he doesn't
play angry. He just plays like somebody that is just

(07:30):
supremely confident right that he can get the job done
and he's one game away from cutting down the nets.

Speaker 2 (07:37):
He had a three pointer. Yeah, yes, I think they
were down by four out of that's possible.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
I that was a ridiculous shot, but it.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Was a it was a big shot. It was a
big shot score wise. You know, there's certain times during
a game where you're saying to yourself, your team is
up five, Uh, they missed like a breakaway lay up.
The other team HiT's a three, and then instead of
going up by seven or eight, you're up by two
and and you forget about that because it's in the
first half or early in the second half. But that

(08:09):
has such a big effect on the game. You know,
it's such a big swing when it's like a five,
and then the next thing you know, the other team's
going out a run, and instead of being up by
eight or down by four or something like that, he
hit that three pointer. I thought maybe they were down
by four, but there was a guy in his face
and I'm like, get out of here. He's not gonna

(08:29):
make that, and he just buried it. I'm like, my goodness, man,
nothing more you can go and do defensively than what
they did. They just had that hand right there and
he hit it. He did that on a couple of threes,
to be honest with you, so hey, he he wooed.
In the victory, Auburn turned the ball over. I don't
know how he turnovers they had in the second half,
but it was ridiculous. Bruce Pearl was beside himself. Two

(08:53):
great coaches too. I really like both guys. Unfortunately somebody
had to lose, So good for Warded and Golden though
advance in the little pubby take on Duke.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, well, I mean it certainly looks that way right now.
If Houston comes back, as they're down double digits and
we're under ten minutes to play, if they come back,
then we're certainly going to be spending a lot of
time on that because it's going to mean something pretty
major happened in terms of a storyline shift. But yeah,
the other thing about Clayton is, especially in that game,

(09:25):
when Florida was struggling against Auburn's defense, and both those
teams played great defense. That's one of the reasons there
were a lot of turnovers and why Auburn just in
the second half Florida locked them down, especially in the
first four or five minutes, found a way to tighten
it up and went on that run. I think it
was a ten ozer run to give them the lead.
But Clayton's the guy that when you're down eight, he

(09:47):
hits a three, cuts it to five. Those shots are
often harder to take than the one where you're down
two and then you can take a lead, right because
you missed that shot down eight, then you may be
about to get blown out. I heard this, Yeah, Like
that's the thing, Like you have to hit that shot
that that like keep you in the game, shot, keep

(10:08):
you within shouting distance. Shot. That one's hard because it's
not going to change anything. It's just going to keep
you alive. And it can be hard because at that point,
I think a lot of teams and a lot of
guys are a little bit down on themselves because they're
just like, man, nothing's going right. We're doing a lot,
but man, we're just this thing's getting away from us.

(10:29):
And then that keeps you within shouting distance to your point.
And I heard that said about Reggie Miller years ago
that one of the great things about Reggie Miller was
Reggie Miller is the guy that goes out there and
hits the big shot when you're down six, and then
the team around him kind of galvanized is there because
they didn't crumble in that moment. Clayton can do that,

(10:49):
and he can do the other thing just like Reggie
Miller could. It's it's a unique thing. But there are
certain guys that you watch in the NCAA tournament where
you just think that guy right there is just he's
on a different level and this tournament is about him.
And I think it was I think it was. Kenny
Smith actually said that it reminded him of Jayalen Suggs.

(11:11):
Oh freakin Zaga. Now zactly ended up not winning that championship,
but that crazy game against UCLA tripped the big shot,
the other half court shot, but just the way he
played throughout that tournament and the way every time they
needed something, Jayalen Suggs was there with the answer, and
Clayton does have that feel to him. Now, how's that

(11:32):
gonna end? Hopefully for Clayton, it's gonna end better than
it did for Jaywen Suggs. But the other thing, and
we'll wait until there's a final, because now we're back
to a single digit lead for Duke is Houston. Houston
is not just gonna roll over here. They're gonna fight.
But the one thing that you can say about this game, Ordey,
and then we'll come back and we'll be able to

(11:52):
break this down a lot more. And I want to
get more into the conversation of whether or not you
apparently you're not, but whether or not the vast majority
of the sports watching public is ready to or willing
to give up the madness for greatness when it comes
to the seeding and when it comes to the lack
of upsets and all that. If you end up with

(12:14):
the Sweet sixteen, the lead eight, final four, potential national
championship game with the kind of brands and the kind
of basketball players and talent and coaches and all this
that we have at this point, So we'll break that down.
But the one thing that I've noted watching this Duke
Houston game is it just looks so hard for Houston

(12:35):
to get anything done on the offensive end. Like they
came out and I think they were nine of eleven
to open the second half, and they were down ten,
and at one point they had cut that lead to
like four or five. But every time they get just close,
Duke will hit a big shot and that pulls them
back kind of out of reach a little bit. More So,
Houston's having to fight just to keep this thing to

(12:57):
single digits, which is exactly this is had to do
last week.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
This is the type of score they wanted. You know,
I saw them a couple of times when they played Arizona.
They they beat him sixty two fifty eight one of
the games. This look Houston's never a great offensive team.
They just grind it out, and this is exactly where
they wanted Duke. If you would have said, hey, Duke
has fifty nine points with six minutes left of the game,
Kelvin Sampson was like, Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
Man.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
I love that. And unfortunately they just haven't had enough
offense to keep up with Duke. Maybe they do pull
this thing out, but my goodness, man, they need to
get in the offseason work on getting a big time player,
big time shooter. But I mean, what he's done this year,
the yeah, it's but he's remarkable when he's done this year.

(13:43):
The three games they lost this year, two were what
neutral site games, and it's it's just obviously top ten opponents.
He's just had a phenomenal year. He's just taken him
to such great heights. There's been great coaching jobs this year.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Man Samson. Samson's Sampson this year after year after year,
and I don't know that people pay enough attention to
how good he's been. But to your point, he is
gonna have to find some offense because they do this.
They are this hard nosed, incredible, rebounding, super physical, defensive
minded team that often is so streaky or subpart offensively

(14:20):
that they run into a team like this and they
just don't have the firepower and that I don't know
what the fix is other than you got to go
get a You got to go get a scorer who
is lethal for you like they've had. You know, they
had Jamal Shd and they've had some guys come through
that program that are just leaders and everything that you want,
but they don't have that guy that can just go

(14:42):
get a bucket any time.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
You need one with the with the portal. My goodness, man,
you just get on the portal and dial up one
eight hundred offense and you should be able to get
one or two guys to transfer to your program.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yep, that's absolutely right. So we're Offen running here on
Fox Sports Saturday. He's Ernie Spanier. I'm Jason Martin. We
come back. We'll be probably in the last four or
five minutes of this second national semi final with Duke
leading Houston right now. But I do want to jump
into the discussion that Arnie set off, the lack of
madness in this tournament. Is it okay if the tradeoff

(15:22):
gets you greatness? We'll discuss next. It's Fox Sports Saturday here.
I'm Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Welcome back in Fox Sports Saturday. Here. He's Ernie Spanier.
I'm Jason Martin. Good to be with you, all right,
So Houston's fighting. They are fighting, Arnie. Can I believe it?

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I can't believe it. I'm watching this, I'm like, wow,
I mean I think at one point we were on
the air with fifty eight, forty four, fifty forty five.
I believe Okay, So I was like thirteen. I thought
maybe it was fourteen for a second. But let's say thirteen.
That'd be a major. I don't want to say choke,

(16:14):
but but what a major. Letting this lead slip away
like that, especially for a team that doesn't have much offense,
can't believe it. And they had a chance to to
cut it down the three. What is it four? Right now?
Is that where it is?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
That nine is fifty nine to fifty five, and that
chance to cut it to three or even two with
a three. The one thing that Houston does that you're
watching it, You're just like, I'm not really sure how
they're this closed because they went on this run. Obviously
defense helped them, but like watching him on offense, like
one guy had the ball and he took like twenty

(16:48):
seconds off the shot clock, standing beyond the three point line,
just kind of standing there, dribbling around and then he
gets caught trying to drive in, gets stopped around the
free throw line, turn run gets it out of his hand,
and they end up with this floater over Nipple that
doesn't go down. That's not a good shot, And it's
just kind of like, I don't know what the offensive
sets are, Like, I'm not really sure. Kelvin Sampson doing

(17:13):
an outrageously good job coaching, that's obvious, but like watching them,
watching Houston play offense sometimes, and I'm throughout this tournament
and throughout the regular season too, as good as they've been,
I'm not sure what they are offensively, like, I'm not
sure what that's supposed to look like.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Their offense comes from their playing great defense and getting
turnovers and pushing it up and getting the other team
back on their heels, and you know, just craziness out there.
That's that's what they do. That's that's that's what they
that's what makes Houston use to and give them credit.
Usually that doesn't dominate college basketball like they did, but
that's exactly what's going on right now.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, I mean that that's I mean that that's it.
But it's like, man, if they had a little bit
more fluidity on the offense side of the ball to
this game obvious defense. Not only they win this game,
they probably win this tournament, like because they would have
all that you need. But like you look down the
line and like Cryer has twenty four in this game.

(18:14):
Certainly he has played well. But and he's what eight
to fourteen and six of nine from three, So he's
the guy, and he's been the guy for them to
get shots and to actually make some buckets. But there
was another one like that was a decent opportunity for Houston.
But RIM's out and there's no rebound on it. So
Duke's gonna get it back at six point games. So

(18:35):
three minutes is left. Will keep you updated on what's
happening there, all right, So all four number one seeds advanced. Yeah,
the Elite eight was one versus two, one versus two,
one versus two, and one versus three. How was your bracket,
by the way, Arnie, how would your bracket in the
Fox Sports standings? It was.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
It was good until the until Auburn was today. Otherwise
I was in I'm sixth place, but I had Auburn one,
I would have finished first or second. Had Duke won
the whole thing, So I mean I was right in there.
I had three of the seven of the Final eight
and three of the Final four, and I had Duke
beating Auburn in the championship, so it was right there.

(19:16):
But unfortunately Auburn mons today.

Speaker 1 (19:18):
So I had the entire Elite eight and ended up
with just two of the Final four because I picked
Michigan State and Tennessee to win their games. But I
have Duke Florida in the final, with Florida beating Duke,
so I've still got an opportunity here with Florida winning
that game. This one has blown back up because Cooper
Flag had a big time three and that's exactly what

(19:40):
Cooper Flag should do, right, Like, that's what you kind
of want to see that guy do. He has twenty
five points in this game and a ridiculous blocked it
just pulled out as well. But two minutes fifteen seconds left.
So back to the point that you made in the
first second, because off the top, he started talking about
how boring the tournament is, the first week of the first, Thursday, Friday,

(20:03):
all that kind of stuff. So my question is this,
because Torres has made this point on our Show for
about three weeks. And this is such a smart point,
and I don't think anybody was saying it. Now I've
heard a few more people say it, but he was
the first one to say this, and that doesn't surprise
me considering how tightly he is with college basketball. But
he said, this is this is what's coming. Like, there's

(20:25):
no more Cinderella's. They're not going to happen in the
nil transfer portal era. It's just not gonna happen. Because
you look at Florida Atlantic, they're three best players, two
of them are playing on SEC schools. And Will Wade
kind of let the cat out of the bag when
he took the NC State job and he said, I
feel really good for these McNeese guys, for my guys here,
because you know they're gonna be playing somewhere else next year,

(20:47):
making it funny. And that's what it is. And so
if that's the case, then we're not looking at a blip,
we're looking at a trend. We're looking at this is
what college basketball is now. It's the haves and the
have nots, and it's going to become more the haves
and even less for the have nots. So The question
is how much does the tournament lose in your estimation, Arnie,

(21:09):
if the madness disappears, but the greatness of this tournament
later in later rounds enhances.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
All right, well, first of all, I don't think the
madness is gonna disappear. I don't think it's gonna be
the haves and the have nots. So the company kids
are in the portal. There's just not enough openings for
all these kids to go to Power five conferences, power
five schools, and the plate for the good teams out there,
even the second half teams in the conference, you know,

(21:39):
the you know, the bad teams don't even have room
for you. Sooner or later, these have nots as you say,
they're gonna get good college or actually be good high
school seniors, and they're gonna promise them playing time right
off the bat, and you're gonna see some elite tabalents
go to these as you say have nots. Now. The

(21:59):
only thing I I agree with, Torres is in the
system we have right now, perhaps we're gonna lose some
of the upsets you can't tell about buzzer beaters. Makes
no difference about that who the two teams are there
could be a buzzer beater on any two teams. But
why do you think that the committee and people want
to expand the NCAA so badly because they want more

(22:22):
madness and they're afraid this is gonna happen. That's why
they want to go from sixty eight to whatever one
hundred and twenty or something like that. If they did that,
then you're guaranteed to have the madness every year because
there's so many games, and so many of those have
notts are going to be in the tournament for sure.
There's gonna be upsets, all right.

Speaker 1 (22:44):
So let's let's take your point to high school or
that there's not enough spaces on the Power five. So
he goes in place for a small school. If he's
good as a freshman, he's gonna get paid somewhere else
to transfer. That's that's the whole idea, is that's true?

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Right?

Speaker 1 (22:58):
So he's got talent and he goes to a small school. Uh,
and there's still a small school, but you see the
talent and Arkansas Cherry Pickson, or Florida Cherry Pickson, or
Natoates at Alabama or whatever else. They cherry picked that
guy and then the coach also disappears alongside all of that.

(23:18):
Like I do think that, like, yes, there's gonna be
talent for a year until it's proven, and then that
talent's gonna dissipate. So it's not even what you're not
gonna have is that the small school that has a
decent level of talent for four years. It's just not
gonna happen.

Speaker 5 (23:34):
No.

Speaker 2 (23:34):
But but Jason, even the big schools get cherry picked
my Arizona Wildcats, well it is their big guy to
North Carolina. And that's that's just one situation there. All
these big schools get their guys cherry picked out there,
we would lose two or three guys to the portal.
We got Caleble up from North Carolina when he came
to Arizona. That's gonna be common place in college basketball

(23:58):
and college football right now, just for the have nots
going to the big schools, but kids going from big
school to other big schools because they're being offered more
money or more playing time.

Speaker 1 (24:09):
All right. So I remember telling Aaron throughout the basketball
soon it was just like, man, this, I really enjoyed
watching college basketball this year more than maybe I thought
I was going to entering the year because I just
felt like the games were better. I thought that I
was watching just a higher level of basketball all around,
Like I was just watching a sport that was being

(24:30):
played at a level that really made me interested on
a night to night basis in a lot more schools
and somebody that grew up in acc Territory and grew
up on Tobacco Road in the nineties, you know, I
was there for all of that, and I just I
felt like I was not wasting my time watching that
regular season, and it hadn't been that way for a

(24:52):
couple of years and probably a handful of years as.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
To new conferences, because I've enjoyed it. Yeah, I enjoyed
the Big twelve regular season more so than I even imagine.
The Pac twelve used to bore me with the whole
no offense. But the Oregon States and the Washington States
and where the heck are they? And nobody cares about it,
and it's so far out of the way you can't
pick it out of the map, and it's so late

(25:16):
at night, and it just it wasn't drag man, and
it was just horrible for the viewers, horrible for everything
out there. Cal and Stanford, and it just wasn't a
big You thought it was a big time conference, but
it really wasn't when it came to viewership. That's why
maybe we've enjoyed it more. I've really enjoyed watching the
Big Twelve this year. They were a good seven eight

(25:37):
teams deep. This year. Kansas was like the sixth or
seventh best team in the Big twelve.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Yeah, Big twelve, Big East obviously, and then certainly the
Big ten in the SEC and what you got there,
and then of course you still had I mean, I'm
always going to be partial watching ACC even though.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah, but the ACC wasn't as dominant as you know. Yeah,
not the old it's your dear Dad's a SEC. That's
not that's not the old things.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
It absolutely is not. And it still doesn't feel right
to me that Maryland is not there. But yeah, I
just I felt like the I felt, yeah, I felt
the I just felt I felt the basketball was better played.
And Tore said, right, because there's a lot more talent there.
There's more talent on those teams because the top of
college basketball has gotten so much better. The problem is

(26:25):
that the floor is falling out underneath now. We're gonna
have to see what happens in the next three to
five years. Like maybe this is an aberration, but I
could see this being the way it's gonna be because
there are enough spots when you include some of those
mid level Big Conference teams. And the thing is, the
Cinderella has come from the no name schools that no

(26:47):
one talks about at all, Right, Like, it's not the
same when Iowa goes on a run when they're at
number eight or nine set, and I know they've been
a lot higher than that in recent years, but like
just one of those middle of the road teams, it's
not quite the same. It is the Valparaisos and the
Northern Iowas and the College of Charleston's and those kind

(27:09):
of teams. Those are the ones. And so you know,
when I told my mother in law's like, yeah, I
had the entire elite eight in my brackets, She's like wow,
And I was just like, you know, I bet you
a lot of people have one of the best brackets
that they've ever had because the only thing that you
had to do was avoid the tendency to expect upsets, right,
And I just didn't when I went through the bracket

(27:31):
and I got through it, I realized, Man, I did
not pick many upsets, but I didn't change anything. I
just said, well, I mean I might go down with it.
This is what I think is gonna happen. And generally
that's how this tournament played out.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
And the elite are gonna stay the lag. And I'm
not talking about Cooper Flag here, but take something but
like Clayton Junior. Suppose let's say he was a junior,
a sophomore and he was thinking of coming out, and
most kids would come out and say, Okay, I'm gonna
come out, but they say, you know, if you come
back for another year or two, you'll get big money.

(28:02):
You'll make this, You'll make what a million, two million,
don't have to worry about fighting it out in the NBA.
You'll increase your draft stock. More kids like that are
gonna have a tendency to stay in college and get
the money now, which means the elite teams are gonna
be able to keep these guys instead of losing them
to the NBA.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
All right, so we're not going to lose anything except maybe,
I don't know, we're gonna lose loudness for greatness right
now as we bring in Steve de Seger for the
first time tonight and find out what's happening in the
world of sports. And hopefully I'll get a dig or
two at Arnie Spaniard from Steve during this segment as well.

Speaker 6 (28:40):
No, no, we all enjoy the Arizona Wildcat Hey.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
It wasn't it wasn't a good game for us last week.

Speaker 6 (28:46):
That yeah, Wildcats coming through the tournament oho to the
final four. It could be Florida against Duke on Monday night.
It's looking like Duke will hold on and get a
victory in this National Semi five. Houston just committed a
technical foul, knocking the ball out of the hands of
the inbounds passer under the basket. Can't do that. Duke

(29:08):
is up sixty seven sixty one over Houston with a
minute fourteen to play. The Cougars shooting just thirty six
percent from the floor overall great from three point range tonight,
nine of twenty, made almost half of them, but overall
not shooting well and behind most of the night. In fact,
Houston was down fourteen with about eight minutes to go.
It was fifty nine to forty five. Then the Cougars

(29:29):
went on a ten er run. It was under four
minutes left. They were within fifty nine to fifty five,
but Duke has the ball and the lead after the
technical free throw minute to go sixty seven sixty one
and Cooper Flagg has twenty seven points. He was named
Wooden Award winner today, beating out Jenni Broom of Auburn.
That ceremony will be Friday. Broom well his season is

(29:52):
over Auburn, although they led by eight at the half.
In the earlier semifinal, Auburn lost to Florida seventy nine
Walter Clayton with thirty four points. Broom finished with fifteen
and on free throws bad again three for seven, including
a couple of misses in the final minutes of the game.
Into the Basketball Hall of Fame Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard,

(30:14):
also Maya Moore, Sue Byrds, Sylvia Fowls, and others. In
the NBA's late game. In la It's halftime, Clippers lead
sixty one fifty two over the Dallas Mavericks, who do
have Anthony Davis tonight. He has sixteen points first half.
Davis did not play in the Dallas at Clippers game
last night. Yes, they did play one Milwaukee in overtime
a winner at Miami won twenty one one fifteen. Janis

(30:36):
Antenacumpo thirty six points in a triple double road wins
for Minnesota, Memphis, and New York. Among the many NHL
games tonight, Saint Louis won its twelfth in a row,
beating Colorado five to four. LA shut out Edmonton three
to nothing. Ottawa shut out Florida three nothing. Vegas is
leading in the second two nothing at Calgary. US women's

(30:57):
soccer beat Brazil to nothing in an exhibition in a
Dolphins Pro Bowl tackle Toronto Armstead is retiring. He was
drafted by New Orleans in twenty thirteen. There's one late
game still going in Major League Baseball, the Angels at
Home League Cleveland ten to three in the bottom of
the sixth inning. Is Cleveland starter Tanner Bybee allowed four
homers in four plus innings. The Giants are now seven

(31:19):
and one after beating Seattle four to one. Padres had
started seven to zero. They've lost two straight now after
losing at Wrigley Field today seven to one Cubs the
final the Cubbies have won five in a row. The
Dodgers record is nine and one after winning at Philadelphia
three to one. The final there. Phillies record now six
and two. Yankees in Washington each one. Mett's got a

(31:40):
sackfly bottom of the ninth to beat Toronto three to two.
Saint Louis had Boston reigned out. They hope to play
a doubleheader on Sunday. It's Duke sixty seven, Houston sixty four,
thirty seconds left in this love overtime.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Let's get a little team.

Speaker 6 (31:57):
Back to you.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
Clutch three for Houston. They're in a time out right now.
We'll keep you.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Updated three and what from six to three? And the
line was five and a half.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
And this is after, by the way, this technical foul
that just took place that you felt like was gonna
end it. It was sixty seven to sixty one.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
He got a technical foul also just a couple of
minutes ago too, So it is out.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
So one possession game with thirty two point four left,
and we.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
Get that st you know, foul and there's such a
good foul shooting team. Ooh almost got to steal there.
My goodness.

Speaker 1 (32:32):
See you guys, are you're ahead? Of me again. I'm
always behind. I don't know what it is, but I'm
always like twenty five thirty seconds behind what's going on.
So let me just tell you this instead. For the
very best pregame show every weekend, be sure to tune
into Fox Sports Radio's Countdown, presented by bet MGM, every
Saturday Sunday morning nine to noon Eastern six to nine
am Pacific. We'll count you down to all of the

(32:55):
biggest games. Tune in to Countdown, persented by bet MGM
every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on Fox Sports
Radio and the I Heart Radio app. When he started
doing baseball scores, I tuned out because I am not
I'm pretending like baseball has not started yet, because for
my team, I'm not sure they realize that it has. Right.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Right, you're a Raise fan, So yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
It's not going well, Arnie. I don't know if you
knew this, but it started out oh and seven and
he's gonna miss half the season for beds and that
means he's ineligible for the playoffs. Scores one in seven.
There's gonna be some work just to get there. But
I know, look, you start with the padres and the
Dodgers on the road. It's gonna be tough. It's not

(33:44):
like I didn't expect it. It was gonna be difficult. But
thankfully the Marlins you get them last night, but then
tonight you look up and it's worse. You look up
and it's a shutout and it's like eight nothing. It's
just okay, this is gonna be a good guys, It's
gonna be a good baseball season.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I mean, everybody's all geeked up about the Dodgers and
how many games they're gonna win. And when they lose
one game, people like what happened? I was not possible
and it's crazy.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
And there are one hundred and sixty two of them. Yeah,
someone prepare for the fact they will lose a few.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
Yeah with two.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Three, baby, they got one sixty to two.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
That but they can make a run. It was it
one sixteen by the Seattle Mariners. I think that that's
a strong possibility.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
They're if they're healthy, they absolutely can. You're right, Like,
I don't even know what to say about them at
this point. They don't even need the torpedo bats.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
It's good. I think it's good for basics. I know
people are ripping them about that, But I think it's
good for baseball. More people are now to than just
to see what the Dodgers are going to do.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
I'm ripping these officials because they've broken the flow of
this game.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
They had they had to, they had to look at
they had.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
To, but they seem to do it in every game
this one. I understand. We'll come back. It won't be over,
but it'll be close to over, and we'll have all
of the We'll have all of whatever goes down when
you come back here. It's Sports Saturday on Fox Sports Radio.
What do you say? This is Fox Sports incredible.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
You know, they were down by six, they get a three,
they get a turnover, they get a three, and then
they're on the foul line. They get fouled and they
make two foule shots. They got eight points without Duke
ever getting a possession.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
We're gonna be talking about this a lot, but I'll
tell you this is absolute chaos at the end of
this second National semi final. And that reminds me about
ship Station Calm, the chaos with the shipping software that
delivers use code Sports for a free trial at shipstation

(35:44):
dot com. That shipstation dot com Code Sports, so they're
back at the monitors so I can tell you this. Also,
Tractor Supply knows that a winning season that's both these teams.
Regardless of how this ends, it takes practice, it takes
team work, it takes a can do attitude. Thankfully, when
you have a neighbor like Tractor Supply, teamwork comes easy.

(36:05):
Whether you're caring for pets, chickens, or a few acres,
our team members will help you succeed season after season.
Tractor Supply for Life out here, and be sure to
check out the Tractor Supply Fox Sports Radio Bracket Challenge
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doing with their picks and who the top ranked listeners are.
Listener with the best bracket's gonna get a twenty five
hundred dollars gift card Detractor Supply. Some brackets might be

(36:28):
about to get busted because there's two and a half
seconds left.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
Quick, quickly talk strategy. If you're up by one, they
have no timeouts, Duke, so that one's two. Do you
miss it on purpose with three point seven seconds left,
knowing they got to get the rebound and throw up
a half quarter. But if you make it you go
up three, but then they can take it out of
bounds and throw it to the half court and get
a good shot off.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
All right, So at best though, Arnie, if you've made
a tie free throws, it's a tie. Yeah, And I
just I think that's that's the percentage play he made it. Yeah,
they make the three, then that's fine.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Well, I mean it's if you want a three pointer
for a tie game, or do you want a half
court shot to possibly lose? Those are your Those would
have been the two options. And it doesn't look like, uh,
Duke is gonna do it. They missed. Houston has pulled
off the upset.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
And not believe not that they won, not that Houston
was able to win because they were to come back good,
that they won based on what we have watched. We
don't even have time to break it all down right
this second. Luckily we've got two more hours.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
They I know when just recently Houston had or a
Duke got an eighty four percent chance of winning on
the percentage of thing when it was fourteen, it must
have been in the ninety five percent or something like that.
This is a heartbreaking loss for Duke. They just let
this one sup right through their fingers. There's no way
other way to put it. They even up to the

(37:51):
last minute, like I said, they got a three, a steal,
another three, uh, and then they got then they they
fouled them and went over a Cooper flag, went over.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
The back, they fouled Proctor, and then they the foul
call on Cooper flag. We're gonna have a long talk
about it, man. I'm not saying yeah, that's that. That's
the argument is how many times is that never? Even
you would never think of blowing the whistle right there?

Speaker 2 (38:25):
Oh, people are happy with the win against Duke.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
You know, you know Twitter, Yeah, this this game was
not officiating a way where you were looking at it
thinking Duke was getting a lot of calls like that.
That's not gonna be an argument that you can make
even even if that flag call had not been made.
And I will say this other the officials were bad
in this game both ways. They were inconsistent in how
they applied almost identical situations at different times. But either way,

(38:54):
Houston and Florida is your National Championship game. Duke is out.
They were up thirteen points in the second half of
this game. They were up almost ten, just a couple
of minutes ago, and they lose it seventy to sixty seven.
As Jim Nantz in the crowd is cheering and Mike

(39:16):
Kozhsky in the crowd is not.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
Like he was in the crowd and cheering.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
He was. He was exciting. You gotta be. You gotta
feel good for him. Oh yeah, And look, you gotta
feel good for Kelvin Sampson also.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Oh absolutely, I mean this was I had him out.
I mean they were really like eight or nine to
one to win when they were down by so much.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
All right, so we got two more hours. We're gonna
talk about that foul and everything from the final four.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
What a night you're listening to Fox Sports.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
The National Championship is set, and if you turned off
the television wow in the final minutes, you might have
missed something. We're gonna talk about it. The guy that
said wow, his name is Arny sp You know that
voice anywhere you either love it or loathe it. It
doesn't matter to him as long as you're listening. I'm

(40:06):
Jason Martin Aratrres is there. I just sent him a
text and just said I want to know what the
reaction was where you are to that foul call.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Because I see what curious, I see what our fellow
Fox Sports Radio so saying, like Doug Gottlieb said the
call on Flag was atrocious. Yeah, our buddy Brian know
when said the brutal call that was called on Cooper Flag. So,
and a lot of people are saying that, I'm gonna
have to really look at it a couple more times.
I mean, we're on the air, but I mean, just

(40:35):
just as it happened, boom boom, I'm like, Okay, good call,
But don't don't blame that one call on why Duke
lost a fourteen point lead. Don't do that, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
No, certainly, yes, let's let's let's chill out for just
a second. Let's breathe, let's exhale twenty one to eight
run in the final eight to seventeen of the game.
We need a minute. We got to call him the chaos.
We're gonna do that with ship station. The shipping software
that delivers is ship station use code sports for a

(41:06):
free trial at shipstation dot com. That shipstation dot com
code Sports, and I should mention we're live in the
Tirack dot Com studios tyreck dot com. We will help
you get there and unmatched selection, fast free shipping. Free
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dot com the way tire buying should be. Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
I want to ask you a quick question before we
even start. We've seen teams choke like the Atlanta Falcons
against New England in the in the Super Bowl. You know,
teams like I remember when Portland choked Game seven away
to the Lakers and never really turned much into anything
after that. I'm just wondering because there been such a

(41:51):
big brand, big name team that's choked the game away
in this type of matter to win a championship or
to go to a championship wait like Cowboys, I think,
oh absolutely, really absolutely why because one because of the score.

(42:11):
Two because they had they even got the technical foul
that really should have put euston a way. Three they
they really all they had to do was take care
of the ball, and they blew like a seven point
lead within a minute. They had, sobody did they had?
They had a win percentage of ninety percent for the
most part up to the last thirty seconds. So yeah, absolutely,

(42:36):
I think they let this one slip right through their
fingers and choked it away.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
Great.

Speaker 2 (42:40):
I gotta give credit to Houston though, playing the whole,
you know, forty minutes and not giving up. Absolutely, I
got to do that.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
But that's Kelvin Man.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Yeah, that that's totally the coach. But you know, let's
say it the way it is, big name Brandon Duke
people are probably loving this. I'm looking on Twitter this
showing all the Duke fans that were at the game.
They're just stunned. Who would have thought this was going
to happen when Duke had that type of lead. Like

(43:09):
I said, can you tell me a big name team
or a big name brand that's lost in this type
of fashion when they pretty much had the game won
by a ninety percent according to the computers.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
As a ninety seven percent probability of Duke winning the
game with two and a half minutes.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Left, Oh my goodness, maybe.

Speaker 1 (43:25):
Sixty four to fifty five at that point in time,
and Duke had a ninety seven point one percent chance
to win at that point. This is per Chris Banini
over at the Athletic. Is the fargest eleven one run
over the last minute, fourteen seconds and Duke. This here's
so to your choke point. I asked that question not

(43:46):
because I necessarily disagree with you. I just wanted you
to defend it. But here, I think we'll give you
the defense that you won. And look, Houston's the best
defensive team in the country, right, so it's going to
be difficult. But even so, h Duke is the best
offensive team in the country, and defense actually won this game.
But Duke made two field goals in the last thirteen

(44:08):
minutes of this game.

Speaker 2 (44:10):
Two points in the last eight minutes.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
And none in the final three minutes. So literally, but
even with that, they were up nine with two and
a half left. So yes, the foul is not the
only thing. However, the foul is what led to the lead,
the foul happening in that moment. I would tell you
that if that foul is not called there in that moment,

(44:34):
the chances are pretty good Duke wins that basketball.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
No, that means Houston still has the ball down by one,
they were going to get the rebound. They were down
by one with.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
The It's different though than being up by one and no, yeah,
you're right.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
It doesn't mean that they're on the way to the victory,
but still it's still anybody's game when you have the
ball and you're down by one.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
I only think Shire may have maybe made a coaching
error in what way by calling that time out when
the game was seventy to sixty or not seventy sixty
seven when it was still a one point game. Well no, no, no, no,
I'm sorry when it's the three point game and instead
of just letting them play it out, you called the
timeout when you went over half court.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
H yeah, you know what though, did they Okay, yes,
they called timeout.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
They didn't have a good play coming out of that timeout,
like they didn't even have They didn't have they didn't
get somebody free off that inbounds passed that was going
to be able to do anything.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
That was twice now they almost had it stolen. The
first time they had the review that they got the
ball back, and the second time they inbounded after talking
it over, they got it stolen. They really have nobody
to blain with themselves. Seven point lead and they never
even got Duke never even got the ball back until
it was a one point lead, because there was a three.
A stealing a three. That that to me is that's

(45:45):
the killer that that's what happens. You know, the other
team comes back, gets a steal, hits another three. Next thing,
you know, it's a one point game and there's still
a minute left in the game.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, look, look all of that is accurate. We got
to talk about the foul because that's what everyone is
going right talking right exactly on this network and everywhere
else up until the championship game on Monday. I watched
that replay a couple of different times. During the last
commercial break, I reround, I rewound it so that I
could see it again. I just don't think you can

(46:17):
make that call right there. I that was maybe technically
you could call a foul there, but there was nothing
about that that warranted and over the back foul at all. Like,
you need to watch it again if you haven't, arny,
like you need to go find it, because.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
I've got you.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
I'm a terrible call.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
I'm looking at it right now, and yeah, it's it's
it's that's something I would have called the foul on.
I totally agree. But I mean not just one call,
and I know that led to the lead by Houston,
but one call in the whole game. There's so many
different to turnovers and the miss shots. And I mean,

(46:57):
Duke has Duke's not going to look back at this
one play. They're gonna look back at the last ten
minutes of the game and see what they did wrong.

Speaker 1 (47:04):
And cause that's a hundred rights, I mean, that's one
hundred right right, I know you it to What they
did was they left it in a position where the
refs could do that to them.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
That's the problem. It was not one thing that happened.
It was the fact that they put themselves in a
position yep, down the stretch of that game where the
refs could steal it from them, the refs could do
something to take it from them.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
I have a Twitter feed that just has to play
over and over again.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
It's a bad call, man, it's a bad call.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
But if I told you this was in the first
half and the score was eight to six and they
called the foul, you wouldn't even you wouldn't said you said.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
So what.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
I don't know, Okay, if I saw the replay, I'd
still say, really were calling that? Oh man, this one's
not gonna be fun because there's gonna be seventy foul
calls in this game like that is over officiated, even
at eight to six. I don't think that call.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I just sent it to you. It's the one reach over.
I mean he does put his hands on him and
the ball did go over, you know, the defender's head,
and it would have been Duke's ball, but you know,
actually it might have been it could have been Houston's
bubb as there was another guy behind Cooper flag trying

(48:19):
to get the ball. There wasn't going to be definitely.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
Dukes texted Torres, who's there? And I just said, what's
the reaction where you are to that foul call? And
he just sent me a couple of lines. He said,
tough call, but total meltdown. And that's basically what we said.
Right like to you point, it wasn't one call, but
that call stunck. That call was unfortunate. But that call
didn't lose you the game because you had already put
yourself in a position to where one call could swing

(48:42):
a basketball.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
You don't blow a fourteen point lead with you know,
ten minutes left, eight minutes left of the game, they
still had a nine.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Point lead, none point lead with two h five left.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
Yeah, you don't do that when you're a duke like
that at all. I just I mean, John Shire is
not going to be able to sleep for months after
this one. This is this, This is about as bad
as it gets. They're gonna be talking about this one
for years and years to come when the NCAA tournament
comes by every year. It's the sixth the fifth largest
comeback in Final four history. So think about that for

(49:14):
all the years we've had that. This is crazy.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
So again here is another and now Cooper Flag. We'll
see what you know, what we're talking about with Cooper
Flag years down the road from now. But Carmelo Anthony,
who goes into the Basketball Hall of Fame, you know
that was announced as as part of that class up
when we can talk about later on the show. He's
the freshman that got it done right. He took that

(49:37):
Syracuse team to a national championship team. Here's another one
of these freshmen at Duke that didn't do it. Zion
wasn't able to do it with that loaded squad and
Cooper Flag. And I will say this about Cooper Flagg
in this game, like they they defended him extremely well.
I think he was eight of nineteen from the field.
I swear to Arnie, I didn't see him actually make anything.
I saw him make one dunk, I think, but outside

(49:59):
and big three, Okay, I did see that. Outside of that,
every shot that I saw him take he missed, and
none of them were easy. It's not like these were
shots you should make. But Cooper Flagg being the Wooden
player of the year, I think they needed more. And
I mean he gave him twenty seven, but even down
the stretch there in that last sequence, he wasn't he
had a turnois.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Yeah, he gave him twenty seven, and he didn't shoot
well from three point line.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
What I'm not saying. I didn't say it was a
bad game. It's just kind of like it does seem
like he missed a lot of shots in this game.
And I think a lot of that credit has to
go to Houston, like being the best defensive team, making
sure there's a hand in his face. Even though he's
gonna get you on some of those, if you're right
there for him, you know he's also gonna miss a few,
and he missed enough.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
He missed enough. But this was a total team effort.
This was the turnovers down the stretch. The Duke had
seven turnovers, but it seemed like they had fifty because
each turnover was so glaring. That one on the inbound
pass that led to the three pointer that could have
been kind of his ten turnovers because that was that

(51:07):
was the one that got used to the right back
in this thing. Next thing, you know, they're only down
by three. It is an incredible or actually four on
that point. Incredible what Duke did to let this one
slip away? And you know, John Shire, he's a young coach.
I don't know if this happens if coach k is
on the sideline. You know, I wondering if he gets

(51:29):
the you know, everybody all calm down, they you know,
relax and they pull out the victory. John Shire, I
don't know if he was doing the right things down
the stretch to help do get the victory in this look.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
I think the difference. I think what what you will
hear from the Duke fans that are very miffed about
this is those inbounds places, the one that was stolen,
the one that was almost stolen, and then that final
one after the time out where it just didn't look
like he had something drawn up properly.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
Right.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
Those are the plays where Cok's name is going to
be invoked. Well, the plays he made his he was
able to make his bread on even in the moments
when you thought you had him, Duke would draw something
up coming out of a But here's the thing. There
are two things that you can talk about in this tournament.
The Houston inbounds play that kept them in this tournament

(52:25):
a couple of rounds ago, right, that incredible play to
beat Michigan, and then Duke doing the exact opposite against
them a couple of rounds later. It just shows those
little details can really bite you lad in games.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
One hundred percent. Totally agree with that one hundred percent.
By the way, I saw that some of our buddy
Todd Furman put out Houston as when they were down
by fourteen points. You could have bet Houston in live
betting as a twenty five to one underdog to go
ahead and still win the game twenty Think about that,

(53:03):
twenty so one thousand dollars would have brought you back
twenty five g in that situation. How crazy is.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
That ninety seven point one percent chances to win the thing?
Two and a half men has left. I mean, we're
gonna be talking about this for a while, because you
remember what I said when they were down like nine
points or something like that. We were about thirty minutes
into the show. I said, if we're talking about a Houston,
if we're talking about Houston winning this game, he's probably
gonna if something big happened, Well, something big happened.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Something big happened, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (53:36):
Yes, something big happened. Seventy to sixty seven the final,
So it'll be Houston and Florida on Monday. So my
champion was Florida. I had him beating Duke. Not gonna
have to do that at this point in time. But
and I think Kelvin Sampson said this in his postgame
interview on the floor. He said, Look, I don't think

(53:58):
you really lose anything unless you quit. Like, yeah, you
might get beat, but you don't lose unless you quit.
And his team didn't, and they haven't in any circumstance
this whole year, even when it looks like things are
not going well, they don't quit. If you don't quit
against Dupe down fourteen, if you don't quit against Duke
down nine with two h five left in the game,

(54:22):
you're not ever gonna quit. Like, you're actually going to
have to make sure they're in the ground all the time.
Is gonna have to be off the clock, or there's
gonna have to be no mathematical way to come back,
or Houston will find a way to beat you, like
I think Florida. The reason I picked Floria is because
I felt like entering the tournament they were playing the
best basketball right right. But you look at this Houston

(54:43):
team's like, well, they're gonna have to play their guts
out on Monday because Houston will show up.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
The doubt about that. You know, It's interesting because our Brianna,
our producer Forsite's like, who do you guys want to get?
We have a strewer out in the game, and she's like,
what happens if Houston comes back? I go get Kelvin Sampson.
I go that And I used to know him from
a long time ago, from his days in Washington State.
I don't even know if he's going to remember me,
but I go, if he comes back from something like this,

(55:10):
just have the stringer wait for him for he does
all the interviews, and then see if you can get
on because that's that's who I want to get. On.
I want to see what he has to say. I
want to see you know what he told his players
with two minutes left in the game. It's just fascinating
how he kept his team just keep pushing and pushing
and pushing.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
And so by the way, and at this point about
these four teams, Duke is a brand you can hate,
but like all four of these coaches are kind of
likable dudes, right, Oh, absolutely, Sampson and Pearl, and then
of course you got the young guns at Duke in Florida.
But there's not really, there's not really that villain.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
I was a good interesting story when I used to work
for another network in Chicago right across the street. I mean,
you could hit like a seven iron and hit the
school with a school called Glenn North and their star
athlete was John Shire and he was a great player.
He was just awesome. And it came down between Illinois

(56:09):
and Duke with the two schools that he wanted to
pick from his coach. The coach's brother from his high
school was the head coach in Illinois at the time,
so some people thought maybe he was gonna end up
going there, but he picked Duke from day one, and
what a great pick that was for him. But you
have to think that he's gonna be blaming himself for
this loss, no doubt about that.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
I'll be curious to see and maybe we'll have somebody
or at veryt least I'll be able to read some
quotes about what John Shire will say in the post game.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
But I will take responsibility response, Oh absolutely, he'll He'll
have to take responses. You know, he drove up the
same play, the same inbound play after it got reviewed,
So you think after it got reviewed, he would have
changed and said, you know what, let's mix it up.
They almost came up with the steel there, actually almost
came up with the steel twice. So I think I

(56:59):
would have changed it up and so let's go with
a different inbound play on that situation.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Well, sometimes it takes real pain to learn. You usually
don't learn the most on the tops. You'd learn in
the valleys. And Duke has found themselves in a valley. Tonight,
as Houston wins its seventy to sixty seven, more reaction
from the final four National Championship is set. He's Arnie Spaniard,
I'm Jason Martin, and this is Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (57:22):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
All of a sudden, this kind of feel like I
need some chicken wings, Little Tommy Richmond, I like it.
You can stream this show all of our Fox Sports
Radio shows live twenty four to seven in the new
and improved iHeartRadio app. Just search Fox Sports Radio in
the app stream us live and one of the newest features,

(57:54):
by the way, in the app, you could select Fox
Sports Radio as a preset same way you do as
the old radio dollars that Arnie Spaniard does. And it's
in nineteen seventy Dodge Dart, So be sure to preset
Fox Sports Radio in the iHeartRadio app. It'll always pop
up at the top of your screen.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
The numbers are in ninety nine point nine percent of
the people are saying on Twitter that Duke choked it
instead of Uston winning it. I want you to know that.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Well, no, I mean, like like I said, I think
you're right, Yeah, I mean it was a huge collapse
and missshots and only making two buckets in the last
thirteen minutes four turnovers over that time as well. They
pretty much gave the full on recipe for a comeback
from the other side, and Houston snatched it from him.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
I haven't seen this much hated love. Oh great, great,
since I don't know since like the Cowboys was like this.
It's incredible, It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
It is no question about it. We've got somebody out
at the final four right now, so we're going to
bring him in here in just a second. Nice seventy
to sixty seven. Houston wins over Duke. So again, we
pretty much got derailed our entire show. We had all

(59:20):
these other things planned, but it was all subject to
change based on how games ended, especially if this thing
ended in some kind of historic fashion. So I think
we're ready to go. So let's go out to the
final four. This is Javie Francis Javier. I guess we
could say congratulations to you, my friend. So how was that? Like?

(59:44):
It was certainly fun for us to watch, But what's
your emotions at this point in.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
Time right now? And I'm just excited a lot of
motion going on right now. But I'm glad that we
got to win. We'll get to another night.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Oh javere. You gotta take us through the last minute
or so. You're down by seven, you get the three,
you almost get the steal, they review it, they give
it back to Duke. Then you get the steal. You
make the three. It's a one point game. Things are
going crazy out there. The coach is yelling. What's going on?
What's the coach yelling at you? What's he's saying to you?

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
Guys?

Speaker 5 (01:00:27):
Up?

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
You know, telling us like we here, you know, uh,
we here? You know more that, Yeah, that's finish the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:00:39):
So you guys playing a way that just feels very
Kelvin sampson ish to me, What is it like to
play for him? I know he's an intense guy, but
he's so well respected, but he also comes across as
a guy that's just not gonna let you quit.

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
No, for sure, for sure, I think everything that you says,
uh it's correct. Uh, it's you know, it's not easy
playing for a guy like him. You really have to
have a thick scam the playful guy like him, But
just knowing that all he's trying to do is just
get the best out of here.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Javerir, did you did you ever say to yourself, or
we're not gonna make it this time. The comeback is
not gonna happen. We're gonna fall short. There's not enough time.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
This time, or what uh another there? Uh you know,
we we've we've been a position like that before a
few times this year. You know, we just found the weak.

Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
We just kept kept the head, kept the head in
the game.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
Do you feel like your defense started to did it
get better in the second half or did you just
have more success because it seemed like their offense came
apart and it wasn't just that they were missing shots.
You guys were in their face continuously. It just looked
like everything they were doing was a lot more difficult
in the second half.

Speaker 5 (01:01:59):
But if I think it picked up in the second half, Uh,
you know, first half it was like there there were
uh just going and getting everything.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
But for sure thing I defense picked up the second half.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
What did you think about the foul on Cooper flag
at the end of the game that gave you guys
two foul shots to give you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
Guys the lead.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Uh, you know we needed that, We needed that. Uh,
you know, and and and I'm just you know works
on those street throws every single day and and and
the game like no, like tonight, you know it came in,
Uh knock knocked down. We needed most.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Florida on Monday. You don't have a lot of time
to prepare for that. You know they're pretty good. How
excited are you for the matchup with just another number
one seed in this all number one final four? No?

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Excited? You know we get to play another game, We
get to put the you know, Houston jerse yone one
more time.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
Yeah, it seemed just you guys. I'm gonna let you
guys get back to the celebration here in just a second.
But man, what a what a just an incredible moment.
What's it been like to be with these guys on
this run. I think that's the best way to send
you off is just take us into the locker room
with this team and how tightly you guys have been
knit throughout this season.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Uh, you know, we have a great google guys. You know,
I think our chemistry on and off the court, Uh
just is the reason why you know we're here to
this day. Step boy, you know, my my four years
being there, I think this this is the closest team
I've been Uh, like we're with each other, like every

(01:03:54):
single day he's going out in practice like that at
the house chilling, you know, you know, on the game,
let's do this, let's do that. No, And I think
that's a big reason.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
Why did you see? How did you see how happy
a Keem was and Lance and everybody there was that crazy?

Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Or what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
A lot of red in that crowd? Man? You guys
are you guys are well supported out there? It seems like,
all right, well, congrats on the win, you got one
more to finish it off, and we we wish you
the best of luck and we can't wait to see
what should be an outstanding title game on Monday.

Speaker 4 (01:04:37):
Yes, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
That's Javerir Francis of The Victorious. I can't believe I'm
saying that based on the game that we were watching
when we came on the air, The Victorious Houston Cougar's
just got to be just absolute chaos out there. Let's
get to Steve de Sager coming off of that, find
out what's happening elsewhere in sports if he has come

(01:04:59):
down from what we saw.

Speaker 6 (01:05:00):
No, there's nothing else happening. And that's it, right, This
is it, Florida against Houston Monday night for the National Championship.
You know, we had all four to one seeds in
this final four. The only previous time that happened was
two thousand and eight when the Final four was in
San Antonio and a one seed Memphis led one seed
Kansas by nine with about two minutes to go. In fact,

(01:05:23):
with two ten left, tonight, one seed Duke led one
seed Houston by nine with two ten left, Houston advances
seventy to sixty seven. Crazy, crazy comeback.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
Was that a foul?

Speaker 6 (01:05:38):
No, I don't think so. When it first happened, I thought, oh,
I guess he must have gone over the back. And
then they showed the replay and what it looked like
was that Cooper Flag was just taller. He didn't reach
through the defender in front of him, he reached around him.
And in fact, this was CBS on the replay.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
That's a play on today. I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
I mean he was being straight.

Speaker 6 (01:05:59):
Down Cooper Flag with his palms up in the air,
and John Shire from the sideline also with his hands up.
That's a foul. But Duke did so many things wrong. Oh,
in the last ten and a half minutes, they had
one basket. I gotta say that again out loud. Duke
had one field goal made in the last ten and

(01:06:20):
a half minutes tonight, they were one for nine from
the floor with five turnovers down the stretch. So Houston
advances and immediately after the final this game tonight reminded
me of one other tournament game twenty years ago in Chicago. Yes,
Arizona was leading number one Illinois by fifteen with four

(01:06:42):
minutes left and Illinois came back to force overtime and win.
Tonight made me cry. I can understand why. Tonight Houston
was down fourteen with about eight minutes to go and
came back. There's also the notable comeback about twenty years
ago of uc beating Gonzaga, but that was a mere

(01:07:03):
nine point deficit with about three and a half minutes
left the Uclay Yes, when Morrison had made a couple
of free throws and things were looking good, and eventually
Ryan Hollins, friend of our network for UCLA, made a
couple free throws to get close with twenty seconds left,
and then a steal and a layup gave UCLA the
shocking late lead. Amazing game tonight, Houston wins to advance.

(01:07:29):
Cooper Flag with twenty seven points. In fact, a Sports
Center stat tonight is since steals and blocks became official
stats in college hoops about forty years ago, tonight, Cooper
Flag is the first player to lead his team or
co lead in all these categories steals, blocks, points, rebounds,

(01:07:49):
and assists. He was number one or tied for first
for his team and all of those stat categories tonight.
They got him the ball with a chance to take
the lead in the final seconds, and he to fall away.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
Sure, so what are my choices now? I either can
come back to Duke or I can go to the
Washington Wizards and my college career like this, I'm not
so sure I want to leave Duke after this.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
You're gonna make money either way.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
You gonna make tons of money.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
I'm not so sure.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
I'm in a big hurry to go to the Washington
Wizards after I just got eliminated in the semifinals like this.

Speaker 6 (01:08:19):
Now, there is a lottery at play just for the record,
So we don't know the team Wah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
I think Utah and Washington both have a fourteen chance.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
They waited. Yes, well, next year it's gonna be a
bad team that's gonna have a fourteen percent chance.

Speaker 6 (01:08:32):
Also, yes, that's how it works, and he's not gonna
be going down the list of prospects barring something cavit tatastrophics,
So you're right the odds the math will still be
the same. Florida's earlier win was over Auburn seventy nine
seventy three Walter Clayton with thirty four points. The Gators
were down eight at the half, a mere eight point

(01:08:53):
comeback where they had the entire second after do it.
That just pales in comparison to the absolute robbery.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
We just so.

Speaker 6 (01:09:00):
With Houston somehow advancing past Duke, this will go down.
I mean for Houston, Texas and that university. They will
be talking about Tonight's game fifty years for now.

Speaker 2 (01:09:12):
I'm not kidding, only if they went on Monday.

Speaker 6 (01:09:15):
This is something they have never experienced. And guess who
they had a graphic tonight. Guess who's got the most
Final Four appearances without winning it all. Houston's in their
seventh Final Four. They've never won the national title. This
is the chance on Monday into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Carmelo, Anthony,
Dwight Howard and others in the late NBA game in LA.

(01:09:36):
It's the Clippers one seventeen to eighty six over Dallas,
still seven minutes to go. NHL Saint Louis won its
twelfth straight, being Colorado five for the late MLB contest
in Anaheim went to the Angels ten to four over Cleveland.
San Francisco seven and one. After beating Seattle four to one,
Dodgers nine and one this year, after winning at Philadelphia

(01:09:57):
three to one, Padres had started seven and oh they've
lost too straight lost to the coach Steve seven to one,
three to one.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Man, I'm here watching that game. I didn't even realize
it wasn't liive it's in Philadelphia in the daytime, but
it's three one Dodgers. But it's only the sixth inning,
so I guess I'll need to watch the rest of this.

Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
Yeah, it comes at one five in a row, by
the way. But yes, FS one had the Dodgers at
Phillies game today. Most people did not see the one
last night because Apple took it. But JT. Rail Muto
threw out a running or attempting to steal second to
end the eighth and throughout a runner attempting to steal
to end the ninth. That's how the game ended, man,

(01:10:34):
and that's how the Philadelphia Phillies started the season six
and one.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Back to you, Thank you, Steve. We will have the
segment to finish the hour when we come back calling
the Chaos with our friends over at ship station, the
shipping software that really delivers. Use the code sports. You
know how to spell that Arnie s ports, my friend,
that's right, use the code sports for a free trial

(01:10:58):
at shipstation dot com. That ship station dot com code sports.
I mean you went to Arizona, soone to make sure.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
That ivy League school.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
I mean it is a one syllable. It is a
monosylabic word. So also, tractor Supply I knows, winning season
takes practice, teamwork, and a can do attitude. Thankfully, when
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(01:11:29):
Radio Bracket Challenge Fox Sports Radio dot Com. See how
the hosts are doing last I checked on you were thirteenth. Yeah,
I'm pretty Torres though Torres is fifteenth.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Yeah. I had Duke Dough and Auburn and both of
them lost today, so I'm gonna I think Plank is
gonna end up winning the whole thing because he had
Houston in Florida.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
So well, I have I'm seventh, and I have Florida
winning at all. But I had them beating Duke gott
leaves in front right now, which kind of feels both
right and also very wrong. See how the hosts are
doing though. Check it out. The listener though with the
best bracket at Fox Sports Radio dot Com will win
a twenty five hundred dollars gift card to tractors supply
Houston Trail by fourteen. They trailed by nine with two

(01:12:08):
h five left, but they're the team that advances Houston
and Florida Monday Night. Incredible. You know we I had planned,
If we had planned, we're gonna talk about Cooper Flag
and the NBA. We're gonna talk about John Morant, and
luckily we still have an hour, so we're gonna be
able to talk about some of those things. But you
just don't see stuff like this everything day.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
You think that's going to effect what Cooper Flag is
going to do or not. Really, it's just emotional now.
And when he thinks about it, he'll want the money
and he'll go into the NBA.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
I don't know. I mean, you know, during the summer
he equated himself really well against the Olympic team, and
the comparisons in the way that guys in the league
talk about him, it's can't miss. I'm not sure that
I fully see it yet. I mean, he's only eighteen.
I mean, he's got a ton of time. So it's
just does he love his college experience to come back

(01:12:59):
one to go to try to win one? Or and
this is this is something I would consider if I
were him in terms of potentially leading. How much pressure
is on Cooper Flag if he comes back next year
to do to win it? All?

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
A ton? How much pressure is on Cooper Flag to
go to the Washington Wizards and win an NBA championship? None? None,
But if he's great, none, zero, zilch. But there's a difference. Now.
You want him to want that, You want him to
want the smoke, for lack of a better way, just
you want him to want that championship and to come

(01:13:35):
back for it and to finish the job. There's a
lot of people that want it that don't end up
finishing the job, and I wonder if that becomes part
of the calculus.

Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
No, but then think about this. You don't want to
end up a team because even if you put up
some good stats, you know where you're insignificant. You understand
what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
But you're gonna be anyway though, if the chances in
the lottery are that you're gonna be on a bad team,
that's the way that it's set up.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
And he end well, but you could be on a
good team. To take Gil Goos Alexander he's not okay.
See they're a great team, but nobody really paying attention
to him. They're not a big brand team.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
I'm thankful that the Clippers made that move. I'm thankful
that they gave him to my thunder for sure. We
handed them Paul George and well how'd that work out.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
You don't want to end up where you're Yeah, no,
I know Verry somewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Yeah, I don't want to end up not giving Steve
Disaga all the time that you need. So we'll come back,
we'll do the dis segment. We'll get into all sorts
of numbers, probably from the final four, but who knows
what kind of ratings we might get from the NBA
and all sorts of stuff. The dis segment. Our favorite
time of every show is next. He's already spanning him
Jason Martin. This is Fox Sports Radio. Shortly after the show,
the podcast goes up. If you missed any of today's program,

(01:14:48):
be sure to check out the pod. Search Fox Sports
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(01:15:11):
use the code sports for a free trial at shipstation
dot com. That's shipstation dot com. Code Sports also here
to call the chaos Steve Desager, who will keep Arnie
Spanier in check for the next five minutes. So Steve
take it away.

Speaker 6 (01:15:27):
You guys were talking about the NBA draft this summer.
We'll see if the Florida All American is a first rounder.
Walter Clayton or if the Auburn All American Jenni Broom
is We do know that all the assumptions are that
Duke's Cooper Flag, who did win the Wooden Award today,
would go number one overall, maybe to Utah, maybe to Washington.

(01:15:47):
Keep in mind the two youngsters from Rutgers, they should
be top ten picks this summer, Dylan Harper and also
six foot ten, as Bailey, Maryland's Derek Queen declared this
past week six foot ten he could be a top
ten selection this summer. The Duke Center, Mala Watch and
also Canipple could be lottery picks. And Michigan State guard
Jase Richardson as well this summer. You talked earlier in

(01:16:11):
the show what a special tournament Walter Clayton, junior of
the Gators, is having so far. In fact, Stats Inc
says he is the first player since Larry Bird. Oh yeah,
I saw this to have back to back thirty point
games incredible in the Elite eight or later in NCAA tournament.
In fact, he had thirty last game thirty four today

(01:16:33):
in eliminating Auburn. His first two games of the tournament
back to back twenty three point efforts, and Clayton finished
the SEC Tournament with back to back twenty two point
efforts in the wins over Alabama and Tennessee. And by
the way, Alabama was the number one offense in college
basketball this year, averaged over ninety points a game. Florida
averaged eighty five points a game that was number three.

(01:16:56):
So we have an offense versus defense matchup, to say
the least. On Monday Night, the Houston Cougars, how many
points a game did they give up? Not eighty five?
I'll tell you they allowed under fifty nine points a game.
Wow for the season.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Wow.

Speaker 6 (01:17:12):
Duke allowed just sixty two points a game for the season.
In fact, even deeper dive into how good the defense
was for Houston and Duke both top ten in field
goal percentage defense this year. They each allowed just thirty
eight percent shooting from the floor and in fact, Duke
allowed just thirty eight percent shooting from the floor to

(01:17:34):
not a tougher schedule though. Houston with a tougher schedule, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:37):
Because they had Texas Tech, who was a major team.
They played Sey he was down overall.

Speaker 6 (01:17:41):
Yeah, and Arizona they.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Played Texas Tech. Twice. They played Arizona twice.

Speaker 6 (01:17:46):
They played in December, So there are the other ones. Yeah,
the thirty eight percent shooting. Though, it should be pointed
out that while Houston was down most of the night
in this game against Duke, three point range that saved them.
It kept them in the game, and then the defense
clamped down late. But from three point range ten of
twenty two for the Cougars, and they do advance. Mentioned

(01:18:09):
the Wooden Award, it went to Cooper Flag of Dute,
beating out Jenni Broom of Auburn. The ceremony for that
will be Friday. As far as sports TV ratings, last
night we had the Women's Final four beginning and they
averaged three point nine million viewers, which would be pretty
good for any TV show. This was on Cable with
if you saw the yukon UCLA game that was almost

(01:18:30):
unwatchable for most of the game. It was such a
blowout for Connecticut and yet the doubleheader on cable last
night for the women got three point nine million viewers. Friday,
NBA Thursday two point five million viewers for Warriors Lakers.
That's TNT plus True TV.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
Comes Home, Big Wigs.

Speaker 6 (01:18:50):
The exactly Titan and in fact, that Thursday matchup was
the second most watched NBA game they've had on Cable
this season outside of Opening Night, and still the women's
hoops doubleheader easily beat the NBA Golden State Lakers game
on Thursday. A reminder, Monday night is the National title

(01:19:11):
game for men. Women's final is Sunday, Connecticut against South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (01:19:16):
Yeah, Dawn Stay, we said something was at first annoying,
and I was like, actually, maybe she's right. Maybe we'll
talk about it the third hour. We haven't talked about
the NFL at all in this program, so we'll be
doing that, but we'll reset the final four and uh
John Morant, uh oh, Unfortunately we have to talk about
that third hours.

Speaker 6 (01:19:34):
Next you're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Welcome back. I don't even know if I'll be able
to get to sleep after this show, after what we've
witnessed in the final I.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Was rewatching the ending. I kept saying, back to back threes.
It was a three, and then he missed the three,
and they got the rebound and sammed it in for
a two pointer.

Speaker 5 (01:19:55):
Ye.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
That made it to one point differential. That made it
sixty eight sixty seven at that point are a lot
of times sixty six.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
I'm sorry, We're a lot in the tirack dot com studios.
Tyrec dot com will help you get there an unmatched selection, fast,
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Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
Two five left, nine points down. Houston wins it by
three seventy to sixty seven. Duke fans will be thinking
about this one for a very long time, as with
the rest of college basketball.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
One thing we didn't bring up, and a few people
criticize Duke for doing this. Also on Twitter, I'm not
so sure I agree with it. Three point seven seconds left,
people are saying, why did you try to do the
baseball pass instead of doing a short pass to you know,
you know, right around the foul line of the top
of the key in your own area, take five or

(01:20:52):
six dribbles and get a good shot off or a
decent shot off.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Yeah. Well, again, I think there were a couple of
different moments where you could second guess what Duke chose
to do strategically in that game, a couple of inbounds
where it just didn't look like they had something drawn
up to work, and then that instance right there. But
I mean, can you can pick apart a lot of
this When it comes down to it is Houston's defense

(01:21:18):
and combined with Duke just not being able to make shots.
Both those two teams outstanding defensively, and you saw instances
of it throughout this game. But Duke only made two
shots in the last thirteen minutes of the game and
made none in the final three minutes. That's a recipe
for disaster. And then of course you have the Cooper

(01:21:40):
Flag call, which will be the talk shouldn't right. It's
just a call that shouldn't have been made. But it's
also a situation Duke shouldn't have found themselves in based
on the way that game was trending and the fact
that they were up fourteen points earlier. And then again,
when you're at two five, you're up nine, you win
that game.

Speaker 2 (01:21:57):
They had those forty five seconds up, they had the
ball up by six, and then I think it was
Cooper Flag that drove to the bucket and got his
shot blocked against the backboard that got used in the ball,
they came down, they hit the three, they got the steal,
they missed the three, got the dunk down by one,
and that's when they fouled Duke with twenty seconds left,

(01:22:18):
and Duke missed the front end.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Of the one and one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
We don't bring that up in the fall. So missing
those missing front ends on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:25):
One and one, well, dude, that right there is what
beat Texas Tech. Yeah, the reason why Flora is in
this game in the first place. Two beat front Yeah. Yeah,
missed two of them rights, missed them on back to
back possessions game boards.

Speaker 2 (01:22:38):
That's four boards possible, not just do you know people
think about that like that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
Yeah, no, that's right, It absolutely is, especially on the
other See if you go back to the Florida Texas
Tech moment, not only was it just the misses on
one end, so you had a situation where Texas Tech
was able to they really would have been in control
at that moment, but you miss I think it was
a six point game, maybe a five. They missed the

(01:23:04):
front end rebound Clayton three on the other end immediately,
So that's I mean, so you lose out on two
and give up three, it's a five point swing right there,
and then all of a sudden, it's a one possession
game and all the momentum has gone in the other direction.
And then you missed the front end again on the
very next possession, and they cash in on you again,

(01:23:24):
and then you look up and you lose.

Speaker 2 (01:23:26):
CB is not gonna be happy about this. Ratings will,
I think go down a little bit. Having Duke in
the finals is a ratings winner. So not that Houston
cares about that at all, but having used in it,
it's certainly not gonna draw out the big grounds.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
I did see in an email that I received a
couple of days, a day or two ago, that most
of the country was pulling for Houston to win the
whole thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
Oh so hatred.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Still, I don't think it's what it was, but I
think maybe maybe it grew just a little bit because
it was again like you had to find somebody to
hate here, and like Cooper Flag didn't have like the
trademarks of the Duke guys that have been so hated
through the years. He really didn't have any of that.
And we already talked about, you know, it's not coach
kh john Shire. It's just kind of a different makeup.

(01:24:17):
That Duke team was easy to root for in a
lot of respects, But I do think that maybe some
of it came back today.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Doesn't matter who the coaches, the Cowboys are hated, no
matter who the head coaches. They just don't want to hate.
No matter who the owner is. They hate the Dallas Cowboys.
The Duke Blue Devils are the Dallas Cowboys of the
college basketball.

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Now, I don't think that. I mean, you could talk
about it from a fan so from a from a
hatred standpoint, but they win too much to be the
Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 2 (01:24:44):
How's the last time they won it all?

Speaker 1 (01:24:47):
I guess it has been a handful of years, But
I mean, I mean, how how often are they How
often are the Dallas Cowboys and number one seed?

Speaker 2 (01:24:55):
Well, but Dallas has se Dallas had their run. What
was it twenty five years ago of winning?

Speaker 6 (01:25:01):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
Have years ago? Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Well, when's the last time Duke won a championship?

Speaker 4 (01:25:06):
Day? Long?

Speaker 1 (01:25:07):
Hasn't been? That's I mean, that's a good question. How
long has it been since they won one?

Speaker 2 (01:25:11):
I think it's been at least ten years, twelve You
think it's been ten?

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Yeah, right, I'm gonna look it up twenty fifteen. So yeah, okay,
it has been.

Speaker 2 (01:25:22):
Ten year A long time, man.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Yeah it is, but it's not Cowboys long no, No,
Cowboys is mid nineties, right right, So I mean you're
talking twenty years since then. But even then, like Duke's
been relevant almost every year, the Cowboys have been relevant
like once every three years or something.

Speaker 2 (01:25:41):
But I don't know, if you look at teams that
are hated, it's what the Cowboys, the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
Duke Duke to me, Duke to me is more the Yankees,
Like that's I think Duke is more of the Yankees
than they are the Cowboys, because at least the Yankees
show up every once in a while. I think the
Patriots is another is another good one.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
Hatred's had a great run obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
So but I didn't see like the vitriol for Duke generally.
But I did see it today, like I did see
it once when you got close to the game, all
of a sudden, Duke did become kind of enemy number one.
And again I think it's because the sport needs its villain,
and without Dan Hurley they're playing at this point, you

(01:26:26):
had to find somebody that was gonna be Duke. It
wasn't gonna be one of the other three.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
No, no, no, not as no. And I think there's
a lot of people that just that continue the hatred
for Duke, even though coach K left because John Sire
has nothing to do with this whole rivalry or anything
like that. He you know, he's fairly new to this thing.
But even though the coach K left, they just carry
on their hatred for Duke. I mean, the Duke North

(01:26:52):
Carolina's theory is still just as big as ever. You
got to camp out Itvkville. That's easy for me to say,
for like two months to get into the game, you
know what I mean, it's still impossible to get into
that game.

Speaker 1 (01:27:05):
Yeah, that's true. So I mean you're right, like, not
having Duke is gonna hurt a little bit, but she
still had one seeds and I do think theyre's still
going to be interest level. But yeah, if you had
Duke Florida, which was my championship game, that's what I
have in my bracket. I felt like that was gonna
be just an all world game. But I think this
is gonna be a great game too.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
How many people turned off the game and said, well,
this one's over and just switched to the chain thinking
that Duke was going to win the game. I think
many a really good time, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
I mean I would say most of them turned it
off with eight or nine minutes to play.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
Right, I mean, because this was a late, late comeback
to Patriots. It was twenty eight three, then twenty eight ten,
and slowly they're they're coming on back. That was in
the third. This was at the end of the game.
Even like we said, forty four seconds left, Duke had
the ball and they were up ice six. You figure
it was still over and people were probably changing the china.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Yeah, so there's gonna be a lot of there's gonna
be like question marks that are asked about coaching decisions or.

Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Can you imagine that the wife's like, hey, this game's over,
get up and take care of the baby. Been take
care of the baby all day, This is done, this
game's over, turn it off and go and feed the baby.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
Well, our baby would have already been a sleep, thankfully,
since this was the late game. If this is the
first one, you could have a you could definitely have
a case. You definitely have a case on that one. Yeah, Look,
there's a lot of people that missed this. There's a
lot of people that got a text message with like
thirty seconds left of this game, Hey, you might want
to turn this one back on. And the problem is

(01:28:37):
because the late game, like there's some people on the
East Coast that went to bed that don't even know
this yet. There's gonna be people that wake up tomorrow
getting ready for church and they're gonna find out the
Duke's out.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
What time did the game end though? When we were
on the air, so eleven thirty Eastern.

Speaker 1 (01:28:52):
Time, Yet it would have been like eleven forty. Might
came back for the final segment of the hour, and
I think that's when it ended.

Speaker 2 (01:29:00):
You're right about that. There's probably a lot of people
on the East Coast that this one's over and turny
this one off, going to bed, and they'll wake up
in the morning saying, no, this game what this can't
be possible.

Speaker 1 (01:29:10):
By the way, your take, your take aged like milk
about how these two games were both blowouts.

Speaker 2 (01:29:16):
Oh yeah, that that was that that got that not.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
Your bet, not your best work.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
No, well that when Duke was up by fourteen, I
figured it was just gonna be a twenty point win.

Speaker 1 (01:29:25):
And yeah, like I understand where you were coming from there,
but also the first game was not even close to it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:30):
But by the way, I just want you to know,
these two games still don't change the fact. And the
first one was okay because it was a comeback from
an eight point deficit. This one was one for the ages.
Still doesn't make up the fact of what we got
for the first you know, two weekends and still was
not an exciting tournament. This is what I wanted in

(01:29:51):
the first round on the first Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
The second weekend games like this, the improbable come back.
You gave me none of it. You gave me none
of this during the first how many games we were watching?
Zero And this is what we were kind of used
to at least one or two a day.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
Hmm. Yeah, this is a great final four. This game
is gonna go down any animals first of all, but
just now, do you want to see Houston win at all?

Speaker 5 (01:30:24):
Now?

Speaker 2 (01:30:25):
I'm yeah, oh, I'm definitely pulling for Houston. No offense
against Florida, but after comeback like this, they're gonna be
the sentimental favorite. I'm gonna have to up the line.
I think everybody will start jumping on the Houston bandwagon.
And also, I do love Kelvin Samson. I think he's
a great guy, he's a good coach. I would love for.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Him to win it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
Golden's got a lot more years left. So absolutely people
gonna be jumping on that Houston bandwagon, no doubt about that.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
I mean I think that even if you don't, even
if you have no axe to grind against Florida and
really appreciate them and how they've gone about their business,
it's going to be hard without a dog in the
fight to turn that on and pull for Florida.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
By the way, I got the line you want to
take against the line or one.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
I actually saw. Oh yeah, so I got an email
with the line.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
So Florida one and a half under. I got to
tell you a little surprise, Florida is only a one
and a half point view.

Speaker 1 (01:31:21):
I thought it'd be a little more than that too,
But I think that's just ultimate respect for Houston's defense.
Do you think the fact that they don't quit.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Do you think there's any hangover for used enough to
having such an emotional win and comfort behind against.

Speaker 1 (01:31:33):
The Duke team or I don't know, not really, because
they've already come back a couple times. They had that
inbound play remember to win. They've already had this happen
a couple of times in the tournament. It hadn't been
easy street for them until the Tennessee I mean a
Tennessee game where they just absolutely dominated the balls. Which
when do you forget shocked me? I had Tennessee beating them.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
When you forget about this victory and start thinking about Florida,
I've been so the coach has already forgotten about this
victory and it's thinking about Florida.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
I mean, you've got to turn the page. Uh, it's
going to be difficult to do in the under the circumstances,
because of the team that you beat, because of the situation,
all of those things. It's going to be hard. You
got to be able to compartmentalize this and let it go,
like you, because you've got another game to play against against.
To me, the team that entered this tournament playing the
best basketball and the most lethal offensive player right now

(01:32:24):
in the country.

Speaker 2 (01:32:26):
I enjoy it for like an hour during dinner or whatever,
eat real quickly, and then say, Okay, turn the page.
It's Saturday night, We're taking our look at you in Florida,
and uh, you know the next forty eight hours is
nothing but Florida right now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
Yeah, So Houston and Florida they will play on Monday.
We will give you a prediction for that game this show.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
When I told you that the ratings were going to
be down, and you were so quick like, yeah, well
because they don't have Duke, but you still got two
number one seeds, right, you still have two of the
best teams.

Speaker 1 (01:32:59):
I said, be down a little. I was trying to
give it more credit and say no, I still think
even because of the manner in which Houston won, I
think a lot of people now want to see them finish.
Like anybody that sees that is going to be like,
oh yeah, okay, Houston's my squad, now, you know what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (01:33:14):
But the fact that their number one seed should have
been enough, but it isn't because you just don't think
of that big name blue blood ran with Houston like
you do with some of the other teams. And by
the way, Florida didn't they get eliminated in the first round.
Last year, Florida and Arburn both got eliminated right in
the first round last year, so year to year, it's

(01:33:35):
it could turn around so differently. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
Yeah, it definitely is, and just insane that Houston is
going to be playing in this considering the way this
game was playing out. But that's why sports is great.
That's why this time slot is great, because we've had
this happen more times than we can count. It's happened
with us on the air a number of times, aren't
he even when you're filling in with me, It's happened
a few different times to us. I remember that Ohio

(01:34:00):
State Georgia playoff game. That's true, justin Field's game that
ends at the button. Like, just craziness going on here.
So we haven't gotten to talk about almostay anything else.
But unfortunately, we'll move away from the college game and
go to the pro game a little bit when we
come back out of the break. Jahn Morant unfortunately is
a topic that we have to discuss and we haven't

(01:34:22):
even touched football yet, so we'll try to do a
little bit of that, but we will get back to
the college hoops in the final segment because we want
to predict a national championship games. It's still a lot
to get to here. By the way, as chaotic as
a radio show can be live, you can calm the
chaos with the shipping software that delivers it's ship station.

(01:34:44):
Use code Sports for a free trial at shipstation dot com.
That's shipstation dot com Code Sports. He's Arnie Spanier. I'm
Jason Martin. This is Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:34:54):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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Sports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search
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Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
Welcome back Fox Sports Saturday here on Foxsports Radio. Be
sure to check out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel.
Ton of great videos from all the Fox Sports Radio shows.
Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube. You'll see a
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(01:35:27):
access to all the Fox Sports Radio videos available on YouTube.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
You have a calculator in front of me, I mean
I have one on us, so just you may have
to do this in your head. This may be except
for the super Bowl, one of the most watched sports
weekends for TV ratings. Think about this, men's a n
Cuba Championship on Monday, So you'll probably get a what

(01:35:55):
about sixteen fifteen sixteen million for something like that. Uh,
the women's, the women's well, remember the women's out through
the men's last year because of Caitlin Clark. That's not
gonna happen. But you still have a pretty good matchup
with Yukon and South Carolina, so you know, you can
expect double digits at least. Uh, you know, it's probably

(01:36:18):
not gonna break eighteen point nine million, but it's gonna
be right up there. And then are you ready for
this kicker which I didn't think about. We may have
the highest rated hockey game, yeah, because movie. Yeah, the
highest rated hockey game was last year, game seven, sixteen
point three. You may get the Capitol's Islanders. Do you

(01:36:41):
know what tickets are going for for that game? For
anything near the ice? I was looking. It's like two
thousand dollars or twenty five hundred dollars island.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
You see potential history?

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
Do you do you consider it considering they took they
didn't count Wayne Gretzky's thirty nine extra goals or whatever
it is from the WHA or whatever.

Speaker 6 (01:37:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
I mean, it's impressive. No matter what, are people going
to tune in for that? From it?

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
There's nothing going on on a Sunday tomorrow except baseball.
It's an early game, it's twelve thirty Eastern. Is that
must watch TV? Or people really don't care about that?

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
I mean, I hope that you would turn it to
tune into it. I think the only thing is how
many people know about it that aren't real sports fans
like agree, agree, that's the thing. Like, the thing that
would make this so big is if casuals that don't
know much about sports don't pay that close of attention
tuned in the way they do for for say, the
Olympics in certain events or something like that. Like I

(01:37:44):
don't know that hockey has been watch stream for a
couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):
To set this up, you'll tune in for Otani, you know,
even if you don't want to watch baseball, you'll want
to see what he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:37:56):
Just yeah, I mean that that's true. I just think
I think O Tom, he's an easier sell. I wish
that it were different. I just think we're in a
timeframe where it's like, I don't know what it would
take for hockey to move the needle outside of the international.

Speaker 2 (01:38:09):
So it's not gonna like this Stanley.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
No, I don't think so. I think I hope it
does well, but it's not. No, I don't think so.

Speaker 2 (01:38:17):
Maybe just spiked during one part. I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:38:21):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
Yeah, well, by the way, what do you what do
you think about him not wanting to break the record
on an empty netter. I'm like, come on, man, I'm
sure you have plenty of empty netters in that eight
hundred plus goals at JAB, but.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
Yeah, a lot of people that breaks. But the one
that breaks the record is the one you're gonna see forever, right,
And I don't want that to be an empty netter either.
If I'm that's kind of like far of getting that
or astraight hand getting that sack of yes just kind
of laid down for him. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I

(01:38:53):
don't want that to be that moment because if I'm ov,
I know I'm gonna get one my own way, and
so yeah, I don't want an empty netter to be
the one that breaks it. You're right, though, I'm sure
he has plenty of empty nutters in his career, but
that's gonna be this history maker that we're gonna hear
and see for a while. And I think that's you
want that goal to look good. You want there to

(01:39:14):
be a cold center in front of that and him
make some kind of a deek or whatever it is
to get that thing through.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
To bet he's not playing at home. The boy tickets
would be really through the roof. If he was playing
at home, he'd be crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:27):
Well, I mean, you know he hasn't done it yet.

Speaker 2 (01:39:29):
So right, Well, that's true, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:39:32):
It's still possible. I think the last I looked, the
grizz were the eight seed in the NBA. But we're
not talking about the Grizzlies on the court again, Arnie. Right,
the last couple of days, we've heard this story, and look,
the Grizzlies have kind of been mired in controversy for
a couple of weeks with the tailor, Jenkins firing just

(01:39:53):
a couple of weeks before the end of the regular
season and Jiggins being a good coach who I don't
know if he got on the wrong side of his
star or what exactly fully transpired. There's differing reports, but
it goes back aways from what it can from what
it appears like. But John Morant, of all people making
the guns finger gesture yeah, towards an opposing bench and

(01:40:18):
being fined seventy five thousand dollars for that action. Your
initial thoughts that of all people, considering the history, considering
everything we know about John Morant over the last couple
of years and some of the mistakes that he's made,
that he would be the one to do this.

Speaker 2 (01:40:35):
Why that was the first Why did you just not
think about it? Was it happened and you just did it,
and you're like, oh, no, I shouldn't have done that.
Now I'm gonna get fine. Are you just going against authority?
Do you not care? Is this the big middle finger
to the NBA and what they stand for. I want
to give him the benefit of the doubt and saying, oh,
he just screwed up, and he just did it by accident,

(01:40:57):
because they warned them what a couple of days earlier
or a week earlier, that they were gonna find him
if he did that. I saw people put out pictures
of I think Austin Reeves doing the same thing and
not getting fine, trying to make a raised thing out
of it. But I want to say, he just kind
of reacted to the situation. But I want you to
know something. Memphis does not need him, Okay, and I

(01:41:23):
will promise I'm not gonna promise you if I was
a betting man, I'm betting he's going to another team
like the Lakers or something like that for next year.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
It's kind of amazing. I actually I watched a video
about John Morant this morning, and the guy that put
together the video had had a stack comparison in the
first five years of John Morant's career and they're literally
I mean percentages, points per game, number of honors, all

(01:41:56):
those kinds of things. They are eerily similar, almost identical
to Steve Francis and Steve Frances's first five years in
the league he had this same, like meteoric rise and
it was built off almost the exact same statistical breakdown.
And then of course he had injuries and some off

(01:42:16):
the court stuff that hurt him. Well, Jo's been hurt
a good bit, but more than anything, he just hasn't
been able to get out of his own way. And
you look at this and yeah, your point about maybe
it was just, you know, he just didn't think about it, right,
because I mean, I've made finger gun gestures and all
this kind of stuff too, But and you made that

(01:42:37):
thing about Austin Reeves. The difference is Austin Reeves didn't
have a history with.

Speaker 2 (01:42:40):
Guns, exactly right.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
That's the difference. It's not a race thing. It's a
Ja Morant. You're the guy that can't do this. Like
I imagine that if many other teammates on the Grizz did this,
it wouldn't have the same reaction. But John Morant is
the one guy where it's like, dude, you can't do this,
and he still did it. And I don't know that
he was stumbing his nose at authority either. That wasn't

(01:43:04):
my initial thought. It's just kind of like he's got
to be a little bit more cautious because he's got
a reputation now for certain things, the same thing that
dogged out Rashie Wallace and Dylan Brooks and all these
people through the years, Like you have to adapt to
what's happened because you're no longer going to get the
benefit of the doubt. And John Miranda is to that point.

(01:43:25):
And when you said they don't need him, you're increasingly
right because that Grizz team shot to the sun, but
then acted like they had won ten championships right the
way that they talked, the way that they mocked other people.
I remember, I guess it was Jah was in an
interview situation where he was asked directly, you know who

(01:43:48):
in the West he knew was going to be a
tough one for his squad and who they were really
taking seriously and he said the Celtics. And the question
that came back was so nobody in the way like
NA we got the West. It's just like that's just
the level of arrogance that came out through that team.

(01:44:08):
And they've been nothing since, Like they've been almost nothing.
And Jaw himself, it almost looks like he's peaked. We
know what he's capable of doing, but the consistency that
made him so special, I don't know that it's there now.

Speaker 2 (01:44:23):
See, he doesn't realize how much money he's really He
thinks he's just costing him seventy five thousand dollars, but
he doesn't realize all the endorsements that were going to
go to him, or could have went to him, won't
even consider him now because of his behavior and what
he's done on the court with the signals and stuff
like that. He could have really, I mean real and

(01:44:44):
I don't know is off the court money making endorsements
off the top of my head, but he really could
have had a lot of it. And I think people
shied away from him because of all the controversy, and
I don't blame them. And the NBA is just going
to continue finding him seventy five thousand dollar every time
he does it, so he's gonna stop and learn quickly,
or he's going to go broke.

Speaker 1 (01:45:05):
And listen, I mean, he's made a tremendous amount of
money in the league right and he's done well for himself,
but man, you're right, it could have been so much
easier for him. Oh and he has made he's made
this path and certainly talking about him.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
Being so difficult, remember years ago that was actually talking
about him becoming the next face of the NBA and
he was going to be the next superstar and he'll
take over when Lebron retires. And he was a great talent.
He certainly was. There was no doubt about that. But
there's no talk about him even in the top what
twenty players in the NBA right now.

Speaker 1 (01:45:42):
Or he's probably in the top thirty somewhere in that neighborhood.
But we're talking about a top five guy. No, absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I mean he was right there. And it's amazing how
fast it has just become. You don't really talk about
him anymore. He's not really part of the discussion the
way that he really should be. And unfortunately it's self

(01:46:06):
inflicted and it's hard to watch. And you just hope
that he's gonna get that through his head while he's
still because he's still he should be entering his prom
right now, right and understand it. He's got it, he's yeah,
and they.

Speaker 2 (01:46:17):
Don't need it maybe. And plus they picked up Zach
Edy in the draft and he's going to be a
long term effect for them in Memphis also, and he'll
go He's only gonna go ahead and get better. They'll
get younger when they get rid of Marcus Smart. He
hasn't played much this year anyway, so he's pretty much done.

Speaker 1 (01:46:34):
Yeah. I just I feel like you're about to see
the page start at Memphis. And I think that the
coach and the offense that Moran doesn't like that he's
pretty much made everybody when he listen, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So there's there's a lot of change coming there. But
I think you're probably right. I think Moran's probably going
to be somewhere else. And I think if you talked

(01:46:55):
to Griz fans three years ago and that's what you heard,
you'd have been blown away. But this ain't the Lucas situation.
This is somebody that's found his way to get out
of town. It feels like to me, God that's never
out of town is Steve de Seger. Let's go out
to him one more time. Find out what happened in
sports including Houston.

Speaker 6 (01:47:15):
Yes, stunning, absolutely stunning. Still and it's been a while
since this game finished, but Houston eliminated Duke at the
final four seventy to sixty seven. By the way attendance
at San Antonio tonight sixty eight thousand, Cooper five Cooper
Flag had twenty seven points. They gave him the ball
with a chance to retake the lead in the final second.

Speaker 1 (01:47:37):
By the back of doubt, pulls into the paint faint
await jumpers way bound underneath Leikue.

Speaker 2 (01:47:42):
Wilson of Houston gives it off out a crier. Criers
filed three second.

Speaker 6 (01:47:46):
Vin Coogler on Westwood One Radio with that call. Two
free throws tacked on at the end for a Houston
win of seventy to sixty seven over the Blue Devils.
Duke with one field goal made in the last ten
and a half minutes of this game.

Speaker 2 (01:48:01):
That's crazy.

Speaker 6 (01:48:02):
They shot one for nine with five turnovers down the stretch.

Speaker 1 (01:48:06):
LJ.

Speaker 6 (01:48:06):
Crier twenty six points for the winners. Houston has never
won a national title. They'll be in Monday's final. With
about two minutes left, Duke still led by nine. Tonight
it was sixty four to fifty five, so Houston had
a fifteen to three run at the end. Houston had
trailed by fourteen points with about eight minutes to go.
Cooper flag twenty seven again in the loss. Today he

(01:48:29):
won the Wooden Award. Florida won its national semifinal over
Auburn seventy nine seventy three.

Speaker 2 (01:48:34):
Too bad they didn't have like a Duke cast where
former Duke players were all watching the game together. Oh,
that would have been great. That would have been awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:48:42):
Yeah, well it would have been a little quiet at
the end. I guess if you look at Twitter these days.
Two of the phrases that are trending are duke and choke.

Speaker 2 (01:48:51):
Oh, it would have been awesome. It would have been great.

Speaker 6 (01:48:54):
Florida defeated Auburn seventy nine seventy three. The Gators at
halftime were down to eights. Auburn from three point range
seven of twenty five all American. Jeni Broom fifteen points
on free throws not good again, three of seven. In fact,
in the last six minutes of this loss, Broom no points,
all of two on free throws, three turnovers, three fouls.

(01:49:15):
Walter Clayton thirty four points for the winners. Gators with
a thirteen to three run to open the second half
and take the lead. Florida led by one with two
and a half minutes to go, seventy nine seventy three
over Auburn the final and SEC school has not won
the national title in men's basketball since twenty twelve Kentucky.
The SEC in this tournament had a record fourteen teams,

(01:49:38):
including Florida, which won the SEC Tourney beating Tennessee. So
the Gators at the time were five and two in
their top ten matchups this season. They'll go up against Houston.
We had four to one seeds in the final four,
so of course we are paired with one seeds in
the finals matchup. No team I mentioned this last Sunday night.
No team has won the title by getting to the
final four, playing the high possible seed each round, and

(01:50:02):
then beating two one seeds in the final. For Houston
can be the first.

Speaker 2 (01:50:06):
Are you sure about that?

Speaker 6 (01:50:07):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):
When Arizona won the whole thing, they beat three number
one seeds, I.

Speaker 6 (01:50:11):
Think every round playing the worst possible opponent by seeding.
And Houston has advanced in the semifinals of the College
Basketball Crown UCF at overtime beat Villanova. Nebraska defeated Boise State.
The final is Sunday, also on Fox TV. This is
a new week long tournament in Vegas. The NCAA Women's

(01:50:32):
final is Sunday with Yukon against South Carolina. Into the
Basketball Hall of Fame Carmelo, Anthony, Dwight, Howard, Maya Moore,
Sue Byrd and others to the NBA. Road wins for Minnesota, Memphis,
and Milwaukee, which won in overtime at Miami. Victories for
New York and the Clippers as well. They blitz Dallas
again tonight. One thirty five to one to oh four.
James Harden twenty nine points fourteen assists in the NHL

(01:50:56):
Vegas and overtime winner at Calgary Saint Louis one. It's
twelve straight. Women's soccer beat Brazil two nothing in an
exhibition in La Tiffany. Rodman returned from backushoes to score
an early goal. Attendance was thirty two thousand for that game.
The two teams US and Brazil meet again on Tuesday
in San Jose. Bryson Deshamba leads the live golf event
in Miami by two strokes over Sergio Garcia. Brian Harmon

(01:51:19):
leads the Texas Opened by three strokes. The Masters starts Thursday.
Dolphins Pro Bowl tackle Toron Armstead is retiring. He was
drafted by New Orleans in twenty thirteen. The UFL Spring
League had DC beating Memphis tonight seventeen twelve. There's a
game on FS one Sunday night with San Antonio at
Saint Louis and a reminder nascars on FS one again

(01:51:41):
the next two Sundays. William Byron has earned the poll
for Darlington Tomorrow. MLB Dodgers and Giants each one Cubs
won their fifth straight Boston's home game reigned out against
Saint Louis. They hope to play a doubleheader on Sunday.
Yankees and Angels each one, and the A's won seven
to four at Colorado Rockies one and seven, and the
A's have homered in all nine games. The Mets got

(01:52:03):
a sackfly bottom of the ninth to beat Toronto three
to Miami won four nothing at Atlanta, so the Braves
now one in eight. They'll be hosting Philadelphia starting Tuesday.
Braves with runners in scoring position oh for nine in
this game, Ozzy Alby's for four, betting one ninety four,
Austin Riley, oh for four, betting one forty three, five
for thirty five. So far back to you.

Speaker 1 (01:52:25):
Thanks for that, Steve, I appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:52:27):
Just for that.

Speaker 1 (01:52:28):
I'm glad you have to deal with Arnie again. No,
I'm just trying to not even acknowledge that baseball has
started yet. Just I can't. I can't take this, this
Braves team right now.

Speaker 6 (01:52:40):
Looking for long, yeah, exactly. Schedule's not getting easier yet.
But remember the Washington Nationals. They were bad till mid May, which.

Speaker 1 (01:52:51):
They were bad all the time. But yes, you're right.
And look, we had the year that we won the
World Series mid season. Nobody saw that coming ends up happenings.
It's luckily you're right. Baseball is a very very long seede.

Speaker 6 (01:53:03):
Different than the NBA, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:53:05):
Yes, also more entertaining. Anyway, thank you, m By the way.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
We're getting a lot on Twitter. Just one of that
kind of stood out. Douglas says that he thinks that
this is gonna hurt Cooper Flag's reputation. What losing, Yeah,
losing this game.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
I don't think it will if he goes a threat
NBA career, I don't think anybody's gonna care.

Speaker 2 (01:53:27):
No, I don't forget about his great NBA career as
of right now. Well, this hurt his reputation, no way.

Speaker 1 (01:53:33):
No, how I mean, he missed, he missed the fallaway.
It wasn't his best game, there's no doubt about that.
But he still had twenty seven points exactly, and Houston
was doing everything in the world to stay in front
of him. He had these crossovers and spins and all
sorts of stuff was going on. I don't think that
Cooper Flag takes a hit because he lost.

Speaker 2 (01:53:52):
But people can say, well, the ACC wasn't a great year.

Speaker 1 (01:53:56):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
They didn't have a daunting schedule, they didn't play anybody.
Have note the last month and a half, you can say,
they'll say, is he really that good without playing the
elite tallon? Look what happened when he played an elite
defensive team and Houston they lost, and on and on
and on. That's gonna be some of the narrative out there.
I'll promise you that.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Oh yeah, for sure. And it's Duke, so they're gonna
find a way to make that narrative. Of course, kind
of twist the knife a little bit. As we'll come back,
we will predict the dukeless national Championship game. It's gonna
be Houston against Florida in a matchup of one seeds.
Is gonna be that no matter who won the games.
But it's gonna be the Koogs and the Gators. So

(01:54:38):
we'll pick that one. Before we get out of here,
we haven't mentioned the NFL at all. I might just
come back with a quick NFL topic because I feel
like you have to like no football on a three
hour radio show. Either that or we're gonna break records.
I don't know. But by the way, calm the chaos
shipping software that delivers that ship station. Use Code Sports

(01:54:58):
for a free trial at ship station that shipstation dot com.
Code Sports will finish up the program next here on
Fox Sports Radio. Finishing up a fun one here. Not
as fun as it was for Houston fans, probably a
whole lot more fun than it was for Duke fans.
But Tractor Supply they know a winning season takes practice.

(01:55:20):
Teamworker can do attitude. Thankfully, when you have a neighbor
like Tractor Supply, teamwork comes easy. Whether that's pets you're
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Team members are gonna help you succeed season after season.
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out that Tractor Supply Fox Sports Radio Bracket challenge at

(01:55:41):
Fox Sports Radio dot Com. See how the hosts are doing.
Last I checked, Gotlieb was number one, I was seventh,
Arnie was thirteenth, Torres was fifties.

Speaker 2 (01:55:51):
I think Plike is gonna win busy as Houston winning it.

Speaker 1 (01:55:53):
All, Well, you may have just given up your prediction.
We'll see yeah. Top rank listener by the way with
the best bracket at Fox Sports Radio dot Com will
win a twenty five hundred dollars gift card to tract
your supply. He's already Spaniar at Stinking Genius one on X.
I am Jason Martin. I'm at jmart Radio. Torres will
be back next week. He's at the Final four. So Houston, Florida.

(01:56:18):
Great defensive team in Houston, great offensive team in Florida
who did lock down defensively in the second half against
Auburn to get that tough victory. Walter Clayton thirty four
points in the ballgame. Houston comes back from down nine
with two h five left against Duke to stun the
Blue Devils and stun America quite frankly. So how do

(01:56:42):
you think this one's going to play out Monday? Obviously,
Houston is riding high, and I think most of the
country will be pulling for the Koogs.

Speaker 2 (01:56:49):
I think the Cougars are going to be like America's Darling.
I think it's going to be a lower scoring game,
not a specifically a low score game, just the lowest
scoring game. Then Florida is pretty much used to. I
think Houston is going to ride that weight of a
wave of emotion after beating Duke. I don't think there's

(01:57:11):
any hangover or anything like that. I'm jumping on Houston's bandwagon.
I think they win it by one point sixty nine
sixty eight, and they win it by a jumper with
three seconds left in the game.

Speaker 1 (01:57:27):
Well, I mean they came back and they beat Duke late.
They had the inbounce play to beat Michigan. That will
be I'll never forget that play. I still can't believe
how beautifully drawn up that was. I have Florida winning
the whole tournament had them beating Duke. I'm gonna stick
with him. I still think Florida is gonna win. I
think that Houston's riding high, and I think that they

(01:57:48):
absolutely can win the game. I just think this is
Walter Clayton's tournament, and until proven otherwise, I don't think
he can be stopped right now, and so I think
Florida is going to win the game, and I think
they'll cover. I mean, I think it's one and a
half right now, so it's not like that's a big
Bowld take. But I think if I think you can
have it close against Houston, if it's close against Houston,

(01:58:11):
you're probably gonna get beat. That's what we've seen in
this tournament, and that's the way Kelvin Sampson has coached
this team. You can't leave them alive because they are
definitely going to be the zombie that gets you. So
I feel like you have to put them out and
put them down. And I think that Florida will be
able to pull away enough to win that game.

Speaker 2 (01:58:31):
And it's still one and a half won forty one
and a half, Florida favored body one and a half points,
so no movement yet. Usually this big movement by a
half point or one point when the line first comes out.
Nothing yet. That's kind of interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:58:45):
Well, it should be a good one if you're right,
it's going to be a really great game if I'm right.
Still ought to be good. It was a great final four,
despite Arnie originally saying he thought it was boring. That
did not work. So you were playing good?

Speaker 6 (01:58:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:58:58):
Yeah, you and Plank or yeah now tonight depending on
where you're listening to us. And Plank has Houston beating
Florida in the final in his bracket.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
Yes, he does, so him. And then there's a couple
guys that have Florida winning, so it's still uh, one
or two or three different people can still win.

Speaker 1 (01:59:16):
Well, and maybe you'll be talking about Ovechkin as well.

Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
Yeah, we'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:59:19):
So you guys have what all right, It's always fun, Arnie,
we appreciated our usual friend final four pairing. All right,
stick around games on Monday, enjoy it, and enjoy the
rest of your weekend, folks.