March 24, 2025 • 37 mins
College hoops insider Jay Bilas explains why Arkansas is not a Cinderella story and breaks down whether or not UCONN HC Dan Hurley should adjust his in-game and postgame approach. Bill Simmons weighs in on the NBA vs. NCAA debate and discusses Nikola Jokić's place amongst the all-time greats. And Arkansas HC John Calipari discusses navigating the transfer portal, and breaks down how the SEC has evolved into the best conference in college basketball.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
J millis to the Mothership. He played under coach k
and he also coached with him and won a couple
of titles as an assistant coach with Duke and of
course Mothership's lead college basketball analysts. There hasn't been much
madness here.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We need another word, March. What for you so far
with this tournament?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
It's March.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
It's happened before, but people don't seem to remember it
like this is not the first time we've had a
tournament quite like this. It's happened many times before. But
you know, in this age of facile interpretation, we're gonna
immediately blame anil in the transfer portal because we didn't
have a mid major breakthrough. We didn't have as many
(00:50):
buzzer beaters as one can remember in another year. But
you know, you go back to two thousand and eight,
all four number one seeds made it to the final
four in San Antonio, And so what are we to
take from that? Or seven years ago we had the
same number of major conference teams breakthrough versus mid majors.
What are we to take from that? You know, one
one data point does not make a trend. And if
(01:12):
we have this five years in a row or five
out of six, then I think we can talk about it.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But right now it's it's just another year.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Was that traveling at the end of the Maryland game?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I didn't think so. When I looked at it live.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
As you know, you know, you get two steps after
you complete the gather, and it looked fine to me.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
But if we're going to look at.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
It like the Zapruder film, like what I always look
at when I hear officials or supervisors talk about a
call afterwards and basically justify it and say, Okay, this
was the right call given the circumstance. What I always
ask him is all right, if it had been called
the other way, would you say that was a bad call?
And I think if it were a call all the
(02:00):
travel all of the all of the supervisors and people
who are on television critiquing the officials former officials, they
would they would have justified the call as a travel
to It's one of those it's one of those calls.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But then we would have had an underdog with Colorado
State making the Sweet sixteen, which leads me to is
Arkansas a feel good story. Are they an underdog?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Not really?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I mean, and that's sort of the thing when you
talk about double digit seeds, like last year we had
a double digit se make the final four in NC State.
You really think an ACC team is an underdog or
a Cinderella. It depends on your definition of it. Arkansas,
if they were healthy all year long, they would not
have been a tense They weren't healthy. So I think
what cal Perry has done is frankly amazing. They're there.
(02:53):
They've been absent. Their leading score at do theo who
transferred in with Cal from from Kentucky, Boogie Flann, their
hot shot from who was their leading scorer until about
two months ago when he injured his hand, just came back.
He's only played like one or two games. It's remarkable,
And they've played better over the last ten or eleven
games just to make the tournament. And for them to
(03:15):
have to give up twenty eight offensive rebounds and only
make two threes against Saint John's and win, I'm still
stunned by that. It's kind of a refuse to lose
back to UMass Caliperi that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I was curious about Rick Battino got a little sharp
with a reporter saying, why it was r. J. Lewis
on the bench the last five minutes? And Rick was saying, you're,
you know, basically baiting me here. But why was the
biggiest player of the year, even though he was struggling shooting,
he's still your best player. Why was he on the bench,
(03:52):
you know for those final five minutes.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I mean, he was clearly enough funk and he couldn't
make a shot and was not playing well. So I
don't know exactly what Rick's reasoning was. My issue watching
the game was I was like, why are you not
throwing the ball inside to Zubi Edgia for him? Like
he's killing these guys and you can't make a perimeter shot.
They really haven't done that all year, and it was
(04:15):
pretty clear it wasn't going to magically appear in the
last five minutes. But you know, Arkansas had some significant
foul trouble. Zavanimir Visich fouled out with I don't know
six seven minutes to go, and Jonas Adu had four
fouls like go into, go into him and and let
him pull his way to the basket. At twenty three
(04:36):
points and he was so hard to stop. But you know,
my my coaching place in the Hall of Fame has
not been security.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Rix is can should Danny Hurley change? Well, he should
change some things.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think the way he comports himself on the sideline
should change. And I think some of the things that
he says after a game, you know, like what we
saw in the hallway, was that.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
A huge deal?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
But is it what you should do? I think the
answer is no too.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And look, I get it that the response is, well,
that's just who he is. I tend to think that's
an excuse for bad behavior. It's not a crime, it's
not a big deal. So on one hand, you go, well,
we don't have any characters in the game anymore, and
he is clearly a character. But would it be so
bad if he was just kind of superstitious and this
(05:34):
crazy competitor and whears like superhero socks and all that stuff,
and we cut out the other stuff. I mean, yeah,
I think that would be okay. I don't know that
the way he talks to officials actually benefits him. I
know the officials don't care for it, because when I
was critical of Danny earlier, in the year. That was
probably the first time in my lifetime officials were like, hey,
(05:55):
keep going.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Usually they don't like what I say.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, Knight couldn't change. Coach k probably didn't change. I mean,
these guys are who they are at some point, that's
who they're going to be. Doesn't mean I mean it
was the end of the detriment of Bob Knight. You know,
Coach k was a fiery guy. I don't know if
Danny Hurley can change. I just I don't. He's been
(06:21):
this way since he was at Wagner in Rhode Island.
And it's not like, Hey, we're the bullies on the block.
I'm going to dictate what college basketball is all about.
It feels like he was this way a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Oh I'm not.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I'm not arguing that, and I'm not saying that maybe
he can't change. If he can't, then you know, then
don't worry about it. But I would think maturity would
be helpful in these situations like I just don't believe
like and I I used to talk tonight about this,
like when he would when he would embarrass a reporter
because I saw him at clinics when an unprepared, lazy
(06:58):
coach would ask him a stupid question, and he would
educate that coach and be very somewhat what I would
call empathetic.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I guess.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Then a reporter asked him a question that he thought
was a stupid question, and he would embarrass the reporter.
And I said, I was with him one time at
Texas Tech, and I said.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Why why do you do that?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Like why don't you just like this guy was probably
covering a state fair and then a high school football
game and then he's got to come cover you, Like,
why don't you help him out and educate him? He goes,
I've gone to I'm too deep into my I can't.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I just can't.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
And I was like, yeah, you can, and he just
he didn't want to, and uh, And you know, with
the one thing that I think is interesting about coaches
is they love to talk about accountability, and rightfully so
accountability is important, but but they make excuses with regard
to themselves at times, and kind of what you hear
from Danny, some of it is reasons and then other
(07:54):
parts are excuses. And my thing would be just get
rid of the excuses and make the make the if
you're saying I shouldn't have done this, then stop doing it.
You know that that's okay, Like we can we can
do that. He can still be fiery and a competitor.
Like one of the things about coach k And look,
every coach, every player, you're going to cross the line
at some point.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's competitive. I get it.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But man, after games, it was pretty rare where he
he wasn't a good loser. It's pretty damn rare like
he he comported himself pretty darn well. And uh and
I always admired that about him, win or lose. After
the game, he had he had empathy.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I asked Danny Hurley about not taking the Laker job
and I'm paraphrase, and he said, I'm not mature enough.
I got to I gotta mature. So like he's aware,
I just think he gets in. And I always find
it ironic when coaches like, you know, you gotta comport yourself,
you gotta you gotta stay in the moment, you know,
don't go crazy, you know, you know all the and
(08:56):
then coaches go crazy. I never understood that Knight wanted
this plant out of you, but he couldn't get discipline
out of himself.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Exactly, and that's sort of what I was talking about
on the accountability point. You know, sometimes you think about
you know, Will Ferrell and old school and not what
was it old school when he's uh, when he's saying we.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Got to keep our composure, kind of losing his mind.
But look, coaches do that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
But but I think I think they can do better,
and and they should strive to do better and quit
making excuses when they don't.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Good to talk to you. We didn't even get to
transfer portal month. We didn't get to nil. Maybe next
week we'll hold off and talk about that and I
Transfer portal starts today, Jay, crazy, the coaches portal.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Has been opening, you know, and nobody's calling for guardrails
and under contractor getting poked the they have no loyalty.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But nobody says that it's only for the players. We
have to worry about that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Thank you, Jay.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
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Speaker 5 (10:07):
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Speaker 2 (10:47):
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Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, we'll talk to Bill Simmons, great sports writer, podcaster,
and he is the executive producer of the HBO docusearies
Celtic City, the history of the team from their founding
to the twenty twenty four championships. So there's a lot
of great interviews in there, a lot of great footage,
old archival footage. And it premiered back on March third.
(11:27):
It can be streamed on Max, with new episodes debuting
Monday nights through April twenty eighth, as we make way
for Bill Simmons joining us on the program, Bill, how
are you? How's morale?
Speaker 6 (11:39):
I'm great, great to see it. Great for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yes, it has a better game college basketball NBA. As
far as the esthetics of watching it.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
Well, you're asking the wrong person, because I love the
NBA and college hoops.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I have trouble with March madness. I just have trouble
with especially what I grew up with in the eighties
where you.
Speaker 7 (12:01):
Felt like you got to know these guys over the
course of two, three, four years, and.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
This year, especially now in the L A.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
L Era, it's just, you know, it's like a fantasy
draft where you just reset the rosters every year. So
I think that combined with the style of play, Like
I went to two NBA games this weekend Lakers Bulls,
and the Bulls were incredible.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
Okay, see Equippers last night, which was like.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
A Round three playoff game, and that I was really
impressed by the Quippers how good they were. And you
go to games like that and you watch college and
it just to me just feels like such an inferior product.
So I think unless unless you went to one of
these colleges, you grew up rooty for them, or you
just have a major gamly problem, It's fine.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
March madness is fine. But I'm still taking the.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
NBA when it comes to awards, and I got to
vote on these. I'm sure you probably got to vote
on NBA awards, And the MVP is always a tricky one.
And I got criticized because I didn't vote for Barkley
and didn't vote from alone when they won. I voted
for Jordan. I think, you know, seven or eight years
in a row.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
History is remembered. You findly for that one.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think it wasn't a stretch to do that. But
like Joker, Joker is not going to win the MVP,
but he is the best player in the NBA SGA
who didn't play well in the game. You know, the
win against the Clippers is going to win. I just
don't know are we do we follow the Academy Awards. Hey,
it's your turn, your time to win something. Are we
(13:33):
doing that with awards or have we been doing that
with awards?
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:38):
I mean I would probably put myself in the highest
percentile of people who stupidly care about this the most.
Like even when I wrote myasketball book, I did a
whole chapter about the MVP and tried to correct every injustice.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Every year on the pod the last.
Speaker 7 (13:51):
Four or five weeks of the season, I'm trying to
grind it out and make sure you get to the
right place with somebody. I think the difference this year
is Sga is incredible, and I actually think he's now
becoming a little bit underrated, like he's having I think
one of the best scoring seasons in the history of
the guard position. Like what he's doing this year you
(14:11):
can put against any Jordan regular season. You can put
against It's as good as any Kobe season or better
except for two thousand and six. It's up there with West.
It is one of the best guard scoring seasons of
all time. And he's doing it night after night after night,
and the thing that I care about, and you know,
right now, with twelve games left, I think I'm going
to vote for him. The thing I care about is
(14:33):
every time he goes against whoever one of the other
best guys in the league is, he's either better than
them or is equal to them, right, So that matters.
The fact that his team is the best team in
the league and he's the centrifugal force of that, that
matters too. The fact that I haven't seen really anybody
stop him, even last night at the Quipper game. I
(14:54):
know what his box score was, but I went to
the game like it was just one of those nights,
like it was the ball was just rolling around the rim,
bouncing out, like he couldn't buy a break the whole night.
He's still getting the shots he wanted. So I think
he's been awesome. I am probably the number one joker
cheerleader anyone in the mainstream media. I just think he's
(15:15):
one of the best ten to twelve players of all time.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
And he's certainly the best player of this generation.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
But you know, I don't know what if OKC wins
sixty nine seventy games and SGA is going to average
thirty three a game and have fifty to thirty point
games and do all the stuff he's doing.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
I think it's a fair one. I think it's the
right vote.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You think Joker is already one of the twelve best
players in the history of the game.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
I think he's definitely he's at least moved into that class,
you know. And this is another thing I probably care
about too much. And I redo my pyramid every year
with the Tears, and I'm a huge loser. But he's
at least in that group with Hike in Shack and
Moses in that kind of territory. And I think when
(16:05):
you're talking about the best offensive players year after year
who can both get their stats and make everybody better,
to me, he's in the bird magic area offensively. And
I mean, you know me well enough Dan to know, like,
I wouldn't say that lightly, but when you think like
he can, how he can elevate his teams, the stats
(16:27):
that he just gets to night after night, Like just
the experience of watching him day to day where it's
like he'll just put up a thirty five, twenty and
fifteen and we're like, whoa a big game for the
Joker last night?
Speaker 6 (16:38):
We're almost like numb to it at this point.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
So, yeah, he's I think he's one of the best
offensive players I've ever seen. So yeah, could he win
three MVPs in five years or four? I'm not sure
it matters. I just think he's in the combo now.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Historically, yeah, we're talking to Bill Simmons and the show
HBO docu series on Max Celtics City. When did the
idea first start? The genesis of.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
It might have been before COVID or right around COVID,
when we found out the Lakers were doing a multi
part thing for somebody, and you know.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
The Boston thing kicked in, immediately.
Speaker 7 (17:15):
Got competitive, or like, well, we got to come up
with a better one than theirs.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Theirs is already coming gone, but you know we.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
I got together with Connor, who I created thirty for
thirty with, and just try to figure out, like, man,
if one of these franchise things was ever going to work,
because obviously there's going to be a few of them
that are done. This is probably the one with the
highest upside because you can tell the story of eight
decades of the NBA, You can tell a lot of
(17:44):
things about America through the Celtics you know, whether you
talk about race or drugs or business or the evolution
of the NBA, things like that, and then the characters
and I found out I'm sure you felt the same way.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
During the Last Dance.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
I was shy by how little people knew about anything
before the two thousands, about the NBA. It's almost like
most people felt like the NBA started when Shaq and
Kobe had the Three peet so like they had the
Rodman episode in the last Dance, and the people in
my life were like, wow, that Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
He was crazy, huh, And I'm like, what, Like, you
don't remember this.
Speaker 7 (18:21):
So we just felt like there was such an upside
with the whole Celtics story going from Koozy to Russell
and you know, all the way through the seventies and
how it intersected with Boston was a big thing because
it's a story about the Celtics.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
And the city.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
But now, like the One Tonight, it's really that there's
three straight kind of Bird era episodes in a row,
and the One Tonight is about Boston and Philly in
the early eighties and Bird kind of ascending, and it's
like this is the first one where I feel like
if you're probably under maybe sixty, or maybe you're over
(18:56):
I don't know, over twenty five, you're gonna remember all
the aspects of this. People under twenty five, I think
they're going to enjoy it. So it's a it's been
an amazing project to work on.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I don't know how tricky this was for you. Maybe
that's not the right word, but you want to get
a mass audience with this. You know that it's regional
with the Celtics, but you want to make it national.
The race part of it with Bill Russell when the
Celtics is very very powerful. But how do you factor
in making this for maybe mass appeal or the casual
(19:27):
basketball fan.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Yeah, you're trying to do both. And it's also an
old school documentary. I don't there's not a lot of
these long multi partiers anywhere on the and the HBO
model I think actually favors us because the one of
the ways documentaries and docuseries have changed this decade is
they most of the places dump all of them at once, right,
(19:49):
and you just binge it, and you're binging it and
you're also doing something else, and you know, you can
just zoom through something and whatever. Maybe you watch six
episodes of something and you really only concentrate for half
of it. I think in this case, like we're making
nine one hour movies here, we're trying to tell a
bigger story than just hey, here's the Celtics and was
(20:10):
this game incredible?
Speaker 6 (20:11):
Like we're really trying to dive into some stuff, and.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Especially how a franchise intersects with a city and a country,
you know.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
So I think for us, we just I felt this
way when we did.
Speaker 7 (20:24):
You know, the first thirty thirty for thirties and some
of the other stuff I worked on, Like, if something's
good enough, people are going to find it.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So I think that was our mission this whole time.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Can we make this good enough that somebody is going
to be suspicious of it and say, maybe.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
Eh, I don't mean to see that.
Speaker 7 (20:40):
I don't really care about the Celtics, like care about basketball.
You're going to enjoy watching this, like, and I think
that's the spot we got to.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But also I go back to the first time I
went to the Boston Garden. So I'm working at CNN,
Celtics are in the NBA Finals, and all of a
sudden you walk into that building and Okay, it's esthetically
not pleasing. It was, you know, a dump, but you
felt like it was a stage, like it was a
(21:07):
Broadway stage when I was growing up seventy six or
Celtics on Sunday afternoon. The way the building was lit,
it just looked like a Broadway show.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I just I.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Could not wait to shoot hoops on that floor. And
I would go there three hours early. Bird would be
in there, whether he's shooting or he'd run. You'd run
around the upper deck and I would just wait until
he was done. And if that ball was out there,
I went over it absolutely, absolutely, And so I was
(21:39):
very fortunate that, you know, you had Magic and Bird
being there when Magic hits the skyhook, and so when
I see it, it brings back the memories of and
maybe I didn't appreciate it as much. I loved it,
but even looking back, it was, I mean, that was
unbelievable rivalries, unbelievable talent, and the personalities, the characters, the
(22:01):
all time greats that came out of those matchups. I
just I loved reminiscing about it, and it gave me
I'd look forward to the Bird episodes because I got
to spend a lot of a lot more time with
Larry than I thought I was going to. But that
was the fun part of it. I don't know when
you first said I love this, This team is me.
It's my DNA.
Speaker 7 (22:22):
Yeah, I mean my dad got one season ticket in
the seventy three seventy four season. He's had him ever since,
so it's I think he's like the fifth oldest season
ticket older so he would carry me in when I
was a kid. Then eventually we got two tickets right
before Bird showed up. But we went to the trip
all overtime game, which we covered in episode three. And yeah,
(22:42):
I think one of the cool things about the seventies
and eighties. First of all, in the fifties and sixties,
basketball was it wasn't a minor league sport, but it was.
It was the fourth sport. Baseball was the biggest. Football
was right there behind it, and honestly, hockey was bigger
than basketball. They created basketball because the hockey owners wanted
(23:04):
to fill their buildings on the days where they didn't
have hockey. So it took, you know, fifteen twenty years.
They had a bunch of weird racial quotas and a
bunch of like pretty unseemly stuff. And it wasn't really
until the mid sixties that the league started becoming the league.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
You go into the seventies and it was.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Still pretty rinky dank for the most part. Right, they
had the one TV contract, the ABA showed up, so
some of the players weren't even in the league. And
you know, in that Triple the Tea game, it started
at nine to seventeen at night. The Boston fans said,
they're all blue collar fans. They've been out since four
in the afternoon, and they're hammered, and you know it
(23:41):
was they charged the quarter after second overtime.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
One guy jumped the referee. Like that's just what the
era was like.
Speaker 7 (23:48):
And then as you you go to the eighties and
the nineties, the league starts to shift. Jordan shows up,
All Star Weekend, Stern Bird versus Magic, and it kind
of rounds into where we end up in the nineties.
But it took a long time to get there, and
there were people like us that really loved the league,
but it was, you know, a contrary opinion. To tell
somebody your favorite sport was the NBA. It was like,
(24:10):
what really? And now it seems like, they have probably
the most famous players out of any sport. It's not
the biggest league, but I think they have the most
famous players.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Who was your favorite interview in this docu series?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
You know, I was stunned by how good Robert Parrish was.
Speaker 7 (24:30):
I think when you do these and we interviewed like
one hundred people, you're always hoping for a couple ones
you didn't expect. And Parish was somebody who was pretty
quiet when he played to called them that they nick
them the chief after the guy in the one floor
was Cuckoo's Nest who never talked, but he just had
a lot of like forty years of pent up stuff
(24:50):
to say, and he was really charismatic.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
And you do these things all right.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Part of the issue we had was a lot of
the people from the first three episodes weren't alive anymore,
you know, and so you're cheating with different old footage.
And our director of Laurence Still did a great job
kind of weaving footage of people who weren't around anymore
and making it seem at least a little lively. And
once we get in the eighties, then we have everybody,
you know, so like Michao Parrish, we got Larry, all
(25:16):
these guys, all these guys are great, and then you know,
we got KG. Was probably the last one we got
because I think he was a little maybe suspicious of
the thing and.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
You're not going to move this.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
But kg's interviews of Basic that was the other one
where he's just he's just like that at all times.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
So you just turn a camera on and he's KG.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But Isaiah didn't want to do it.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Now we're you know, and I know Isaiah, and I
knew why he didn't want to do it. I think
he felt, you know, I think the Last Dance and
some other sports documentaries that have happened over the last
ten years, nobody wants to be in somebody else's doc.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
When they're like the other team in the sports movie.
Speaker 7 (25:54):
Right Like when we the first thirty thirty thirties, we
did we get anybody, you know, like, hey, we're doing
this documentary.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
Can we come film? You're sure?
Speaker 7 (26:03):
And that started a shift in the mid twenty tens.
And I get it, you know, like if somebody was
making a documentary about ESPN, I don't know if I'd.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Want to be in it, you know, I don't I
don't know how, and.
Speaker 7 (26:15):
I'm sure you would feel the same way, like, wait,
how am I going to be portrayed? So I get it,
But it also makes these things a little bit harder
and an increase the degree of difficulties. So we didn't
have We didn't have Barkley either. Barkley will talk to like,
you know, a lamppost about basketball, but some of the
people that are the on the other side, they just
don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Congrats on it so far, Bill, good to catch up
with you again. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Yeah, good to see you too. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
That's Bill Simmons.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio WAP.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
John Caliperi Hall of Famer Beat, Kansas Beat Saint John's
got Texas Tech coming up this Thursday. Back on the show,
back in the sweet sixteen, Look who is Look who
proved he could still coach? Congratulations there, John.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Thank you Dann Patrick. That's the ugliest top I've seen
in the wol. It befits you though, so it's it's
it's good.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, what's uglier your sport coat from this weekend, or.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
Like that sport coat.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Hey, you won with it. It looks a whole lot
better when you win. And this is this is a
gift from Adam Sandler.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
This is Yeah, you're out hitting golf bolls. But do
you would you would you think it's in the bag
to go this weekend that sport coat. Yeah, it's in
the bag.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
Okay, I'll travel with it.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Okay, And when you're done with it, maybe you could
send it to the man cave.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I will.
Speaker 8 (27:50):
I'll deliver it to the cabin in Maine. Okay, I'll
deliver it.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Are you an underdog?
Speaker 8 (27:58):
Yes, yeah, I'm fine with that. Like, look, most of
my career was should and Wooden can't won't. I mean
we've been the underdog. You remember you match, you came
up and did some games, you went on the court,
shot airballs and you know some of the stuff there,
and the Memphis the same thing, and you know, we
(28:19):
had a pretty good run at Kentucky and there was
that eight nine year period where yeah we were the one.
But you know, most of my career I've been that,
and so I'm fine in that role. I'm comfortable in
the role. I'm just trying to make sure my team
is comfortable in that role.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I was going to ask you, are you telling them
it's nobody believed in US, US against the world. No,
none of them.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
No, I'm just saying we're the underdog, and every time
they play in those kind of games, they play well.
I think, Look, we're at that point in the year.
The whole thing is how do I get them to
have that mindset that we had against Saint John's Because look,
there's two things happened. We went two for nineteen from
(29:09):
the three and gave up twenty eight offensive rebounds, but
still one we played to win. Don't matter what happens,
don't matter they got a rebound, Just keep playing and
we keep them in that attitude and that mindset. It
doesn't mean you're going to win, but it gives you
a good chance to win.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
How do you keep the relationship or whatever with Patino
out of going into a game, coaching a game and
making it about the game that it's not about you
against Rick.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
If you went through the year we went through when
we were zero to five, when we were one and six,
and they said they got no chance of making the
NCAA tournament, when you're playing games. You're not worried about
the other coach. You're about survival. I wasn't worried about
match and went no chess game. I wasn't he out coaching.
I didn't care. It was about let's just win, because
(30:07):
what these kids went through, they deserved good to happen.
Because they came together. They became one heartbeat, and well,
what did you do? What did I do? They knew
if they didn't come together, they were gonna lose every game,
and they figured this, you know what, I'm so worried
about myself. If I worry about the team more than myself,
(30:28):
maybe it's easier. And they found out it was easier.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
How do you balance coaching right now and the transfer
portal all in the same week of preparing and transfer
portal starts today.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Well, we yesterday was a kind of long day, got
a lot of film work done, got practice plans prepared,
the staff meetings where we were doing everything, and then
in the end I said, all right, let's talk now.
Before you can figure out portal, don't you have to
(31:06):
know who's coming back and who's leaving. So I don't
know of anybody in these sixteen teams that is sitting
down with players and say are you coming back? Or
you can put your name into portal with you know.
So it's just difficult right now. But we've got names
and you know, And what I would say with anybody listening,
(31:29):
if you want to get better, if you want to
be challenged, if you want to really play with good players,
be coached as though you've already gotten there to be
hugged and challenged and make you uncomfortable, and then you
come with me, you come to Arkansas. But right now
we're not on the phone with anybody yet. My staff.
(31:51):
Maybe I shouldn't say that. My staff may be, but
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
When will you be open or paying more attention to
the portal yourself.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
If there's a young man that we know is really
really good and he wants to do this and wants
to talk to me, he won't believe this, I probably
get on the phone with them and say, hey, let's
do this. But short of that, it's probably mostly staff.
You know. My hope is that we have a group.
(32:22):
We have some guys that won't be back because they're
graduated out or they're going to you know, put their
name in the draft. And all that, but there is
another grouping of players who are really good that probably
need more time that we do that. We already have
three guys freshmen signed. And I'm going to say this again,
(32:44):
and I said it after I'm still recruiting freshmen. I'll
recruit the best freshmen, and as you saw last game,
three of them played a lot of minutes. But I
can't recruit seven or eight freshmen. So we got one
more freshmen we're trying to get. We've got three one
that you know, they're they're all really good, okay, but
(33:07):
we're trying to get one more and then who comes back,
and then probably a couple of transfers, and that'll be
our team.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Is the SEC of football conference or a basketball conference.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
You're trying to get me in trouble. Last time I
said something like that, people went nuts. And then you
find out that you know they're investing in what they want.
So I look it. I told our baseball coach, who's
there were number one in the country, and you know
right there, they're gonna win a College World Series. Every
(33:45):
game they played every weekend, they knew they could win
or lose. What about the football you want to say Vandy.
Well we got Bandy. Yeah, go play Vandy, go play them. Now,
well we could play mississip Yeah, go play Mississippi, Play Arkansas,
Tennessee and you get beat. I mean that's what happens. Well,
(34:06):
it's now basketball the same way and its top to bottom.
Our bottom two teams would have figured finished in the
top half of most leagues. They were that good. Uh,
but they got into this league and they started. It
was like Oklahoma when thirteen and oh beat people did it.
(34:27):
Got in the league and couldn't win early. We were
owing five to start and I knew we weren't bad.
I wasn't sure, but we were only five and we
survived it. And now it looks as though how many
SEC teams are in the sweet sixteen seven you don't know?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Ask your people seven. Okay, Yeah, you underestimate me, and
that's when you make a missage.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Always under it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yes you have, and I've always overestimated you finish this.
We will make the final four.
Speaker 8 (35:05):
If the other team doesn't make twenty.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Threees, that's it.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, don't screw it up. Now you got this far.
You got to go further than Kentucky, don't you.
Speaker 8 (35:21):
No, not worried about them. This is what's happened for us.
This season has been the most rewarding season. I've had
seasons where we won more games and won national titles
and final fours and Elite eights. I've had all those,
but what this team has been through to survive it,
(35:43):
It's been as rewarding as any season. It talks a
lot about the character of these kids, how they were
raised that they could withstand the onslaught Dan. These kids,
all of them have pianos on their backs because of Nil. Well,
they're paid, they should do this, and they're trying to
(36:04):
live up to expectations. It's a piano. Families are involved
more than ever before. Why Nil and then social media
and you know what the worst is for the kids
talk radio. I mean, all that stuff is out there
that they got to deal with, and then the expectations
(36:26):
are winning pianos on their backs.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Good to talk to you, thanks Danny.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
I need to know the cabin. Do you have a
studio in the cabin in case you want to do
it up there?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (36:42):
I knew it. I knew it. Do you let your
guys come up and stay or do they got to
go to a hotel.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
No, they don't get invited. It's like, you're very selfish.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
But you know what's great, you've been consistent your whole life.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Thank you coach,
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
J millis to the Mothership. He played under coach k
and he also coached with him and won a couple
of titles as an assistant coach with Duke and of
course Mothership's lead college basketball analysts. There hasn't been much
madness here.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Jay.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We need another word, March. What for you so far
with this tournament?
Speaker 3 (00:25):
It's March.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
It's happened before, but people don't seem to remember it
like this is not the first time we've had a
tournament quite like this. It's happened many times before. But
you know, in this age of facile interpretation, we're gonna
immediately blame anil in the transfer portal because we didn't
have a mid major breakthrough. We didn't have as many
(00:50):
buzzer beaters as one can remember in another year. But
you know, you go back to two thousand and eight,
all four number one seeds made it to the final
four in San Antonio, And so what are we to
take from that? Or seven years ago we had the
same number of major conference teams breakthrough versus mid majors.
What are we to take from that? You know, one
one data point does not make a trend. And if
(01:12):
we have this five years in a row or five
out of six, then I think we can talk about it.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But right now it's it's just another year.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Was that traveling at the end of the Maryland game?
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I didn't think so. When I looked at it live.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
As you know, you know, you get two steps after
you complete the gather, and it looked fine to me.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
But if we're going to look at.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
It like the Zapruder film, like what I always look
at when I hear officials or supervisors talk about a
call afterwards and basically justify it and say, Okay, this
was the right call given the circumstance. What I always
ask him is all right, if it had been called
the other way, would you say that was a bad call?
And I think if it were a call all the
(02:00):
travel all of the all of the supervisors and people
who are on television critiquing the officials former officials, they
would they would have justified the call as a travel
to It's one of those it's one of those calls.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
But then we would have had an underdog with Colorado
State making the Sweet sixteen, which leads me to is
Arkansas a feel good story. Are they an underdog?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Not really?
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I mean, and that's sort of the thing when you
talk about double digit seeds, like last year we had
a double digit se make the final four in NC State.
You really think an ACC team is an underdog or
a Cinderella. It depends on your definition of it. Arkansas,
if they were healthy all year long, they would not
have been a tense They weren't healthy. So I think
what cal Perry has done is frankly amazing. They're there.
(02:53):
They've been absent. Their leading score at do theo who
transferred in with Cal from from Kentucky, Boogie Flann, their
hot shot from who was their leading scorer until about
two months ago when he injured his hand, just came back.
He's only played like one or two games. It's remarkable,
And they've played better over the last ten or eleven
games just to make the tournament. And for them to
(03:15):
have to give up twenty eight offensive rebounds and only
make two threes against Saint John's and win, I'm still
stunned by that. It's kind of a refuse to lose
back to UMass Caliperi that we're seeing.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I was curious about Rick Battino got a little sharp
with a reporter saying, why it was r. J. Lewis
on the bench the last five minutes? And Rick was saying, you're,
you know, basically baiting me here. But why was the
biggiest player of the year, even though he was struggling shooting,
he's still your best player. Why was he on the bench,
(03:52):
you know for those final five minutes.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
I mean, he was clearly enough funk and he couldn't
make a shot and was not playing well. So I
don't know exactly what Rick's reasoning was. My issue watching
the game was I was like, why are you not
throwing the ball inside to Zubi Edgia for him? Like
he's killing these guys and you can't make a perimeter shot.
They really haven't done that all year, and it was
(04:15):
pretty clear it wasn't going to magically appear in the
last five minutes. But you know, Arkansas had some significant
foul trouble. Zavanimir Visich fouled out with I don't know
six seven minutes to go, and Jonas Adu had four
fouls like go into, go into him and and let
him pull his way to the basket. At twenty three
(04:36):
points and he was so hard to stop. But you know,
my my coaching place in the Hall of Fame has
not been security.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Rix is can should Danny Hurley change? Well, he should
change some things.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
I think the way he comports himself on the sideline
should change. And I think some of the things that
he says after a game, you know, like what we
saw in the hallway, was that.
Speaker 3 (05:05):
A huge deal?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
But is it what you should do? I think the
answer is no too.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And look, I get it that the response is, well,
that's just who he is. I tend to think that's
an excuse for bad behavior. It's not a crime, it's
not a big deal. So on one hand, you go, well,
we don't have any characters in the game anymore, and
he is clearly a character. But would it be so
bad if he was just kind of superstitious and this
(05:34):
crazy competitor and whears like superhero socks and all that stuff,
and we cut out the other stuff. I mean, yeah,
I think that would be okay. I don't know that
the way he talks to officials actually benefits him. I
know the officials don't care for it, because when I
was critical of Danny earlier, in the year. That was
probably the first time in my lifetime officials were like, hey,
(05:55):
keep going.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Usually they don't like what I say.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah, Knight couldn't change. Coach k probably didn't change. I mean,
these guys are who they are at some point, that's
who they're going to be. Doesn't mean I mean it
was the end of the detriment of Bob Knight. You know,
Coach k was a fiery guy. I don't know if
Danny Hurley can change. I just I don't. He's been
(06:21):
this way since he was at Wagner in Rhode Island.
And it's not like, Hey, we're the bullies on the block.
I'm going to dictate what college basketball is all about.
It feels like he was this way a long time ago.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Oh I'm not.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
I'm not arguing that, and I'm not saying that maybe
he can't change. If he can't, then you know, then
don't worry about it. But I would think maturity would
be helpful in these situations like I just don't believe
like and I I used to talk tonight about this,
like when he would when he would embarrass a reporter
because I saw him at clinics when an unprepared, lazy
(06:58):
coach would ask him a stupid question, and he would
educate that coach and be very somewhat what I would
call empathetic.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
I guess.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Then a reporter asked him a question that he thought
was a stupid question, and he would embarrass the reporter.
And I said, I was with him one time at
Texas Tech, and I said.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Why why do you do that?
Speaker 4 (07:17):
Like why don't you just like this guy was probably
covering a state fair and then a high school football
game and then he's got to come cover you, Like,
why don't you help him out and educate him? He goes,
I've gone to I'm too deep into my I can't.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
I just can't.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
And I was like, yeah, you can, and he just
he didn't want to, and uh, And you know, with
the one thing that I think is interesting about coaches
is they love to talk about accountability, and rightfully so
accountability is important, but but they make excuses with regard
to themselves at times, and kind of what you hear
from Danny, some of it is reasons and then other
(07:54):
parts are excuses. And my thing would be just get
rid of the excuses and make the make the if
you're saying I shouldn't have done this, then stop doing it.
You know that that's okay, Like we can we can
do that. He can still be fiery and a competitor.
Like one of the things about coach k And look,
every coach, every player, you're going to cross the line
at some point.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
It's competitive. I get it.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
But man, after games, it was pretty rare where he
he wasn't a good loser. It's pretty damn rare like
he he comported himself pretty darn well. And uh and
I always admired that about him, win or lose. After
the game, he had he had empathy.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
I asked Danny Hurley about not taking the Laker job
and I'm paraphrase, and he said, I'm not mature enough.
I got to I gotta mature. So like he's aware,
I just think he gets in. And I always find
it ironic when coaches like, you know, you gotta comport yourself,
you gotta you gotta stay in the moment, you know,
don't go crazy, you know, you know all the and
(08:56):
then coaches go crazy. I never understood that Knight wanted
this plant out of you, but he couldn't get discipline
out of himself.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Exactly, and that's sort of what I was talking about
on the accountability point. You know, sometimes you think about
you know, Will Ferrell and old school and not what
was it old school when he's uh, when he's saying we.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Got to keep our composure, kind of losing his mind.
But look, coaches do that.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
But but I think I think they can do better,
and and they should strive to do better and quit
making excuses when they don't.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Good to talk to you. We didn't even get to
transfer portal month. We didn't get to nil. Maybe next
week we'll hold off and talk about that and I
Transfer portal starts today, Jay, crazy, the coaches portal.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Has been opening, you know, and nobody's calling for guardrails
and under contractor getting poked the they have no loyalty.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
But nobody says that it's only for the players. We
have to worry about that.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
Thank you, Jay.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
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 5 (10:07):
Hey Steve Covino and I'm Rich David, and together we're
Covino and Rich on Fox Sports Radio. You could catch
us weekdays from five to seven pm Eastern two to
four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and of course the
iHeartRadio app. Why should you listen to Covino and Rich.
We talk about everything, life, sports, relationships, what's going on
in the world. We have a lot of fun talking
about the stories behind the stories in the world of
(10:28):
sports and pop culture, stories that well, other shows don't
seem to have the time to discuss. And the fact
that we've been friends for the last twenty years and
still work together. I mean that says something, right, So
check us out. We like to get you involved too,
take your phone calls, chop it up. As they say,
I'd say, the most interactive show on Fox Sports Radio,
maybe the.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Most interactive show on planetar.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Be sure to check out Covino and Rich live on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app from five to
seven pm Eastern, two to four Pacific, And if you
miss any of the live show, just search Covino and
Rich wherever you get your podcasts, and of course on
social media that's Cavino and Rich.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Well, we'll talk to Bill Simmons, great sports writer, podcaster,
and he is the executive producer of the HBO docusearies
Celtic City, the history of the team from their founding
to the twenty twenty four championships. So there's a lot
of great interviews in there, a lot of great footage,
old archival footage. And it premiered back on March third.
(11:27):
It can be streamed on Max, with new episodes debuting
Monday nights through April twenty eighth, as we make way
for Bill Simmons joining us on the program, Bill, how
are you? How's morale?
Speaker 6 (11:39):
I'm great, great to see it. Great for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yes, it has a better game college basketball NBA. As
far as the esthetics of watching it.
Speaker 7 (11:49):
Well, you're asking the wrong person, because I love the
NBA and college hoops.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I have trouble with March madness. I just have trouble
with especially what I grew up with in the eighties
where you.
Speaker 7 (12:01):
Felt like you got to know these guys over the
course of two, three, four years, and.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
This year, especially now in the L A.
Speaker 7 (12:07):
L Era, it's just, you know, it's like a fantasy
draft where you just reset the rosters every year. So
I think that combined with the style of play, Like
I went to two NBA games this weekend Lakers Bulls,
and the Bulls were incredible.
Speaker 6 (12:21):
Okay, see Equippers last night, which was like.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
A Round three playoff game, and that I was really
impressed by the Quippers how good they were. And you
go to games like that and you watch college and
it just to me just feels like such an inferior product.
So I think unless unless you went to one of
these colleges, you grew up rooty for them, or you
just have a major gamly problem, It's fine.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
March madness is fine. But I'm still taking the.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
NBA when it comes to awards, and I got to
vote on these. I'm sure you probably got to vote
on NBA awards, And the MVP is always a tricky one.
And I got criticized because I didn't vote for Barkley
and didn't vote from alone when they won. I voted
for Jordan. I think, you know, seven or eight years
in a row.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
History is remembered. You findly for that one.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think it wasn't a stretch to do that. But
like Joker, Joker is not going to win the MVP,
but he is the best player in the NBA SGA
who didn't play well in the game. You know, the
win against the Clippers is going to win. I just
don't know are we do we follow the Academy Awards. Hey,
it's your turn, your time to win something. Are we
(13:33):
doing that with awards or have we been doing that
with awards?
Speaker 6 (13:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 7 (13:38):
I mean I would probably put myself in the highest
percentile of people who stupidly care about this the most.
Like even when I wrote myasketball book, I did a
whole chapter about the MVP and tried to correct every injustice.
Speaker 6 (13:48):
Every year on the pod the last.
Speaker 7 (13:51):
Four or five weeks of the season, I'm trying to
grind it out and make sure you get to the
right place with somebody. I think the difference this year
is Sga is incredible, and I actually think he's now
becoming a little bit underrated, like he's having I think
one of the best scoring seasons in the history of
the guard position. Like what he's doing this year you
(14:11):
can put against any Jordan regular season. You can put
against It's as good as any Kobe season or better
except for two thousand and six. It's up there with West.
It is one of the best guard scoring seasons of
all time. And he's doing it night after night after night,
and the thing that I care about, and you know,
right now, with twelve games left, I think I'm going
to vote for him. The thing I care about is
(14:33):
every time he goes against whoever one of the other
best guys in the league is, he's either better than
them or is equal to them, right, So that matters.
The fact that his team is the best team in
the league and he's the centrifugal force of that, that
matters too. The fact that I haven't seen really anybody
stop him, even last night at the Quipper game. I
(14:54):
know what his box score was, but I went to
the game like it was just one of those nights,
like it was the ball was just rolling around the rim,
bouncing out, like he couldn't buy a break the whole night.
He's still getting the shots he wanted. So I think
he's been awesome. I am probably the number one joker
cheerleader anyone in the mainstream media. I just think he's
(15:15):
one of the best ten to twelve players of all time.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
And he's certainly the best player of this generation.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
But you know, I don't know what if OKC wins
sixty nine seventy games and SGA is going to average
thirty three a game and have fifty to thirty point
games and do all the stuff he's doing.
Speaker 6 (15:35):
I think it's a fair one. I think it's the
right vote.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
You think Joker is already one of the twelve best
players in the history of the game.
Speaker 7 (15:43):
I think he's definitely he's at least moved into that class,
you know. And this is another thing I probably care
about too much. And I redo my pyramid every year
with the Tears, and I'm a huge loser. But he's
at least in that group with Hike in Shack and
Moses in that kind of territory. And I think when
(16:05):
you're talking about the best offensive players year after year
who can both get their stats and make everybody better,
to me, he's in the bird magic area offensively. And
I mean, you know me well enough Dan to know, like,
I wouldn't say that lightly, but when you think like
he can, how he can elevate his teams, the stats
(16:27):
that he just gets to night after night, Like just
the experience of watching him day to day where it's
like he'll just put up a thirty five, twenty and
fifteen and we're like, whoa a big game for the
Joker last night?
Speaker 6 (16:38):
We're almost like numb to it at this point.
Speaker 7 (16:40):
So, yeah, he's I think he's one of the best
offensive players I've ever seen. So yeah, could he win
three MVPs in five years or four? I'm not sure
it matters. I just think he's in the combo now.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Historically, yeah, we're talking to Bill Simmons and the show
HBO docu series on Max Celtics City. When did the
idea first start? The genesis of.
Speaker 7 (17:02):
It might have been before COVID or right around COVID,
when we found out the Lakers were doing a multi
part thing for somebody, and you know.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
The Boston thing kicked in, immediately.
Speaker 7 (17:15):
Got competitive, or like, well, we got to come up
with a better one than theirs.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
Theirs is already coming gone, but you know we.
Speaker 7 (17:23):
I got together with Connor, who I created thirty for
thirty with, and just try to figure out, like, man,
if one of these franchise things was ever going to work,
because obviously there's going to be a few of them
that are done. This is probably the one with the
highest upside because you can tell the story of eight
decades of the NBA, You can tell a lot of
(17:44):
things about America through the Celtics you know, whether you
talk about race or drugs or business or the evolution
of the NBA, things like that, and then the characters
and I found out I'm sure you felt the same way.
Speaker 6 (17:57):
During the Last Dance.
Speaker 7 (17:59):
I was shy by how little people knew about anything
before the two thousands, about the NBA. It's almost like
most people felt like the NBA started when Shaq and
Kobe had the Three peet so like they had the
Rodman episode in the last Dance, and the people in
my life were like, wow, that Dennis Rodman.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
He was crazy, huh, And I'm like, what, Like, you
don't remember this.
Speaker 7 (18:21):
So we just felt like there was such an upside
with the whole Celtics story going from Koozy to Russell
and you know, all the way through the seventies and
how it intersected with Boston was a big thing because
it's a story about the Celtics.
Speaker 6 (18:34):
And the city.
Speaker 7 (18:34):
But now, like the One Tonight, it's really that there's
three straight kind of Bird era episodes in a row,
and the One Tonight is about Boston and Philly in
the early eighties and Bird kind of ascending, and it's
like this is the first one where I feel like
if you're probably under maybe sixty, or maybe you're over
(18:56):
I don't know, over twenty five, you're gonna remember all
the aspects of this. People under twenty five, I think
they're going to enjoy it. So it's a it's been
an amazing project to work on.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I don't know how tricky this was for you. Maybe
that's not the right word, but you want to get
a mass audience with this. You know that it's regional
with the Celtics, but you want to make it national.
The race part of it with Bill Russell when the
Celtics is very very powerful. But how do you factor
in making this for maybe mass appeal or the casual
(19:27):
basketball fan.
Speaker 7 (19:29):
Yeah, you're trying to do both. And it's also an
old school documentary. I don't there's not a lot of
these long multi partiers anywhere on the and the HBO
model I think actually favors us because the one of
the ways documentaries and docuseries have changed this decade is
they most of the places dump all of them at once, right,
(19:49):
and you just binge it, and you're binging it and
you're also doing something else, and you know, you can
just zoom through something and whatever. Maybe you watch six
episodes of something and you really only concentrate for half
of it. I think in this case, like we're making
nine one hour movies here, we're trying to tell a
bigger story than just hey, here's the Celtics and was
(20:10):
this game incredible?
Speaker 6 (20:11):
Like we're really trying to dive into some stuff, and.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Especially how a franchise intersects with a city and a country,
you know.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
So I think for us, we just I felt this
way when we did.
Speaker 7 (20:24):
You know, the first thirty thirty for thirties and some
of the other stuff I worked on, Like, if something's
good enough, people are going to find it.
Speaker 6 (20:31):
So I think that was our mission this whole time.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Can we make this good enough that somebody is going
to be suspicious of it and say, maybe.
Speaker 6 (20:39):
Eh, I don't mean to see that.
Speaker 7 (20:40):
I don't really care about the Celtics, like care about basketball.
You're going to enjoy watching this, like, and I think
that's the spot we got to.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
But also I go back to the first time I
went to the Boston Garden. So I'm working at CNN,
Celtics are in the NBA Finals, and all of a
sudden you walk into that building and Okay, it's esthetically
not pleasing. It was, you know, a dump, but you
felt like it was a stage, like it was a
(21:07):
Broadway stage when I was growing up seventy six or
Celtics on Sunday afternoon. The way the building was lit,
it just looked like a Broadway show.
Speaker 8 (21:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I just I.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Could not wait to shoot hoops on that floor. And
I would go there three hours early. Bird would be
in there, whether he's shooting or he'd run. You'd run
around the upper deck and I would just wait until
he was done. And if that ball was out there,
I went over it absolutely, absolutely, And so I was
(21:39):
very fortunate that, you know, you had Magic and Bird
being there when Magic hits the skyhook, and so when
I see it, it brings back the memories of and
maybe I didn't appreciate it as much. I loved it,
but even looking back, it was, I mean, that was
unbelievable rivalries, unbelievable talent, and the personalities, the characters, the
(22:01):
all time greats that came out of those matchups. I
just I loved reminiscing about it, and it gave me
I'd look forward to the Bird episodes because I got
to spend a lot of a lot more time with
Larry than I thought I was going to. But that
was the fun part of it. I don't know when
you first said I love this, This team is me.
It's my DNA.
Speaker 7 (22:22):
Yeah, I mean my dad got one season ticket in
the seventy three seventy four season. He's had him ever since,
so it's I think he's like the fifth oldest season
ticket older so he would carry me in when I
was a kid. Then eventually we got two tickets right
before Bird showed up. But we went to the trip
all overtime game, which we covered in episode three. And yeah,
(22:42):
I think one of the cool things about the seventies
and eighties. First of all, in the fifties and sixties,
basketball was it wasn't a minor league sport, but it was.
It was the fourth sport. Baseball was the biggest. Football
was right there behind it, and honestly, hockey was bigger
than basketball. They created basketball because the hockey owners wanted
(23:04):
to fill their buildings on the days where they didn't
have hockey. So it took, you know, fifteen twenty years.
They had a bunch of weird racial quotas and a
bunch of like pretty unseemly stuff. And it wasn't really
until the mid sixties that the league started becoming the league.
Speaker 6 (23:17):
You go into the seventies and it was.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Still pretty rinky dank for the most part. Right, they
had the one TV contract, the ABA showed up, so
some of the players weren't even in the league. And
you know, in that Triple the Tea game, it started
at nine to seventeen at night. The Boston fans said,
they're all blue collar fans. They've been out since four
in the afternoon, and they're hammered, and you know it
(23:41):
was they charged the quarter after second overtime.
Speaker 6 (23:45):
One guy jumped the referee. Like that's just what the
era was like.
Speaker 7 (23:48):
And then as you you go to the eighties and
the nineties, the league starts to shift. Jordan shows up,
All Star Weekend, Stern Bird versus Magic, and it kind
of rounds into where we end up in the nineties.
But it took a long time to get there, and
there were people like us that really loved the league,
but it was, you know, a contrary opinion. To tell
somebody your favorite sport was the NBA. It was like,
(24:10):
what really? And now it seems like, they have probably
the most famous players out of any sport. It's not
the biggest league, but I think they have the most
famous players.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Who was your favorite interview in this docu series?
Speaker 6 (24:25):
You know, I was stunned by how good Robert Parrish was.
Speaker 7 (24:30):
I think when you do these and we interviewed like
one hundred people, you're always hoping for a couple ones
you didn't expect. And Parish was somebody who was pretty
quiet when he played to called them that they nick
them the chief after the guy in the one floor
was Cuckoo's Nest who never talked, but he just had
a lot of like forty years of pent up stuff
(24:50):
to say, and he was really charismatic.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
And you do these things all right.
Speaker 7 (24:54):
Part of the issue we had was a lot of
the people from the first three episodes weren't alive anymore,
you know, and so you're cheating with different old footage.
And our director of Laurence Still did a great job
kind of weaving footage of people who weren't around anymore
and making it seem at least a little lively. And
once we get in the eighties, then we have everybody,
you know, so like Michao Parrish, we got Larry, all
(25:16):
these guys, all these guys are great, and then you know,
we got KG. Was probably the last one we got
because I think he was a little maybe suspicious of
the thing and.
Speaker 6 (25:26):
You're not going to move this.
Speaker 7 (25:27):
But kg's interviews of Basic that was the other one
where he's just he's just like that at all times.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
So you just turn a camera on and he's KG.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
But Isaiah didn't want to do it.
Speaker 7 (25:38):
Now we're you know, and I know Isaiah, and I
knew why he didn't want to do it. I think
he felt, you know, I think the Last Dance and
some other sports documentaries that have happened over the last
ten years, nobody wants to be in somebody else's doc.
Speaker 6 (25:52):
When they're like the other team in the sports movie.
Speaker 7 (25:54):
Right Like when we the first thirty thirty thirties, we
did we get anybody, you know, like, hey, we're doing
this documentary.
Speaker 6 (26:01):
Can we come film? You're sure?
Speaker 7 (26:03):
And that started a shift in the mid twenty tens.
And I get it, you know, like if somebody was
making a documentary about ESPN, I don't know if I'd.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Want to be in it, you know, I don't I
don't know how, and.
Speaker 7 (26:15):
I'm sure you would feel the same way, like, wait,
how am I going to be portrayed? So I get it,
But it also makes these things a little bit harder
and an increase the degree of difficulties. So we didn't
have We didn't have Barkley either. Barkley will talk to like,
you know, a lamppost about basketball, but some of the
people that are the on the other side, they just
don't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Congrats on it so far, Bill, good to catch up
with you again. Thanks for joining.
Speaker 6 (26:39):
Yeah, good to see you too. Thanks.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
That's Bill Simmons.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio WAP.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
John Caliperi Hall of Famer Beat, Kansas Beat Saint John's
got Texas Tech coming up this Thursday. Back on the show,
back in the sweet sixteen, Look who is Look who
proved he could still coach? Congratulations there, John.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
Thank you Dann Patrick. That's the ugliest top I've seen
in the wol. It befits you though, so it's it's
it's good.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Well, what's uglier your sport coat from this weekend, or.
Speaker 8 (27:23):
Like that sport coat.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Hey, you won with it. It looks a whole lot
better when you win. And this is this is a
gift from Adam Sandler.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
This is Yeah, you're out hitting golf bolls. But do
you would you would you think it's in the bag
to go this weekend that sport coat. Yeah, it's in
the bag.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
Okay, I'll travel with it.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Okay, And when you're done with it, maybe you could
send it to the man cave.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I will.
Speaker 8 (27:50):
I'll deliver it to the cabin in Maine. Okay, I'll
deliver it.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Are you an underdog?
Speaker 8 (27:58):
Yes, yeah, I'm fine with that. Like, look, most of
my career was should and Wooden can't won't. I mean
we've been the underdog. You remember you match, you came
up and did some games, you went on the court,
shot airballs and you know some of the stuff there,
and the Memphis the same thing, and you know, we
(28:19):
had a pretty good run at Kentucky and there was
that eight nine year period where yeah we were the one.
But you know, most of my career I've been that,
and so I'm fine in that role. I'm comfortable in
the role. I'm just trying to make sure my team
is comfortable in that role.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
I was going to ask you, are you telling them
it's nobody believed in US, US against the world. No,
none of them.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
No, I'm just saying we're the underdog, and every time
they play in those kind of games, they play well.
I think, Look, we're at that point in the year.
The whole thing is how do I get them to
have that mindset that we had against Saint John's Because look,
there's two things happened. We went two for nineteen from
(29:09):
the three and gave up twenty eight offensive rebounds, but
still one we played to win. Don't matter what happens,
don't matter they got a rebound, Just keep playing and
we keep them in that attitude and that mindset. It
doesn't mean you're going to win, but it gives you
a good chance to win.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
How do you keep the relationship or whatever with Patino
out of going into a game, coaching a game and
making it about the game that it's not about you
against Rick.
Speaker 8 (29:42):
If you went through the year we went through when
we were zero to five, when we were one and six,
and they said they got no chance of making the
NCAA tournament, when you're playing games. You're not worried about
the other coach. You're about survival. I wasn't worried about
match and went no chess game. I wasn't he out coaching.
I didn't care. It was about let's just win, because
(30:07):
what these kids went through, they deserved good to happen.
Because they came together. They became one heartbeat, and well,
what did you do? What did I do? They knew
if they didn't come together, they were gonna lose every game,
and they figured this, you know what, I'm so worried
about myself. If I worry about the team more than myself,
(30:28):
maybe it's easier. And they found out it was easier.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
How do you balance coaching right now and the transfer
portal all in the same week of preparing and transfer
portal starts today.
Speaker 8 (30:43):
Well, we yesterday was a kind of long day, got
a lot of film work done, got practice plans prepared,
the staff meetings where we were doing everything, and then
in the end I said, all right, let's talk now.
Before you can figure out portal, don't you have to
(31:06):
know who's coming back and who's leaving. So I don't
know of anybody in these sixteen teams that is sitting
down with players and say are you coming back? Or
you can put your name into portal with you know.
So it's just difficult right now. But we've got names
and you know, And what I would say with anybody listening,
(31:29):
if you want to get better, if you want to
be challenged, if you want to really play with good players,
be coached as though you've already gotten there to be
hugged and challenged and make you uncomfortable, and then you
come with me, you come to Arkansas. But right now
we're not on the phone with anybody yet. My staff.
(31:51):
Maybe I shouldn't say that. My staff may be, but
I'm not.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
When will you be open or paying more attention to
the portal yourself.
Speaker 8 (32:02):
If there's a young man that we know is really
really good and he wants to do this and wants
to talk to me, he won't believe this, I probably
get on the phone with them and say, hey, let's
do this. But short of that, it's probably mostly staff.
You know. My hope is that we have a group.
(32:22):
We have some guys that won't be back because they're
graduated out or they're going to you know, put their
name in the draft. And all that, but there is
another grouping of players who are really good that probably
need more time that we do that. We already have
three guys freshmen signed. And I'm going to say this again,
(32:44):
and I said it after I'm still recruiting freshmen. I'll
recruit the best freshmen, and as you saw last game,
three of them played a lot of minutes. But I
can't recruit seven or eight freshmen. So we got one
more freshmen we're trying to get. We've got three one
that you know, they're they're all really good, okay, but
(33:07):
we're trying to get one more and then who comes back,
and then probably a couple of transfers, and that'll be
our team.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Is the SEC of football conference or a basketball conference.
Speaker 8 (33:21):
You're trying to get me in trouble. Last time I
said something like that, people went nuts. And then you
find out that you know they're investing in what they want.
So I look it. I told our baseball coach, who's
there were number one in the country, and you know
right there, they're gonna win a College World Series. Every
(33:45):
game they played every weekend, they knew they could win
or lose. What about the football you want to say Vandy.
Well we got Bandy. Yeah, go play Vandy, go play them. Now,
well we could play mississip Yeah, go play Mississippi, Play Arkansas,
Tennessee and you get beat. I mean that's what happens. Well,
(34:06):
it's now basketball the same way and its top to bottom.
Our bottom two teams would have figured finished in the
top half of most leagues. They were that good. Uh,
but they got into this league and they started. It
was like Oklahoma when thirteen and oh beat people did it.
(34:27):
Got in the league and couldn't win early. We were
owing five to start and I knew we weren't bad.
I wasn't sure, but we were only five and we
survived it. And now it looks as though how many
SEC teams are in the sweet sixteen seven you don't know?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Ask your people seven. Okay, Yeah, you underestimate me, and
that's when you make a missage.
Speaker 8 (34:54):
Always under it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Yes you have, and I've always overestimated you finish this.
We will make the final four.
Speaker 8 (35:05):
If the other team doesn't make twenty.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Threees, that's it.
Speaker 8 (35:13):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Well, don't screw it up. Now you got this far.
You got to go further than Kentucky, don't you.
Speaker 8 (35:21):
No, not worried about them. This is what's happened for us.
This season has been the most rewarding season. I've had
seasons where we won more games and won national titles
and final fours and Elite eights. I've had all those,
but what this team has been through to survive it,
(35:43):
It's been as rewarding as any season. It talks a
lot about the character of these kids, how they were
raised that they could withstand the onslaught Dan. These kids,
all of them have pianos on their backs because of Nil. Well,
they're paid, they should do this, and they're trying to
(36:04):
live up to expectations. It's a piano. Families are involved
more than ever before. Why Nil and then social media
and you know what the worst is for the kids
talk radio. I mean, all that stuff is out there
that they got to deal with, and then the expectations
(36:26):
are winning pianos on their backs.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Good to talk to you, thanks Danny.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
I need to know the cabin. Do you have a
studio in the cabin in case you want to do
it up there?
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (36:42):
I knew it. I knew it. Do you let your
guys come up and stay or do they got to
go to a hotel.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
No, they don't get invited. It's like, you're very selfish.
Speaker 8 (36:54):
But you know what's great, you've been consistent your whole life.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
Thank you coach,
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Dan Patrick
Patrick "Seton" O'Connor
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