July 28, 2022 • 44 mins
Conor Glennon, current walk-on for the University of Memphis Men's Basketball team under Head Coach Penny Hardaway, joins the pod for the 2nd time to talk about his journey within the program and all things Memphis Basketball.
Here in PT. 2, Conor talks about:
- Building the culture at Memphis
- Coach Hardaway finding his niche
- What slowed them down during the '21-'22 season
- Emoni Bates getting thrown into the fire
- Jalen Duren getting drafted
.... and so much more!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Walkie Talkies is a production of I Heart Radio and
the College Athletes Network. Hey, yeah, I want you to
hit more on you know, just that that stigma of
Penny Hardaway, Like you you are in that huddle and
(00:24):
you see ship way differently than other people see that,
you know, formulate these opinions with their own basketball minds
and their own spins on the game. That maybe he's
doing some of these things wrong. But as a player
for his team, you know what are they wrong about?
Like you get the ins and the outs, Like he's
obviously not a bad coach. I would be damned if
any conversation I had. I don't even know the guy,
(00:46):
but if I let someone say like Penny Hardaway was
a bad coach, There's there's no way Like, yeah, there's
people like you know, different spins, maybe they have different
approaches and taxes, but we we just we can talk
about this n i T championship like three or four times,
Like he helped you guys win a championship, He led
that group, Like he took guys to the tournament, want
a tournament game, Like he's only been at the Helm
(01:07):
for what three or four years? So it's like go
into that about him as a coach and what you
see that we don't say. What's up? Everybody? Welcome back
to part two of episode fourteen with Memphis Basketball walk
On Connor Glennon Here on Walkie Tucky's podcast on the
College Athletes Network, featured on IHR Radio. I'm your host,
No it wont up. And the introduction point of this
(01:27):
episode was the ending point of part one and is
exactly where we're gonna pick up on. Right when I
shut the hell up and introduced Connor, We're gonna get
right into his answer. So here we go. So when he,
like you said, it's been however many years, he came
in when he took the job, and it was like
he put a lot of pressure on himself. But that's
just the kind of guy. He wants the attention, he
(01:49):
wants the pressure, he wants you know, he thrives in
that pressure. But he's he's growing and learning and as
we are, you know what I mean, He's still young
in this game. He's not someone you know who's been
around for forty five years and has figured everything out
about every little deep you know. I mean, we're building
our culture. We talked about every day we're building this.
(02:09):
We're trying to figure it out now like it's set.
This is what we want Now, we gotta do it.
We gotta build it. So twenty years from now, when
players come through the University of Memphis, they know what
it is. You know. I mean you got a team
like Duke. They talk about the brotherhood like you know,
you know what you know, you go to Duke, you
know what it is. So for him, he's trying, he's
trying to get through. You know, we got through those
(02:31):
first however many years and now we're here. So we're focused. Here,
we learned, we grew, we're here. How can we how
can we be perfect today? How can we win today?
And then tomorrow we do the same thing. So in
the like, he's always pet you know, he's one of
the smartest players to ever play the game. He knows
he's just finding his niche he's finding his you know,
(02:55):
this is how we're gonna do things. This you know,
practice is going to be like this. Um, there's a
lot gonna we travel right exactly. And he's young in
the game, so there's things that worked and there's things
that didn't work, and that I'm sure that's you know,
you could say the same thing. You're you know, we well,
we'll do something, and we're like, oh man, we're gonna
start doing this every day. And then it's like, yeah,
(03:17):
you know, it's just it's not it's not what we
need right now. We need this, so we'll we'll scratbe it,
we'll start over, we'll figure something else out and we'll
start here. We'll build off that, and so it almost
feels like we were I don't want to say guinea pigs,
but those first couple of years, man, we we're trying
to figure it out. Still, we're trying to we're trying
to find our identity is. And then you add in,
(03:38):
you know, people coming and going and all that kind
of stuff, which is just the nature of college basketball.
It can be difficult to to set a tone from
day one and carry that out and build throughout the year.
And then the next year it's like, you know, we
gotta start from scratch, we gotta we gotta find out
who this team is going to be. UM. So those
first couple of years, it just it was it was
about finding our identity UM. And now it's like, Okay,
(04:02):
we know who we are, we know who we want
to be. Here's how we're going to do it, and
we just gotta we just gotta do it. We gotta
go and do it. On an X and OS basis,
did you ever feel like from your own observation standpoint, Um,
I'm sure you did. You know you're within the system,
and you know, maybe you're thinking in your head like
maybe we should try this, and like, I don't know
(04:22):
if you ever had the the you know, enough of
a relationship with them where you could suggest it to
a coach lower on the totem pole and bring it
up whatever, even just have a conversation about it, not
like a Connor saying we gotta do this, not just
like your own opinion on like, um, what you thought
maybe would have benefited the team at times? Like from
an X and O standpoint, because dude, like I said,
(04:43):
I really respect you know where your basketball mind is at.
You probably had some observation, you know, calling your pops
after every game like nah, man, we had to do this.
We had to, you know what I mean, Like what
what were maybe a couple of things. It's obviously no
knock on coach Penny like ship worked you guys, you know,
third in the conference got to the tournament, you were
a top nine seed. You know, ship was working. Obviously
there was extenuity circumstances in other areas. But like, like
(05:07):
I said, ship was working. So but was there anything
that you were you would point out that you were like, yeah,
you know what like and then it didn't work, like
something you wanted to do and then maybe they did
it and it didn't work, or you did it and
then it did work. Was there anything like that? Um?
I think we had. You know, we we had like
this goal offensively, willing to play a certain way. We
(05:28):
wanted to fill these spots, and we wanted the ball
to move and we looked when that when we had
the ball moved, when we looked, we looked really good.
So from a player's point of view, is like when
the ball would stick and it would be fifteen on
the clock and we you know, dribble it out and
called something up for a ball screen instead of just
swinging it to the other side and cutting and screening.
(05:49):
That's when we started to find troubles like when do
we know, when do we get to to the point
where we got to break it off and um and
make a play, you know, lake clock situations or when
do we trust that you know, just swinging the ball
moving around, it's going to find us shot or you know,
an opportunity. So I would have, um like to see
(06:10):
us move the ball more. Early in the year, the
ball was sticking and we're so talented were it was
kind of like okay, like you're you know, you go
make a play and then the next play you go
make a play. You go make a play. But we
were so good, like in practice, especially when the ball
was moving and we were just playing like really good basketball. Man.
I swear we were. We we would have we would
(06:31):
have beat up on some of the teams that um
that we you know, we lost to early in there,
just because we, like I said, we were we didn't
know who we were yet. We didn't know our um,
what we were capable, we didn't know how we wanted
to play and um. But as far as you know suggestions,
I always you're going into every every film session like
before an opponent. I was like, oh man, this is
(06:52):
gonna work, this is good, this is you know, we're
gonna do this or do this. You know they blitz
ball screens, We're gonna hit the short roll they don't tag.
You know, we're gonna lift on the weak side. Whatever
it is. Like I was like, man, this is it?
This yep perfect? And I was on the scout team,
like yep, this works. You know we would go out
there the first Yep that works. So it was always
(07:12):
like like I had the confidence, like like I said before,
like they know more than me, these coaches that they
know better than I do, so I, you know, I
trust that what they see is is it, like this
is how we're gonna win this game. And I think
even if you have a coach who buys into something
and they could be totally wrong, if you get a
group of guys who just buy into what they say,
(07:34):
I think you could still beat that team. It doesn't matter.
As long as you buy in and you just you
just go all out and trying to do it the
right way like you can, maybe it happen. I think
it's it's interesting, you know, because you said the thing
about what we both kind of said about you know,
coach Hardaway being pretty new and like still experimenting and
finding his way, and um, you know, there's this constant
(07:55):
and it's in every It's in everything. There's this constant,
like you know, instant gratification, instant success, like right away,
you gotta be successful otherwise you're a failure. And it's like,
you know, you see it with coach Hardaway gets all
the criticism, all the heat about you know, him not
being that could of a coach, and then you you
look at a guy that you played with this past
(08:17):
two season. He Monty Bates. He skipped a senior year
of high school and he enrolls at at Memphis and
he kind of suffered the same same deal, like, but
he's way younger than than coach Hardaway and has way
less experience and it's not, you know, as emotionally intelligent
to kind of handle maybe some of that criticism, which
is not a knock on him, it's just an age thing.
He's only been around for seventeen years and he comes
(08:39):
into the first year and the expectations were high as hell. Man,
he was the number one overall pick, projected number one
overall pick, and it just didn't work out. But he
falls into that same mold of like, oh he didn't
have instant success, failure, he's a bust. He's nothing. He's
out of mid major now, like blah, blah, and so
(09:00):
I want to just preface it by saying it's ridiculous,
Like let's let's reel it back in a little bit,
like it's not that Yes, it's serious, but like it's
not to that severity like the kids only eighteen, He's
got plenty of time. Coach Hardaway is going to be
an even better coach by his tenth year, his fifteenth year,
like all of those things. So let's go back to
using that same young coaching mind of yours that we've
(09:23):
been talking about and get into like why that a
money Bates thing didn't work, why for both parties it
went wrong, and where maybe it ended up going wrong
from your perspective. All right, really quick break coming up
right here, and we'll come right back with Connor's answer
at the Money Bates, I do thank you for your
patients and apologize for the timing of this commercial, but
we'll be right back and we're back on Walkie Tucky's podcast.
(09:46):
Let's get right into Connor's response. Yeah, so I think
you just come in with like the highest of expectations,
right everybody did, fans, media, individual people like you expect
the absolute best and we're we I mean we always expect,
like we expect to be playing for a national championship.
(10:08):
We expect these things. So anytime you fall short, like
even if it's you know, you lose in the final four,
it's like, oh, man, you know, failure. We didn't do
We expected to do this. So when you fought, when
you fail, even you know, say you don't make the tournament,
you expect to in a national championship, and you don't
even make the tournament, it's like this drastic failure. So
(10:29):
early in that year, we had these crazy high expectations.
We were ranked high. We're like, man, you know, we
might not lose the game this year, Like that's how
we were feeling. And we did. We lost. We lost
a couple in a row, and then we won one,
and then we lost a few more in a row,
and it was just this like like doom almost around us,
like people just needed an outlet. And when you're the
(10:50):
head of attention, UM, I think you catch a lot
of that. So I think people were so quick to
go at you know, a young kid or a young
coach or you know whoever it was, or the hometown kids. Um.
Alex Omex's has been beat up by the Memphis community
for years, just because they know him, they know his name,
you know what I mean, It's easy for them to
point the finger at him. But with all these people,
(11:13):
you know what I could say is throughout all of it,
they work. And Coach Hardaway works, he cares so much.
Monty Bates works, man, he works. He cares. A look,
so Max cares. He cares so much. So for people
to just it's easy for someone on the outside to
just point the finger and say, oh, man, it didn't work.
It's this person's fault, it's this, it was this. But no,
(11:36):
sometimes you know, you just come up short. Things didn't
work out. Um, you have these expectations and when you know,
roadblocks hit and you know, some other things happened, and um,
it's not perfect anymore. It's like, okay, well, you know
I expect it perfect. So this is a problem. But
for us, it was like, you know, we're just gonna
(11:57):
keep keep trucking. Man, Like Coach is gonna put his
head down, he's gonna work, he's gonna give everything he
has every day. And especially like when Imani was hurt
and out, he was man, he was so focused. He
was helping us in practice trying to win and um,
he was a big part of of of our turnaround,
and you know, it just it's so unfortunate that he
(12:18):
gets a lot of that, um, you know, the wrong
end of the stick because we started to win. But
it was like, man, people don't know like he was
a part of that. He really was. He truly was.
And um, towards like, especially towards the end of the
year when he was getting close to coming back, he
was so focused on just helping us win. Um, And
(12:39):
you know, he was, like you said, he was a
superstar his whole life. He's been a superstar. So for
him to come in and have to you know, accept
a different role, that's for a seventeen year old kid,
that is that is not easy. It's not easy to do.
And he he was bought in, you know, and we
came back and he started playing again in the tournament.
(12:59):
He was bought in. He was like, ye'all come off
the bench out, you know what I mean. I just
want to help us win anyway I can. You know,
I miss here whatever it is. And you can see
the shift in people's minds, not just him, from our
entire team. Like once we started getting closer to our goal.
Like we started out, everyone wanted to, you know, be
that super they wanted to be, you know, the big
piece of why we're why were this great team. And
(13:22):
as time went on, people just kind of accepted a
little bit a little bit of time, like, Okay, this
is my role, this is this is how I'm gonna
help us win. You know what I mean. Lester Kenyon
is in the n I T he had double doubles,
twenty point fifteen rebound games, whatever it was, and he accepted, Okay,
I'm gonna guard the other team's best player. If I
(13:42):
get two threes up, I'm gonna make two of If
I get five, i'm gonna make three, and I'm gonna
shut down whoever it is. I gonna shut down Jayalen
During's like, I'm gonna block every shot. I'm gonna grab
every rebound. Don't if you drop it off to me,
I'll dunk it. You throw it up, I'll dunk it.
I don't need I don't need these touches, you know
what I mean. If if I get the ball up top,
I'm looking to make plays. Landers Now He's like, okay,
you know you drive kick, I'll you know, one of
(14:04):
the shot was in country, I'll shoot it. I can shoot.
Tyler Harris understood his role. When I come in the game.
You know, it's instant offense. I gotta bring that spark.
Alex O Max just is that gritty, tough leader we
needed who just picked up full court and he was
just physical and you know, so everybody kind of just
clicked and we found you know, Imani come off the bench,
(14:24):
install offense, just like Tyler, right, he's this threat. Like
you got one of the best players coming out of
high school in the country coming off the bench going
against like that's different. That's a difficult matchup for anybody. Man.
Um So throughout all of it, the one thing that
I could say is like, you know, you just expect
this to be perfect, and when it's not perfect, everyone
starts pointing fingers and um the only consistent thing that
(14:49):
there was was was work. The work never changed from
day one when when um I met coach Hardaway or
when I met Emani Bates, they were in the gym,
they were working. They were working harder than anybody and
Dave whatever end of the year, day before the last game,
nothing had changed. They were the hardest working people. They
were you know, they were trying to do what was
(15:09):
best for us to win, and that was the bottom line,
and that's why we got to where we got. Do
you do you think at all? Um? You know, because
I definitely, I definitely watched a good amount of Memphis basketball.
You know, I had a former teammate played at s
m U, Marcus weathers Um, So I saw all of
those games against you guys, and you know the time,
even the other games that I got to watch and
(15:31):
and a MONI was playing there. There did just feel
like this little like because maybe he was young, like
a lack of understanding about a college system and like
playing within the team, and it was visible. I mean
like you know, he'd come up the court and take
a crazy ass shot, some of them would drop, and
then some of them would and obviously we all know
as basketball players, the ones that don't drop they look
(15:52):
kind of bad. And you know, do you think some
of it was just like pure like he needs to
you know, just learn a little bit more about the game,
maybe like be exposed to certain things within like a
system to know how to be you know, the superstar
he is just within like a really structured college program. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Like and then you know the other thing
(16:14):
is most freshmen, like we had I don't remember how
many freshman year last year, but they were there June first,
you know what I mean, when did Hentic pint right,
he didn't get there and probably August maybe something like
that September because I had talked to you September one,
(16:34):
and I don't think I think he had maybe just committed,
you know what I mean, like re class and I
was like, I'll be at Memphis in a week and
a half, like got there in mid September. So like
that's men think about you know, you can attest this
how important that summer is for just you know, simple
stuff like that baseline everything, and you just build off it.
So like even like even Jalen, Jalen did a similar thing.
(16:57):
He was there a little bit earlier, but like when
he forst it was the same adjustment. He just had
a little bit of time to to learn with like
a closed environment, right just to practice. Jim Imani when
he it was basically like throw him, throw him out
into the fire. And you know, the whole world's watching
now too. It's not just you know us in the gym,
(17:20):
you know, being um, humble kids trying to get better.
Like no, the whole world is watching. So he did
a lot of growing up on the court, like in
front of a lot of people. He you know, he
was forced to forced to learn the game in a
different way like when I was telling you before, like
I threw myself into the fire. But I didn't have
millions of people watching to me fail every day, you
(17:42):
know what I mean, there's maybe people who saw me
struggle and who saw me, you know, look like a
fool or whatever it was. And so I didn't have
to worry about like the outside noise. I didn't have
to worry about all this other stuff. So I think,
you know, that was probably very challenging for him because
he you know, you what you don't know, You don't know.
(18:03):
If you don't know, it's you know you. So trying
to learn that stuff with the whole world watching is
is definitely not an easy thing. But like I said, man,
he he wasn't ever like against learning it, like he
wanted to learn. It's just not, like I said, it's
not easy. It's a big step. It's a huge step
(18:23):
when you're a kid and you've got to be a
man like this of a finger. What do you think
the hardest thing about that learning curve is that maybe
it doesn't have to be exactly unless you think, you
know what, maybe he struggled with exactly. But like even
for yourself. I know, for me, I had a million
learning curves, and it always came back to like my
upbringing within the game of not really learning that well
(18:46):
at a young age, not being exposed to the read
that you make off hedging the ball screen. Dude, I
even learn about a short role until like my second
year of college, roll short when they had the ball.
Like you know, there's certain things that people pick up
on slower they're not exposed to whatever, So like what
what maybe was he not exposed to that? I would
think her was tough for him, um, Like from day
(19:08):
one you could feel like when he got you could
feel he just had like this great feel for the game,
Like when he was playing and we're getting up and down,
like he just he just knew how to you know,
be effective at the game of basketball. I think the
speed and the physicality of the game, um is a
lot different than high school. For me, that was the
biggest thing, Like I felt like I knew a lot
(19:31):
about the game and how to play it the right way,
but sometimes it would just happen too quick and I
would be be late. And late is wrong, right, So
you can't you can't, you can't fix that. But so
I think speed and physicality was like, you know, it
made it real, like, Okay, you know I just left
high school. I got you know, I'm ready for this,
Like mentally he was ready, you know what I mean. Um,
(19:55):
So I think I think that I would say the
speed and physicality the game for most people is um
is a jump. And then, like you said, mentally, some people,
you know, like I felt like I knew a lot
heading into college, and some people probably don't. They you know,
they probably had bad coaches growing up, or you know,
they just coaches who didn't care or whatever it was,
(20:15):
and the mental side of things, it's just crazy when
they got here. Um. I remember I had a teammate
that came in with me, um, and he just he
just didn't understand stuff. And there's stuff that I understood.
So every day, man, I was just trying to help
him understand, like the small stuff, you know what I mean,
Like hedging literally just hedging the ball screen, or like
when do I rotate on as a big man? When
(20:37):
do I get from one dunker spot to the other side?
When do I circle around? When do I you know?
And why do I sprint into a ball screen? You
know what I mean? Why don't I don't understand? Like
why do I have to Why do I have to
three quarters of the post um here and in front
the post here? Like all this stuff that we're trying
to learn, It's like, man, it could be they could
be a laugh for people if you don't know anything.
(20:59):
And it's like I said, trying to learn all these
things at once. It's not just one little piece at
a time. And that and be hard, yea hard dude.
There's there's such a base level understanding, a foundation that
you really need. Otherwise, like like you said, picking it
all up at once is super super hard, especially with
the paste of it, the speed of it, the physicality
of it. It's all amplified times a thousand when you
(21:21):
get it, especially into a Division one program and then
you're in the higher major school, it's like it's crazy.
So you know, we'll wrap it up with the Amani
stuff and just like what, why do you think he transferred.
Was it just better to just get a fresh start?
Like what were you surprised by that at all? Like
what do you think what was your perspective on you know,
him deciding to leave. Um. I think he's the type
(21:42):
of kid where if he if he stayed, we would
have made it work and we would have moved forward
and made it better. And if he wanted to leave,
he would have went somewhere else and made it work
and made it you know what I mean, because that's
just the type of kid that he is. UM. But
it was just kind of like a mutual thing. Like
you know, like I said, you expect, you expect so
much and you just don't get there. It's like, you know,
(22:07):
so I think he Um and everybody involved, we're just
ready to move on to the next chapter. And I
think it was probably best for him, UM and for us.
You know, we're heading a good direction. He's headed in
a good direction. I talked to him and he's happy,
Um being at Eastern Michigan. He's close to home, and
I think he, you know, he's just ready to to
kind of have a you know, like you said, not
(22:30):
a fresh start, but just you know, he's learned a
lot this year and he's I think he's ready to
show that. Man, I learned a lot. Now I'm here
and I'm going to teach these people who haven't learned
what I've learned in a short amount of time. And
I can be a leader. I could do these things.
And I think, Yeah, it's you know, it sucks. You
want you know, you go after UM kids and you
(22:52):
recruit people and you want him to be there for
their whole career. That's the goal, that's the purpose. You
want to build relationships like that. Sometimes it just doesn't work, man, UM,
And we've had people come and go, and you know,
it is what it is. But we just we we
hunkered down and we lock in with where we're at
and where we want to be and whoever is there
and whoever lines up with us. Man, we were ready
(23:13):
to go to war. And that's pretty much the bottom line,
you know. But all my teammates that I've had UM
throughout the last couple of years. Man, for your teammates
once you you know, put on that same jersey your family,
you know what I mean. So UM, I look forward
to watching his success and and all my other teammates.
UM as well, you know, I mean, we'll play against
a couple of them, which will be pretty cool this year. Yeah.
(23:37):
So yeah, it's just you know, it's life. I guess, yeah,
it's it's also like, you know, to a certain extent,
the nature of the new wave of college basketball with
like you know, really it's like a year by year basis.
I mean even before it was like a scholarship is
a one year contract renewable. Assuming guys are you know,
gonna stick around, You recruit them, they become family, you
(23:58):
build this relationship. And now it's more like a year
to year basis kind of thing. And you know, I
do think from my outside perspective, him probably him going elsewhere,
little lower level school, and he's gonna take all of
the stuff he learned from, all the great knowledge that
you are around, that you've touched on. And when you're
(24:19):
too close to the situation, it always happens. Man, you
can't can't identify what like the root, cause I mean
you can identify what the root causes, you can't like
really pick apart and solve all of them in the moment,
Like you need to step away from the situation. And
so him being away from that in a new environment. Um,
you know, one of my former Duquete teammates also transferred.
He's at Eastern Michigan. To shout out to my guy
(24:40):
Tyson a cuff. So they're gonna be together. I know
how Tyson is. Like, you know, I think it'll be
a cool situation for both of them. And um, he's
a special player, man. He was not number one in
the country for no reason. So I just think the
criticism and stuff is just too harsh. Man. But it's
like literally just the way of the world and and
and where we live in um, which is a shame.
But you know, I think that there's a lot on
(25:02):
the horizon for him. He's so damn young dude, Like,
you know, you put some weight on him, and like
I mean even even not even you know, Kevin, he's
like a mini Kevin Durant brandon Ingram. They don't have
a weight on them and they're still kicking ask They
had to figure it out. It's just clicks for some
people faster than others. But Okay, when we come back,
Hunter will touch on the team's mindset while dealing with
the infractions case that is looming over the program, as
(25:24):
well as seeing as Buddy Jalen during get drafted into
the NBA. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
Well can talk his podcast on the College Athletes Network
is back, and let's bring back in our guest counteror
Glennon for the home stretch of part two of episode fourteen.
I want to wrap it up kind of with two
last things with the you know, there was that there
was that little bit of drama going on with Imani
(25:45):
and and all the media attention you guys get from that.
But then there's this new stuff. Um. Obviously, well obviously
there's drama with every team, but there's new stuff, you know,
And because you guys are so publicized because of who
your coaches and and everything is just so public. There's
the infractions case from like the James James Wiseman recruitment
stuff you know, back in two thousand nineteen, and now
that's all starting starting to sort of come back up, um,
(26:08):
and it could have you guys facing facing suspense and uh,
I can't speak facing suspension from postseason play, So how
do you guys navigate that and still remain focused? Like
it's gotta be weird? You know that you can potentially
go through a season and play great, but you're the one.
You're the group that happens to get punished for. You know,
(26:29):
this little rule. I think it's like an eleven hunter
or eleven thousand dollars that we're talking about with the
James Wiseman thing, Like, you know, we don't have to
go crazy on it, but like you're internally like, how
do you guys navigate like a situation like this, Um,
I'm sure you've heard this before. Just control what you
can control. You know, it's in the hands of people
(26:50):
above us. You know, we know little to nothing of anything.
You know, we're not uh, you know, in that in
that line of work. But we're here with the goal
of being the best possible team that we can be.
That's our goal. We want to hang a banner. There's
a there's a missing banner in our gym. Um. We've
(27:11):
got every you know, Final four, this, this, this, this,
We've got everything but one banner. We do not have
a national championship banner. And that is the only thing
that we were focused on. And like when you walk
in the gym and you could feel it, like when
you know you watch us practice, you hear you know
how how intense were we are right now, there's just
this this I can't even explain it, but there's this
(27:36):
level of of fire and everybody, you know, we've got
We've got a different roster this year. I can say
that it's different. We have you know, my first two years,
we had a lot of young guyss. We had you know,
guys who have been there for a couple of years whatever.
Now we've got a lot of new guys, but they're older,
they've been around other programs, they've done stuff, you know
what I mean. We've got some accomplished college players on
(27:57):
our team, um that have come to us. So we're
our focus is on us, you know what I mean.
It's not you know, whatever where to happen, if it
even happens, you know, it is what it is. But
we're trying to build something right now. We're trying to
you know, go in this direction, and to be honest
(28:19):
with you, like it. That's it. Like we just were
so hyper focused on being the best team we're we
feel like we're still being overlooked and and you know,
for reasons. You know, we've talked about people don't think
will be good. They don't think we'll be that good.
We don't think we'll make it to the tournament. They
think will be you know, the same position we were
in last year. But our goal is just to build
and get better and um, you know, once again prove
(28:41):
everybody wrong. Yeah, and I mean as it should be.
You guys are obviously have the right focus going into
the season, but um, I just think it blows that
there's a potential chance to you know, you bring in
the a C reigning a C Conference player to your
Kendrick Davis. You've got all these older guys like you said,
um that come to a school play for a coach
like Penny Hardaway, Like they want exactly what you're talking about.
(29:02):
They want that banner. But there's still this looming like
we might not even be able to get into the
you know tournament that gives us that painter And it
has nothing to do with you guys. It's over crazy punishment.
Um that hurts the current kids careers, you know what
I mean, Like it has nothing, it's it's it's a
three year old incident. You know, sure there's it's I
(29:23):
guess a problem with the coach, but it's it's so stupid, man,
like I. I. Obviously you can't touch on it as
much as I can. I'm retired, I can see whatever
the hell I want about the day. It's a bunch
of bullshit. Um, But seriously, I just hate to see it.
I don't want to see you guys have to suffer,
you know, this punishment from something that has nothing to
do with you, guys like the the n c A
(29:43):
tournament and playing on that in March. Madness is a
once in a lifetime thing if you have the opportunity
to and it's stripped from you, dude, to something that
has nothing to do with you. Guys. Man, that ain't right.
And uh, I won't stand for that either. I will.
I can't do anything about it, but I'll voice my
opinion that it's bullshit, and I hope you know more
powerful people do as well, because it's not right it. Um.
(30:06):
You know, it's good to hear that you guys are
still sticking together and there's a lot of cool things
coming together. You know, another year under all of your belts,
with experience and exposure to certain things that you know
hopefully comes together for the greater good of your team. Lastly,
and we'll finish with this, you know, as one of
the only walk ons on the team, one of two,
one of three, whatever, Like we said in the beginning,
(30:26):
and being what your role is, you know, that selflessness,
that sacrifice that we before me. Um, what are you
in the long term your goals as you finish out
your last two to three years, Like in this current role,
you still are kind of at the bottom of the roster.
Yet we did touch on, you know, becoming one of
the older guys. You're an upper classman going to become
sort of a leader of this program in that walk
(30:47):
on role. What do you hope to accomplish for yourself
moving forward, whether it's in these next three years or
just in general with life, um, moving forward that this
experience as a walk on will help you do. Yeah.
So I never never put a cap on anything. I
don't never want to say like this is you know,
(31:08):
if I if I get to this, if I do this,
this is this. You know, I'm happy, I'm successful and whatever.
I'm more concerned about, you know, like the day to
day stuff like if I can, if I can make
us better today and I can oh today, is this tomorrow?
Is this? Whatever? It is? Just building off that and creating,
you know, my own my own journey, my own path, um,
(31:31):
and just climbing the letter, climbing the letter, climbing the letter,
and keep going and keep going and keep going and
wherever that is is, wherever that is. I can't you know,
I can't sit here and say, you know, I'm ever
gonna be a superstar in college basketball. But I'm also
not gonna not gonna say that I can't ever be
you know, um, you know key piece to playing, um,
(31:54):
you know, a certain amount of minutes and helping us
win on the floor. I can't say that because I
have the utmost confidence in myself. You know what I mean.
I put in, I put in the work. I understand, um,
you know what it takes, stuff like that. So I
will never put a limit on myself. But I also
won't ever say, you know anything for certain Um, you know,
I just I want to win, and I have somebody
(32:17):
who understands, you know, if if it's if I can
help us win from the last seat on the bench,
or with the ball in my hands for twenty five
minutes or three minutes, or in a shirt and tie
someday or whatever the case may be, I want to win.
I want to help us win. I want to help
us win on a day to day basis. I want
to bring value um to people into an organization and
(32:39):
a program, into a school and you know, a community.
And you know, I would say, that's that's the goal.
And what comes along with that is, you know, you
want to play, you wanna you want to be the
man on the team, you want to do all these
kinds of things you wanna, um, you know, you just
want to climb that ladder. But for me, it's all
about It's all about the people. I want to bring something,
(33:00):
you know, I want to help people reach their dreams,
their goals at the same time and show them. You know,
this is how I was raised, is how I was
taught to do things. You know, maybe um, I can
I can teach somebody something along the way, or bring
value to somebody's life, or just help them get by
or whatever it is, you know what I mean, That's
that's the real goal. And then I would say, I'm
(33:22):
just trying to improve and get better and wherever, wherever
it goes, wherever it goes. And does that mean you know,
something oversees something just within coaching, like you know, obviously
you're not in a position where you're thinking about hanging
it up yet. I know by my third year I
was I was not even in the mold of thinking
i'd be when I'm at now and i'm you know, retired.
(33:43):
But is that is that where your head's kind of at? Yeah? Man,
if I could, you know, like I said, I won't
ever put a you know, and cap on on what
I can do. If if an opportunity created itself, I
will be the first person to throw myself into the
fire once again and start from scratch and try and
climb a ladder in another way or another you know
(34:06):
where a million miles away, whatever it is, I don't care.
If that's what I want to do, I'm gonna do
it like I'm gonna just go for it, go for it,
go for it until I either get it or I don't.
I'm not afraid to fail, like I said, um, you know,
it's just part of life. The only the only thing
is if I fail, I'm just gonna keep failing until
I figure it out or you know, I figure something
(34:27):
else out that I want to do, and I will
go do that. Um. So yeah, man, you've you've had
great perspective. You know, this whole episode, I really enjoyed
talking to you. I wanted one more thing. Well before
I even say that, I want to touch on like
the limiting yourself thing, because like you know, you have
this like it probably is just come from you know,
(34:47):
how you were raised, which sounds like you were raised
really well. Um you know, it's it's hard for a
lot of twenty year olds to like grasp this sort
of mindset um at a young age. And you know,
the thing that hit home with me the most was
you talking about like you just want to be able
to give at give what you got to others that
(35:07):
maybe didn't and and you know, hope that they can
kind of grasp onto those things the same way you did.
And I think that's the most interesting thing about people
I talked to that are are walk Ons, former walk Ons,
current walk Ons. Is like most of them in some
sense are givers to a certain degree more often than not.
And I don't know, man, I've just been in this situation,
(35:28):
these situations lately where like I feel it even more
like the last couple of years, and I just want
to give. I want to I don't even got a
lot to give you know, but like you know, I'll
buy a homeless person Chipotle. I'll give them a case
of waters, like like I don't even know it's literally
anything random. I just like I feel it inside of me,
that burning sensation of like how can I help? Like
I'm I'm young, I still need help, but like while
(35:50):
I'm getting some help, I want to keep helping now
that I'm at that age where I can. So I
think that really, you know, hit home with me, um,
and I hope it's home with listeners too, because like,
man like, let's not all let's not all be so
selfish out there, like like the world is about given
man like you, the more you give, the more you
get back and return. Um. But the one last thing
(36:12):
that has nothing to do with what we were just
talking about, that I want to just bring up and
have you quickly touch on as your guy, Jalen durn
gets drafted into the n b A. I thought he
got traded to the Knicks. He didn't. He's on He's
on the Pistons, which is fine, great duo in Kate
and um and and Ivy. That's a great little trio.
But I was really praying that he was on the
(36:33):
Knicks that would have been that would have been amazing,
would give me just like a quick like you being
around him, you know what you kind of expect from
him in the n b A how you think he'll
progress and grow. You know, he's got the frame and
like the you know, the defensive presence at that size
to be an absolute monster right away, and as as
that offensive skill set keeps building, you know, within an
NBA system, and he could be a real deal problem.
(36:55):
So what do you what do you just talk about
him for a second? First of all, Draft Knight was crazy, dude.
I remember, like I saw his name, I'm like, oh man,
and I was hoping he was gonna I wanted to
be with the Hornets. Like once he started um going through,
I was like, man, him and LaMelo, that's gonna be crazy.
So they pick him. I was going nuts, going crazy.
(37:16):
It's so happy. I see he gets traded the Knicks.
I'm like, oh man, you know his New York are good.
I'm starting to analyze, like his Nicks a good fit?
Do I like him to New York? And before I
even got to an answers, oh he's going to Detroit,
I was like, Okay, I like him with Kaide in Detroit,
that's a good spot for him. So and I'm I'm
so so, so so happy for him. And um, like
(37:36):
you said, man, he is going to be a problem
if he wants to be, if he understands how like
for him, he is so unselfish as a as a playmaker,
as a passer, he reminds me of Bama to Bio
and Yokich the way he is so willing to pass
(37:56):
the ball and he's such a good passer. Sometimes it's like, no,
I want you to get the ball and I want
you to dunk on every but like I want you
to do that, you know what I mean. So I'm
I'm just excited to see, like what what direction he
takes it, because he's he's probably one of the best
lob threats in the league already, you know what I mean,
Like you throw that thing up there, he's going to
(38:18):
get it. And playing with somebody like kid is gonna
get it, you know what I mean. You I've seen
seven lobs in two or three some really games, whoever
it is, you know. Um. So, I think it's a
good environment for him because he's like he's young too,
so he's gonna be around young um, some young talent
and some young pros, you know what I mean. Kate
(38:39):
Counningham is on the verge of becoming a superstar at
a very young age. I think he could, um, you know,
teach him a lot about you know, stuff outside of
the court and all that stuff. So I think he's
in good hands, um, and you know, he could be
he could be a lot of things. Man. He he
works hard, he's he's smart, he's unselfish. I think he's
(39:00):
got a lot of a lot of the things that
you look for in a player. Um, And whatever they
need him to do, I can tell you he's gonna
he's gonna be good at it. So I'm just really
excited to see how that unfolds. It's got to be
super cool to like have someone that you were that
close with b in the n B A. You know
one the one thing I haven't, I mean there's a couple,
(39:21):
but that would be the main thing that I always
think about is like, that's no knock on my teammates.
It's just really hard to make the n B A. UM.
I do have one teammate who's been floating around the
G League the last year and a half, which has
been cool because you know, you're like, man, you're you're there,
like you're in the G League, you're part of the NBA.
So I mean, senior boy get drafted, though, it's got
to be a special, special feeling, like just the craziest part.
(39:43):
I would started to coln but watching the draft. I
watched the draft every year. I'm such a nerd about
that stuff. I love watching the draft. Um. But when
chat Holme got drafted, they put up a video of
him going against Jalen durn And when Jalen got drafted,
you know, they put up the and I was in
(40:03):
the background of those on the bench standing up talking whatever.
And that was one of the coolest things I could
say as ever I've ever seen. Seeing me on the
screen of draft night, even though obviously I'm not going
to get drafted like that put a smile on my
face and that makes me I feel like, Okay, what
I'm doing is good, you know what I mean. It
was like a little bit of reassurance, like to keep going.
Probably you know left uh went to the gym that night.
(40:25):
I got some shots up or something. After the draft end. Yeah,
that was that was really cool to uh, to see myself, um,
be attached to two stars, man, to be attached with superstars,
So that's super cool. Yeah, And I mean, you know
that kind of sums up this conversation is like you
have been around and I said it before, like a
(40:47):
lot of talented basketball players and minds coaches, like from
a young age. I mean, obviously it's clearly started with
your dad and you know his training around Gannon Baker,
You're around coach Topper at a young age, You're rebounding
for Terry Roseier and you know before he was really
Terry Rosier and stuff like that. Like you've you've been
in the mix for a while and and clearly are
(41:07):
like magnetic you know to being around certain guys. And
I'm sure you're gonna have a couple of more teammates
that cracked the NBA that are on your team this year.
So that's cool. That's super special something that you should
you know, hold on too. And I'm sure you're super
grateful for it because you know, man, that basketball world
is small and those connections are they're always gonna be
big time for you. So, um, you know, moving forward,
(41:28):
like it really only work in your favorite with with
the kind of guy you are, so man, I appreciate
you coming on running this back. This was night and
day better than our first conversation. This was great. And
that for people who don't know that first conversation is
not available anymore. It has been taken down since I
signed this deal with iHeart Radio. But I think one day,
(41:50):
you know, down the line, it will be funny to
re release that exactly how it is and let people
just listen to the real inaugural episode of Walkie Talkies
because Connor was my first guest um back in September one, man,
So I appreciate it. Let's let's keep pushing it. You
talk his message, man, and uh, you know, hopefully holding
(42:11):
on to you know, stuff that you're doing, Man, is
is special. As a walk on. You really are embodying
like what we as walk on you know, should do
and should feel and should embrace um And that's special. Man.
You got to to maybe three more years, however many
you want to do with your COVID year to keep
riding the wave. But bright future ahead for you, bro,
and I appreciate you doing this again. I appreciate you,
(42:32):
and I'm happy for you, you know, they I saw that.
I heard stuff. Man, it's very cool, very cool. You're
going in good direction. Man. I'm I'm happy for you.
And we've come a long way in a year already,
so I'm so excited to see where we go. Man.
And that's a rap for parts one and two of
episode fourteen special two part episode with Connor. Man, what
a good dude, What a smart dude. You know, he's
(42:53):
the kind of guy that people get to be around
and they start to realize, like, damn, I'm lucky I
get to be around this guy every day. Uh. It
really is just a good dude, great head on his shoulders.
And you bet your bottom ass he's gonna be back
on Walkie Talkies Podcast in future episodes down the line,
just as this was really the second time we have
done an episode, and you know, all my guests are
(43:13):
always welcome back, but um, Connor's become a friend of
the show, and uh, you know, we appreciate him coming
back on and uh doing a part two for us.
I really enjoyed the two part format as well. Keep
the episodes a little shorter, sharper, more condensed for the listeners,
and the next episode we'll follow the same format with
former University of Kentucky walk on son of the legend
(43:37):
John Caliperry, the man himself, Brad Caliperry. It won't be
next week, but the following week part one of that
will drop. So if you enjoyed this and think you'll
enjoy Brad's episode, then please click the subscribe button so
you can be notified when the episode with Brad Caliperry
drops and when more interviews and conversations like this on
Walkie Talkies podcast are released. And leave the show a
(43:58):
review with some stars or rating. You can do that
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the show page. There will be a button on the
right that says write a review. And if you're on Spotify,
right near the top of the show page, there will
be an option to leave some stars in a review.
And I would really appreciate if you all could take
two minutes out of your day to do that. Even
if you want to leave a shitty scorch us go
(44:20):
ahead and leave us a couple of couple of stars.
What do you think? We love the feedback, so thank
you in advance for that, and we'll see you all
back here in two weeks with some more heat and remember,
come us Up You Walkie Talkies is a production of
I heart Radio and the College Athletes Network. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
(44:43):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Walkie Talkies is a production of I Heart Radio and
the College Athletes Network. Hey, yeah, I want you to
hit more on you know, just that that stigma of
Penny Hardaway, Like you you are in that huddle and
(00:24):
you see ship way differently than other people see that,
you know, formulate these opinions with their own basketball minds
and their own spins on the game. That maybe he's
doing some of these things wrong. But as a player
for his team, you know what are they wrong about?
Like you get the ins and the outs, Like he's
obviously not a bad coach. I would be damned if
any conversation I had. I don't even know the guy,
(00:46):
but if I let someone say like Penny Hardaway was
a bad coach, There's there's no way Like, yeah, there's
people like you know, different spins, maybe they have different
approaches and taxes, but we we just we can talk
about this n i T championship like three or four times,
Like he helped you guys win a championship, He led
that group, Like he took guys to the tournament, want
a tournament game, Like he's only been at the Helm
(01:07):
for what three or four years? So it's like go
into that about him as a coach and what you
see that we don't say. What's up? Everybody? Welcome back
to part two of episode fourteen with Memphis Basketball walk
On Connor Glennon Here on Walkie Tucky's podcast on the
College Athletes Network, featured on IHR Radio. I'm your host,
No it wont up. And the introduction point of this
(01:27):
episode was the ending point of part one and is
exactly where we're gonna pick up on. Right when I
shut the hell up and introduced Connor, We're gonna get
right into his answer. So here we go. So when he,
like you said, it's been however many years, he came
in when he took the job, and it was like
he put a lot of pressure on himself. But that's
just the kind of guy. He wants the attention, he
(01:49):
wants the pressure, he wants you know, he thrives in
that pressure. But he's he's growing and learning and as
we are, you know what I mean, He's still young
in this game. He's not someone you know who's been
around for forty five years and has figured everything out
about every little deep you know. I mean, we're building
our culture. We talked about every day we're building this.
(02:09):
We're trying to figure it out now like it's set.
This is what we want Now, we gotta do it.
We gotta build it. So twenty years from now, when
players come through the University of Memphis, they know what
it is. You know. I mean you got a team
like Duke. They talk about the brotherhood like you know,
you know what you know, you go to Duke, you
know what it is. So for him, he's trying, he's
trying to get through. You know, we got through those
(02:31):
first however many years and now we're here. So we're focused. Here,
we learned, we grew, we're here. How can we how
can we be perfect today? How can we win today?
And then tomorrow we do the same thing. So in
the like, he's always pet you know, he's one of
the smartest players to ever play the game. He knows
he's just finding his niche he's finding his you know,
(02:55):
this is how we're gonna do things. This you know,
practice is going to be like this. Um, there's a
lot gonna we travel right exactly. And he's young in
the game, so there's things that worked and there's things
that didn't work, and that I'm sure that's you know,
you could say the same thing. You're you know, we well,
we'll do something, and we're like, oh man, we're gonna
start doing this every day. And then it's like, yeah,
(03:17):
you know, it's just it's not it's not what we
need right now. We need this, so we'll we'll scratbe it,
we'll start over, we'll figure something else out and we'll
start here. We'll build off that, and so it almost
feels like we were I don't want to say guinea pigs,
but those first couple of years, man, we we're trying
to figure it out. Still, we're trying to we're trying
to find our identity is. And then you add in,
(03:38):
you know, people coming and going and all that kind
of stuff, which is just the nature of college basketball.
It can be difficult to to set a tone from
day one and carry that out and build throughout the year.
And then the next year it's like, you know, we
gotta start from scratch, we gotta we gotta find out
who this team is going to be. UM. So those
first couple of years, it just it was it was
about finding our identity UM. And now it's like, Okay,
(04:02):
we know who we are, we know who we want
to be. Here's how we're going to do it, and
we just gotta we just gotta do it. We gotta
go and do it. On an X and OS basis,
did you ever feel like from your own observation standpoint, Um,
I'm sure you did. You know you're within the system,
and you know, maybe you're thinking in your head like
maybe we should try this, and like, I don't know
(04:22):
if you ever had the the you know, enough of
a relationship with them where you could suggest it to
a coach lower on the totem pole and bring it
up whatever, even just have a conversation about it, not
like a Connor saying we gotta do this, not just
like your own opinion on like, um, what you thought
maybe would have benefited the team at times? Like from
an X and O standpoint, because dude, like I said,
(04:43):
I really respect you know where your basketball mind is at.
You probably had some observation, you know, calling your pops
after every game like nah, man, we had to do this.
We had to, you know what I mean, Like what
what were maybe a couple of things. It's obviously no
knock on coach Penny like ship worked you guys, you know,
third in the conference got to the tournament, you were
a top nine seed. You know, ship was working. Obviously
there was extenuity circumstances in other areas. But like, like
(05:07):
I said, ship was working. So but was there anything
that you were you would point out that you were like, yeah,
you know what like and then it didn't work, like
something you wanted to do and then maybe they did
it and it didn't work, or you did it and
then it did work. Was there anything like that? Um?
I think we had. You know, we we had like
this goal offensively, willing to play a certain way. We
(05:28):
wanted to fill these spots, and we wanted the ball
to move and we looked when that when we had
the ball moved, when we looked, we looked really good.
So from a player's point of view, is like when
the ball would stick and it would be fifteen on
the clock and we you know, dribble it out and
called something up for a ball screen instead of just
swinging it to the other side and cutting and screening.
(05:49):
That's when we started to find troubles like when do
we know, when do we get to to the point
where we got to break it off and um and
make a play, you know, lake clock situations or when
do we trust that you know, just swinging the ball
moving around, it's going to find us shot or you know,
an opportunity. So I would have, um like to see
(06:10):
us move the ball more. Early in the year, the
ball was sticking and we're so talented were it was
kind of like okay, like you're you know, you go
make a play and then the next play you go
make a play. You go make a play. But we
were so good, like in practice, especially when the ball
was moving and we were just playing like really good basketball. Man.
I swear we were. We we would have we would
(06:31):
have beat up on some of the teams that um
that we you know, we lost to early in there,
just because we, like I said, we were we didn't
know who we were yet. We didn't know our um,
what we were capable, we didn't know how we wanted
to play and um. But as far as you know suggestions,
I always you're going into every every film session like
before an opponent. I was like, oh man, this is
(06:52):
gonna work, this is good, this is you know, we're
gonna do this or do this. You know they blitz
ball screens, We're gonna hit the short roll they don't tag.
You know, we're gonna lift on the weak side. Whatever
it is. Like I was like, man, this is it?
This yep perfect? And I was on the scout team,
like yep, this works. You know we would go out
there the first Yep that works. So it was always
(07:12):
like like I had the confidence, like like I said before,
like they know more than me, these coaches that they
know better than I do, so I, you know, I
trust that what they see is is it, like this
is how we're gonna win this game. And I think
even if you have a coach who buys into something
and they could be totally wrong, if you get a
group of guys who just buy into what they say,
(07:34):
I think you could still beat that team. It doesn't matter.
As long as you buy in and you just you
just go all out and trying to do it the
right way like you can, maybe it happen. I think
it's it's interesting, you know, because you said the thing
about what we both kind of said about you know,
coach Hardaway being pretty new and like still experimenting and
finding his way, and um, you know, there's this constant
(07:55):
and it's in every It's in everything. There's this constant,
like you know, instant gratification, instant success, like right away,
you gotta be successful otherwise you're a failure. And it's like,
you know, you see it with coach Hardaway gets all
the criticism, all the heat about you know, him not
being that could of a coach, and then you you
look at a guy that you played with this past
(08:17):
two season. He Monty Bates. He skipped a senior year
of high school and he enrolls at at Memphis and
he kind of suffered the same same deal, like, but
he's way younger than than coach Hardaway and has way
less experience and it's not, you know, as emotionally intelligent
to kind of handle maybe some of that criticism, which
is not a knock on him, it's just an age thing.
He's only been around for seventeen years and he comes
(08:39):
into the first year and the expectations were high as hell. Man,
he was the number one overall pick, projected number one
overall pick, and it just didn't work out. But he
falls into that same mold of like, oh he didn't
have instant success, failure, he's a bust. He's nothing. He's
out of mid major now, like blah, blah, and so
(09:00):
I want to just preface it by saying it's ridiculous,
Like let's let's reel it back in a little bit,
like it's not that Yes, it's serious, but like it's
not to that severity like the kids only eighteen, He's
got plenty of time. Coach Hardaway is going to be
an even better coach by his tenth year, his fifteenth year,
like all of those things. So let's go back to
using that same young coaching mind of yours that we've
(09:23):
been talking about and get into like why that a
money Bates thing didn't work, why for both parties it
went wrong, and where maybe it ended up going wrong
from your perspective. All right, really quick break coming up
right here, and we'll come right back with Connor's answer
at the Money Bates, I do thank you for your
patients and apologize for the timing of this commercial, but
we'll be right back and we're back on Walkie Tucky's podcast.
(09:46):
Let's get right into Connor's response. Yeah, so I think
you just come in with like the highest of expectations,
right everybody did, fans, media, individual people like you expect
the absolute best and we're we I mean we always expect,
like we expect to be playing for a national championship.
(10:08):
We expect these things. So anytime you fall short, like
even if it's you know, you lose in the final four,
it's like, oh, man, you know, failure. We didn't do
We expected to do this. So when you fought, when
you fail, even you know, say you don't make the tournament,
you expect to in a national championship, and you don't
even make the tournament, it's like this drastic failure. So
(10:29):
early in that year, we had these crazy high expectations.
We were ranked high. We're like, man, you know, we
might not lose the game this year, Like that's how
we were feeling. And we did. We lost. We lost
a couple in a row, and then we won one,
and then we lost a few more in a row,
and it was just this like like doom almost around us,
like people just needed an outlet. And when you're the
(10:50):
head of attention, UM, I think you catch a lot
of that. So I think people were so quick to
go at you know, a young kid or a young
coach or you know whoever it was, or the hometown kids. Um.
Alex Omex's has been beat up by the Memphis community
for years, just because they know him, they know his name,
you know what I mean, It's easy for them to
point the finger at him. But with all these people,
(11:13):
you know what I could say is throughout all of it,
they work. And Coach Hardaway works, he cares so much.
Monty Bates works, man, he works. He cares. A look,
so Max cares. He cares so much. So for people
to just it's easy for someone on the outside to
just point the finger and say, oh, man, it didn't work.
It's this person's fault, it's this, it was this. But no,
(11:36):
sometimes you know, you just come up short. Things didn't
work out. Um, you have these expectations and when you know,
roadblocks hit and you know, some other things happened, and um,
it's not perfect anymore. It's like, okay, well, you know
I expect it perfect. So this is a problem. But
for us, it was like, you know, we're just gonna
(11:57):
keep keep trucking. Man, Like Coach is gonna put his
head down, he's gonna work, he's gonna give everything he
has every day. And especially like when Imani was hurt
and out, he was man, he was so focused. He
was helping us in practice trying to win and um,
he was a big part of of of our turnaround,
and you know, it just it's so unfortunate that he
(12:18):
gets a lot of that, um, you know, the wrong
end of the stick because we started to win. But
it was like, man, people don't know like he was
a part of that. He really was. He truly was.
And um, towards like, especially towards the end of the
year when he was getting close to coming back, he
was so focused on just helping us win. Um, And
(12:39):
you know, he was, like you said, he was a
superstar his whole life. He's been a superstar. So for
him to come in and have to you know, accept
a different role, that's for a seventeen year old kid,
that is that is not easy. It's not easy to do.
And he he was bought in, you know, and we
came back and he started playing again in the tournament.
(12:59):
He was bought in. He was like, ye'all come off
the bench out, you know what I mean. I just
want to help us win anyway I can. You know,
I miss here whatever it is. And you can see
the shift in people's minds, not just him, from our
entire team. Like once we started getting closer to our goal.
Like we started out, everyone wanted to, you know, be
that super they wanted to be, you know, the big
piece of why we're why were this great team. And
(13:22):
as time went on, people just kind of accepted a
little bit a little bit of time, like, Okay, this
is my role, this is this is how I'm gonna
help us win. You know what I mean. Lester Kenyon
is in the n I T he had double doubles,
twenty point fifteen rebound games, whatever it was, and he accepted, Okay,
I'm gonna guard the other team's best player. If I
(13:42):
get two threes up, I'm gonna make two of If
I get five, i'm gonna make three, and I'm gonna
shut down whoever it is. I gonna shut down Jayalen
During's like, I'm gonna block every shot. I'm gonna grab
every rebound. Don't if you drop it off to me,
I'll dunk it. You throw it up, I'll dunk it.
I don't need I don't need these touches, you know
what I mean. If if I get the ball up top,
I'm looking to make plays. Landers Now He's like, okay,
you know you drive kick, I'll you know, one of
(14:04):
the shot was in country, I'll shoot it. I can shoot.
Tyler Harris understood his role. When I come in the game.
You know, it's instant offense. I gotta bring that spark.
Alex O Max just is that gritty, tough leader we
needed who just picked up full court and he was
just physical and you know, so everybody kind of just
clicked and we found you know, Imani come off the bench,
(14:24):
install offense, just like Tyler, right, he's this threat. Like
you got one of the best players coming out of
high school in the country coming off the bench going
against like that's different. That's a difficult matchup for anybody. Man.
Um So throughout all of it, the one thing that
I could say is like, you know, you just expect
this to be perfect, and when it's not perfect, everyone
starts pointing fingers and um the only consistent thing that
(14:49):
there was was was work. The work never changed from
day one when when um I met coach Hardaway or
when I met Emani Bates, they were in the gym,
they were working. They were working harder than anybody and
Dave whatever end of the year, day before the last game,
nothing had changed. They were the hardest working people. They
were you know, they were trying to do what was
(15:09):
best for us to win, and that was the bottom line,
and that's why we got to where we got. Do
you do you think at all? Um? You know, because
I definitely, I definitely watched a good amount of Memphis basketball.
You know, I had a former teammate played at s
m U, Marcus weathers Um, So I saw all of
those games against you guys, and you know the time,
even the other games that I got to watch and
(15:31):
and a MONI was playing there. There did just feel
like this little like because maybe he was young, like
a lack of understanding about a college system and like
playing within the team, and it was visible. I mean
like you know, he'd come up the court and take
a crazy ass shot, some of them would drop, and
then some of them would and obviously we all know
as basketball players, the ones that don't drop they look
(15:52):
kind of bad. And you know, do you think some
of it was just like pure like he needs to
you know, just learn a little bit more about the game,
maybe like be exposed to certain things within like a
system to know how to be you know, the superstar
he is just within like a really structured college program. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. Like and then you know the other thing
(16:14):
is most freshmen, like we had I don't remember how
many freshman year last year, but they were there June first,
you know what I mean, when did Hentic pint right,
he didn't get there and probably August maybe something like
that September because I had talked to you September one,
(16:34):
and I don't think I think he had maybe just committed,
you know what I mean, like re class and I
was like, I'll be at Memphis in a week and
a half, like got there in mid September. So like
that's men think about you know, you can attest this
how important that summer is for just you know, simple
stuff like that baseline everything, and you just build off it.
So like even like even Jalen, Jalen did a similar thing.
(16:57):
He was there a little bit earlier, but like when
he forst it was the same adjustment. He just had
a little bit of time to to learn with like
a closed environment, right just to practice. Jim Imani when
he it was basically like throw him, throw him out
into the fire. And you know, the whole world's watching
now too. It's not just you know us in the gym,
(17:20):
you know, being um, humble kids trying to get better.
Like no, the whole world is watching. So he did
a lot of growing up on the court, like in
front of a lot of people. He you know, he
was forced to forced to learn the game in a
different way like when I was telling you before, like
I threw myself into the fire. But I didn't have
millions of people watching to me fail every day, you
(17:42):
know what I mean, there's maybe people who saw me
struggle and who saw me, you know, look like a
fool or whatever it was. And so I didn't have
to worry about like the outside noise. I didn't have
to worry about all this other stuff. So I think,
you know, that was probably very challenging for him because
he you know, you what you don't know, You don't know.
(18:03):
If you don't know, it's you know you. So trying
to learn that stuff with the whole world watching is
is definitely not an easy thing. But like I said, man,
he he wasn't ever like against learning it, like he
wanted to learn. It's just not, like I said, it's
not easy. It's a big step. It's a huge step
(18:23):
when you're a kid and you've got to be a
man like this of a finger. What do you think
the hardest thing about that learning curve is that maybe
it doesn't have to be exactly unless you think, you
know what, maybe he struggled with exactly. But like even
for yourself. I know, for me, I had a million
learning curves, and it always came back to like my
upbringing within the game of not really learning that well
(18:46):
at a young age, not being exposed to the read
that you make off hedging the ball screen. Dude, I
even learn about a short role until like my second
year of college, roll short when they had the ball.
Like you know, there's certain things that people pick up
on slower they're not exposed to whatever, So like what
what maybe was he not exposed to that? I would
think her was tough for him, um, Like from day
(19:08):
one you could feel like when he got you could
feel he just had like this great feel for the game,
Like when he was playing and we're getting up and down,
like he just he just knew how to you know,
be effective at the game of basketball. I think the
speed and the physicality of the game, um is a
lot different than high school. For me, that was the
biggest thing, Like I felt like I knew a lot
(19:31):
about the game and how to play it the right way,
but sometimes it would just happen too quick and I
would be be late. And late is wrong, right, So
you can't you can't, you can't fix that. But so
I think speed and physicality was like, you know, it
made it real, like, Okay, you know I just left
high school. I got you know, I'm ready for this,
Like mentally he was ready, you know what I mean. Um,
(19:55):
So I think I think that I would say the
speed and physicality the game for most people is um
is a jump. And then, like you said, mentally, some people,
you know, like I felt like I knew a lot
heading into college, and some people probably don't. They you know,
they probably had bad coaches growing up, or you know,
they just coaches who didn't care or whatever it was,
(20:15):
and the mental side of things, it's just crazy when
they got here. Um. I remember I had a teammate
that came in with me, um, and he just he
just didn't understand stuff. And there's stuff that I understood.
So every day, man, I was just trying to help
him understand, like the small stuff, you know what I mean,
Like hedging literally just hedging the ball screen, or like
when do I rotate on as a big man? When
(20:37):
do I get from one dunker spot to the other side?
When do I circle around? When do I you know?
And why do I sprint into a ball screen? You
know what I mean? Why don't I don't understand? Like
why do I have to Why do I have to
three quarters of the post um here and in front
the post here? Like all this stuff that we're trying
to learn, It's like, man, it could be they could
be a laugh for people if you don't know anything.
(20:59):
And it's like I said, trying to learn all these
things at once. It's not just one little piece at
a time. And that and be hard, yea hard dude.
There's there's such a base level understanding, a foundation that
you really need. Otherwise, like like you said, picking it
all up at once is super super hard, especially with
the paste of it, the speed of it, the physicality
of it. It's all amplified times a thousand when you
(21:21):
get it, especially into a Division one program and then
you're in the higher major school, it's like it's crazy.
So you know, we'll wrap it up with the Amani
stuff and just like what, why do you think he transferred.
Was it just better to just get a fresh start?
Like what were you surprised by that at all? Like
what do you think what was your perspective on you know,
him deciding to leave. Um. I think he's the type
(21:42):
of kid where if he if he stayed, we would
have made it work and we would have moved forward
and made it better. And if he wanted to leave,
he would have went somewhere else and made it work
and made it you know what I mean, because that's
just the type of kid that he is. UM. But
it was just kind of like a mutual thing. Like
you know, like I said, you expect, you expect so
much and you just don't get there. It's like, you know,
(22:07):
so I think he Um and everybody involved, we're just
ready to move on to the next chapter. And I
think it was probably best for him, UM and for us.
You know, we're heading a good direction. He's headed in
a good direction. I talked to him and he's happy,
Um being at Eastern Michigan. He's close to home, and
I think he, you know, he's just ready to to
kind of have a you know, like you said, not
(22:30):
a fresh start, but just you know, he's learned a
lot this year and he's I think he's ready to
show that. Man, I learned a lot. Now I'm here
and I'm going to teach these people who haven't learned
what I've learned in a short amount of time. And
I can be a leader. I could do these things.
And I think, Yeah, it's you know, it sucks. You
want you know, you go after UM kids and you
(22:52):
recruit people and you want him to be there for
their whole career. That's the goal, that's the purpose. You
want to build relationships like that. Sometimes it just doesn't work, man, UM,
And we've had people come and go, and you know,
it is what it is. But we just we we
hunkered down and we lock in with where we're at
and where we want to be and whoever is there
and whoever lines up with us. Man, we were ready
(23:13):
to go to war. And that's pretty much the bottom line,
you know. But all my teammates that I've had UM
throughout the last couple of years. Man, for your teammates
once you you know, put on that same jersey your family,
you know what I mean. So UM, I look forward
to watching his success and and all my other teammates.
UM as well, you know, I mean, we'll play against
a couple of them, which will be pretty cool this year. Yeah.
(23:37):
So yeah, it's just you know, it's life. I guess, yeah,
it's it's also like, you know, to a certain extent,
the nature of the new wave of college basketball with
like you know, really it's like a year by year basis.
I mean even before it was like a scholarship is
a one year contract renewable. Assuming guys are you know,
gonna stick around, You recruit them, they become family, you
(23:58):
build this relationship. And now it's more like a year
to year basis kind of thing. And you know, I
do think from my outside perspective, him probably him going elsewhere,
little lower level school, and he's gonna take all of
the stuff he learned from, all the great knowledge that
you are around, that you've touched on. And when you're
(24:19):
too close to the situation, it always happens. Man, you
can't can't identify what like the root, cause I mean
you can identify what the root causes, you can't like
really pick apart and solve all of them in the moment,
Like you need to step away from the situation. And
so him being away from that in a new environment. Um,
you know, one of my former Duquete teammates also transferred.
He's at Eastern Michigan. To shout out to my guy
(24:40):
Tyson a cuff. So they're gonna be together. I know
how Tyson is. Like, you know, I think it'll be
a cool situation for both of them. And um, he's
a special player, man. He was not number one in
the country for no reason. So I just think the
criticism and stuff is just too harsh. Man. But it's
like literally just the way of the world and and
and where we live in um, which is a shame.
But you know, I think that there's a lot on
(25:02):
the horizon for him. He's so damn young dude, Like,
you know, you put some weight on him, and like
I mean even even not even you know, Kevin, he's
like a mini Kevin Durant brandon Ingram. They don't have
a weight on them and they're still kicking ask They
had to figure it out. It's just clicks for some
people faster than others. But Okay, when we come back,
Hunter will touch on the team's mindset while dealing with
the infractions case that is looming over the program, as
(25:24):
well as seeing as Buddy Jalen during get drafted into
the NBA. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
Well can talk his podcast on the College Athletes Network
is back, and let's bring back in our guest counteror
Glennon for the home stretch of part two of episode fourteen.
I want to wrap it up kind of with two
last things with the you know, there was that there
was that little bit of drama going on with Imani
(25:45):
and and all the media attention you guys get from that.
But then there's this new stuff. Um. Obviously, well obviously
there's drama with every team, but there's new stuff, you know,
And because you guys are so publicized because of who
your coaches and and everything is just so public. There's
the infractions case from like the James James Wiseman recruitment
stuff you know, back in two thousand nineteen, and now
that's all starting starting to sort of come back up, um,
(26:08):
and it could have you guys facing facing suspense and uh,
I can't speak facing suspension from postseason play, So how
do you guys navigate that and still remain focused? Like
it's gotta be weird? You know that you can potentially
go through a season and play great, but you're the one.
You're the group that happens to get punished for. You know,
(26:29):
this little rule. I think it's like an eleven hunter
or eleven thousand dollars that we're talking about with the
James Wiseman thing, Like, you know, we don't have to
go crazy on it, but like you're internally like, how
do you guys navigate like a situation like this, Um,
I'm sure you've heard this before. Just control what you
can control. You know, it's in the hands of people
(26:50):
above us. You know, we know little to nothing of anything.
You know, we're not uh, you know, in that in
that line of work. But we're here with the goal
of being the best possible team that we can be.
That's our goal. We want to hang a banner. There's
a there's a missing banner in our gym. Um. We've
(27:11):
got every you know, Final four, this, this, this, this,
We've got everything but one banner. We do not have
a national championship banner. And that is the only thing
that we were focused on. And like when you walk
in the gym and you could feel it, like when
you know you watch us practice, you hear you know
how how intense were we are right now, there's just
this this I can't even explain it, but there's this
(27:36):
level of of fire and everybody, you know, we've got
We've got a different roster this year. I can say
that it's different. We have you know, my first two years,
we had a lot of young guyss. We had you know,
guys who have been there for a couple of years whatever.
Now we've got a lot of new guys, but they're older,
they've been around other programs, they've done stuff, you know
what I mean. We've got some accomplished college players on
(27:57):
our team, um that have come to us. So we're
our focus is on us, you know what I mean.
It's not you know, whatever where to happen, if it
even happens, you know, it is what it is. But
we're trying to build something right now. We're trying to
you know, go in this direction, and to be honest
(28:19):
with you, like it. That's it. Like we just were
so hyper focused on being the best team we're we
feel like we're still being overlooked and and you know,
for reasons. You know, we've talked about people don't think
will be good. They don't think we'll be that good.
We don't think we'll make it to the tournament. They
think will be you know, the same position we were
in last year. But our goal is just to build
and get better and um, you know, once again prove
(28:41):
everybody wrong. Yeah, and I mean as it should be.
You guys are obviously have the right focus going into
the season, but um, I just think it blows that
there's a potential chance to you know, you bring in
the a C reigning a C Conference player to your
Kendrick Davis. You've got all these older guys like you said,
um that come to a school play for a coach
like Penny Hardaway, Like they want exactly what you're talking about.
(29:02):
They want that banner. But there's still this looming like
we might not even be able to get into the
you know tournament that gives us that painter And it
has nothing to do with you guys. It's over crazy punishment.
Um that hurts the current kids careers, you know what
I mean, Like it has nothing, it's it's it's a
three year old incident. You know, sure there's it's I
(29:23):
guess a problem with the coach, but it's it's so stupid, man,
like I. I. Obviously you can't touch on it as
much as I can. I'm retired, I can see whatever
the hell I want about the day. It's a bunch
of bullshit. Um, But seriously, I just hate to see it.
I don't want to see you guys have to suffer,
you know, this punishment from something that has nothing to
do with you, guys like the the n c A
(29:43):
tournament and playing on that in March. Madness is a
once in a lifetime thing if you have the opportunity
to and it's stripped from you, dude, to something that
has nothing to do with you. Guys. Man, that ain't right.
And uh, I won't stand for that either. I will.
I can't do anything about it, but I'll voice my
opinion that it's bullshit, and I hope you know more
powerful people do as well, because it's not right it. Um.
(30:06):
You know, it's good to hear that you guys are
still sticking together and there's a lot of cool things
coming together. You know, another year under all of your belts,
with experience and exposure to certain things that you know
hopefully comes together for the greater good of your team. Lastly,
and we'll finish with this, you know, as one of
the only walk ons on the team, one of two,
one of three, whatever, Like we said in the beginning,
(30:26):
and being what your role is, you know, that selflessness,
that sacrifice that we before me. Um, what are you
in the long term your goals as you finish out
your last two to three years, Like in this current role,
you still are kind of at the bottom of the roster.
Yet we did touch on, you know, becoming one of
the older guys. You're an upper classman going to become
sort of a leader of this program in that walk
(30:47):
on role. What do you hope to accomplish for yourself
moving forward, whether it's in these next three years or
just in general with life, um, moving forward that this
experience as a walk on will help you do. Yeah.
So I never never put a cap on anything. I
don't never want to say like this is you know,
(31:08):
if I if I get to this, if I do this,
this is this. You know, I'm happy, I'm successful and whatever.
I'm more concerned about, you know, like the day to
day stuff like if I can, if I can make
us better today and I can oh today, is this tomorrow?
Is this? Whatever? It is? Just building off that and creating,
you know, my own my own journey, my own path, um,
(31:31):
and just climbing the letter, climbing the letter, climbing the letter,
and keep going and keep going and keep going and
wherever that is is, wherever that is. I can't you know,
I can't sit here and say, you know, I'm ever
gonna be a superstar in college basketball. But I'm also
not gonna not gonna say that I can't ever be
you know, um, you know key piece to playing, um,
(31:54):
you know, a certain amount of minutes and helping us
win on the floor. I can't say that because I
have the utmost confidence in myself. You know what I mean.
I put in, I put in the work. I understand, um,
you know what it takes, stuff like that. So I
will never put a limit on myself. But I also
won't ever say, you know anything for certain Um, you know,
I just I want to win, and I have somebody
(32:17):
who understands, you know, if if it's if I can
help us win from the last seat on the bench,
or with the ball in my hands for twenty five
minutes or three minutes, or in a shirt and tie
someday or whatever the case may be, I want to win.
I want to help us win. I want to help
us win on a day to day basis. I want
to bring value um to people into an organization and
(32:39):
a program, into a school and you know, a community.
And you know, I would say, that's that's the goal.
And what comes along with that is, you know, you
want to play, you wanna you want to be the
man on the team, you want to do all these
kinds of things you wanna, um, you know, you just
want to climb that ladder. But for me, it's all
about It's all about the people. I want to bring something,
(33:00):
you know, I want to help people reach their dreams,
their goals at the same time and show them. You know,
this is how I was raised, is how I was
taught to do things. You know, maybe um, I can
I can teach somebody something along the way, or bring
value to somebody's life, or just help them get by
or whatever it is, you know what I mean, That's
that's the real goal. And then I would say, I'm
(33:22):
just trying to improve and get better and wherever, wherever
it goes, wherever it goes. And does that mean you know,
something oversees something just within coaching, like you know, obviously
you're not in a position where you're thinking about hanging
it up yet. I know by my third year I
was I was not even in the mold of thinking
i'd be when I'm at now and i'm you know, retired.
(33:43):
But is that is that where your head's kind of at? Yeah? Man,
if I could, you know, like I said, I won't
ever put a you know, and cap on on what
I can do. If if an opportunity created itself, I
will be the first person to throw myself into the
fire once again and start from scratch and try and
climb a ladder in another way or another you know
(34:06):
where a million miles away, whatever it is, I don't care.
If that's what I want to do, I'm gonna do
it like I'm gonna just go for it, go for it,
go for it until I either get it or I don't.
I'm not afraid to fail, like I said, um, you know,
it's just part of life. The only the only thing
is if I fail, I'm just gonna keep failing until
I figure it out or you know, I figure something
(34:27):
else out that I want to do, and I will
go do that. Um. So yeah, man, you've you've had
great perspective. You know, this whole episode, I really enjoyed
talking to you. I wanted one more thing. Well before
I even say that, I want to touch on like
the limiting yourself thing, because like you know, you have
this like it probably is just come from you know,
(34:47):
how you were raised, which sounds like you were raised
really well. Um you know, it's it's hard for a
lot of twenty year olds to like grasp this sort
of mindset um at a young age. And you know,
the thing that hit home with me the most was
you talking about like you just want to be able
to give at give what you got to others that
(35:07):
maybe didn't and and you know, hope that they can
kind of grasp onto those things the same way you did.
And I think that's the most interesting thing about people
I talked to that are are walk Ons, former walk Ons,
current walk Ons. Is like most of them in some
sense are givers to a certain degree more often than not.
And I don't know, man, I've just been in this situation,
(35:28):
these situations lately where like I feel it even more
like the last couple of years, and I just want
to give. I want to I don't even got a
lot to give you know, but like you know, I'll
buy a homeless person Chipotle. I'll give them a case
of waters, like like I don't even know it's literally
anything random. I just like I feel it inside of me,
that burning sensation of like how can I help? Like
I'm I'm young, I still need help, but like while
(35:50):
I'm getting some help, I want to keep helping now
that I'm at that age where I can. So I
think that really, you know, hit home with me, um,
and I hope it's home with listeners too, because like,
man like, let's not all let's not all be so
selfish out there, like like the world is about given
man like you, the more you give, the more you
get back and return. Um. But the one last thing
(36:12):
that has nothing to do with what we were just
talking about, that I want to just bring up and
have you quickly touch on as your guy, Jalen durn
gets drafted into the n b A. I thought he
got traded to the Knicks. He didn't. He's on He's
on the Pistons, which is fine, great duo in Kate
and um and and Ivy. That's a great little trio.
But I was really praying that he was on the
(36:33):
Knicks that would have been that would have been amazing,
would give me just like a quick like you being
around him, you know what you kind of expect from
him in the n b A how you think he'll
progress and grow. You know, he's got the frame and
like the you know, the defensive presence at that size
to be an absolute monster right away, and as as
that offensive skill set keeps building, you know, within an
NBA system, and he could be a real deal problem.
(36:55):
So what do you what do you just talk about
him for a second? First of all, Draft Knight was crazy, dude.
I remember, like I saw his name, I'm like, oh man,
and I was hoping he was gonna I wanted to
be with the Hornets. Like once he started um going through,
I was like, man, him and LaMelo, that's gonna be crazy.
So they pick him. I was going nuts, going crazy.
(37:16):
It's so happy. I see he gets traded the Knicks.
I'm like, oh man, you know his New York are good.
I'm starting to analyze, like his Nicks a good fit?
Do I like him to New York? And before I
even got to an answers, oh he's going to Detroit,
I was like, Okay, I like him with Kaide in Detroit,
that's a good spot for him. So and I'm I'm
so so, so so happy for him. And um, like
(37:36):
you said, man, he is going to be a problem
if he wants to be, if he understands how like
for him, he is so unselfish as a as a playmaker,
as a passer, he reminds me of Bama to Bio
and Yokich the way he is so willing to pass
(37:56):
the ball and he's such a good passer. Sometimes it's like, no,
I want you to get the ball and I want
you to dunk on every but like I want you
to do that, you know what I mean. So I'm
I'm just excited to see, like what what direction he
takes it, because he's he's probably one of the best
lob threats in the league already, you know what I mean,
Like you throw that thing up there, he's going to
(38:18):
get it. And playing with somebody like kid is gonna
get it, you know what I mean. You I've seen
seven lobs in two or three some really games, whoever
it is, you know. Um. So, I think it's a
good environment for him because he's like he's young too,
so he's gonna be around young um, some young talent
and some young pros, you know what I mean. Kate
(38:39):
Counningham is on the verge of becoming a superstar at
a very young age. I think he could, um, you know,
teach him a lot about you know, stuff outside of
the court and all that stuff. So I think he's
in good hands, um, and you know, he could be
he could be a lot of things. Man. He he
works hard, he's he's smart, he's unselfish. I think he's
(39:00):
got a lot of a lot of the things that
you look for in a player. Um, And whatever they
need him to do, I can tell you he's gonna
he's gonna be good at it. So I'm just really
excited to see how that unfolds. It's got to be
super cool to like have someone that you were that
close with b in the n B A. You know
one the one thing I haven't, I mean there's a couple,
(39:21):
but that would be the main thing that I always
think about is like, that's no knock on my teammates.
It's just really hard to make the n B A. UM.
I do have one teammate who's been floating around the
G League the last year and a half, which has
been cool because you know, you're like, man, you're you're there,
like you're in the G League, you're part of the NBA.
So I mean, senior boy get drafted, though, it's got
to be a special, special feeling, like just the craziest part.
(39:43):
I would started to coln but watching the draft. I
watched the draft every year. I'm such a nerd about
that stuff. I love watching the draft. Um. But when
chat Holme got drafted, they put up a video of
him going against Jalen durn And when Jalen got drafted,
you know, they put up the and I was in
(40:03):
the background of those on the bench standing up talking whatever.
And that was one of the coolest things I could
say as ever I've ever seen. Seeing me on the
screen of draft night, even though obviously I'm not going
to get drafted like that put a smile on my
face and that makes me I feel like, Okay, what
I'm doing is good, you know what I mean. It
was like a little bit of reassurance, like to keep going.
Probably you know left uh went to the gym that night.
(40:25):
I got some shots up or something. After the draft end. Yeah,
that was that was really cool to uh, to see myself, um,
be attached to two stars, man, to be attached with superstars,
So that's super cool. Yeah, And I mean, you know
that kind of sums up this conversation is like you
have been around and I said it before, like a
(40:47):
lot of talented basketball players and minds coaches, like from
a young age. I mean, obviously it's clearly started with
your dad and you know his training around Gannon Baker,
You're around coach Topper at a young age, You're rebounding
for Terry Roseier and you know before he was really
Terry Rosier and stuff like that. Like you've you've been
in the mix for a while and and clearly are
(41:07):
like magnetic you know to being around certain guys. And
I'm sure you're gonna have a couple of more teammates
that cracked the NBA that are on your team this year.
So that's cool. That's super special something that you should
you know, hold on too. And I'm sure you're super
grateful for it because you know, man, that basketball world
is small and those connections are they're always gonna be
big time for you. So, um, you know, moving forward,
(41:28):
like it really only work in your favorite with with
the kind of guy you are, so man, I appreciate
you coming on running this back. This was night and
day better than our first conversation. This was great. And
that for people who don't know that first conversation is
not available anymore. It has been taken down since I
signed this deal with iHeart Radio. But I think one day,
(41:50):
you know, down the line, it will be funny to
re release that exactly how it is and let people
just listen to the real inaugural episode of Walkie Talkies
because Connor was my first guest um back in September one, man,
So I appreciate it. Let's let's keep pushing it. You
talk his message, man, and uh, you know, hopefully holding
(42:11):
on to you know, stuff that you're doing, Man, is
is special. As a walk on. You really are embodying
like what we as walk on you know, should do
and should feel and should embrace um And that's special. Man.
You got to to maybe three more years, however many
you want to do with your COVID year to keep
riding the wave. But bright future ahead for you, bro,
and I appreciate you doing this again. I appreciate you,
(42:32):
and I'm happy for you, you know, they I saw that.
I heard stuff. Man, it's very cool, very cool. You're
going in good direction. Man. I'm I'm happy for you.
And we've come a long way in a year already,
so I'm so excited to see where we go. Man.
And that's a rap for parts one and two of
episode fourteen special two part episode with Connor. Man, what
a good dude, What a smart dude. You know, he's
(42:53):
the kind of guy that people get to be around
and they start to realize, like, damn, I'm lucky I
get to be around this guy every day. Uh. It
really is just a good dude, great head on his shoulders.
And you bet your bottom ass he's gonna be back
on Walkie Talkies Podcast in future episodes down the line,
just as this was really the second time we have
done an episode, and you know, all my guests are
(43:13):
always welcome back, but um, Connor's become a friend of
the show, and uh, you know, we appreciate him coming
back on and uh doing a part two for us.
I really enjoyed the two part format as well. Keep
the episodes a little shorter, sharper, more condensed for the listeners,
and the next episode we'll follow the same format with
former University of Kentucky walk on son of the legend
(43:37):
John Caliperry, the man himself, Brad Caliperry. It won't be
next week, but the following week part one of that
will drop. So if you enjoyed this and think you'll
enjoy Brad's episode, then please click the subscribe button so
you can be notified when the episode with Brad Caliperry
drops and when more interviews and conversations like this on
Walkie Talkies podcast are released. And leave the show a
(43:58):
review with some stars or rating. You can do that
directly on the Apple podcast app. Towards the bottom of
the show page. There will be a button on the
right that says write a review. And if you're on Spotify,
right near the top of the show page, there will
be an option to leave some stars in a review.
And I would really appreciate if you all could take
two minutes out of your day to do that. Even
if you want to leave a shitty scorch us go
(44:20):
ahead and leave us a couple of couple of stars.
What do you think? We love the feedback, so thank
you in advance for that, and we'll see you all
back here in two weeks with some more heat and remember,
come us Up You Walkie Talkies is a production of
I heart Radio and the College Athletes Network. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
(44:43):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Noah Buono
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