3/3/25 - The Mo Egger Show w/ Chad Brendel

Tee Higgins officially Franchised Tag

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's sports station.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Here we go Monday in the Queen City. Chad Brenda
still in for Mo Eggar as Moe is hanging out
in Goodyear having a blast. Will be back on Wednesday.

(00:42):
So you get me today and tomorrow, and we have
a lot to get to. You gotta love Taren when
you know twenty minutes thirty minutes before the show you
have to completely scrap your entire rundown and start over.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
But that's where we're at.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
There's it was a show planned heavily slanted towards college basketball.
Xavier's big win on Saturday. You see not getting the
job done in Houston, and where that leads those two
teams with a week left in the regular season heading
into the conference tournament. This is how weird college basketball is.

(01:23):
Xavier dominant in that game at home over Creighton, win
by twenty two points. Cincinnati goes on the road, loses
by nine at Houston. Xavier stays right about the same
in the net ranking, Cincinnati moves up seven spots. This
is why, if you're both of those schools, you needed

(01:44):
to get more done in January to not be in
this situation.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
But here.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
They are Xavier, obviously winners of five in a row,
with momentum heading into a week that is promising for
them at Butler. If you watch Xavier play Butler at
the Centas Center a couple weeks ago, it's very clear
Xavier was substantially more talented than the had Mada's bunch.

(02:12):
But coming off that big win over Creighton, a lot
of emotion, awesome crowd at the Centas Center for the
white out, they ran the throwbacks, they got up big,
and they did exactly what was needed in hanging on
to that lead and getting to the finish line, which
has been a little bit of a challenge for Xavier
this year, so you wanted to see them be able

(02:34):
to get the job done. Cincinnati jumps up early on Houston.
Then Houston dominates the last twelve minutes or so of
the first half. That really was the difference in the game.
You can get into a bunch of reasons why, but ultimately,
Society just doesn't have enough offensive firepower to really pete,

(03:01):
you know, in a back and forth game with Houston,
especially the way that they shot the ball from the
under twelve stop in the first half all the way
through to I don't know, probably seven or eight minutes
left in the game. There was just a twenty five
minute stretch there where Houston got the ball to where
they wanted they were able to convert. Some of that

(03:22):
was easier because you had foul trouble for Dane Thomas
and Dylan Mitchell, who tend to be Cincinnati's two best
defensive players. But ultimately Houston didn't make as many mistakes
Cincinnati had a stretch in the first half. Dan Skillings
and semous lukash has had six turnovers in the first half,

(03:44):
six of Cincinnati's nine. If you clean that up, you
take away I think fourteen fifteen points for Houston points
off turnovers in that first half, and things maybe look
a little different at halftime, and you've got a chance,
but you go in down thirteen and at Houston, the
odds of you completing that comeback are very very very slim,

(04:08):
very slim. So Bearcats now in about the same spot.
They didn't really lose any ground, but they had an opportunity.
They probably would have pushed themselves into the tournament if
they were able to win at Houston. It would have
been the second best win of the season. In college basketball.

(04:30):
Behind Florida knocking off Auburn, couldn't get it done. Now
You've got Kansas State at home on Senior Night Wednesday
at seven, and then you go on the road for
a hard to figure out Oklahoma State team to close
the regular season Saturday at three, so Xavier with Butler

(04:50):
at home, Providence or Butler on the road, Providence at home,
Cincinnati with Kansas State at home and Oklahoma State on
the road. But the big news of the day is
coming in as the Bengals just announced about ten minutes
ago on Twitter that they have designated t Higgins as

(05:12):
their franchise player for the second year in a row.
It's frustrating because you hear this franchise and they this
is why they don't put Duke Tobin in front of
a mic. Very often says the right things, but actions

(05:35):
speak louder than words. Marvin Lewis see better than I hear.
We got to get these things done. It is priority
to take care of tea, to make Jamar the highest
paid player non quarterback in the NFL. Free agency opens

(05:55):
in a little over a week and the Bengals now
don't have a long term deal for t Higgins. You
would think if the sides were close, Cincinnati would have
waited on that franchise tag until tomorrow, the deadline tomorrow
or closer to the deadline tomorrow. Doing it today, I

(06:19):
think is a pretty clear signal they're not where they
need to be, and this buys you some more time
that the goal is clearly at this point to extend
t Higgins. But how far apart are they on those
numbers and how much of a rush is there really

(06:41):
to get this done quickly? And then Russini, also over
the weekend on Jamar Chase says an offer has been
made by Cincinnati, but the two sides remain far apart
in talks. She followed that up about a half hour ago.

(07:07):
Sorry scrolling through the tweets, Jamar Chase is the priority
and expected to be reset and expected to reset the
non QB market. An offer has been made by Cincinnati,
but the two sides remain far apart for now per sources.
How are they far apart? That's the part that is
is confusing to me. Jamar wants to be the highest

(07:32):
paid non quarterback in the NFL. Deserves to be the
highest paid non quarterback in the NFL coming off of
just an absolutely monster, dominant triple Crown season for the Bengals.
The Bengals acknowledge they want to pay Jamar as the
top non quarterback player in the NFL. Both things. Both

(07:58):
sides have the same objective. If you listen to the Bengals,
we don't have to listen to Jamar we know that,
and they're far apart in contract negotiations. That either means
the money is far apart or the terms of the

(08:20):
deal is far apart, And what we know from the Bengals,
it's much more likely that it's in guaranteed money. It's
in the terms of the deal where the Bengals are saying, yeah,
we'll put that, we'll slap that tag of highest paid
non quarterback on you, but we've got we've got more

(08:41):
leverage than you've got. That would be my understanding of
the situation, because both sides have said they want the
same thing in terms of the monetary valuation of Jamar Chase.
If you're on the same page there and the two
sides are far off on a deal, I mean that

(09:07):
has to be pretty clear. Something in the middle is
preventing the sides from being close and then Rassini also
said on Trey Hendrickson over the weekend, and I don't
think this is a surprise to anybody, but if the
Bengals can't get deals done with all three, Hendrickson most

(09:28):
likely to be the odd man out. He's past that
thirty year old marker that the Bengals you know, tend
to or have kind of, you know, strictly adhered to
in terms of contract extensions. They're not looking to have
players over thirty years old on the books, if at

(09:50):
all possible, except for Joe Burrow down the road when
he gets there. So Trey it is kind of a
luxury at this point, I think, especially if you get
Joe done, if you get Jamar done, if you get
Te done, you would like to get Trey done. But
as I talked about last week, if you put Trey

(10:12):
in that mix with those four, they are over half
of the salary cop for your top four players. And
given how much the Bengals have to correct, have to fix,
I don't think that's a great way to go into
the offseason. I don't think that's a great way to

(10:33):
approach trying to fix a defense that wasn't good last year.
Trying to fix an offensive line that didn't live up
to maybe the expectations. Also on that front, Alex Kappa
released by the Bengals. The right guard will save. The

(10:57):
move will save eight million dollars against the soar recap
this year. So they released Sheldon Rankins, They've released Alex Kappa.
They have cleared up a pretty good chunk of cap
space in those moves. It will be interesting to see
what is still in play in terms of roster movement

(11:23):
and decisions being made. Who's going to be out, Who
do they prioritize, who do they move on from. I
think there's still, you know, a decent amount of cap
space that can be saved by eliminating some otherwise dead
weight on this roster. Kappa, it's probably gonna get overshadowed

(11:47):
today and you know, throughout the week because of everything
else that's happening.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I think you have to.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Be overall satisfied with what you got from Alex Kappa.
Played a bunch of games up until this past year,
was solid, and that's that's kind of what you signed.
If you're going to shop in that middle free agent market,
what you got for a couple of years from Kapa

(12:14):
is what you're looking for. Come in, plug a gap,
get you to where you want to be moving forward.
The problem is they they didn't have somebody ready to
step in for when it was apparent as the worst
guard in the NFL in terms of the Pro Football

(12:35):
Focus rankings. You didn't have somebody that was ready to
step in. You didn't have somebody that you know was
just plug and play. We'll get to some Reds talk
as well. The uh strange Spencer Steers situation, being pulled

(12:58):
from a game getting a quarters own shot. He can hit,
but he can't throw. This is an injury that was
there at the end of last season, so October, November, December, January, February.
Now we're into March and the injury is still lingering.

(13:20):
It's perplexing, and he is a critical part of the
success of this organization as is currently constructed. And you
allow a shoulder injury to just hang around for five months.
I'm confused, very very confused. Foone mines are open five, one, three, seven, four, nine,

(13:46):
fifteen thirty. We'll talk to Mike de Corsi of The
Sporting News and the Big Ten Network and Fox. The
bracketologists for Fox uh, the Hall of Famer will join
us at three point thirty and then at four thirty.
Jfff car, We'll be here to talk some Reds baseball.
We'll talk you see, We'll talk X, We'll talk Bengals,

(14:07):
We'll talk rads and anything else that pops up along
the way. Phone lines are open. Let's get this show rolling.
This is the Mowager Show, hosted by not Moegar right
here in Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (14:26):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trust the experts at
you see Gardner Neuroscience Institute for Innovative and Comprehensive Care.
Learn more at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one seventy
five after Dixie Highway, it's police activity that's off onto
the left shoulder and south on two seventy five. It

(14:46):
is construction at the Indiana Kentucky state line, leaving that
down to one lane on that ezek with traffic.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
This report is.

Speaker 6 (15:01):
That's how we're starting the Monday Okay tanks for the children.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
Terran, give me months to take a rest and p
O d B.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
Dodgers squad going back on tour.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Uh yeah, my my cousin actually saw Rizza in Pittsburgh
a couple of weekends ago.

Speaker 7 (15:33):
Now this one there the tour starts saying like, June
is I know all every member of Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
But they've been out like they've been Yeah, they've been out.
They've been out. And about I called he was his
wife like works where she travels a bunch, and sometimes
he will just they're they're empty nesters now, Terran, so
he will check the city that she's in and see
if there's anything fun to do, and then sometimes he'll

(15:58):
just go. And I called him to do something and
he was like, I'm on the road to Pittsburgh. I'm
going to see Rizza tomorrow. Like he's son of them. Oh.
So everything starting to pour out now on the Bengals

(16:18):
and their franchise tag of T. Higgins. Essentially what this
does so if they if they hadn't franchise tagged him,
then he would have gone into free agency because he was,
you know, coming off a franchise tag and potentially going

(16:42):
into the market. So they placed the tag today that
buys them I think one hundred and thirty four days
to get a franchise or to get a long term
extension done for T Higgins. So they either got the
deal done by tomorrow the long term, or they did
this and bought themselves, you know, four months to get

(17:06):
the deal done. But if you listen to do Tobin,
let's get this. We gotta get this done early. We're
gonna get this done early. Why free agency opens next
week and the draft is coming up not too shortly
after that, and when you're you know, yes, they're committing

(17:31):
now twenty six million dollars to T Higgins for twenty
twenty five. So that kind of shores up at least
the the short term understanding of what tease roster hit
is gonna be. But it's a completely different animal when
you're dealing with an extension. Where are the gaps? Where

(17:54):
are we gonna have more money to play with here?
Where are we gonna have less money to play with there?
And you don't know any of that until you've got
a deal done with Tea. Doing it today is a
pretty clear sign that they're not exactly close. If they
were right down to the wire on getting this thing done,

(18:16):
I think you wait till tomorrow and you try to
get the long term deal done before you hit this
franchise tag deadline. Instead, they kick the can down the road.
They buy themselves some more time, which really have a
problem with that the system allows that you can do
that as a franchise. I'm all about taking every advantage

(18:41):
that you are allowed within the rules of the sport
and using it to make yourself better. And if the
Bengals feel that's the right play here, cool, But the
message we got doesn't match the actions that we're seeing,
including Diana Russini saying the Bengals and Jamar Chase are

(19:06):
not close on whatever extension they are working on with
him as well. These two things tell me we're not
going to be getting breaking news at two thirty anytime
soon that the Bengals have come to a deal with
either and that that's not good. Let's take a break.

(19:28):
Mike de Coursi The Hall of Famer up next right
here on Sinnati's ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 4 (19:33):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (19:40):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trusts the experts that
you see. Gardner Neuroscience, Institute for Innovative and comprehensive care.
Learn more at ucehealth dot com. On northbound seventy one
after Martin Luther King Junior Drive, it is an accident
that off on the right shoulder northbound seventy one seventy
five between Donaldson Road and to seventy five. An accident.

(20:04):
They're off on the left shoulder. Expect delays on that.
He's like with traffic, all right.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Let's get this thing rolling right along as we go
out to our good friend, the Hall of Famer from
the Sporting News and the Big Ten Network and Fox
and pretty much anybody else that wants quality college basketball content.
They have Mike de Courci on staff. How you don't, Mike, Chad,
how are you? I'm good. I'm good. I would have

(20:36):
been a little better maybe if things would have gone
a little differently in Houston on Saturday. But such as
life against Covin Samson's machine that he has operating down there,
It's unbelievable.

Speaker 8 (20:46):
How good they are.

Speaker 9 (20:47):
You know.

Speaker 10 (20:47):
I was thinking about this yesterday, and I hope you'll
indulge this go ahead. I was thinking about how in
the last days of and I know some people aren't
gonna hit like hearing this but the last of Nick
Cronin at Cincinnati, they were the better program than Houston was,
and Cincinnati had the opportunity at that point to lock

(21:10):
him up for a decade, and the athletic director at
the time decided that was imprudent.

Speaker 9 (21:16):
That athletic director, maybe not the best ad in the history.

Speaker 10 (21:19):
Of college sports, certainly did not make a wise decision there.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
No, he didn't make many wise decisions behind the scenes.
Doesn't sound like over time. But I digress before we
get into UC and Xavier, because those are obviously the
major relevant topics. How in the world does the committee
handle the SEC this year? Because the eye test says

(21:46):
they should have probably a record number of teams. The
metrics tend to agree. But boy, putting six win conference
teams in has got to be a challenge to figure
out how to navigate that.

Speaker 9 (22:00):
Yes, yeah, I don't. First of all, the conference record
is not on the board.

Speaker 10 (22:04):
I know when you're in the room, it's not there,
and I know that people are aware of it. But
it's six wins in this SEC is it is a
remarkable number. This SEC is the strongest conference relative to
its season. I mean, this is not the eighty five
Big East with Pinckney.

Speaker 9 (22:24):
And Mullin and Ewing. Don't get me wrong, I'm.

Speaker 10 (22:26):
Not saying that, but relative to its season, there has
never been a league that dominated it's it that that
dominated it's season like this SEC is.

Speaker 9 (22:39):
And when I say never, I'm talking, I'm gonna I'm.

Speaker 10 (22:41):
Gonna use the the expanded bracket area era back to
eighty five as my uh AS as a time frame
because that's when that's about when I began covering. It's
it's when the tournament got right. And so it's a
pretty good convenient window.

Speaker 9 (22:59):
For us to look at that.

Speaker 10 (23:01):
And there's never been a league that has done what
this league did in that time frame. And so you
win six games in this league, you have accomplished something,
and I think that.

Speaker 9 (23:15):
That has to be considered. And look, look Arkansas. Off
the top of my head.

Speaker 10 (23:20):
I think they have six wins, but I mean in
non conference Arkansas did significant things. It's not like it's
not like they just went out and won six games
against this tough SEC and did nothing else. I mean,
they played out of conference and they beat Michigan.

Speaker 9 (23:38):
That's a pretty good win. A lot of people would
love to have that win. And then in the league
they've beaten a lot of quality opponents.

Speaker 10 (23:44):
Now they went out and lost to South Carolina on Sunday,
excuse me, on Saturday, and they have to play at
Vanderbilt tomorrow, and then they've closed with Mississippi State. Having
blown that South Carolina opportunity and the fashion that they did,
there's a lot of pressure on them to at least
split these games and maybe.

Speaker 9 (24:06):
Get them both. So you're not guaranteed to get.

Speaker 10 (24:09):
In by any means, but what you have accomplished in
the SEC, and what your metrics say and all of that,
it all factors in.

Speaker 9 (24:17):
But the only people that are having trouble with.

Speaker 10 (24:21):
The concept of an six win SEC team team getting
in are people from other leagues that want to be
in that maybe aren't having as good a year.

Speaker 8 (24:31):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Also, the SEC went fourteen and two against the ACC,
which is just a glorified A ten right now.

Speaker 9 (24:39):
I mean, they didn't just go.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
I know, I know, but I had to get my
shot in.

Speaker 9 (24:43):
No no, no, no, no no, because my shot is
better like it was.

Speaker 10 (24:47):
I don't have the exact numbers now, but at one
point I think they were thirty nine to three. Yeah,
they I mean, and you know, one of one of
the things that you can point out is that against
the like les like second in the ACC, now tied
for second and having a wonderful year, and they went
zero to four against the SEC. Right, Clemson went to

(25:09):
South Carolina, the worst team in the SEC by far,
and lost on their on South Carolina's floor, and Clemson
again tied for second in the in the ACC. So
you've got Michigan, which lost games to multiple teams Oklahoma
and Arkansas. That's Michigan's second in the Big Ten and
they lost to teams that are fighting to get in

(25:32):
with those six SEC wins you talked about.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Agreed, let's get to UC and Xavier. We'll start with
Xavier since they were victorious by a convincing margin against
Creighton at home on Saturday. Their metrics didn't move a
whole lot, but that was the one left on their
schedule that that said this game could give Xavier a boost.

(25:56):
How much bump do they get from beating that Creighton
team convincingly like they did in a raucous Centas Center.

Speaker 10 (26:05):
It helps if you look at their metrics, there's one
outlier on them that I'm not sure that I quite
understand their result metrics strength the record from ESPN forty
three wins above bubble forty eight, and then their KPI
number is sixty one. And that's the only number of
the six total numbers that are on the team sheets

(26:27):
that aren't in that basically ten to eleven number that
you would you if.

Speaker 9 (26:33):
You divide it out, they average out to about a
forty four. You divide that by four, they're about an eleven.

Speaker 10 (26:39):
But it's hard to put a one to nine team
against Quadrant one as a as an eleven seat. It's
hard to put a seven and ten team in there.
It would be helpful for them if they closed up
their Quad one Quad two combined record to closer to
five hundred. Doesn't have to be five hundred, but closer

(27:00):
would be better. And that one in nine.

Speaker 9 (27:03):
I'm gonna have to go back and look, I have
not done this yet.

Speaker 10 (27:06):
I'd need to do it anyway because Carolina is basically
in the same position. But I don't know that there
have been teams that have gotten in at that it's,
you know, other than teams that win the automatic bit.
So if Xavier goes to New York and wins a
couple of Quad one games. It changes their math in
every direction by a significant margin.

Speaker 8 (27:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
I think the most recent team to get in with
only one Quad one win was Houston in twenty twenty two,
but they had an eleven and five quad one to
two record. They dominated Quad two. They only had one
Quad one win, and Xavier doesn't necessarily have that, but

(27:48):
have to be impressed. Not For me, the most impressive
thing that Sean Miller has done with the Xavier team
is took a team that we thought was going to
be a turnstyle on defense to start the season and
were a turnstile on defense at times to start the
season and turn them into a pretty good defensive team.
I think that is why they are, you know, still

(28:11):
with a fairly strong pulse as we go into the
last week of the regular season.

Speaker 11 (28:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (28:17):
I mean, I think at times they have played really well.
I mean, they've gotten the defensive rating all the way up, Yeah,
forty first in Ken Palm. That's their efficiency number.

Speaker 10 (28:28):
And I think that of all the teams that are
out there, the team that's better than its record, to
me most the team that's most better.

Speaker 9 (28:38):
Than its record is Savior. I watched them play and
they're in games all the time. I remember that that
Saint John's game that went to overtime.

Speaker 10 (28:47):
I have never seen three more blatantly blown calls that
were blown against them than I saw that night, and
I thought, how could this be happening? And then I
saw Roger Arris was on game, and I'm like, how
does that happen with him there? And I don't think
he made any of those calls, but it's like, like.

Speaker 9 (29:07):
Roger Air should have the power to say no, that's
the worst thing I've ever seen doing it the other way.
I mean, there was one play in that game. I
can't remember who the player was. I think it was R. J.

Speaker 10 (29:16):
Lewis, but I'm not sure who saved the ball back
in bounds to Edgy of four under the goal with
his foot bisecting the baseline. His foot was standing literally
on the baseline and it went and they called it
and they let it fly as and it became an
easy bucket. And that that was the worst. But then

(29:37):
there were two that were nearly as bad. And I
feel bad for them because if they win that game,
one I think it changes their season, and two they
would give them another significant win.

Speaker 9 (29:47):
And that's all they need is some significant.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Wins going on to the Bearcats. January was an unmitigated disaster.
February has been really good. I mean, they're five and three.
They played very well at Iowa State, but Iowa State
is very tough at home. They played well at Houston.
Houston is a monster at home. The crazy thing is

(30:12):
they played Houston closer at home at Houston than anybody
not named Texas Tech who beat them in overtime. But
same problem. Not a lot of meat on the bone
in Quad one. I think they've still got the second
most Quad two wins in the country, but it just
feels like it's probably not going to be enough for Cincinnati.

Speaker 9 (30:33):
Probably.

Speaker 10 (30:34):
Yeah, I thought that that West Virginia game was a
pivotal game for them. Agreed that it gets to a
second Quad one win, and it certainly was a team
that they were capable of beating on that night without
a doubt, And generally I think they are as good
as WBU is, But on that night I did not
think West Virginia played great, and they still didn't quite

(30:57):
get it the final few minutes.

Speaker 2 (30:59):
That just let a lot of let it slip away completely.

Speaker 10 (31:02):
Lot of and if you look at their result metrics,
they're not anywhere near the field. They're probably two three
lines away. The predictives don't save them, and so it would.
I'm not going to say they can't go to Kansas
City and go on a run and maybe change the
math some, but it's it's a lot more difficult for
them to do that one because if you're going to

(31:23):
turn around and bump into somebody like Iowa State or Houston,
and that's going to be hard, and then you also
have a more difficult mathematical challenge than Xavier does.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
At this point, Gisel James and Dade Thomas have kind
of been that the head of the snake of the
resurgence for this Cincinnati team is the way that they
play a foreseeable like path going forward for West Miller,
if you were to bring the two of them back
to be essentially the head of the snake for the

(31:55):
Bearcats next year.

Speaker 9 (31:57):
Oh absolutely. I mean, because guys usually get better from
year to year. It's it's very rare.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
That that's a touchy subject right here. Mike Skillings, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (32:10):
Well, it's very rare that players don't get worse, and
it's it's not it's not that common that they stagnate.
Even usually players get better with more experience, and so
I think those having two guards that experience would really
help them. And so it would be great for that
to be the case. Now they're going to have to

(32:31):
have enough around them. It'd be nice to have Dylan
Mitchell back for another year. I think Ben Diego's out
of eligibility if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Technically, yes, but we'll see. Well, there's there's there's talk
about any of the guys that had to sit out
for the double transfer rule that there might be something
that happens this offseason that allows them to get a
year back, but that hasn't happened yet, so we'll see.

Speaker 11 (32:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (32:58):
So but I think I think it's a good place.

Speaker 10 (33:00):
To start if you have those two guys, and I
you know, especially with as well as just has played
the last five or six weeks that you know, I
think that that he would be wonderful to have back
in a Bearcats uniform and then and then see what
you can build around him. Uh.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Kentucky, it's been it's been a weird season for them,
just because the SEC is so good. They've had some
very high highs, some some tough lows if you're a
Kentucky fan. But is this a team that can They
don't defend all that well, they they can put points
on you. Is this a team that can get to

(33:35):
a second weekend in the NCAA Tournament that weekend without
Jackson Robinson?

Speaker 10 (33:41):
Yeah, I think they can survive without him. Who they
can't survive without or thrive without is Lamont. But yeah,
I love Jackson Robinson, don't get me wrong, But they've
got other guys who can do more or less what
he does not as well, don't get me wrong, but
who can fill those minutes with productive basketball?

Speaker 8 (34:00):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (34:01):
You have other guys who can do that there, But
they don't have any other Lamont Butler's, especially since Kerkkriesa
still has not returned and they've had like they had to,
for lack of a better term.

Speaker 9 (34:12):
Fake it at point guard for Lamont's entire absence.

Speaker 10 (34:16):
I mean, you're playing basically Amari Williams as a point guard.

Speaker 9 (34:19):
He's a six to eleventh center.

Speaker 10 (34:21):
I mean they and it worked against Tennessee, but then
once other teams saw it, it was harder to make
it work.

Speaker 9 (34:27):
So that so Lamont has to be himself and he
was more, you know he was. He was not great.

Speaker 10 (34:34):
In his first game back, he filed out. He did
some good things, but he filed out. The Auburn game,
he was better. Now Auburn was so far ahead of them,
and there it's such a tough opponent.

Speaker 9 (34:45):
I think that this is a big week for Lamont to.

Speaker 10 (34:48):
Get to start to get back in the rhythm and
for them to get back in the rhythm of having him.
They still got difficult games, but he to me is
their most important player.

Speaker 9 (34:57):
And when you talked about the highs and the lows
and all that, I mean.

Speaker 10 (35:00):
There's there's no team that's in the upper half of
any projected bracket that's been banged up as much as
this team has.

Speaker 9 (35:07):
I mean, you lose a player like Crisa.

Speaker 10 (35:09):
I don't know whether he's there's any chance he comes back,
but effectively they've lost him for the year because he
hasn't been playing since the ninth game. Then you lose
Jackson Robinson, and then you lose Butler for eight games.

Speaker 9 (35:23):
Uh Car missed a game, Garrison missed the game. There's
there's nobody that's been as has.

Speaker 10 (35:27):
Banged up that that that that's at the top of
the field as these.

Speaker 11 (35:31):
Guys have been.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
What do you make of the statements sent out by
Bill self yesterday for those that don't know, essentially apologizing
to Kansas fans for their performance of.

Speaker 10 (35:44):
Late Yeah, I don't I don't know why he comes
compelled to do that me either.

Speaker 9 (35:50):
Uh, he's Bill Self.

Speaker 10 (35:51):
He doesn't know anybody in apology, But I gave you
seventeen conference titles in a row. We're having a rough time,
will be better next year, and he don't have to
say anything RN. He's won two NCA titles and they
won all those conferences and have dominated.

Speaker 9 (36:09):
He doesn't know anybody in apology. I don't know why
he did.

Speaker 10 (36:13):
I do think it was probably worthwhile for him to
give Goodman this statement about him not thinking about retirement,
because there is you know, there has been a trend
for coaches his age or ballpark his age to just
say it's you know, for the most part, what they're
really saying is I went from having and ridiculously consuming

(36:36):
seventy hour a week job out of season, one hundred
hour a week job in season, to a ridiculously consuming
one hundred hour a week year round job, and I
don't want to do that anymore.

Speaker 9 (36:48):
I got too much money. That's what they're really saying.

Speaker 10 (36:50):
If you can make it about, oh, this is what
I signed up for whatever like, But no one thing
I haven't seen from anybody who said that this isn't
what they signed up for is for any of them
to go do what they signed up for.

Speaker 11 (37:01):
Right.

Speaker 9 (37:01):
You could do that at three if that's what you
signed up for, you could still coach that. But none
of them have done it. So what they're really saying
is I got a ton of money. This job is
way too consuming and it's not worth that many years
of my health, and I get it. That would be me.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
Oh yeah, if I had that much money, you'd never
hear from me again. Mike.

Speaker 10 (37:23):
Yes, but that's not Bill, that's not Iszzoh, that's not
cal That's not what they want to do. Okay, I
can honor that too, But it's never been about this
is not what I signed up for.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
That's pr you'd find me in a tiki hut in
Costa Rica if you were looking for it, I'd be
the only place you could find me. Real quick. Before
I let you go, I'm giving you Duke Auburn Houston
or the field.

Speaker 8 (37:51):
Here you go.

Speaker 10 (37:52):
Wow, here's why you're the most generous radio host of all, Chad,
because this is the third time I've been asked the
variation of this question.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
And I gave you Houston too, and you.

Speaker 10 (38:02):
Gave me Houston too, So I already said, you give
me Cooper flag Ang and I broom and I'm all in.
But now you're giving me L. J. Crier too, So
I'm certainly taking that side.

Speaker 2 (38:14):
And the guy that you covered when you first got
into covering college basketball and Jawan Roberts very good.

Speaker 9 (38:25):
That was that was a very good variation on that
old guy joke.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Absolutely on the Ellis who the kid that played for Carry,
Perry Ellis.

Speaker 9 (38:34):
Yeah, I was trying to remember his name, Harry.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
I'm pretty sure Perry Ellis is Jawan Roberts dad.

Speaker 9 (38:41):
So that Harry Ellis is that he played four years?
Four years, Yeah, but he just looked a little older
than everybody.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
And he was really good forever, so like you just
felt like he was there forever. People said that about
Gary Clark, They're like, Gary Clark has been in Cincinnati
for one hundred years. It felt like it until he
was gone.

Speaker 9 (39:00):
Oncinnati for one hundred years.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
Please come back.

Speaker 9 (39:03):
This is really good.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
Thanks Mike, appreciate.

Speaker 9 (39:06):
It all right, you bet Chaed, thank you.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Here you go the Hall of Famer. Mike Decorsi from
the Sporting News and Big ten Network, in Fox and
all the other places that you can find Mike. You
can find him at TSN, MIC on Twitter. Let's take
a break. I'm gonna check on Arran and see if
he's awake. Sinceati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (39:28):
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(39:49):
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Speaker 1 (39:56):
Luther King Junior Drive. I'm at Ezalik with traffic.

Speaker 12 (40:00):
This report is sponsored by thirty Cincinnati sports station.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Here we go, Our number two time is flying by
areon Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Thanks to Mike Decursi, the
Hall of Famer from the Sporting News, for joining us
to talk some college basketball. Jeff Carr coming up in

(40:42):
about twenty five minutes to talk some Reds. Otherwise, it's
just you and I and we have we have a
lot to talk about on this day that the Bengals
have officially used the franchise tag a second time on
t Higgins and the hopes are All reports are that

(41:08):
the Bengals plan is to extend t Higgins' long term
frustrating if you're a long time follower of this team,
because there have been opportunities in each of the past
two off seasons to get a t Higgins extension done.
It felt like Cincinnati was content at that time to

(41:32):
let teas contract play out, franchise tag him last year
and then move on this offseason. But then t Higgins
puts up a career high ten touchdowns just under a
thousand yards, even though he had his season shortened by
some injuries by that hamstring that has been bothering him

(41:53):
for most of his career. And now the Bengals have
a changed course and it's going to be expensive to
keep T Higgins long term, at least for right now,
twenty six million dollars on the hook for the twenty
twenty five season, and if they get a long term

(42:13):
extension done, probably more than that. I think it would
be pretty surprising if T was signed for anything around
that twenty six million. I'm guessing it's going to be
closer to thirty. Jamar Chase also in negotiations, and as
Diana Rossini reports, the Bengals have offered made an offer

(42:35):
to Chase and that the two sides are still quote
far apart on making that deal done. So we will
get to more of that as we go throughout the show.
But the big news of the weekend, of course being
Xavier taking care of business against Creighton eighty three to

(42:56):
sixty one. They led forty two to twenty seven at
half time. They extended the lead in the second half.
They outscored them forty one to thirty four. After the break.
Xavier puts two guys above twenty, with Zach Fremantle at
twenty three and Ryan Conwell at twenty, Dante Maddox Junior
with sixteen He hit three threes, Dalan Swain with ten,

(43:21):
but seven rebounds and five assists for Swain Marcus Foster
with five assists. Xavier just played an incredibly efficient, effective
style of basketball, twenty four assists on thirty three field
goal attempt or field goal makes, eleven of twenty one
from three. They slashed fifty five percent from the floor,

(43:42):
fifty two percent from three, and seventy five percent from
the free throw line, including six of seven in the
second half for Xavier. And they did what you have
to do to Creighton, and that's make everyone else beat you.
Let's hear from Sean Miller.

Speaker 13 (44:02):
Well, you know, I'll start with an opening statement.

Speaker 14 (44:04):
You know, we probably know what I'm gonna say, but
I thought our crowd was amazing. Reminded me of our
Yukon home game. And I don't know what the point
differential is today with the crowd we have, but it's
plus something for us. Our students are amazing and just
everybody fed off of that energy. I know we gave
our crowd a lot to cheer about, and that becomes

(44:25):
our responsibility. But you know, when you play in front
of a home court advantage like that, it means a lot.
The best programs in the country have that in place.
And we have that in place as well next Saturday
with students on spring break. My hope is that we
can you know, duplicate this environment, maybe in a different way,

(44:47):
but it'll be really important that we have that type
of crowd for no less of an important game against
Providence next Saturday. So thank you to our crowd and
terms of the game, all you have to do is
look at our our assists.

Speaker 13 (45:01):
Twenty four in a game.

Speaker 14 (45:04):
If you can get twenty four assists, I think any
coach would take that, And I would say the same
thing about six turnovers. If you just had six turnovers,
regardless of how many assists you had, I think any
coach takes six turnovers. We had both twenty four assists
and six turnovers shows you that we played at the
highest level that we could offensively here today.

Speaker 15 (45:30):
How good of a sign was it for you? You
build a twenty point league, Creighton cuts it to eight,
but you're able to pull away in that crunch time,
the game pressure that you've talked about after it's been
a little shake here in that area a couple times
on the road.

Speaker 14 (45:42):
Yeah, I mean, you guys can do your own research,
but I think if you look at our five of
our last six or six of our last seven, whatever
it is, and you just stop the action at halftime.
It would have mirrored today's game in a lot of ways,
both the scores, the score, and some of the statistics
that we've had going for us. Our team's problem is

(46:03):
and it's not always easy to do, you know, to
be that dominant or as good or be able to
be successful for twenty minutes in the second half as well,
And that's when you play a complete game.

Speaker 13 (46:16):
And if you look at the final score of a
lot of those.

Speaker 14 (46:18):
Games, it really wasn't indicative of maybe the first twenty
four minutes that we were clearly the better team. The
last sixteen or eight minutes, twelve minutes of a lot
of those games, our opponent was the better team and
they make that run and then you look at the
final score and you're thrilled that you win, but you
just always leave the game with an empty feeling of God,

(46:41):
I feel like we could have been better at the end.

Speaker 13 (46:43):
Today. We played a complete game. We played really well.

Speaker 14 (46:46):
At the end, you know, made a couple of shots
and it was good that we didn't let them back
in the game.

Speaker 16 (46:53):
Coach in that first meeting, Ryan Kulkburner scores twenty nine
and they go eleven of twenty five from three in
this game. You had twenty three, but they only go
six for twenty four from three point range. How did
you take away the three point shooting this time around?

Speaker 14 (47:08):
This won't make any sense, but we literally were like,
there's no way, under any circumstances, Calk Brenner can get
twenty in this game.

Speaker 13 (47:17):
That's what we did, and he had.

Speaker 14 (47:19):
Twenty three, and we didn't really worry as much about
the three point shot because we just felt that one
of the big problems we've had the last six games
is he's been dominant. So we're clear before today he
was averaging twenty point five points against US and shooting
seventy seven percent. I think he had forty one made

(47:39):
field goals. That's not even counting what he does on defense.
And our game plan was we can't let him have
that type of performance again, and he did. I would
just say this, you know, I've been around college for
a while now. I've coached a couple big guys that
when I say their name lowry marking it, DeAndre Ayton,

(48:02):
David West, those are guys that are longtime NBA players.
I have never seen one one player means so much
to a team or program than Ryan Kulkbrenner has met
to Creighton. And I don't mean that in a derogatory
sense towards their other players. I'm only talking to you
about him, what he does for their defense, how he covers,

(48:25):
how smart he is, his block shots, his rebounding, and
then his total development on offense in the way that
he has coached on offense and how he has improved.
I just I mean, it is really difficult to play
Creighton with him.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Can I tell you a story?

Speaker 8 (48:46):
Arn?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (48:48):
How are you? Are you okay? You're tired today? Yes,
You're going to be all right? Like do we need
to have somebody bring you a red bull to the studio?
Like you know, I'm just making sure you're good in there.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
I'm all right, okay, Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
This was two thy eighteen or nineteen. My list of
players to watch included Ryan Kolbrinner, and I think he
was a He was playing sixteen and under at the time.
Uh so his sophomore going into his junior year in
high school. And as you can imagine, you preconceived notions

(49:29):
when you walk up to a court, right and you're like,
all right, who am I supposed to be watching? And
you look down and you see the name, and you
look in the book and you get a number, and
you look up and you see the player. I saw
Ryan Kaulbriner and went, are you kidding me? I don't
want to do this today. Long really uncoordinated, like not

(49:50):
on court, but like Gangly, you could tell like he
was still growing into his body. He was at that
time it felt like a long way from being a
good pl player, like upon first sight. And then the
game started and he blocked everything everything. He was like
to kembe Mutumbo in there. I was like, what, this

(50:11):
dude does not look like he played. I mean, he
looks like a seven foot Sheldon Cooper from The Big
Bang Theory Jim Parsons. He looks like Jim Parsons athletically
gifted older brother, her younger brother. And the career he's
had at Creighton has been unbelievable. And I thought, after

(50:32):
watching him, I'm like, man, this kid's got a chance
to be like as he develops and grows into his
body by his junior senior year, he's going to be
really good.

Speaker 8 (50:39):
Now.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
He was good immediately at Creighton, but they didn't give
him enough help. He had twenty three. They didn't have
anybody else in double digits. Ashworth with nine, Neil with eight,
Green and McAndrew with with six. That was their starting lineup.
Klk Brenner with twenty three. Nobody else with more than nine.

(51:00):
And really Xavier did, according to Sean Miller, unexpectedly because
they were trying to stop Calkbrinner, who went He struggled
against Xavior Terran. He went ten of eighteen with twenty
three points and twelve rebounds. That's how good that guy

(51:20):
has become. I heard Mike in LA If you're listening
to Mike, I love you, But I laughed at this one.
He said, Well, if you seekuld just get a big
guy like Caulkbrinner. Yeah. Yeah, I think everybody in the
country would do that. Like that that he could have
made two and a half million dollars on the open

(51:41):
market last year if he would have left Creyton and
gone into the transfer portal. But credit to Xavier, they
took care of business. They got out early in that one,
controlled the game at halftime. As Miller alluded to Creighton
made a run in the second half, which you know
they're gonna do, but it only got to eight. Xavier
did not let it get to that situation where you're

(52:03):
really sweating down the stretch. They stretched it back out.
They win by twenty two, and kudos to them. They
have had their back against the wall. Basically when they
lost to Villanova, it was like, if they lose again,
they're not going to have enough to get in. They
still might not because of their quad one record. It's

(52:24):
going to be difficult, but they have put themselves in
position by winning five in a row to make this
thing interesting and to put themselves in every conversation they
are generally after that creaton win, they are either last
four in first four out pretty much everywhere I've looked,
and that's a testament to the way, as I said

(52:46):
to Mike de Corsi, I think, really the way they've
played defense. We all knew coming in that this was
going to be a team that could score eighty three
on any given night. We didn't know if this was
a team that, in a game like this, with the
season on the line, if they could hold Creighton to
sixty one, and they did. Creyton shot forty four percent

(53:08):
from the floor, twenty five percent from three. They only
shot seven free throws, all of them by Kalkbrenner. He
only made three, so forty three percent from the free
throw line. And as Sean Miller said, kudos to the crowd.
It was an excellent, excellent showing by the Xavier fan base.
They did a great job. I didn't get to, you know,

(53:29):
the the UC and Xavier games were on at the
exact same time. We were at the Holy Grail for
a watch party, and the Xavier game was like two
TV's over. And I'll be honest, after they they pushed
it out to twenty I wasn't watch it paying attention
a whole lot, but you could tell that place was
electric and it helped carry Xavier over the finish line

(53:54):
and their most important remaining game in terms of their
opportunity for a big win. So they get a quad
to home win there improve their Quad two record. They
have Butler on the road Thad Mada. It will be
interesting to see on Tomorrow night how that Xavier team

(54:18):
shows up, because that was an emotional game against Creighton.
Now it wasn't emotionally draining, per se, because they were
able to keep them at a distance for most of
that game. So you would hope that Xavier didn't empty
the tank in that creating game winning a club, but
by that I mean winning a close game, you know,

(54:40):
trading buckets all the way down to the wire, and
you expend a lot of emotional energy to get that win.
They were able to take care of business, do what
needed to get done, and really control Creighton from the
opening tip to win eighty three sixty one. The bubble

(55:00):
is going to be fascinating because it is going to
be and we'll talk about this as we go through
the week and probably a little bit more on Friday
when I'm back in I mean today tomorrow, and then
I believe I'm back in on Friday. We'll hit a
little bit more of it then as we go into
the weekend and we have a better idea after these
weekday games where things look. But it's going to come

(55:23):
down to I think a lot of what the committee values,
what they look at and determine, differentiates a lot of
these teams on the bubble because there's paper thin margins
between all of them. I don't think the bubble is
it stinks like you know, that's the phrase every year, right,

(55:45):
the bubble stinks. I don't think it's a great bubble year.
I do think you have seven or eight teams that are,
you know, going to be determinant on what the selection
committee values as to who gets in and who gets
left on the outside. But Xavier gets the job done
in terms of pushing forward for a NCAA tournament spot

(56:06):
with that eighty three sixty one win over Creighton. Let's
take a quick break more after this The Moulwagger Show
Sincinati's ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 12 (56:14):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic from.

Speaker 1 (56:21):
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When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trust the experts at
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Learn more at ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one, seventy
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at Della Polma Road, northbound seventy one. Traffic running slow

(56:46):
from Stuart towards Ronald Reagan Highway on that ezleic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
This report is sponsored by rapid radios. You're getting bag
a little what.

Speaker 17 (57:11):
The Jungle Patrol and this one's about the KOs the knockoutsuth.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Wait, I mean I love it like you're you're deep
in your bag, like you know, we we've been doing
this a long time now. So you've got like a playlist,
right that did you just rotate through some of it? Also,
because I generally don't do like four days in a row.

Speaker 3 (57:40):
Yeah, so I have to I kind of you.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Gotta, yeah, you gotta dig a little bit deeper in
the bag. A little Buddy remix. Okay, rest in Peace
plug two.

Speaker 8 (57:51):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Jeff ff Car coming up in just a minute to
talk some Reds. Let's go over the weekend real quick.
The Reds yesterday seven three winners over the Cubs. Tyler
Stevenson with a good day. He goes two for three
with an RBI Espinal, one for three with an RBI Benson,
one for two with an RBI Frailey is the one

(58:18):
I was looking for. Two for three, run scored two RBIs.
They did strike out twelve times, so the strikeouts are
still a little bit high, but good day for the Reds.
Carson Spires on the mound. He pitched three innings, two hits,
one run, three strikeouts for Spires and a solid day

(58:42):
for the Reds. Yesterday not so much or excuse me.
On Saturday they did get the Padres. It was Friday
that was a bit of a struggle as they lost
thirteen to one to the A's, but seven to three
over the Padres on Saturday, so you know, back to
back solid games. That one saw CSA on the mound

(59:07):
for the Reds either two and two thirds with two hits,
one run that one earned. He had two strikeouts and surprisingly,
where are we at? Only what five RBIs in a game?
They scored seven runs and a lot of it done

(59:32):
from the bench mob although Christian Incarnaci and Strand did
have another home run and had two RBIs on the day.
So there you go. That is the Reds over the weekend.
As I said, they have Milwaukee tonight at eight oh five,

(59:52):
and tomorrow while we are on the air here, they
play the Rockies at three ten. Is Moe going to
a game tomorrow then coming home tomorrow night or does
he travel home tomorrow now he's back Wednesday. Terran doesn't know.
He's taking it Nat. It's fine play some uh, some
We'll play a lullaby for Terran. It's my fault. It's

(01:00:19):
kind of my fault. Actually, this is important, Terren. You
had Indian food for the first time today. I did.
We talked about it last week. I've been on an
Indian food kick. I love buttered chicken. Not surprising look
at me and uh So I mentioned it and Terrence said,
I've never had Indian food, so we brought it in today.
What was your was your official read on Indian food Terren?

Speaker 7 (01:00:41):
Well, when you first broke it out, I was like,
oh Am, I really gonna like this. I was a
little heads in a first but that first bite, it's
very flavorful Indian food. Yes, like that, that is what
they have got.

Speaker 2 (01:00:53):
If you're talking about one cuisine that has the most
like flavor, it might be Indian food.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Yeah, that jerk, you bro like, I said that curry.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:02):
After a few bisy and my sign is sloping right up.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
I brought buttered chicken and I got some chicken curry.
I didn't do Tiki massala for him yet, I just,
you know, I wanted to kind of ease into that.
And then I got him some garlic non and some
some rice. And it did not help that Tarum was
a little sleepy because then he got his belly full
with Indian food.

Speaker 8 (01:01:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
And I think he took a nap for the last
fifteen minutes of since he three sixty, to get to
get in the right mindset. Oh, I love it. I
love it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
It was pretty good.

Speaker 11 (01:01:38):
That was.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
It wasn't the best. I won't mention names. It wasn't
the best Indian place on the list for me, but
I do think it was. It was a good start
for you.

Speaker 7 (01:01:50):
And it was just funny because you know, we had
some leftovers and our friend down the hall, he was
here before he left, just staring at it, hoping, hoping
I'll say it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Oh, go ahead and help yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
I love it. Let's take a break. Jeffff car up next.
This is Cincinnati's ESPN thirteen.

Speaker 4 (01:02:07):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center. When it comes
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(01:02:33):
two seventy five accident on the left shoulder that between
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State Route thirty two in accident at Della Palma Road.
I'm at ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 12 (01:02:45):
This report is PN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 13 (01:02:59):
I think ya.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
I think Klay Snowden would have liked this one. I
don't know about Jeff ff Car yos this knows that,
but Poto no Jack because bo Camp rap one of
the great great versus ever in hip hop from Fife

(01:03:20):
Dog right here? Darn? Did you see the The MAVs
are upping season ticket prices eight eight percent? Really, you
talk about an ownership that just is not reading the room.

Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
I wonder what mark you has sold most of this time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
Yeah, you get rid of Luca and then you up
ticket prices eight percent. That doesn't seem smart. Doesn't seem
smart at all. All right, let's get to our guy
from the Lockdown Reds podcast, Jeff Car. Jeff, what is
your nineteen eighties and nineties hip hop vinyl collection?

Speaker 8 (01:03:59):
Look like I was looking through the deep checks on
Jimmy Buffett's I couldn't quite I couldn't quite locate that one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
You got. That's a scenario that is you know what,
there is actually a famous debut on that song, Jeff,
do you know who? No, it was bust Rhymes. Oh
you've heard of Buster Rhymes, right, I don't know that name? Yeah,
that was he does that was and and and and

(01:04:29):
sounds angry that that was the first ever, like big,
big like debut of Buster Rhymes. So now you know
scenario tribe called quest great song. Uh, talk me off
the ledge about Spencer Steer? Why why are we This
is the second year in a row a guy has

(01:04:49):
ended the season with an injury and shown up to
spring training not better help me, Jeff, help me, help
me understand.

Speaker 8 (01:04:59):
I could have believe that based on what he said,
this is something he dealt with for a while last
year and really just tried to gut through it. And huh,
that's why it never healed. And I think that the
Reds are uniquely positioned to absorb this injury because of
their other healthy guys. And while I'm not going to
go crazy over spring training statistics, what I have seen

(01:05:22):
from Matt McLain and Christian and karnasi O and Strand
lead me to believe that we can trust them on
a daily basis once the season begins, and that in
and of itself is even better than it was last year,
where Spencer Steer was kind of counted on because of
the absence of Matt McClain and because of the well

(01:05:42):
shortly after opening day, the absence of Christian and karnascioen Strand.
He was supposed to be the two in the one
two punch with Elie de la Cruz. Nobody really ever
stepped up in that role though, and Spencer Steer, you know,
based on what he was saying, the consistency was like
sapped from this injury, and I think that's the reason

(01:06:02):
that he never really worked into that role. But because
those guys are healthy, and because Nick Krall made the
move for Gavin Lux and Gavin Lux can play multiple positions,
I think the Reds are uniquely positioned to really absorb this.
I mean, think about the lineup even without Spencer Steer,
it still looks pretty solid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
The point that I worry about there though, is we
kind of thought this with Matt McClain last year when
when he was having these issues in spring training, and
we looked around and we said, oh, they should be
like you know, they went out and got Candelario and
you know they've got enough wiggle room here. And then
one injury becomes two and your depth is already compromised

(01:06:44):
like that. That's my concern is that, you know, yeah,
it looks great when there's only one, but you know
there's going to be more than one. And you added
Gavin lux so that you have that luxury of extra depth,
and now that extra depth just becomes this is what
we have to do to survive, right.

Speaker 8 (01:07:03):
No, that's true, And I definitely don't want to sit
here and say that there won't be any more injuries.
But I think currently as is, I still feel okay
about this. But I also agree. I mean, I think
Spencer Steer starts the year on the injured list, don't.
I don't foresee him being ready for opening day with
what they're talking about. You know, he's gonna you know,

(01:07:25):
take probably close to a week off and then he'll
get back to ramping up the strength in his shoulder.
That's what he was talking about in his interview with
the press over the weekend. So I tend to believe
that he's going to be off schedule, and I think
we probably see him closer to the end of April
van to the beginning of it. So with that, I

(01:07:46):
don't think we're talking about a huge chunk of the
season that they lose him for, But I think that
what they will lose him for, the guys on this
roster are going to be able to step up accordingly.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Uh, taking a look at the pitching so far in
spring training, I'm gonna do a little I'm going to
try to get to this that the t Higgins thing
is kind of thrown off my map for today. But
looking at the starting pitching, the relief pitching, is there
anybody that you look at and go out? Stock is
up big time over this first week.

Speaker 8 (01:08:18):
Honestly, I've been really impressed with Graham Ashcraft, and not
to put too much weight on February pitching performances, but
he has looked very consistent and really working his pitches
in and out of his zone. I think that if
there's a scenario, which it sounds like there won't be,
but if there is a scenario where Andrew Abbott is
delayed in getting back to you know, one ready to

(01:08:42):
go six innings, you trust him every fifth day, then
I think Graham Ashcraft can fill in in that role.
You and I both talked about all throughout the off
season that he looks like a guy destined for the bullpen. Yeah,
but I don't think that that is at the expense
of him ever starting ever again, right, I think that
there's gonna be spot starts here or there, and could

(01:09:04):
that be the very first time that the Reds need
a fifth starter. Possibly, But I feel good about that
and not something that I'm like, Okay, we're gonna get
four innings out of him and then they're gonna have
to really use the bullpen for the last five innings.
I think that we can still kind of see a
good five solid innings maybe even six from Graham Ashcraft

(01:09:24):
early on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:25):
And if he fills that role, that means Nick Martinez
doesn't have to fill that role, and Nick Martinez can start,
and Graham Ashcraft can be the swing guy that if
you need him to start, he starts. If you need
him to be the long guy, he's the long guy.
I think that just you speak of depth, I think
that adds to the depth of what this team is
trying to do. How about stock down? Anybody gets you

(01:09:46):
scratched in your head? You worried about Hunter Green a
little bit yet?

Speaker 8 (01:09:49):
Or no?

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
You good?

Speaker 8 (01:09:52):
No, there's nobody that I'm really down on. I would
say I'm not like over the moon about the potential
performance from Brady Singer simply because he profiles as a
flyball pitcher. That's the thing that I'm worried about with him.
But everything that we hear, you know, Tommy and the
Cowboy talking about on the radio broadcast, just I mean,

(01:10:14):
you can clear replace the name Brady Singer with Bronson
Arroyo and we know what we got from Bronson Arroyo
and if that is what we can expect from him.
But I'm fine fine for that. I mean, the Reds
built the pitching staff very poorly whenever Bronson Arroyo was here,
because he was always a solid number three or four
guy in a good rotation, but the Reds always put

(01:10:37):
him up in the top two in the rotation because
they just never added on to their starting staff. I
feel like Brady Singer slots perfectly in is like the
number four guy in a playoff rotation for the Cincinnati Reds.
Maybe even that long relief type dude, and that is
perfect for them as they go throughout the season. He's
going to be a guy that eats plenty of innings
for him, and I think a four point two era

(01:10:59):
is reason.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
How about at the plate, are you any stock up
guys Christian and Karnassi on strand maybe exercise and getting
those ardens extended and hitting a couple bombs.

Speaker 8 (01:11:13):
He's the key reason that I'm not as worried about
Spencer Steer as I think I should be, because, I mean,
all we heard from David Bell last year is that
Ces didn't have like a right wrist. Like he's going
to come in like Luke Skywalker in twenty twenty five,
is going to have a completely brand new hand, and
he looks to be completely healthy. I mean, everything that

(01:11:34):
he has done with the bat, with the glove, even
impressing a little bit, even at third base, on top
of first base, I think that we can count on
him where we were kind of worried about that because
we didn't hear a whole lot. He played in the
Arizona Fall League and all things were good there, but
then we didn't hear anything about him over the wintertime,

(01:11:55):
and you started to worry again, But now seeing him
out there and playing well and getting his confidence up, yeah,
I'm through the roof on him. I'm also I wouldn't
say I'm through the roof and I'm ready to pencil
him into the opening day roster. But I'll tell you this, Chad,
my eyebrows raising a little bit on will Binson, just

(01:12:15):
a little bit like I'm not, I'm not. I'm not
buying in that he's going to be the everyday right
fielder here, but he may be a lot closer to
the major leagues than say, noel Vie Marte.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
Stock Down mentioning Marte is not looked ready. How concerned
are you that maybe he's just one of those guys
that it's not going to work.

Speaker 8 (01:12:38):
I mean that happens all the time, right, I mean
Brandon Larson exists. Yeah, I think that there's definitely a
lot of concern there for me, and he's he's going
to have to prove it at the triple A level
that he can, you know, face even quadruple A pitching
right now because he's playing in the second half of

(01:12:59):
the spring training games, which means he's getting the second
tier pitching staff of most teams, and he's still swinging
and missing and wildly missing, not even close to hitting
the ball. And I just don't see it yet. I
don't know what they're seeing on the backfield is what
practice is looking like right now. But I gotta believe

(01:13:22):
that there's a lot of people that are starting to
wonder about the future of third base and should they
be looking elsewhere? Should they go acquire somebody, Should south
Stewart move back to third base? He was playing a
little bit of third base there in the lower minor leagues,
but he had moved over to second base because they
perceived that third base was going to be a log jam.
So I just don't know that Noelvie Marte can be

(01:13:45):
that guy that we started to pencil in, you know,
spring training twenty twenty four.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Tarn I worried about the future of third base for
a long time back in the late eighties early nineties,
Like what were they going to do to follow up
the gas face in Brooklyn? Queens? Different? This is different,
it's different. Yeah.

Speaker 17 (01:14:04):
A one case where I don't know is on third
It was that this was third base bass, like, you
know base, what should we keep an eye on this?

Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Week.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
As we get into week two of spring training later
this evening when the Reds play the Brewers, what should
we keep an eye on.

Speaker 8 (01:14:24):
I haven't seen anything from Alexis d As yet. He
hasn't even pitched, and I don't think that that's super
concerning right now. A relief pitcher does not need a
long runway to get ready for the season. But it's
just a little weird that he's not pitched and there's
been no reporting on him. So just get into a ballgame,
and I'm not even gonna worry so much about what
his performance look like. Just get into a ballgame, throw

(01:14:47):
some pitches. Let us know you're good to go. Because
outside of Spencer Steer and Reet Louder, the news has
been all good health wise, there's not really been a
lot of yeah, knock on woods. There's not really been
a whole lot of like, well, you know, he's he's behind,
he's slowing up. I mean, other teams have even dealt
with flu bugs that have kept people out of games,

(01:15:09):
and the Reds really haven't had to deal with a
whole lot of that stuff just yet. And I know
that that stuff always attacks them as the calendar turns
to merch. So what does that look like from a
team standpoint? But where's the as I want to see him?

Speaker 2 (01:15:24):
Where can I find you?

Speaker 18 (01:15:25):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:15:25):
What's the content schedule? How can they get up to
date on everything? JEFFF.

Speaker 8 (01:15:30):
Car? Well, they can follow me everywhere to get your podcasts,
including the unit Heart Radio, and you can watch me
on YouTube as well, and you can follow me on
social at Jeff car with three f's. That's pretty much
everywhere to get your socials as well. Solo this week,
Steve's on the road and we'll be back together co
hosted next week.

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
Appreciate a brother in your home. Go go dig up
some third base. I'd start with either the Gas Base
or Brooklyn Queens. Those are two good ones.

Speaker 8 (01:16:00):
I'm on second base round and heading that way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Thanks man, Talk to you soon.

Speaker 8 (01:16:05):
Hey makes chef good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
Right there you go, Jeff Carr locked on REDS Podcast
and many other places where you can get your REDS analysis.
Just take a break. Close out hour number two after
this Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:16:21):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:25):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (01:16:28):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trust the experts at
you see Gardner Neuroscience Institute for Innovative and Comprehensive Care.
Learn more at ucehealth dot com. Westbound two seventy five,
it is an accident on the left shoulder between Double
A Highway and Taylor Mill Road. A minute or two
worth of delays in that accident. Zon eastbound State Route

(01:16:51):
thirty two. It's an accident at De La Palma Road.
Police on scene. I'm at ezelic with traffic. This report
is fine, ye.

Speaker 19 (01:17:00):
Minister gas third basically expressed Cam D three block. Mics
on site gave it the first light. The grin shows

(01:17:20):
a trick up, a sleepy weak.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
Fair.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
How familiar are you with the gas face?

Speaker 17 (01:17:30):
Put your ring on?

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Did you expect these guys to look like what they
look like? I I love third Base growing up just
so good everybody em search they were good to. Must

(01:18:01):
have been a white guy that started all that. Let's
not get lost in the in the Diana Rossini stuff
from earlier, and she had this before everything broke about
Higgins being tagged. This was over the weekend, she said

(01:18:22):
at the time. The organization has not informed Higgins's side
about whether it will be tagged before Tuesday's deadline. They
did do that today he was tagged on Jamar Chase.
An offer has been made, but the two sides remained
far apart and talks for now. I think the for
now is kind of the key there, right because we
don't know. We know Jamar internally has his sight set

(01:18:45):
on highest paid non quarterback in the NFL. How do
we know that because he talked about it when Justin
Jefferson got paid and became the highest paid non quarterback
in the NFL. So we know that's something he wants.
The Bengals say that's something they want. If they both
want those things, if they both are okay with that
being reality, I don't know what they're far apart in

(01:19:11):
Is it guaranteed years, is it guaranteed money like whatever
that may be. I can't imagine that there. I think
it sounds worse than it probably is on Jamar, at
least I hope so, because this cannot be again something
that hangs over looms over the entire offseason with both

(01:19:32):
of those guys, with t and Jamar. And then she
says that the Bengals can't get deals done with all
three Hendrickson and the most likely to be the odd
man out. I think we knew that, didn't we. Hendrickson
is the oldest of the bunch, and that defense needs

(01:19:54):
a lot more to fix it than just Trey Hendrickson.
They had Trey Hendrickson last year and they were bad. Now,
you could argue if they didn't have Trey Hendrickson, how
much worse would they be? And there is definitely some
validity to that. But if you're talking about those three guys, Higgins,
Chase Hendrickson, and you had to pick one that you

(01:20:19):
wouldn't prioritize as much as the others, I think it
has to be Trey. And that's not to say that
I don't you know that I think this Bengals team
would be better without him. I just think that money
can be better served to build a fundamentally a more

(01:20:44):
fundamentally sound defense across all levels. They didn't have that
last year, and they need to get back to that,
because again, they don't have to be the best defense
in the NFL. They just need to be middle of
the pack. And I don't know that you can do

(01:21:05):
it with the money skewed that heavily to one guy
on that side of the ball. All right, let's take
a break. When we come back, well, we'll go back
over the Bearcats loss at Houston. We'll hear from Wes
Miller to start our number three. Phone lines are open.
Give me your thoughts. So is it the right move

(01:21:27):
to franchise Tag T? What do you think on Jamar?
What do you think on Hendrickson? Would he be the
odd man out? If you had to pick an odd
man out?

Speaker 8 (01:21:36):
Would it be T?

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
I think we all know it's not gonna be Jamar.
Our number three coming up, This is the Moegger Show.
Since Nati's ESPN fifteen thirty, Spring is finally here.

Speaker 12 (01:21:48):
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati Sports Station.

Speaker 2 (01:22:03):
On we Go, Hour number three, The Moegars Show, Cincinnati's
ESPN fifteen thirty. Chad Brindle filling in for goodyear Mo
as Mo takes his trip out west to watch spring
training every year. Big news of the day t Higgins

(01:22:32):
tag for the second time. Cincinnati will have until July
fifteenth to come up with a contract extension for t
Higgins or he will play the twenty twenty five season
on his second franchise, TAG twenty six well over twenty
six million dollars for the year. All reports are the

(01:22:55):
Bengals would like to get a deal done a date
that has not happened. We are guests free the rest
of the way, So just you and me. You want
to talk Bearcats over the weekend against Houston, I'm gonna
talk Xavier Creighton. I'd love some Xavier College here. They

(01:23:16):
you know, they they got the job done. They had
something they needed to accomplish on Saturday. They did it convincingly.
Is it going to be enough? We'll find out this
week and into the Big East Tournament. It's difficult. Both
teams are in a difficult spot because these last two

(01:23:40):
games of the regular season aren't really going to add
anything to their resume. For either. Kansas State and Oklahoma
State just are not going to move the needle all
that much. For Cincinnati other than holding serve and not
adding losses to your resume, they're not going to be,

(01:24:02):
you know, significant bumps. Like I think Butler would add
a Q two when on the road for Xavior, which
would be strong. But they're good in Q two. They
need help in quad one. Cincinnati needs helping Quad one.
Neither of those games are going to give Cincinnati helping
Quad one and then you get into the conference tournament

(01:24:28):
I have, you know, and I've talked about this for
a lot, you know, the last couple of years as
we've gotten more of an insight into how the field
is selected. If you have paid attention, what they tell
you is they'll generally get there on Tuesday. They'll do
some work Tuesday night. Tuesday night, and Wednesday is essentially

(01:24:49):
the time that they use to select the field. Sometimes
that will roll over into Thursday morning, but by Thursday
at lunch, pretty much exclusively they are done picking the
at large teams. And then it can shift some depending

(01:25:10):
on conference tournaments and bid steelers and things like that,
but very rarely do you see them have that done,
that part of the process done by Thursday, and then
move a team from out to in after they have
already completed scrubbing the field. Cincinnati would the way thing,

(01:25:36):
and I don't think they can get above ten, so
they're gonna play on Tuesday. They would have a game Tuesday,
they would have if they were able to win that game,
then they would have a game Wednesday against one of
the teams seeded four through eight or five through eight.

Speaker 7 (01:25:55):
Sorry, it's gonna be interesting because we've have a repeated
last year mos on the.

Speaker 2 (01:25:59):
Air, on the on the game, Yeah, it's uh and
and look if it's if it's BYU, if it's Baylors,
Cincinnati has already beaten that team. So yes, it would
add a you know, a potential neutral side Quad one
victory to your resume, but it would be a team

(01:26:20):
you already have a win over, which I don't think
they they put as much. They don't think they're going
to put as much weight onto something like that. And
then by the time you get to Thursday when you
would play the quarterfinal game, and that would be against
one of the top four seeds, which right now it

(01:26:41):
looks like uh Houston for sure, Texas Tech, Arizona, and
then that fourth spot is still a little bit up
for grabs. I would think Iowa State, but it's there's
you know, the outcomes this week will determine who that
four is. That would be a needle moving win if

(01:27:03):
you could get to that point. But at that point,
the committee has already built the field and now they're
working on seating and locations and things of that nature.
That makes it tough for both of those teams. I
think you see Ane Xavier to really do anything that
moves the needle once you get past that Thursday afternoon window,

(01:27:26):
other than winning the conference tournament or I think both
of those teams. If realistically, if you make a run
to the championship game at your conference, that's going to
change the equation a little bit. At least for Cincinnati.
It definitely would because it would be five games in
five days. You would have had to have won three
pretty high level games to get to a Big twelve

(01:27:48):
final on Saturday. Do I think that's likely? No, I
don't just discussing the options that are on the table.
Let's get to UC and Houston. The audio is not
great here, but let's hear from West Miller.

Speaker 9 (01:28:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (01:28:10):
I liked our gas fight tonight. Congrats to Houston. The
foul trouble was very difficult. Davey on Thomas in particular,
was very difficult to overcome. And I'd like to see
what the game looked like if we didn't any bout trouble,
because we're plus a leathern when he's in the game,
and the foul trouble was difficult.

Speaker 20 (01:28:32):
In nineteen points in nineteen minutes for him? Was that
as good as you've seen him?

Speaker 8 (01:28:37):
This year.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
He was good.

Speaker 18 (01:28:40):
I was just frustrated he was voltroble.

Speaker 20 (01:28:46):
I kind of know the answer to this, but it's
kind of aggravating, isn't it that a team that presses
and gets into your short so much defensively and yet
you have more fouls. Yes, what about the rebound?

Speaker 10 (01:29:00):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:29:00):
Happy with that?

Speaker 20 (01:29:01):
You know they're a good rebounding team, and you came
in and did a decent job on the boards there.

Speaker 8 (01:29:09):
Fight.

Speaker 18 (01:29:10):
Gus played hard, they felt they were physical, but we
defended well. Yeah, they made some really tough ones over
the top of the second half. Give them credit. You know,
we we we had some really good offensive possessions and
we had some really bottoms. But I'm I'm not disappointed
in our Gus fighter effort.

Speaker 5 (01:29:31):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Yeah, that's that was even worse than I remember in
my headphones Saturday night. I mean, get it together, Houston, Houston,
you have a problem. Your audio system stinks. Get a
billion dollar donor get it fixed.

Speaker 8 (01:29:50):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Here's the here's the situation Cincinnati has put themselves in,
and that's it's why this game was so importan. They
don't have any wiggle room left because I think there
were five games on this schedule that even if Cincinnati
wins two, we're having a much different conversation at Villanova,

(01:30:17):
at Kansas State, at Utah, in the two West Virginia games.
If they find a way to go even two and
three in those games, I think you're talking about a
team that would that would be in the field. However,
they went zero to five in those games. So then
you put yourself in a position where you you really

(01:30:38):
need to beat Houston to give your resume that boost
that it doesn't have when you play Houston, when you
play Iowa State, when you play Arizona, when you play
the top teams in this league, you're going to have

(01:30:59):
to play your best and it still might not be enough.
I thought Cincinnati played really well at Iowa State. I
thought Cincinnati played outside of about an eight minute stretch
at the end of the first half. I thought Cincinnati
played well against Houston. But playing well isn't any guarantee

(01:31:22):
that you're gonna beat a team like Houston. That's just
a machine right now, and that's the eight ball you
put yourself behind because you don't want to when the
schedule comes out, you don't want to look at that
and go man March second got to go to Houston

(01:31:45):
and win. It would be nice to go to Houston
and win, but you don't want to have to do it.
And in a lot of ways, they had to do it,
and they played a pretty good game. They put up
a good fight. They beat Houston on the glass. They
got a lot from their two guards, but ultimately Houston

(01:32:08):
has a better team and they take advantage of those
little opportunities that are created. They forced uc into turn
you know, if you if you take out the six
turnovers that you see had in a very small window,
Daydae Thomas gets his second foul. Dance Skillings comes in,

(01:32:29):
turns it over three times, and before the end of
the half simas Lukashias it also turned it over three
times on you know, plays that are ultimately pretty careless,
plays that ultimately those two guys can't make. Houston turns
those into points. They get in a little bit of
a run and it's and it's difficult to stop the bleeding.

(01:32:54):
You get an unfortunate you know whistle, at least from
from your perspective where I think, you know, the the
second and fourth fouls on dayda Thomas were pretty questionable
at best, but you got to have everything kind of
break right when the talent disparity is that wide. I mean,

(01:33:17):
that's just the honest Like, if you watch that game Taran,
it wasn't hard to figure out who had better dudes.
Calvin Sampson's team had better dudes. Mm hmm. That means
you have to play well over your ability and they
have to dip a little bit. I thought Cincinnati played
pretty over their ability in relation to what it looks

(01:33:41):
like when teams play at Houston. The problem is they
didn't make Houston and Houston made some shots. And you know,
as Wes mentioned, I don't know if you could hear
it over the the beautiful audio at the Baked Egg
Center down there, Houston made plays over the top. Cincinnati

(01:34:04):
got them to take tough shots, and Houston made most
of them. I talked about it during the game, that level,
and that's why they're one of the best two point
shooting teams in the country. It's what are They're one
of the most efficient teams in the country. They can
make tough twos and then they only take open rhythm

(01:34:25):
threes and their top five in the country and three
point shooting percentage plus they played great defense, plus they rebound.
It's a tough out. It's a tough nut to crack.
That's why they have walked into the Big Twelve and
won the conference regular season both years. To come from

(01:34:47):
down a level. Go look at all the teams that
have moved up a level in college sports over the
last ten years, and how difficult it is for those
teams to win. Houston is the exception, and you're gonna
have to be exceptional to beat them, especially on their floor.

(01:35:09):
Too many turnovers in that stretch and just not enough
ability to get stops. Because I thought, offensively, you score
thirty six and a half on here, thirty nine and
a half on Houston, you feel pretty good about yourself.
Can't let them score thirty six. You go into halftime
down thirteen. Your odds are closing a thirteen point gap

(01:35:30):
against Houston are very very slim, because as it stands,
Cincinnati scored thirty nine points. Felt like that should have
maybe put them in a position to make that game tight.
Houston scored thirty six, they could only outscore them by three,
even playing pretty darn well. So now Cincinnati, in order

(01:35:52):
to keep what I think are very slim tournament hopes alive.
You've got to win out this week. You've got Senior
Day Wednesday, seven o'clock, got to take care of business
against Kansas State, a Kansas State team that you lost
to UH in their gym, and you got to take
care of business on Saturday against kind of a pesky,

(01:36:15):
unpredictable Oklahoma State team. They can beat one of the
better teams in the conference. They also have lost a
couple games by thirty, so you really don't know what
Oklahoma State you're gonna get, including maybe their best player
this year, second best player this year, abou Usman who
left Xavier. Let's take a break. We'll get into some

(01:36:39):
more Bengals conversation. You want to talk to Higgins, You
want to talk Jamar Chase, You want to talk Bengals
front office. Fund lines are open five to one, three, seven, four, nine,
fifteen thirty. This is Cincinnati's sports station, ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:36:55):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:36:59):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (01:37:02):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trust the experts that
you see. Gardner Neuroscience Institute for Innovative and Comprehensive Care.
Learn more at U seehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one
seventy five on the Brent Spence Bridge, three right lanes
blocked from an accident. Traffic stuff and go from two
seventy five with delays up to an hour and a half.

(01:37:24):
In southbound seventy one it's an accident on the ramp
to Dana Avenue. I'm at Easalek with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:37:31):
This report is sponsored by REP. This might be your
Jordan's flue game.

Speaker 8 (01:37:43):
I can't sleep.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
I tossed the turn, can.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
Term goosing in getting bigger. I'm paranoise, sleeping with my
finger on the trigger. My mother is always stressing I
am living right, but I mean just just the heat
bringing the heat. I'd take my hoodie off in here.
It's somebody watching, don't picture that.

Speaker 3 (01:38:06):
Is all right.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
Let's get out to the phones. Dave and Fairfax wants
to talk some rads. Dave, how are we doing?

Speaker 11 (01:38:15):
Chad? What's going on?

Speaker 10 (01:38:16):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:38:18):
Just enjoying some old school ghetto boys.

Speaker 11 (01:38:22):
That's one music I never got into, man, just it.

Speaker 2 (01:38:25):
It's one music that I got into when I was
like eight years old, and it never left me. There
you go, what's going on?

Speaker 11 (01:38:33):
I just wanted to. I just wanted to follow up.
But your your Reds guy there. Yeah, my wife and
I we were out at spring training last week. We
went to we went to five games out there and awesome.
None all right.

Speaker 2 (01:38:50):
He's usually in an outfield like outfield area with a bar.
That's what mode he finds the outfield section with the bar,
and then that's where he watches games from.

Speaker 11 (01:39:00):
As worry why though he like the Budweiser part the
Great America right, Uh, but yee, but what I saw,
you know, I mean they're gonna be really strong up
the middle, you know, with you know Stevenson and you
know Ellie and McClain. McClain looked really good. I was,
he was hitting the ball well and you see the

(01:39:22):
field in the ball well and then you know freedom
and center. I think you Gavin Bucks is going to
be your third basement. That's going to be your third basement.
He looked. He they We saw him play a bunch
of games, like at least three out of the five,
probably at third base. I guess he looked really comfortable there.

Speaker 2 (01:39:43):
Yeah, I do think that's possible. The the what I
worry about then, Dave, if you pencil him in at third.
Who is your flex guy? Who is your utility guy?
I feel more comfortable if it was Lux just me personally,

(01:40:03):
you know.

Speaker 11 (01:40:05):
Es, you know, I mean, he's he had a great
year last year.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
He had a really good year last year.

Speaker 11 (01:40:10):
But there's no way when the Red signed espin All
last year that they thought he was going to play
one hundred and fifty games. No, there's no way.

Speaker 19 (01:40:18):
No.

Speaker 11 (01:40:18):
And some of them did, and he was consistent the
whole year.

Speaker 2 (01:40:22):
Some of that was just McLean like that they were
in desperation mode because it felt like all of a sudden,
you know, McLean went from he's going to be like, look,
if we're being honest with ourselves that two years ago
he was the best player on the team. He's the
most consistent bat. Like you knew every time you were
getting a major league at bat from Matt McLean.

Speaker 11 (01:40:42):
Oh yeah, McLean just busted out of the box. I
loved the way he bustes out the box. It's awesome.
But yeah, but Jen, your Austin Hayes is probably going
to be your left field or he played a bunch
of left field too. Yeah, he played a bunch and
then they're probably going to platoon, you know, either you know,
Freely and Benson and right and that'll be you know,

(01:41:03):
and then hopefully they still I'd love to see him
and keep Fairchild because he just he Sue Fairchild just
fits in anywhere the outfield and he always plays and
he and he can hit two. The guy's just you know,
he's very he's very flexible. So but uh yeah, and
if the pitching look good, you know, pitching everybo We

(01:41:24):
saw everybody pitch with Ashcraft. We saw yeah, we saw Hunter,
We saw the dolo uh Singer.

Speaker 2 (01:41:32):
And I was a little annoyed with Hunter giving up
those two walks with two outs to extend that inning,
Like that's just something he's got. I gotta be past
that at this point.

Speaker 11 (01:41:46):
Yeah, I know that was that was really frustrating. It
was like, come on, man, are you you gotta throw
the ball, dude?

Speaker 5 (01:41:54):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:41:55):
But uh but yeah, yeah, but I was in your
your guy talking and I was Jeff Carr my wife
when we were yeah, Jeff Carr about Diaz. I said,
you know what, we didn't Diaz.

Speaker 2 (01:42:07):
So there was there was a report on that just
within from Gordon Wittenmeyer from the inquire said that in
a fielding drill last week he had a little like
a little slip and some discomfort in his hamstring. It
wasn't anything major, and it sounds like he's back, like
back to feeling good. But one of those like first

(01:42:28):
week of spring training, like there's no point in being
stupid about this. But I guess Gordon probably also looked
around and went, hey, wait a minute, Alesis Diaz has
not pitched in spring training. What is happening?

Speaker 11 (01:42:42):
And asked the question we did. We were like, where
is he?

Speaker 8 (01:42:46):
Where?

Speaker 11 (01:42:46):
Just where?

Speaker 10 (01:42:47):
Just go?

Speaker 11 (01:42:50):
But oh, Martinez, that's the other one we saw. That's
the fourth pitcher. Martinez looked really good. He was the
most consistent out of all the flour we saw by far.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
He's just steady.

Speaker 11 (01:43:01):
He is just completely steady. He pounds the strike zone.
He you know, he doesn't walk many people. You know,
he just he's like, here it is, man, you can't
here's my stuff and let's see if you can hit it.

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
Or he doesn't play around. I hate guys that just
play around. Do you remember a guy named Joe Price?
Oh yeah, So in a in a different radio life,
I had a red show with Joe Price that we
would do from six to seven every night, and oh yeah,

(01:43:37):
and Joe was awesome, hilarious, dude. He was the first
guy I ever found out that they get those those
like tokens or whatever where after a certain service time,
you can go to any major league game in any
major league city anytime you want.

Speaker 11 (01:43:54):
Oh cool.

Speaker 2 (01:43:55):
So yeah, so he would just you know, depending on
his mood that day, he would walk down down and
go to the game. After we got off the air
at seven, I think he moved down to like Florida
and became a fisherman. But he said, starting pitchers, starting
pitchers can hit like a dick, like a you know,
one of those plates they use for like tea parties,

(01:44:15):
that little plate, yeah, he said, pictures. Major league pitchers
can hit that every like. That's the the you know,
the differential between a major league pitcher and a minor
league pitcher is they can hit that little plate. And
the guys that try to nibble like you're going to
pitch yourself out of major league Baseball, throw strikes and

(01:44:38):
you'll be fine.

Speaker 11 (01:44:40):
Exactly. Then that's you know, it's like you're a major
league pitcher, you have major league stuff. You're there for
a reason. You know you didn't. You didn't make it
there because you've got a rag arm, right, you know.
You you know, throw the ball, you know, throw I
throw the dard ball. I say something else when at
the game, but you know, just one way, yeah, throw strike?

Speaker 12 (01:45:01):
What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
That's always been the one thing that drives me nuts
about Hunter is you know, when when we saw him,
when we saw him attack the strike zone more towards
the end of last year, he looked dominant, fantastic. He
finally cut the crap and you know, you look up
in the fourth inning and he's got ninety three pitches
and you're like, what what are we doing? Why is
why are you throwing twenty four pitches an inning?

Speaker 8 (01:45:25):
Dude?

Speaker 2 (01:45:25):
You're too good for that.

Speaker 11 (01:45:27):
Yeah, you're way too good for that. Your stuff is
way too good for that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 11 (01:45:31):
Yeah, but he did. He got two outs and he
was up both he was even up O two I
think on that third back. Yeah, he totally lost. It
was like Hunter, the damn come on, man, God, yep,
you can get this guy out with your eyes closed.
It's like, what the hell? You know? So but yeah,
but yeah, they look good though, as well as long

(01:45:53):
as the pitching holes out and they have to dance
and their defense improves. That's what think Tito has been
emphasizing defense. You got you gotta catch it. You got
to catch the ball, and you got to throw it,
make accurate throws.

Speaker 8 (01:46:05):
You know.

Speaker 11 (01:46:06):
Yep, they know they should be good. They should be good. Man.
I hope. I'm hopeful.

Speaker 2 (01:46:12):
I'm hopeful. I think they've got a little bit more
depth than they have in the past, especially you know,
through the pitching rotation and into the bullpen. I'm still
a little worried about the corner outfield spots and and
what happens if they need a second answer to any
of those spots, because I feel they're really thin there.
And then, you know, hopefully, I think one of the

(01:46:33):
biggest things for me is does in Carnaci and Strand
become an everyday guy that that can give you that
pop that this roster is missing because they just right
they just do not have that. Like this is the
dude in our middle of our lineup that's gonna hit
thirty thirty five home runs, Like I think you need
to have that to win.

Speaker 11 (01:46:55):
Yeah, And he played, I mean he defensively cees look
great good. He really, and I mean he he made
some tough We saw him make some very tough plays,
you know, like at first base choppers and short taket
balls on a short hop and and he handled it perfectly.

(01:47:15):
And we also saw him hit two monster home runs
two months. He hit one at last Wednesday against the
Angels and Tempe and I thought it was a fly
ball and the ball just kept because he hit it
a mile in the air and it just kept going
and going and it went out to left field. It
was like, I look at my wife. I was like,

(01:47:35):
that was a pop up. It went help it. Then Saturday, yeah,
we're at Goodyear and he hit a line drive, I
mean just a laser beam out. So he he's I
think he's going to be you know, he's gonna be
the first baseman and he can hit. It's just confidence
with him. It's just a man. You're healthy, Just swing

(01:47:58):
the back, it'll go. Swing hard with him, Just swing
it'll go, it'll go.

Speaker 8 (01:48:03):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
I'm glad you had a great time out there, and
I'm glad to hear you and the wife enjoyed the trip.
And thanks for the the update from Goodyear, Dave. I
appreciate it.

Speaker 11 (01:48:12):
No problem Chad any time, Man, I always talk reads man.

Speaker 2 (01:48:15):
Well it thanks Ra, thanks for having go on. I mean,
that's that's dedication to the game, taren going to UH
spring training, watching watching games that don't actually count because
you know, dedicated to the game. That and getting to
Arizona in February and getting the heck out of here
that too. Stake a break more after this The Mowagger Show,

(01:48:37):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 4 (01:48:40):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:48:43):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (01:48:46):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trust to the experts
that you see Gardner Neuroscience Institute for Innovative and Comprehensive Care.
Learn more at u seehealth dot com. Sethound seventy one
approaching Smith Edwards. It's an accident off on the right shoulder.
Also southbound seventy one accident on the ramp to Dana Police.

(01:49:07):
They're on scene and northbound seventy five traffic slow from
Mitchell up toward Paddock on that exelic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
This report is sponsored bike.

Speaker 10 (01:49:28):
I like snap.

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
I mean, this is one that will put you to sleep,
tern like, if you're not careful with the show that
that's I mean, it's just got that little like slow
ride beat on it. You got to have phones on.
Next thing, you know, you wake up, it's like two
hours later. I was trying to find another one. But

(01:49:58):
but but yeah, I mean, I I don't dislike it.
I'm saying, for your purposes, this might not be the
best song to play at five forty five, you might
be out by five forty seven. Taking a trip around
the college basketball world over the weekend, Kentucky falls at

(01:50:19):
Well the home they were at home falls two, number one,
Auburn ninety four, seventy eight, Auburn's just a machine man
twenty seven and two. We talk about the SEC potentially
being the best conference in the history of college basketball.
Auburn is fifteen and one. Their only loss in conference play,

(01:50:44):
Their only loss in conference play is to number three Florida.
It is crazy how good Bruce Pearl has them, you know, clicking,
because they that that is not that is not a

(01:51:06):
a mega nil roster. Like it's Auburn. They're in il
is solid, but they're not up in that upper upper
echelon of teams that are spending just you know, eight
nine ten million. Joan I Broom. You hit on a
guy like that from from money is at Morehead State.

(01:51:28):
You hit on a guy like that and he becomes national.
Like think about how well Cooper Flag is playing this
year and it's a debate as to whether he or
Joan I. Broom are the national player of the year.
That's how good Auburn has been for Kentucky. I know
Mike the course, he said earlier in the show he
thinks they will be fine without Jackson Robinson. I don't know.

(01:51:52):
I agree that Lamont Butler is like the straw that
stirs the drink for Kentucky without question. But that's a
team that does not play great defense and is losing
maybe their most potent offensive scoring threat. I ain't The

(01:52:12):
job Pope has done has been incredible with that Kentucky team,
but I think the injuries are going to prevent it
from being a team that you know, comes in in
year one and really makes a run. I think they're
not going to be deep enough.

Speaker 7 (01:52:30):
Sorry, just just get to just win the game on
Thursday next weekend, give me a Friday. That's all I
can care about Kentucky. Would that give you all a
Friday off? Would that consume the entire show next Friday.

Speaker 3 (01:52:43):
If they get the AC, we'll be on for like
thirty minutes. But I mean I could do that.

Speaker 2 (01:52:50):
We can do thirty minutes, thirty minutes at bad. Yeah,
thirty minutes is workable. But if they've allt to the
nine Sea then year we're not on at all. Well
that the same game, wouldn't it the eight nine game?

Speaker 3 (01:53:05):
You know, I looked at it. I looked at it earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:53:07):
Okay, yeah, the game before the eight nine game, I guess, yeah, okay,
but yeah, Duke one hundred to sixty five over Florida State.
The injuries might be again, like Duke is battling some
minor stuff. It's not anything major like a Jackson Robinson

(01:53:29):
done for the year, but they're not fully healthy and
they are still playing incredible basketball. Florida State stinks, But
seventeen and one also for Duke in the Conference, Auburn
fifteen and one in the SEC, Duke seventeen and one
in the ACC, Houston seventeen and one in the Big twelve,

(01:53:52):
Florida takes down Texas A and M eighty nine to
seventy AM. I not giving them enough credit to Florida
d'ding that, But I mean I understand why. I mean,
I mean, they got big wins, but do we really
trust them come tournaments high? Yes, maybe, I don't know.

(01:54:16):
They've lost four times in the SEC and they have
the best win in the country. They went on the
road and won at Auburn.

Speaker 3 (01:54:22):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:54:24):
I just I think the big problem is I haven't
watched them a ton. Sometimes it's just, you know, teams
line up like that where you don't really ever get
like that where you sit down and watch a couple
of their games to get a better feel for them.
I haven't watched them a ton. Tennessee buzzer beater to
beat Alabama seventy nine to seventy six. I don't love

(01:54:46):
Tennessee's offense as a whole, so I have a hard
time trusting them as a you know, national championship contender.
But they are the number one defense in the country,
and holding that Alabama team to seventy six is impressive.
I mean, if you look their last couple of games,

(01:55:09):
they scored one hundred and eleven against Mississippi State, ninety
six against Kentucky, ninety six against Missouri eighty five against
Auburn one o three against Texas, eighty five against Arkansas,
ninety against Georgia, eighty eight against Mississippi State. If you
can hold them in the seventies, your defense is legit.

(01:55:30):
Rick Patino gets the outright big EIAES Championship seventy one
to sixty six. Best coach of your lifetime, tern probably
he's so good. Yeah, I would if I If you know,
it's a little outdated here, but because they crossed over
through so much of their careers, if you told me

(01:55:51):
I could pick Rick Patino or Mike Krzyzewski, I would
take Patino.

Speaker 3 (01:55:58):
Is that a crazy crazy state? Will depends what part
of the country you're asking to the true.

Speaker 2 (01:56:06):
And then to round out the top ten, Iowa State
eighty four to sixty seven over Arizona and Kansas seventy eight,
seventy three over Texas Tech tonight Kansas Houston at Houston.
So that'll be a good one. Let's take a break.
We'll close it out right after this. Since Anty's ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 12 (01:56:27):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 1 (01:56:33):
From the UC Health Traffic Center.

Speaker 5 (01:56:35):
When it comes to multiple sclerosis, trusted the experts at
you see Gardner Neuroscience Institute for Innovative and Comprehensive Care.
Learn more at ucehealth dot com. Westbound two seventy five
at Madison Pike has a grass player blocking off the
right two lanes. Traffic is stop and go from Taylor
Mill Road. That's a ten minute delay southout seventy one.

(01:56:58):
It's an accident on the ramp to Dana Avenue. I
that he's like with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:57:09):
We got a couple of minutes left haring real quick.
You did this to me? You can I can't? Uh,
John Cena, heel turned? Were you shocked?

Speaker 8 (01:57:26):
Where you is?

Speaker 2 (01:57:27):
Blown away by everybody apparently? I mean I've I've watched
wrestling on and off for a long time. I'm not
like a loyal die hard anymore, but it is still
something I pay somewhat attention to. Seen a heel turn
bigger than like as big, the biggest heel turn since Hogan.
They say, correct, that's correct, Like I said, because he's

(01:57:48):
never been a heel, a true heel.

Speaker 7 (01:57:51):
I mean when he first first, I'm just saying he
was a small he was a heel like a very
short period of time.

Speaker 3 (01:57:56):
Yeah, but that was just because he wasn't a superstar.
He wasn't a star, right, He's just trying to find
his way.

Speaker 10 (01:58:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
Since he's been a star, he's been a heel. He's
been a face, baby face or baby face. Yeah like it.
Now this is the final progression of his storyline. And
uh the Rock and and and Sina, like the two
Hollywood guys are gonna team up?

Speaker 10 (01:58:19):
What what?

Speaker 2 (01:58:20):
The elimination Chamber was good, but it felt like the
match of the night was not the elimination Chamber match, right.
It was Sammy Zay and Kevin Owens. Ye both been
in their home country of Canada, and they beat the
hell out of each other. What was what had the
barb wire? Was that like a guitar? I missed that part.

(01:58:43):
He had something that Sammy had something He kept hitting
Kevin Owens with a something that had barbed wire wrapped
all around it. Anyhow, there you go. It's gonna wrap
it up. I'll be back tomorrow, last day, well until Friday,
Like I got another day this week?

Speaker 7 (01:59:01):
Wait, so most coming back Wednesday and thursdays and then
leave it to Friday.

Speaker 2 (01:59:05):
Yeah, yeah, I'm back on Friday. And what can I say?
The man's got a good job. We'll see you tomorrow.
The Mowagger Show sends that e's ESPN fifteen and I'm
listening to the radio.

Speaker 13 (01:59:21):
I'm listening to a sad girl. Sag sang about it.

Speaker 2 (01:59:25):
He got no corn throw most. I just want me
something to ma. Youro when you're alone, it gets day.

Speaker 19 (01:59:36):
Don't act us if you did talk, know, let me
play with her.

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
I'm working late, I said, I'll soon be home.

Speaker 7 (01:59:45):
All about the girl was home home.

Speaker 3 (01:59:47):
Let me tell you what your crying for?

Speaker 8 (01:59:50):
Why?

Speaker 3 (01:59:51):
Because I'm flying.

Speaker 11 (01:59:55):
Ny Go, I'm flying.

Speaker 3 (01:59:59):
You know, he's super fly for me, I'm super duper
and I'm super duper fly

Speaker 13 (02:00:03):
F I'm Kareem Abdul vir Bar