12/17/25: Mo Egger with Rick Broering

Rick Broering of Musketeer Report and NKU radio broadcasts joined us to discuss the Musketeers and the Norse. This was before both teams lost on Wednesday so the tone was more positive on Wednesday afternoon than it might have been had the conversation taken place late on Wednesday night. But listen anyway. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On Wednesdays. At this time, we talk with Rick growing Rick,
the owner and proprietor of Musketeer Report dot com. Xavier
opening up Big East Play tonight with a home tilt
against Creighton. Rick is also the color analyst on NKU
radio broadcast the Norris seven games tonight against Oakland. That
game Tim's off at seven o'clock. It's Teddy Bear a
toss night. So bring a Teddy Bear, throw it on

(00:23):
the floor, and if you throw it on the floor
and hit Rick while he's sitting courtside, you'll win tickets
to another upcoming NKU game. That'd be kind of cool.
Cool promotion. Hi, Rick, No, I'm.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Not sure if that's exactly how the promotion works, but yeah,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
It's nice to have you. Nonetheless, I'll double check. I
thought that was in the press release, but I might
have read it incorrectly. Xavier starts Big East Play tonight.
They play twenty conference games. If I set the over
under for conference wins at seven and a half, will
you go over or under?

Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'll be honest, I have no idea. I said, you
keep cutting out.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Oh well, let's try it again. Xavier plays twenty Big
East games. As you know, starting tonight a home game
against Creighton, If I set the the over under for
conference wins for the Musketeers at seven and a half,
will you go over or under?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I was definitely under when the season started. I was
definitely under when we got to, you know, the the
first four or five games out of the way. Sitting here, now,
that's a really good line. I think they'll stay it under.
I think six or seven is where I would probably
put them, all.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Right, how many of those games? You know, Connecticut's awesome.
I think San John's is still really good. I haven't
really watched Seaton Hall. How many of those games in
the Big East are fifty to fifty and is tonight
one of them?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah? I think that's a kind of a good way
to look at the conference though. I mean, when you
look at what Zigger's been able to do in the.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Non cop and slate, they don't have a water Quad
two win yet, but you do have the Cincinnati and
West Virginia games that are top seventy five ish in
the country. Both of those teams are somewhere between seventy
and eighty in terms of their ken Pom ranking, and
when you look at the Big East, the big teams
that are kind of around that same range or farther back,

(02:18):
and so in factor those five teams, you play ten
games against them, I think it's reasonable to expect Xavier
to do five hundred or maybe even slightly better against
those teams. So that's where I get to the first
five or six wins. And then you know, if you
can scratch out one or two wins.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Against the top teams in the conference. And there's top
teams you know, that would also include like a Villanova,
can you beat Villanova at home? I think that's possible.
So yeah, I think that there's definitely a path for
Xavier to get to six, seven, eight, maybe even more
wins than that, which is definitely much different than where
we started to see.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Usually Creighton's really good, now they're not.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Why well, I think one thing is that everyone in
the Big Easts had the same problem that Zavier did
this year for the most part, aside from Yukon and
Saint John's which is being bankrolled by you know, the
coach's billionaire friend, all of these teams really struggled to
compete in the nil era this year with the transfer portal,

(03:16):
and so I think this year was very unique for
the reason that we've talked about many times on this show.
I don't think it will be that way all the
time going forward, necessarily, but I think you've seen that
with the lack of talent across the board in the
Big East, and Creighton is one of those teams that
was hit with that. If you missed on one or
two of your top guys they didn't turn out to

(03:37):
be the types of players that you thought they'd be,
then you're going to struggle a little bit. I think
that's something we've talked about with Zager, and it's definitely
something that Creighton's dealing with. The other thing is, you know,
they had a pretty darn good team the last few seasons,
and it was anchored by Ryan Kalkbrenner, who was there
for seventeen years and he's not there anymore. So they're
having to still try to play that same style but

(03:58):
tweak it a little bit because you don't have a
unique seven foot shot blocker anchoring your defense and anchoring
your offense inside. So it's definitely been an adjustment period
from that perspective as well.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
NK.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
You goes into tonight having won eight out of nine
and the one loss, you know, they lose by two
on the road to Purdue Fort Wayne. You and I
talked about that they were playing great for the first
half and then kind of melted down in the second half.
They have the best combined record through two games of
league play along with all the non conference games, at
nine and three in the Horizon League. Would you consider

(04:31):
them favorites to win the conference regular season title?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
No, I don't think that that'd be fair to say.
I mean, when you look at the conference this year,
you have really four or five teams that are all
ranked at least at where NKU is or better in
the current ken Pom rankings. Their overall records may not
reflect that, but everyone plays such a different non conference schedule.
If you look at Oakland, for instance, I mean, you know,
three or four of their games were against teams that

(04:56):
are ranked nationally and were games they were never going
to be competitive for the most part, So it's not
a surprise to see their record where it is. This
is one of those teams Oakland that has a chance
to compete for the Horizon League title this year, along
with NKU. They were picked second in the preseason polls.
I think Youngstown State, Robert Morris, Wright State, all of

(05:17):
those teams are going to be buying for a conference
title this year. And the really interesting part about the
league is going in there doesn't appear to be a
clear cut favorite by any stretch of the imagination. I mean,
any of those teams that I just named, if you
told me that they were going to emerge midway through
the conference season is the best. It would not surprise
me one bit.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
And Kay you and Oakland Tonight at seven o'clock, it's
a Teddy Bear Toss night. The Norris are playing really well.
They're fun to watch and you can help out kids
in the process. Tonight it's a toy drive as well.
If you can't be there in person, you can listen
to Rick and Jim on Fox Sports thirteen sixty. It's
always a pleasure. I don't have a show next Wednesday

(05:57):
or the Wednesday after that. So thanks for everything this year,
and I'll bother you often in twenty twenty six, Geat
wait for it, mo, thank you