7.10: Always a Hit - Hour 2

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
It's time for coffee and company,fueled by Thornton's on Sports Talk seven nine
day. Now here's Nick coffee.I guess in the end, like it's

(00:30):
a good thing, But isn't itfair to say that, like the expectation
the predictions as far as like severecrazy weather, like that was a little
over the top, right? Iheard sirens on my way home last night,
But whenever I heard them, Iwas looking around and I'm like,
what's going on here? So whattriggers those sirens? Like? I don't
think somebody sets them off manually likeI would just but what the hell do

(00:53):
I know? Maybe I'm wrong?I feel like it again, I could
be completely talking in my rear end, which wouldn't be much different than what
I typically do. But I justassumed that, like conditions are a certain
level to where that goes off.Yes, maybe it's manual. I don't
know. I think something has tobe reported like what you were just describing
to the local weather service and thattype of stuff. Yesterday on the way

(01:15):
home, I was listening to eightforty whas Joe Elliott doing a phenomenal job
filling infantry miners who's on vacation andthey went live to our partners of WKY,
who were of course live on televisiontrack, you know, given everybody
updates. Jake rd Oci and Inoticed throughout he kept mentioning, what I'm
seeing does not show a tornado.He wasn't, you know, he was

(01:38):
being professionally, wasn't calling anybody outfor being wrong, but he was basically
saying, like, yes, they'veissued a tornado warning, which is a
super serious thing you can't take lightly, right, But what he was saying
is that what I'm seeing does nottrack that, Like it's not to that
level, which is good, right, It wasn't as dangerous, but yes,
the sirens were going off, andman, it was wild. I
left here. It was sunny,and I think you and I left here

(02:00):
at the same time. The sunwas out downtown when we left, and
there were like little patches. It'salmost like, obviously this used to be
a hurricane. And so you seethe different breakups in the clouds, and
it looks just very eerie the waythat it was up in the sky,
and the clouds can appear in acertain shape and form to where someone can
take a picture and you will believethat it's a tornado, but it's not
like three different instances of that happenedyesterday with me. And I'm not saying

(02:22):
like somebody sent it and said it'sa tornado, but I looked at I
mean, I took a picture onemyself, and I'm like, you know,
it's not even Wendy, which ina way it kind of scares you
because like, you know, thecall before the storm, but you know,
whenever we were leaving, it wasI guess around the and I guess
it started around Litchfield, made itsway to eat Town, Radcliffe, and
then it kept saying, you know, northwestern Bully County, which I'm pretty

(02:46):
sure that seems like exactly where Iam, where I live. That's where
I was heading. So I'm like, I guess I'm driving right to it.
But it never I mean, itnever did anything. It never even
was Wendy, which again that's good. I'm not like bringing it up to
blame someone. But you know,weather's tricky man, because you can never
like you can never just say,well, hey, they've been wrong a

(03:07):
bunch of times. So I'm goingto assume whatever they say is nonsense because
you know, mother nature, she'snot consistent. You know these guys who
are in gals that are meteorologists thatare paid to, you know, inform
us of severe situations to try tokeep us safe. I mean, I
don't you know they're doing the bestthey can. They wouldn't you know?
They clearly have training. But it'snot a perfect science, and it's just

(03:30):
an odd industry to where you canbe wrong and it is not and I'm
not saying it should be, butyou could be wrong, and it's never
really looked at as if like youyou you know, you aren't good at
your job, or you did somethingwrong, because at the end of the
day, if you if you thoughtsomething crazy bad was gonna happen and it
didn't, everybody wins, you knowwhat I mean, because it means it

(03:50):
wasn't severe. But do you thinka certain meteorologist at WDRB was phoning up
the bats last night? Oh?I don't know if the bats were playing,
but I saw what happened last week. Yeah, I mean I don't
know what he was doing. Imean I didn't see any clips of him.
I didn't I didn't see any tweets. But yeah, knowing what I
know and knowing the pattern, likeI would imagine he was a high alert,

(04:13):
like, hey, I'm not sayingyou're about to die everybody, but
you you might want to call yourmom and dad and say say you love
him or something like. He wouldnever say that I'm exaggerating, but you
all know what I mean. Likehe again, when we really did get
tornadoes that hit us in one rockedthe Fern Creek area, in fact,
the Glenn Mary area. I remembermy mother left my house and she was
going back to where she lives andshe'd literally cuts through on Barchtown Road through

(04:36):
Glenn Mary that area to get toher home, and there was a tornado
on the ground in Glenn Mary.Now, luckily she'd already made it back
to the house and she was safe. But I didn't know that at the
time, and I'm freaking out.So I'm going back and forth to what
to to stations and I'm on DRBlistening to Mark with a CEA, and
you know, I felt scared,and to be fair, like that was

(05:00):
a severe situation to where, likeyou know, people should have been fearful,
but it was a when I thinkof my preference in how a meteorologist
should handle it, and really,I guess It's just a matter of your
personality, right, Like I thinkwhat you see is what you get with
Mark with the C. I thinkthat we have a good variety of personalities
with me. You can kind ofyou got options, right, we have
plenty. Yeah, And I rememberI couldn't take it anymore because I was

(05:24):
worrying, and I'm like, man, come on, like I I you
know, even if you're not exaggerating, like there's a level to like do
it. And I didn't exactly knowhow to give him it. You know,
I couldn't tell him what was botheredme so much, not that he
was giving it damn about what Ithought, meaning meaning Mark with the C.
But I switched over to WKY andsure enough it was Ja card O
C and he was kind of sayingthe same thing but saying it differently to

(05:47):
where like I knew it was severeand I was worried, but you know,
I wasn't panicked as if we wereall about to die. And even
if you know that is the case, like let me go in peace,
don't scare me. I would preferto be wiped out and not like my
mind would my mind if like Iif if that kind of impending doom was

(06:10):
coming. I would die before ithappened because my head would explode because I'm
such an anxious person that would losemy mind. So yeah, I ended
up being I think, pretty mild. And today I don't know why.
But we didn't have once the oncethe once the decent weather got here,
humidity seemed pretty low. And youknow, again it's probably different now,
but when I got here about anhour and a half ago, it was
beautiful outside, which is which iswhat we want, right not you know,

(06:32):
low humidity, not temperatures that areyou know, near one hundred degrees.
So that's uh, that's that's whatwe want. And what John was
referring to in regards to to lastweek, I mean, I sometimes need
to just not like make it.You know, I can't help myself,
and I should because I can tellI'm a I'm a jerk when it comes

(06:53):
to some of this stuff. Likeit's not personal, I don't insult,
but like clearly, I mean Ipoke fun of our Kwanberg online. Again
not in a nasty way, butlike clearly the guy takes himself very serious,
and I'm somebody who does the exactopposite and whenever. He On July

(07:14):
third, tweeted out, for thoseof the Louisville Bats game, I am
in contact with the team and advisingwith storms approaching like that, Like that's
just you wanting people to know youryour power. So I tweeted out,
and by the way, I gota lot of traction in case anyone was
wondering who calls the shots in thistown? And then I shared that tweet

(07:35):
because like that's like, hey,just so you guys know, I'm the
one deciding what the little of batsare gonna do tonight, So just keep
it locked right here on my Twitteraccount and on WDRB because I'm the one
that's gonna determine what happens here.But like, you know what's crazy.
I can appreciate a guy who's thatinto it. You know, it's a
little much when I'm actually scared aboutweather. But like one day, and

(07:58):
to be fair, like he movesthe needle WDRB, like you know,
everybody knows who he is. He'sthe kind of guy you want to open
a couple of bush lights while you'rewatching him. Yeah, I need a
couple of I don't know if there'salways a want for me to pound some
bush lights. But yeah, likeif I'm like if if he's the only
option as far as getting some updateson a severe storm, I need to
pound a couple of bush lights beforeI can take his company. But he

(08:20):
maybe I don't know. That's uh, I'm loyal to bush light. But
if they didn't have any I wouldI'd probably take whatever. I'd probably take
shots of something, just to kindof, you know, calm my nerves
a little bit, because I Iworry about things that are out of my
control. And one thing that isout of all of our control, mother
nature. Right, it's a scarything. But you can take caution,
you can you can do whatever.But at the end of the day,

(08:43):
she's undefeated. She wants to wipeus all out with with some crazy weather
a tornado, a hurricane, tsunami. Like there's certain levels to it to
where you can take cover and besafe, and you should do that,
by the way, But like atthe end of the day, like,
there's we can do about it ifhe gets that bad. But again,
yesterday wasn't bad, which is agood thing, all right. Coffee and

(09:05):
Company, that is us. Weare fueled by Thornton's here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. Appreciate you hanging outwith us. Don't forget you can take
us with you anywhere you go.Listen live on the hour radio app Listen
live at seven ninety Louisville dot com. And if you want to join us
on the show, that is alsoan option for you. You can text
in on the L and N FederalCredit Union text line five O two sixty
five three zero seven ninety. Andif you want to give us a call,

(09:26):
you can do that too. Phonelines are now open five oh two
five seven one seventy nine hundred.So a lot of people reacting to Rick
Patino, which again confirms what Isaid earlier. Regardless of what you think
Patino is a he's a polarizing talkingpoint and in character, I guess that's
the better way to describe it.Like Patino is. When Patino does something,

(09:48):
he finds himself in the news,he says something, it usually gets
reaction out of a lot of people, which is why I started the show
today by saying, look in radio, regardless of what kind of radio you
do, if you're playing U Musick, if you're doing news talk, you're
doing sports talk, whatever it is, play the hits. That's a radio
cliche that is true and will alwaysbe true. And Ruy Patino's a hit.

(10:11):
So him two weeks after breaking thehearts of some Louisville fans and claiming
that he you know, still lovesKentucky fans and loves his loved his time
there, and he loves Mark Popeand will support him in any way,
and that he donated money to theUK Football and IL Collective, which still
is weird, but you know whatRick does weird things, Like two weeks
after he did all that, he'dposts something on Twitter that has fans,

(10:35):
you know, probably in their fieldsa little bit. I mean, it
didn't make me emotional, but ityou know, regardless of the just let's
just say the whole UK thing didn'thappen, and he didn't go on pardon
my take, not knowing he wasactually going to be on KSR, and
he didn't say what he said.I would still have the same feeling about
seeing him sharing that picture of allhis former players preparing for the TBT.

(10:56):
So it was a tweet that said, let's see here. I just said
it pulled up here, Well herewe go. Rick's tweet said this This
was posted in the two o'clock hour. Warms my heart to see my guys
together. Let's win this thing.He's referring to the TBT, the tournament
that he mentioned Russ and said,sell your great bourbon, no drinking it.

(11:18):
That's like a is that that's adad jokes, Such a dad joke,
and like Rick Bettino dropping dad jokesas his former players who gave us
a national championship, as Louisville fans, at least a handful of them,
Like that's that makes you feel good? Right, I mean, at least

(11:39):
it does me. And then thepicture is his mop Luke Hancock. By
the way, he still looks likea million bucks. He's not playing in
the TVT but he looks like hecould play right now. But it's Luke
Russ Smith. One of the alltime great players ever to play here and
always will be Shane Behannon, whowas on a national championship team. Earl

(12:00):
Clark, who didn't win a title, but was a part of a great
run there back to back Elite eights. One of the most talented teams I've
ever seen at Louisville was his lastyear here with him and t Will and
those guys. Peyton Siva, legendarypoint guard now on staff here at Louisville,
helped guide Louisville to a national championship, one of the best point guards
ever play here. And then ReeceGaines, who was the holdover. You

(12:20):
know, Reese played for both RickPatino and Denny Crumb and he had success
under both and was a first rounddraft pick. And by the way,
Reese is the one coaching the tvT team for those who didn't know.
And then Chris Jones is in thereas well as David Johnson, so you
know that. I can hear Ricksay what he says about Kentucky and their

(12:41):
fans and his time there, andit doesn't change anything as far as how
I feel about the Louisville experience forhim, because even when he coached here,
it was hard to even bring itup because he hated Caliperi. He
hated him. They were personal rivals. Take away Louisville Kentucky, they were
rivals before they were coaching against eachother in this state. They were there's
a history there. I think alot of people know about that. So

(13:05):
it wasn't even something we thought aboutbecause it was so like we'll never be
able, in my opinion, tomatch the intensity and just the I mean
you could feel and I mean itlike you could feel the tension when watching
Louisville and Kentucky play the first fouror five games of the patinocal going up
against each other here and in thisstate. I mean, it was down

(13:26):
and uncomfortable when they when they tippedit off. Whenever Eric Bledsoe got in
was it Reggie Delk's face, AndCali Perry got in Reggie Delk's face too
and said, you're you're messing withthe wrong m effort. Like man there
were. It was a it wasa personal game for everybody involved. Fans
hated each other. Of course,it's a rivalry. I mean, Louisville
clearly had been bullying Kentucky a littlebit under the Billy Gillespie era. That

(13:50):
was, you know, expected tochange. And clearly Cali Perry his players
knew that he hated Rick. Andto be fair, you know, cal
had a lot of success in Kentuckyand one of the most successful things he
did was beat Louisville. I mean, one of the things I guess he
had the most success that I guessI can't speak today, but anyways,
my point is this, like wenever really thought about it because of the
level of the rivalry, Like itwas so intense and we didn't win much

(14:15):
when Rick was here and Cal wasthere. But if anybody else would have
coached Kentucky, I wouldn't be shocked. Like let's say it's let's say Tubby,
you know, never left, which, by the way, Tubby was
there whenever. Well, yeah,Tubby was there when Rick was there for
a little while and Tubby had success, and I don't really remember how,
you know, how friendly they werewith each other, but it hit a

(14:35):
different level when it was Cal there. So like I think it made people
kind of just forget the fact thatRick really has no reason to be bitter
about Kentucky at all. And whenit comes to the way the fans treated
him and the things that they saidabout him and the ks R coverage where
every I mean that I think thatwebsite and I would say this to Matt,

(14:56):
and I don't think you would disagreewith me. One of the biggest
factors in the explo and growth ofKSR, which, by the way,
say what you want about those guysand Matt and and it's now been sold
to a different company that's run Imean, it's not Matt really involved with
the actual website. But my pointis this, you can't recreate that.
There's nowhere else that exists that.I mean, it's just insane. So,

(15:16):
you know, their website really ahuge part of the explosion is because
of the Rick Patino content that theydid. I mean, and we gave
him good content. I should sayRick gave him good content with the Karen
Cipher and the Katina pal stuff.Right, So with all that said,
like Rick doesn't get lost in theweeds on that. I mean, he

(15:39):
probably, I mean, I knowhe knows who Matt is, and I
know he was aware of some thingsthat were said, but like he's not
listening to a whole lot of fans. That's just not him. He's you
know, he's above that in hismind. So you know, I don't
I don't think with a lot ofpeople ever, you know, those who
just still feel as if like hedid some disgraceful thing by going on that
show and talking up Kentucky, Ijust think you've never really given it a

(16:03):
deep thought, and you never givenit much thought. As far as the
fact that like that's natural. Itwould be almost unnatural for him to,
at this point in his career nowat Saint John's to not look back at
Kentucky. Finally, Kentucky, let'sbe real, made him. I mean,
he was with the Knicks and clearlywas successful there. I don't want
to say, but he became thelarger than life future. I mean,
he was the most talked about collegebasketball, one of the most talked about

(16:26):
coaches of every level. Obviously PhilJackson was doing the damn thing with the
Bulls at that time, but whatRick did at Kentucky it put him on
a different level to where the Celticscame in and offered him a job.
So, you know, any expectationthat he would hate, hate Kentucky and
feel bitter and never acknowledge them,I think the rivalry component makes people like

(16:48):
believe that that would be realistic,but it's not at all. And Rick's
a hard guy to like humanize becauseyou know, he's not relatable to most
of us, but he is human, that is true, and I think
it's understandable and reasonable for him tostill feel fondly about Kentucky and want Mark

(17:10):
Pope to do well and As faras how he thinks about Louisville, I
don't know if he wants them todo well or not right. He'd probably
tell us that he does, butI don't know if he believes it,
because he still feels bitter about howit ended right or wrong. He's bitter.
He says he's not right. What'shis line, get better or not
bitter? But he's bitter and he'she's He's shown that without saying it,

(17:30):
and the people he I guess owesthat bitterness towards are no longer around,
but still doesn't. That doesn't makethe feeling that he has go away.
But one component to this that he'snot bitter about as his players. He
loves these guys. He loves it. And I remember it came up a
couple of weeks ago. Somebody asked, like, do you think the'll ever
be a day where Rick Patino comesback? And I said, here's here's

(17:51):
how that happens. Like if there'sno like if there's no if nothing happens
until this point on the fifteen yearanniversary of that twenty three team national championship
team, if these guys asked himto come back and be a part of
it and he could do it,meaning he's not still coaching at Saint John's,
or maybe he has the opening onthe schedule. If Peyton and Luke

(18:12):
and Russ, if they asked himto come back and be a part of
it, and he could, hewould do it because of those guys,
but not because of Louisville. AndI don't think if you asked him that
he would blame fans or even blameanybody currently involved. But he still feels
as if his world got turned upsidedown unfairly, and he blames Louisville.

(18:33):
And again I think he'd tell youit's Pizza Boy, Papa John, It's
Greg Postal, who is a UKfan, It's you know, David Grissom,
who was clearly incompetent throughout his timein his position at u of L.
And then who else was it?Oh a Bevin. I don't know
if he's ever mentioned Bevan. Ifeel like he has, but like I

(18:55):
think he knows it's geared towards them, But like, just because they're not
around anymore doesn't make that a motionthat he has, and that bitterness that
he has towards Louisville just disappear.So again, I'm not telling anybody to
like feel a certain way about Rick. You can feel however you want.
I just I think if you reallygave it some thought and kind of put
the rivalry emotion on pause for justa moment, you'd realize, like,

(19:17):
this is like he didn't really doanything that crazy. The UK and IL
football stuff is just weird. I'llnever be able to really understand why he
did that or wanted to do that, but you know, chalk it up
to Rick being Rick. A rightquick break will come back. On the
other side, we'll hear from thefuture of louisvill basketball. I mean,
he's not the future coach, he'sthe current coach. It's Pat Kelsey.
He did a really good interview withAndy Katz, which I want you guys

(19:37):
to hear. We'll chop it upinto two sections. We'll play the first
half of it coming up here onthe other side, and I think you'll
enjoy it. So stick around.We're about halfway through here on a Wednesday
Coffee and company feel by Thornton's onSports Talk seven ninety right. So the
text line five point two six fivethree zero seven ninety is the LNN Federal
Credit Union text line and a coupleof people A couple people have asked kind

(20:00):
of the same question a little bitdifferently. Do you think somebody asked Rick
Patino to post that picture? Iwould say no, I mean, maybe
they did. I'm not sure.Like, I think that's a I don't
mean, I don't think he's doingthat to try to like make Louisville fans
happy because they were upset about whathe said when it comes to Kentucky.
I think I think that's a Imean again, I think it's a natural

(20:21):
thing for him to feel the Imean not to defend Rick here, because
you know, he's clearly going tosay things that are just insane at times.
And by the way, nobody's everreally like if somebody fact checked and
found out that he didn't actually donatemoney to the UK Football Like, would
anybody be surprised if it wasn't trueand it would just be chocked up as
Rick being Rick. But you know, even if somebody did encourage him,

(20:41):
Like, I don't think it's likea forced thing for him. I think
he does feel strongly about all thoseguys that are in that picture that that
he shared all right, let's seehere real quick, I'll mention this just
because somebody had sent it in andI think it's it's worth mentioning. The
Evan Maya Evan Mayakawa. He's collegebasketball analytics guy, kind of like a

(21:03):
Ken Palm type of guy who hashis own formula and does a really good
job of crunching numbers for those thatreally get into the analytics side of college
basketball. He has updated transfer portalactivity class rankings, which is a lot
that sounded just like a bunch ofmumble jumble, but he's got updated rankings
here. I guess now that someof the dust is settled, or maybe

(21:26):
he retooled something. I'm not quitesure because I feel like he actually did
this not that long ago, butcurrently the top five programs in the twenty
twenty four transfer portal class and againhe does it differently. Overall, transfer
activity ranking is viewed in who youlost and who you added, right,

(21:48):
Like, there's two of different There'sa lot of ways to look at it,
but the two that I think areboth worth looking into, although I
think the bigger, the most valuableone is to look at what you lost
and what you added rather than justwho you brought in. Both both are
important to an extent, but asfar as overall activity, that's considering.
You know, you didn't lose anybody. That's a huge loss, and you
brought in good players. Saint John'sis number one and both both overall activity

(22:11):
and their incoming class, and it'sreally top heavy with Davion Smith who transferre
from Utah and then Kadari Richmond Ithink it's his name. Was that the
guy who transferred from Seaton Hall toSaint John's. Yeah, I mean this
guy entered the portal not super late, but I kind of feel like everybody
knew this guy was a good player, but like it just didn't get Like.

(22:32):
He's the number one player in theportal in college basketball and at least
a couple of the rankings, andRick Matino landed him, so that's why
he's at He's at number one inboth. But Vanderbilt is number two in
overall transfer portal activity, Louisville numberthree, Indiana number four, and then
Kansas State's number five. They gotwho did They landed it the last Yeah,

(22:52):
they landed coleman aginst the last minute, and got some other guys along
the way. So that's your topfive. Kentucky came in at number twelve.
So again, and I'll defend Kentuckya little bit here, Kentucky is
being hurt in these rankings by somethingthat I don't really think is legit,
and that's this despite their production kindof being blah and certainly underwhelming given expectations,

(23:15):
the fact that Aaron Bradshawn DJ Wagnertleleft Kentucky and are still viewed as
like really good players in the portal, They're being hurt. Kentucky's being hurt
in these rankings because of that,and those guys may be great at Ohio
State in Arkansas respectively. But Idon't mean I don't I mean I think
Kentucky has added players that are betterthan them. To be honest with you,
but if you look at just incomingtransfer class ranking alone, meaning just

(23:38):
where you rank as far as theguys you brought in, which is a
little a little misleading with Louisville andeven Kentucky because literally almost every single guy,
I mean, everybody's new. However, Kentucky has, I think,
is it two freshmen. They haveone freshman and Travis Perry a second freshman,
and the kid who transferred from BYUbut never played because he was on

(23:59):
that mission trip. But Louisville isat number two with just the collective amount
of guys they brought in, andIndiana is at number eight, which they
got to be being held down bysome of the last guys they got,
because I'm sure Langdon Hatten wasn't somebodythat was highly touted. But I mean,
not to guess up Woodie, butlike everybody they added other than the

(24:22):
other than the kid from Bellermne.That's his name, right, That's the
guy I just mentioned. They're guysthat I think like everybody wanted, so
I don't really understand that. Butthey came in at number eight, and
then Kentucky is at number six,so huge difference there. Kentucky's twelfth in
overall activity. Six then just whenyou rank the guys specifically they brought in,
and again it's because some of theguys Kentucky lost don't look like big

(24:44):
losses to you, and I getit. But yet in the eyes of
these metrics they do. All right, let's talk about the little of Men's
clinic again, Fellas I'm telling you, there's a lot of things they could
do to help you. You mayfeel like you're good, right, you
don't need any help. You're aman, you're tough, you're strong,
you're happy, you're healthy. Andif that's the case, God bless you.
But what if you could be evenhappier and healthier? And you'll never
know until you go talk to thefriends that I have at the Louisville Men's

(25:06):
Clinic doctor, would you know,let him know? Say, Hey,
Nick was talking about all the thingsyou can do. Here's my situation.
Do you think there's something maybe thatyou guys could do to help me out?
And you know, there may bea situation to where you don't need
anything, and hey, you know, at least you tried. But I'd
be willing to bet that if youhad your levels checked, you may feel
like you're the toughest, most masculinedude out there. But your levels may

(25:29):
not be where they're supposed to befor somebody your age, and you've just
been and you've just been chalking thatup as being normal for years now.
And then once you do get yourlevels where there need to be with testosterone
treatment, you'll feel like a millionbucks, just like I do. So
again, liblemnsclinic dot COM's the website. Fibo two four four four four thousand
is the number if you guys wantto give him a call. All right,
Pat Kelsey on with Andy Katz,which Kats used to work for ESPN.

(25:51):
Now I think he works for likeeverybody. He's on NCAA's website doing
coverage. I think he works forthe Does he work for the Big ten
network too? He has, Idon't know if he does currently, but
I know he has before. He'sdone some like studio work for him.
So this is from the NABC website, which is the I think the National
Association of Basketball Coaches. I thinkthat's what that stands for. But a
sixteen minute conversation here. I'm notgoing to play the entire thing right now,

(26:12):
but here's the first half of itas Pat Kelsey and Andy Katch chop
it up and welcome everyone to anoff season ANYBC chat. I'm Andy Katz,
pleased to be joined by Louisville headcoach Pat Kelsey and Pat, I
just want to go back a littlebit here because you had so many opportunities.

(26:32):
You've had great success, and youcould have left a number of different
times you chose to stay. You'rea very loyal person. Why was this
the right fit at the right time. I mean, Andy, it's Louisville,
and I have to correct you.I'm so sorry, but I was

(26:52):
corrected probably eight or nine times beforeI finally got it right. Because in
this town it's Louisville. You can'tsay Louisville. Oh you're right, Sorry,
sorry, Louisville. I've been correctedso many times I can make it,
thank you, But I think thebest way to answer it is,
it's Louisville. It's Louisville, basketballman. And I grew up ninety miles

(27:17):
from here, so I was closeenough, you know, obviously, to
feel the magic of the Louisville brandin the eighties. But even if I
didn't grow up ninety miles from here, and I grew up a million miles
from here, it's one of themost powerful brands in college basketball. It's
one of the most tradition rich programsever, so I think the power and

(27:38):
the mystique of this program's past waswhat was the biggest thing. Well,
and you're coming in at a prettycrazy time, not just in the sport,
But I don't think anyone could haveimagined that Louisville would be toward the
bottom of the ACC or whatever leagueit happened to be in. They've changed

(28:00):
a lot of leagues during its history, and so you've got you know,
you're here, and you've got theability to take it up to where it's
been. How did you assess sortof the landscape of the program of where
the ACC is at this point wherethere's a lot of movement, there's not
sort of just these teams that youcan't see at the top of the mountain

(28:23):
that you can't you know, tryto match, because we've seen a lot
of different teams get up there withdo Carolina and take their turn. How
did you assess sort of the overalllandscape of the job and the league.
Well, you know, I startedmy career in the ACC. Skip Prosser,
the late great Skip Prosser, hiredme. He used to say it

(28:45):
was the biggest meteoric rise in coachinghistory. I went from the freshman basketball
coach at Famed Elder High School inCincinnati, and I was selling cars for
my dad on the side to theACC. I thought that was funny.
It was the mediorc eyes. Butyou know, so it's it's where I
got my start in gosh, ACCbasketball is is traditionally the greatest league in

(29:11):
the history of college basketball, inmy opinion, and you know, to
be a part of this great leagueagain and there's there's there's movement, and
there's changes and but that's that's happening. That's happening everywhere. But you know,
you talked about like kind of wherethe program has been the last couple
of years. That's not my focus. My focus is what we're doing from

(29:33):
the moment we took the job Ithink one hundred and two days ago now,
Uh, and moving forward. Sowhat's happened in the past is the
past, and what happens in thefuture is what we're all about. So,
look, there's a different path interms of roster management for everybody and
and resources. Are you know goodat Louisville. Uh, it's different than

(29:56):
where you've been, that's just obvious. But what was your your mentality at
least in this first year. Maybegoing forward, you pick up Chucky Hepburn,
who had a great career at Wisconsinto try to manage sort of high
school international transfer to get this thinggoing right off the bat. Yeah,
you know, it was a crazywhirlwind of the first several months because you

(30:19):
know, we started at zero,right, we had to build an entire
roster. And I give my staffa ton of credit, and I think
I have the best basketball coaching staffin the entire country. They make this
dude look smart, which is prettyhard to do. So they busted their
tail. And I know it's boringinterview speak, but we stuck to our

(30:44):
process what we believe in. Obviously, we had to utilize the portal heavily,
you know, getting the job kindof you know, in the spring
and starting from zero, and wewanted to put together a team that can
compete from day one. So,you know, we have a process that
we go about and how we identifyguys in the portal that we want to

(31:04):
recruit, you know, traditional recruiting, grassroots recruiting, underclass recruiting, high
school recruiting obviously, or relationships builtover a long long time, and that's
always going to be at the centerand the heart and soul of our recruiting
efforts in the portal. It's kindof recruiting on steroids. You know,
what usually is a two year processsometimes becomes a two week process, so

(31:30):
you can't skip steps. You haveto make sure you're doing your due diligence
and making your calls. But atthe same time, you know, thirty
forty other schools are trying to recruitthe same person. So all these things
are going on at the same time, where you're building a relationships, selling
your program, and that the endsat the same time checking all the box
to make sure that the players you'rebringing in that you're recruiting are great fits.

(31:56):
I don't want to dwell in thepast. I won't, but they're
obviously you know, the us someapathy. I think that has changed dramatically
just with your hire, because ofyour passion and your energy. If I'm
a Louisville fan, Louisville fan,Uh, what am I going to see
on day one when I get tothe YOUM center on the floor at both
ends. Yeah, that's a greatquestion. And I was asked questions similar

(32:21):
to that at my press conference andwhat's this going to look like? And
what are we going to be thisyear? And you know, I'm I'm
a big believer that those things willtake care of themselves. If everybody in
an organization, starting with me,all the way down to the student managers
are doing their job every single daywith excellence. We got a weightlifting session

(32:43):
that's going to start here in threeminutes, and the goal of that weightlifting
session is to be the greatest weightliftingsession in the history of our program.
And then as we turn the pageto the next thing we do, and
the next thing we do, andthe next thing we do, that'll be
our focus and always been my way. Right. I let the guys like
you right make all the prognozers alot, But what style of play?

(33:08):
What? What will what will meand everyone else? What will we see
in time? I want to playwell. First of all. I think,
you know, Skip Pross used tosay a team usually takes on the
personality of their coach. So you'regonna see a high energy team, you
know, that plays hard. Ilike to think that our teams, our
staffs, teams, my teams playwith grit, play with tenacity, play

(33:31):
with passion, play with fire.We're always going to play stinking hard.
Our teams are usually from an offensivestandpoint, dynamic in terms of our pace,
how we play, we push theball, we play downhill. There's
a lot of possessions in our game. We value ball movement, people movement.

(33:51):
Uh. We value three point shootingtypically one of the you know,
uh towards the tops of the country, and three point volume rate. We're
also usually very very good in offensiverebounding, so we go and pursue our
own missus as well. On thedefensive end. You know, we're going
to be a tough, nasty,tenacious I like to think Manda Man team

(34:14):
predominantly all right. So we'll getto the rest of that a little later
on. And a lot of that, of course, is things that you've
already heard from from Pat Kelsey andhis other interviews that he's done, including
when he joined us on the showhere. But I know Louisville fans have
to appreciate him already, feeling Imean, he is clearly one of us.
He's leading the basketball program. He'sthe guy that has been tasked to

(34:36):
get this thing turned around. AndI think he's got a lot of support
here so far. But obviously wehave to wait and see what happens.
However, he feels as if it'shis duty to correct people who don't say
Louisville correctly and say what Andy Katsaid, which is Louisville I don't know.
That's the fact that he's already doingthat is I think a good sign.
All right, quick break, we'llcome back on the other side,

(34:57):
and to wrap up the four o'clockhour, I want to talk about something
at some point. I don't ifwe're gonna have time to do it before
we get to the five o'clock hour, but at some point I do want
to talk about something that I'll givecredit where it's due. It was somebody
a former NBA player on Instagram hadposted this, but like it's a very
obvious thing to bring up in thealways played out lebron versus MJ thing,
but it has something with Bronnie James. I think it's a really good point

(35:21):
that I haven't heard many people talkabout. So we'll get to that in
a lot of other things throughout therest of the show, So stick with
us right here, Coffee and Companyfeel about Thorton's on Sports Talk seven ninety
as we wrap up the four o'clockhour, A couple things on the football
side to share with you. Whenit comes to the on three rankings of
the G five transfers only meaning guyswho are transferring into the ACC from a

(35:47):
non Power five, they've got atop ten and Louisville's got some major presence
here. In fact. Number oneis Colin Lacy, the receiver from South
Alabama, which you know we talkedabout him really since he decided to transfer
Louisville because he was one of thebig gets in the portal, but he
did not have a I don't wantsee he had a good or bat spring.
It just was you didn't hear awhole lot about him, and I'm

(36:09):
not sure if that's for any reason, but he is still somebody that has
proven to be a pretty I mean, I'm pretty I'm trying to find the
number here, but there may beonly one player in college football that's returning
this twenty twenty four season that hasmore receiving yards than Colin Lacey. So,
yes, he did it at SouthAlabama. That's a lower level.

(36:31):
But you know the top receiver leisvelhad last year also came from that level,
right, I mean, Jamari Thrashwas a pretty successful G five transfer
to the ACC and hopefully Colin Laceyis the same thing. Number two is
justin Jolly, the tight end totransferred from Yukon to NC State, but
Number three is louisvill was tied inMark Redman, who was an All Mountain

(36:52):
West performer at San Diego State.And then at number five is Thor Griffin
of Griffith. I should say whoI this guy is. You know,
there's a lot of hypes surrounding him. He already had some NFL buzz after
a great successful run there at Harvard. But you know, if it does
translate like seventy five percent, he'sgonna make a really big impact. He's

(37:14):
He's one of those guys that yousee on the Freakly the Freakalist every year
from Bruce Feldman, just guys whophysically and athletically are are different. You
know, you never know what you'regonna get from the Ivy League. That's
a much different level than even Gfive. But this guy had a lot
of options transferring from Harvard, andyou know, Jeff Brown feels really good
about his d line and I wouldimagine Thor Griffith is is a part of

(37:36):
that. And then the only otherleus of a guy mentioned here in the
top ten is Jordan Gerard, whowas kind of a late addition in the
portal. He transferred from well Idon't think he was that late, but
he just didn't get mentioned a wholelot. But FIU is where he transferred
from, and obviously they weren't verygood last year, but he graded out
as one of the best defensive linemenin the G at the G five level,

(37:57):
was an all conference performer there atFIU. So again, obviously there's
always the question mark is just howmuch of that will translate from the lower
level to the power for previously powerfive, and you really never know until
you actually get out there and seeresults. But again, last year,
I think Louisville was able to seethat. Just because somebody you know,
played below the power four or fivedoesn't mean they can't come up and help

(38:21):
you in a major way. Imean, I think tomorrow Thrash might have
been better at Louisville than he was. Was it Georgia State that he transferred
from. I think that's right.Also, really quickly before we get out
of here at the top, youknow we're not leaving. Yeah, we
another hour, so make sure youguys stick around. But another football thing
here to Brent to mention the thewhat's the what's the award? Let's see

(38:44):
here. I want to make sureI get it correct, because if Jeff
wins this, we're going to betalking up this award like it's the biggest
award ever. Yeah. So it'sthe Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year preseason
watch list, which Jeff Brawm wasone of the twenty one coaches on that
list, So shout out to him. Not a surprise. I mean,
he wasn't gonna win National Coach ofthe Year and he didn't even win acc
Coach of the Year last year,But still doesn't mean he didn't have a

(39:05):
great I mean, he totally tookadvantage of his first season and really gave
the program a lot of momentum.But these preseason watch lists, like we
all know, they don't mean awhole lot because you cannot be on it
and then be added once you actually, you know, have results within the
season. Like I'm not really sure, Like John, what do you what
do you think they would tell usas far as why they choose to even

(39:29):
put out a preseason watch list.Yeah, I've never really finished a value
yourself, because I mean, Iguess you're basing all of it off of
potential or maybe past results, especiallywhen you're thinking about guys who have already
played a couple of years the collegelevel. So what to me, it's
it just gives people an example tolike say either that you left somebody off,
which wish they did here, orthat you know, like, wow,

(39:53):
you really showed us that you wereway way wrong here because you had
five guys on this list coaches orplay depending on what the award is,
and like none of those guys werenearly as good. They might as well
just let big Game Boomer make thesethings exactly exactly. So again, like
I I'm not surprised that all theJeff's on the list, and I have
no reason to think that if Lowellhas a good season he won't be considered
for that award. But they leftoff a guy who I think you could

(40:17):
argue has I mean as far asa name that a lot of people didn't
know recently in the last few years. I think this guy now is a
known name and has a lot ofmomentum. That's Dan Landing at Oregon,
Like, how could he not beon the list? Yeah, he was,
Like, that's just clearly one ofthe top candidates to be Alabama's head
coach. He turned him down,right, I mean, like, I
just I don't know. He's beenat Oregon since two thousand and twenty two,

(40:39):
so he's entering his fourth season.They went twelve and two, eight
and one in the PAC twelve lastyear, won the Fiesta Bowl. He
was ten and three in his firstin his first year. I mean,
like, I think it's clearly likecause again it's not just because he's a
good coach, but like, thisguy's got momentum like this guy's is.
I mean, he's the only guythat, like pretty much everybody who covered

(41:00):
this coaching search for Bama, Likethere's other guys that got extensions right and
acted as if they turned Bama down, which I don't believe all these guys
did, but I believe Dan Lanningdid. Like it was quite clear that's
who they wanted, and within twentyfour hours, like you know, he
said he's staying at Oregon. Soyeah, I mean, I'm not bitter
about Jeff not winning those awards lastyear because the Coach of the Year award,

(41:21):
like there should be two of them. There should be the coach who
has the best season, coach ofthe year did the best job coaching,
because the results tell you that andthere should be the Overachiever of the year
because they're two different things, andsometimes, you know, the award just
goes to one of those two,and it's really two different types of criteria.
And last year Florida State exploded throughhad an undefeated season the until the
uh you know, to the bowlgame where they got killed. But Brohm,

(41:45):
last year, I mean that wasI mean, Louisville was seven and
one in the acc All right,quick break, we got the five o'clock
hour coming your way, so makesure you stick around right here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety