1/29/26 - The Mo Egger Radio Show - Mo Egger

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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No one curtis the Bengals like ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
So how will the Bengals screw it up? Not not
necessarily the entire offseason, not the draft, not free agency,
but how will they screw up contract extensions? Aren't you wondering?
How do you not wonder? We'll wonder even more later

(00:34):
on I'm mullegar. This is ESPN fifteen thirty. Thanks for listening.
Hopefully you're having an awesome Thursday. Hopefully your experience, if
you have gone to the mall recently, is different than
the one that I just outlined to Tony and Austin
on Since e three to sixty full show preview is
available on Twitter at mullegar. Thanks to share Facts Credit Union,

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at sharefax dot org. Chad Brandle later on this hour,
you see wins. Last night, the Bearcats take care of
Baylor in relatively comfortable fashion. Cincinnati did not score from

(01:19):
the field over the final seven plus minutes of the game,
and they still win by ten. Baylor is not very good.
That's no knock on how the Bearcats played last night.
Boba Miller, if it is if it is possible to
have a game like Bobba Miller did last night statistically,

(01:39):
where he was, as he has been all season long,
terrific on the glass. He was also, as he has
been often this season, a force offensively. Boba Miller last
night had what I think you could describe as a
quiet eighteen point seventeen rebound game, but still he hat
an eighteen pointsen rebound game. He was terrific last night.

(02:02):
Gisel James was very good five for six from behind
the arc. Wes Miller talked after the game about his
improvement as a jump shooter. Bearcats playing kind of shorthanded.
Tony and I were talking about this. I think Tony
alluded to this on since he three sixty, they were
forced to kind of shorten the rotation. No Seann Abayev,
which is no good. No Buck Harris, which is less

(02:23):
than ideal. Tyler McKinley is not at his best, gutted
through ten minutes last night. They still don't have Jalen Haynes,
so they're playing kind of shorthanded last night, and they
get a victory sixty seven to fifty seven over Baylor.
Here's Wes Miller with Dan and Terry after the game,
talking about how proud he is in his team.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
I felt pretty good about the direction we've been going
here the last three weeks or so and some of
the things we've been doing in practicing in games. I
did not feel good about Saturday night at Arizona State.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
That was kind of a that wasn't a.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
Characteristica who we've been and then how we've been approaching it.
So I thought bouncing back tonight, I was really really
pleased with our guys. We It's just kind of one
of those weeks. It just feels like we've had just
so many guys going through medical things or sickness things.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
So you know, since your hairs took.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
A couple of ivs and just he was so sick
he couldn't couldn't do it. You know, Tyler's knee is
just day to day. He's just absolutely grinding it out, man, Like,
he's not healthy, he's not one hundred percent and he
couldn't go in the second half, but we didn't know
if he'd be able to go tonight. Gosh, we keep
going down the list, right, I mean, Kerr shoulder, he

(03:38):
didn't practice yesterday. I didn't know if he'd go. He
kind of gutted it out. And who am I forgetting?
I mean there's more to it, right, Like, it's just
and then Sewan, I mean Sean, which he's had such
great practices and starting to figure it out. I'm like
heartbroken for him. So there's a lot of crap going on.
And I say all that because tonight was a character
whin like we just kind of gutted it out without

(04:00):
having all the personnel and all the stuff that you
want to have. And so I'm really proud of the
guys that played and the guys that were able to
gut it out tonight. I thought that was a really
important win for our team.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Wes Miller after the game last night. My correction, that
was not with Dan and Terry. It was in his
postgame press conference. The Dan and Terry conversation sort of
echoed what you just heard there he is talking about
his team's victory over Baylor. They are frustrating, and if
you're a UC fan, you're not in a long ago
and they, oh, they're frustrating. They're eleven and ten and

(04:32):
they don't have an NCAA tournament resume, and they've lost
this season to a bad but they are a bad
Eastern Michigan team and a not great Xavier team, and
they've let some games in the Big Twelve get away.
Here's why they're frustrating to me. If you watched cutups
of UC on the defensive end, nothing but defense, cutups
of them on the defensive end, you would think, pretty

(04:55):
good Big twelve team. Like that to me is like
they have that. They're good at that, right, I mean,
it's it's not that unlike the Bengals, where what's so
frustrating about the Bengals is offensively they're awesome when everybody's healthy.
But that's to me, it's one thing when your team

(05:16):
is just bad all over the place, bad roster, bad players,
players aren't playing hard like the Reds are frustrating because
the starting pitching is terrific. They've sat around and done
nothing with the offense. You watch UC on the defensive end,
they may not make you think of some of the
best all time UC defensive teams, and there have been

(05:37):
a bunch, but they're really good on the defensive side
of the floor. By the way, it's defensive side of
the floor, not defensive side of the ball. And yet
here they are at eleven and ten because of their
offensive issues. Even last night, they go the final seven
minutes of the game without making a bucket, but they
win the game, and they win the game convincingly because

(06:00):
of their work on defense. Cameron Carr, Baylor's leading scorer,
came into last night's game averaging twenty point four points
a game. Last night, he scored four. He was held
scoreless for the first like thirty three and a half minutes.
Last night, he went one for eleven. He had almost
no positive impact on the game, at least offensively for Baylor. Now,

(06:23):
really good players have bad nights. That certainly was a
part of it. You see did a good job on
him last night. This team all season long, Say what
you want about the season the program coach like, what's
so agonizing is they do defend pretty well. As we

(06:44):
say all the time with the Bengals on defense, if
they were just league average, the bear Cats were just
slightly above average on offense. You can't help it. Wonder
you can't help but wonder what this season would have
ultimately looked like. Xavier loses last night, you talk about
an absolute tale of two games, and like with the Bearcats,
with Xavier, we're not talking about a team that harbors

(07:08):
any legitimate hope of making the NCAA tournament. But you
want to get wins when they're available. And Seaton Hall
is pretty good. Seaton Hall has been ranked. I don't
know really how good they are. When I watched them
most closely, they lost a game to Yukon that they
had chances to win. Last night, Xavier charges out of
the gate, up thirteen to two at the under sixteen

(07:28):
minute media time out. Now maybe you knew, okay, Seaton
Hall at some point is going to come back. This
is not going to be a Xavier round. But they're
up eleven at halftime. They got outscored by twenty nine
points in the second half. And it wasn't any one thing.
If it could go wrong, it did. Here's Richard Patino
talking about the final twenty minutes last.

Speaker 5 (07:48):
Night path as I've seen this year. So they turned
up the toughness and we didn't respond.

Speaker 6 (07:57):
You know, we.

Speaker 5 (07:57):
Talked about the keys to the game being taking care
of the ball. We turned it over nineteen times. We
talked about another key being keeping them off the offensive glass.
They had twenty one offensive rebounds. And then we talked
about the free throw line battle a team that is very,
very physical, and we didn't. I wasn't poorly officiated by

(08:19):
any means, but you know, it's it's you only get
to the free throw line ten times to their twenty eight,
it's impossible to win. So give Seaton Hall credit. You know,
they came out of the locker room and punched us
in the mouth and just kept punching for twenty minutes.
You know, really really disappointing. Played a terrific first half

(08:40):
and played about as bad as second half as I've
seen this year.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Seaton Hall shot fifty six percent in the second half.
Now you might go, well, they're pretty good offensive team. No.
One hundred and sixty, first in the country in shooting
and in offensive efficiency. They took Xavier behind the woodshed
last night, and you know, even in a year where
you acknowledge it's it's year one, right, it's a new roster,

(09:05):
it's new players. You get some guys who maybe aren't,
you know, upper end, Big East caliber guys. You want
to win the games that are there for the taking,
especially against teams that aren't great. And I think the
frustrating thing is if you look at the last three,
the Creighton game was there for the taking. There were
very legitimate gripes about the officiating in that game, but
the game was there for the taking. They don't take it.

(09:25):
The Saint John's game was there for the taking, and
Saint John's played like Saint John's, as Rick Burring said
on our show yesterday, in the second half, the bigger team,
the better team, the deeper team took over, but still
a game there for the taking. It might not look
like it if you look at the box score, or
if you look at the spread in the second half,
or even if you look at the final score they
lose by eighteen. That game was also there for the taking.

(09:48):
And so an okay season turns into a bad one
if the fifty to fifty games, the games that are
there for the taking, you don't grab them. Last night
was another opportunity loss for day to get one. More
on that coming up here in just a bit. Brenda
on the Bearcats at three forty five. Our lines are
open this afternoon at five one, three, seven, four nine,

(10:09):
fifteen thirty and eight six six seven oh two three
seven seven six. I got an email about my story
about going to the mall really quick. I went to
the mall to get a watch, battery and another watch,
get a new band on it. I had some folks
so listening to me to I guess go to their church,

(10:30):
and I rejected their overtures. That was it. I was
not unfriendly at Maegger on Twitter thanks to a Delta Dental.
Delta Dental is building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for Auge
at Delta dentaloh dot com. We have so many different
questions about the Bengals offseason. There's one that I want
to know more than any other, for somewhat selfish reasons.

(10:55):
I'll explain next. On ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 7 (10:57):
Thirty, Cincinnati's esp You're on fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 8 (11:03):
From the UCE Health Traffic Center with a stroke. Every
second counts, and so does your team home to rapid
life saving treatment and clinical trials. You see health as
the clear choice for stroke care. Learn more at ucehealth
dot com. Southbound seventy one at Ridge, a disabled vehicle
has got the left lane blocked off. Northbound seventy five

(11:23):
at Davis Street. Accident off on the right shoulder holding boulevard.
Accident at Dixie Highway, and on Route four accident at
Princeton Glendale Road. I'm at ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
This report is sponsored Chase Brown. We're on this show yesterday.
If you missed that conversation and the paper towel plug,
it's available on the iHeartRadio app, which you have the
iHeartRadio app, and you've made us a preset, right good.
If you haven't, Dude, what's up? Anyway, you can listen

(11:56):
to that conversation with t and Chase right now, tomorrow later.
If you listen to it yesterday, you can listen to
it again. Chase told us that the Bengals have you
had conversations, preliminary conversations with him about a contract extension.
You can go catch that and Tea talked a little
bit about his experience with the Bengals and contract extensions

(12:19):
and some of the advice he has given Chase and
will play some of that for you a little bit
later on. If you don't want to wait again, go
listen to the entire interview on the iHeartRadio app or
ESPN fifteen thirty dot com slash mo. Lots of questions
about the Bengals this offseason, right, who are they going
to draft? Which positions will they prioritize, will they will

(12:41):
they lean into traits or what a player shows on film?
Who will they get in free agency? How aggressive will
they be in free agency? Will they double down on
certain position groups in free agency? Will they run it
back with the linebackers? Are to screw up the Dalton
Reisner thing? Who's the backup quarterback? Gonna be? Like so

(13:05):
many different questions, and I'm just merely scratching the surface.
We know what many of them are. Contract extensions are
always a part of any team's offseason. Which players do
you want to reinvest in? And there are some very
good candidates for contract extensions this offseason. I think for
most of us, the first name would be a Dj Turner.

(13:25):
DJ Turner played like one of the very best cornerbacks
at all of football last year, and Dax Hill it's
taken a while. Injury has been a factor, but it's
taken some time. But it does feel like he has
settled in very nicely at outside corner, so much so
that I think you can tell me if you believe
I'm wrong that next year, you feel pretty comfortable about

(13:45):
those two guys being you know, CB one and CB two.
And then there are questions about what to do with
Chase Brown one more year left on his contractor are
they gonna re up with Andre yoshavas you know long term?
Now Miles Murphy who they do have the fifth year
option obviously, but like Miles Murphy looks like a dude now,
and I I get it. You hear that, and you're like, well,

(14:09):
it took long enough, and it did took a while,
but that doesn't mean he's not a big part of
this team's twenty twenty six and maybe beyond. You cannot
help but ask this question, though, if you know anything
about how this franchise has been run, whether it's recently
or not so recently, which one of these are they

(14:30):
going to screw up? And that may sound harsh, but
which one of these are they going to screw up?
I was thinking about this last night, So we did
the mock off season exercise with Paul Dayner Junior and
also a conversation you can listen to on the iHeartRadio
app where we do the spreadsheet. It's on the Athletic
dot com. If you haven't done this, if you haven't

(14:52):
read about it. You do the spreadsheet and you kind
of put together a roster and make financial decisions, and
you have to do so within the framework of whatever
salary cap money is available. And yes, the salary cap
to the Bengals is real. And among the options are
extending certain players. So for instance, you could click a

(15:13):
drop down menu and there's DJ Turner and it's a
contract extension, and then his twenty twenty six salaries reflected
by having a little bit more money because of a
contract extension. And same for Dax Hill. So this may
sound easy. Dax Hill has one more year left. DJ
Turner has one more year left. It has taken a

(15:35):
while for both, but both dudes look like players who
are worth re investing in on a team that needs
mostly an overhaul on defense. I think you feel pretty
good about those two guys. And if you feel pretty
good about those guys and there's one year left sign
him to contract extensions, except that what you and I

(15:57):
know about the Bengals would suggest it's not that cut
and dry, because recently, when it's come to Bengals contracts,
nothing is really cut and dry, is it. Like you
could argue with Jesse Bates should have been cut and dry. Hell,
they were telling you he's the best safety in football. Cool,
then do what you can to keep him. Nah. The

(16:22):
Jamar Chase and t Higgins deals with the outcome that
ended up being, you know, sort of locked into place
last year, seems like it was pretty obvious, right. These
are two high end players, two players who are central
to what the Bengals want to be all about. Oh
and Joe Burrow wants him. But as you and I know,

(16:43):
it wasn't cut and dry. The Jamar Chase contract thing
became a thing, and then the t Higgins contract thing
took on a life of its own. Obviously, same with
Trey Hendrickson, even to a different degree. Mix it in
twenty twenty. Now, in some cases deals got done, in

(17:05):
some cases deals didn't get done. But even when the
deals didn't get done, like with Trey, there were complications,
Like you know, turning down opportunities to trade them, which
in hindsight and maybe even in real time kind of
feels like that's something they should have done. So so
many different things this offseason right, this is the most

(17:30):
pivotal off season in the history of the franchise, legitimately,
man right, like they got a shot to win the
Super Bowl because of Joe Burrow. If they accomplish that,
this offseason is going to be a huge reason why.
And if they don't and people lose their job because
of it, the decisions made this offseason will maybe be

(17:53):
the biggest reason why. Enormous off season. So many things
that have to go right, So many things that seem
like layups, like get Dalton Reisner signed, Like sign some
starting caliber players on the defensive line, like find a
starting caliber safety, but also be open to drafting one.

(18:17):
Like find players that you believe do not need seasoning,
do not need at a development, that can come in
and play and contribute asap immediately week one. But among
the easy things, here are some players you want to
reinvest in that other teams would want to reinvest in.

(18:39):
How are they going to screw it up? Because the
m O this is undeniable. The mo O is that
they they take too long, or they drag things out,
or they needlessly get into these you know, sort of
public confrontations with the player, and it drifts into the
heart of the offseason, it drifts in to mini camp,

(19:00):
it drifts into training camp, and they become counterproductive to
the goal of getting off to a great start, which
I know we say this every year, is at an
absolute premium. This year big part of twenty twenty six
is having it figured out week one while the teams
around you are taking their time to figuring out with

(19:22):
their new coach. Who knows how any of the last
few seasons play out. If there aren't offseason controversies involving
players and their contracts, who knows. And to a degree,
when you have good players, contract issues are almost inevitable.
But that doesn't mean they have to be a recurring
theme every year. So there's the question which one of

(19:47):
these contract issues will become a problem, And if any
one of them does become a problem, will it be
because the Bengals screwed up again? Three point thirty ESPN
fifteen thirty five, Winter three seven four nine, fifteen thirty
is our phone number. I am here to help you
when it comes to Halls of Fame because the Belichick
thing you talk about taking on a life of its own.

(20:08):
I did this a little bit yesterday, but I'm gonna
help you when it comes to the Hall of Fame,
regardless of sport. Coming up at four oh five on
ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 9 (20:17):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 8 (20:22):
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Speaker 2 (21:01):
Sports Headlines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet. Home of
Lifetime powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family
to yours for life. Kelseychev dot Com. I will be
honest with you and Tarn you can tell me if
I'm wrong. I don't know that there's any big local
sports headlines. Is there a big local sports headline that

(21:24):
I'm missing out on right now?

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Uh No, it's kind of quiet.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Here's kind of a quiet day. Not a lot, not
a lot going on, you know. I'm looking at the
I'm looking at the front page of Cincinnati dot com
in the sports section, and it's breaking down the Miami
RedHawks final ten regular season games, which is obviously worth doing,
especially because Miami is undefeated and they've got a chance
to have an undefeated season. But that's not really a

(21:51):
big headline. It's not a big story. There's a Jason
Williams column on the resentment being aimed at Phil Castellini
and Bob Castellini, which will spend some time on, but
there's not really the big The big story on the
front page of Cincinnati dot com is Kelly Rippin of
Channel five what her favorite restaurants are. And Kelly is

(22:15):
I think the best news anchor in the Tri State.
So there's you know, there's some news. And by the way,
three of her places are among my favorites, but I
don't know that that's like such a transcendent story that
we incorporated in our headline. Then I pop over to
ESPN and the lead story is Raven's mentor. I want
to build bond with Lamar. Well, no kidding, he's the quarterback. Geez.

(22:43):
I think a bigger story would be if the coach
is like, you know, gotta be honest with you. I
really don't care if I have much of a relationship
with my starting QB. There are no you can correct
me if I'm wrong. There are no area college basketball
teams playing this evening. We had a couple of games
last night. We had a bunch of games on on Tuesday,
So not not much, not much to not munch, not

(23:04):
much to mention there. Uh, Columbus Blue Jackets aren't playing tonight.
Cyclones don't play this evening. There's no big FC Cincinnati news.
But anyway, Kelsey chevroleg got a Kelsey Chef dot Com.
Yesterday On the show, we had Sam Brookl's from a
sumer sports. He joined us from the Senior Bowl or

(23:26):
Senior Bowl practice. And it's very very very very very
early in the draft process, and like I think here.
There's gonna be a lot that doesn't crystallize until you know,
we see what the Bengals do in free agency and
say what you want about them. It's impossible to imagine
the Bengals not being active in free agency this offseason. Nonetheless,

(23:48):
I think there are some things worth paying attention to,
and it's fun to talk with Sam about positions that
might be more loaded compared to others. And so if
you miss that conversation, go listen to it right now
on the iHeartRadio app. Been Rick boring as always, was
also good on Xavier and NKU basketball. The Norse play
tomorrow on the road against Detroit Mercy. You could hear

(24:08):
that conversation on the iHeartRadio app as well. We're gonna
talk about the Bearcats here in a few minutes with
Chad Brendle. I said before that, watching watching U see
this year, that part of what's frustrating is they're actually
good at one half of the sport. They're sixth ken
Palm's defensive efficiency metric. Now, have they had moments of

(24:31):
slippage defensively? Yes, because I could still watch Trey Carroll
losing his mind in the skyline Chili Crosstown shootout, and
you know, as good as they've been defensively, there have
been times where they get stops and then they still
get scored on because of the other team's offensive rebounding,
like against Arizona, which just murdered them into paint. But

(24:56):
pretty good defensive team. Issue all season one has been offense.
Last night they held a big twelve team to fifty
seven points. Baylor is not very good. Tony talked about this,
It kind of felt like the quintessential Dan Skillings game,
where there's a handful of moments of brilliance, but like
there's times where it's like he's a little out of
control and he's missing layups and fans boot him, which

(25:19):
if that's your thing, that's your thing. I kind of
view that as he made a business decision, and legitimate
business decisions I don't take personally, So didn't bother me
that Dan decided to leave. I think Wes has handled
questions about players who have left very diplomatically. There was
a long embrace between he and Dan after the game.
That is not a very good Baylor team, but still

(25:42):
win on a night where you don't score over the
final seven minutes and yet the game has never really
ended out because of the work they did do on
the defensive side of the floor. Nineteen away from four o'clock,
we'll spend a few minutes with Chad on that maybe
do some football with him as well.

Speaker 9 (25:57):
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 8 (26:03):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center. With a stroke,
every second counts, and so does your team home to
u sehealth dot com. I'm after State Route sixty three
in Monroe. The center lane blocked off from an accident.

(26:24):
There's also an accident northbound Kenwood Road approaching zig Zag Road.
In southbound Madison Pike. Accident at Highland Pike that ezelk with.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
Traffic hurteing away from U four o'clock. This is ESPN.
I say, what's that, hut? You couldn't say say that
was a straight face I would do.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
Was streaming live.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Well, that's why I said we're gonna, We're gonna, We're
gonna stream live the last two hours today. Yes, well
that's why I said that. Now you know, if if,
if they win the rest of their games, ten more
regular season games run through the Big Twelve Tournament, then
win all six in the NCAA Tournament, they will be

(27:08):
given the National Championship Trophy. I can't even say that.
I can't even say that without like slurring the words.
Chad Rendel's here Bearcat journal dot com on Twitter at
Chad Rendel.

Speaker 10 (27:17):
Hid Chad, there's this thing in your subconscious that does
that to you when you're trying to lie to yourself.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Uh yes, yes, here's what's not a lie. And here's
here's why. Here's why I'm frustrated. Here's why I'm frustra
There's lots of reasons to be frustrated with the season,
but this, this is at the rooted for the root
of it for me. This team's good defensively, yes.

Speaker 10 (27:50):
At times, Okay, I think I think the thing that's
been interesting for me this year is it's much different
than we've seen UCB defensively over the past thirty five years.
Like it is a lot more. They have been great

(28:11):
defensively over the years because their team defense, the communication,
the assignment, the scouting report, whatever has been awesome under
Mick under Hugs at times. You know, most of West
is run. The defenses have been really good this year.

(28:32):
It feels like there's more elite individual talent defensively, but
not as much of that cohesion. So that's why you
see the breakdowns against Arizona State, you know, the second
half against Arizona. It doesn't feel like they're is connected
at times, but there's more individual like Bob OB's been

(28:56):
outstanding defensively. Buck Harris is really good defense. Day Day's
really good defensively. Like They've got really good individual defenders.
It feels like, and maybe this is just a nature
of college basketball in twenty twenty six. These guys haven't
played together for a long time, so some of that
communication and the natural like understanding of where your teammate

(29:20):
is going to be has dipped a little. But the
individual talent defensively has been awesome.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Do they have a prayer on Saturday in Houston?

Speaker 10 (29:32):
No, they had their chants against s Houston and they
missed it. That's generally how this goes, right, Like, when
you play one of these elite teams, and especially when
you play them twice, they're not gonna let you get
a second bite of the apple. Cincinnati was up ten
down the stretch against Houston and they didn't get across

(29:54):
the finish line, especially going down there. I don't have
a lot of faith in them, you know, making this
a great game down to the wire type situation, because
the same thing I mean, I just don't think they're
good enough offensively against Houston to sustain that for a

(30:19):
second time and play like they did back at the
beginning of January. I mean, you know, stranger things have happened,
but that one. Usually you get one shot when you're
in a position like Cincinnati in the fifties, sixties, in
the metrics, you get that one shot to take that

(30:40):
team down the second time around. Usually reality sets back in.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
I feared that was the answer, but I agree when
you have played twenty one games and like now, you
know attrition continues to be an issue. Seanabayev. That didn't
look like an injury that's gonna have him miss just
a game or two. Just watching him on the bench
in a boot and needing crutches, and so I'll assume
that at least in the short term, the fix isn't

(31:07):
going to come with you know, him going through an
offensive a period of growth offensively that they can benefit
from you've played twenty one games, your offensive issues have
been well established. You want to go on a run
here post Houston because they play some teams that are beatable,
including one they had on the ropes in UCF who
comes here next weekend. For them to go on a run,

(31:27):
they're going to have to achieve a level of offensive
efficiency that they haven't yet all season long, in the
absence of some dude coming in that maybe played for
the Chicago Bulls last year or something. How does that happen?

Speaker 10 (31:42):
The problem is what we've talked about for a long
time with these guards.

Speaker 8 (31:47):
Ma.

Speaker 10 (31:48):
You know, there are times Gisel James and Dade Thomas
you feel like, hey, we've been a lot of Big
twelve games with these two. But ultimately they're inefficient and players.
They don't get to the rim, they don't take a
lot of layups, they don't take a lot of shots
at the rim, they don't get to the free throw line,

(32:09):
and they shoot a lot of long mid range jumpers,
long twos and like. The analytics have become popular for
a reason. That reason is because they're usually statistically correct.
That's how analytics work. When you're not getting to the line,
when you're not taking a bigger number of shots at

(32:30):
the rim, and instead you're replacing them with seventeen to
twenty foot two point attempts. Like the odds are eventually
going to catch up to you. And it feels like
that's why over the last three years we have not
seen this team be able to string together a four
to five game run right where they go four and
one or you know, five to zero and really gain

(32:52):
some momentum in the Big twelve. It's a lot of
play well for two or three games and then dip
for two or three game, then play well for two
or three games, and then did for three or four games.
And a lot of that is because offensively they're just
not efficient. The brand of offense is not up to par,

(33:13):
up to snuff in the modern era. They do a
lot of things that you know, the smart basketball minds
of twenty twenty six are no longer doing and that's
not changing this year, and that's going to make it
hard to get on any sort of extended run to
make it feel like there is a chance for this

(33:35):
team to turn a corner.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Got time for a football question, Sure, how well have
they done in the portal?

Speaker 10 (33:46):
I think they've done pretty well. I mean, obviously a
lot of that is going to come down to did
they hit on quarterback? But in terms of you know,
I thought that the number one thing outside of replacing
Brendan Soresby was giving the defense more life, more size,

(34:07):
more speed, more length for whoever the new defensive coordinator
was to work with. And I think they did a
lot of that. I think they got three safeties that
I really liked. They got a couple of corners that
look promising. I'm still a little concerned on the defensive line.
If I had a major concern for this team, it
would be can they turn the corner on the defensive front,

(34:30):
because that there was the worst defensive line in the
Big twelve analytically last year. They got to get up,
you know, middle of the Pact and higher to really
give this defense a chance to be decent. But overall,
I think I like what they did at wide receiver.
You know, I think the defense at least has a

(34:51):
chance to be better because of the pieces that they've added.
So I'm positive about it. But another part of that
is I also give Jack that Zach grant the benefit
of the doubt. More often than not, because I think
he's really good at figuring out what the plan is,
what the coaching stats asking for, and then being able

(35:12):
to go out and find it. So I think there's
a chance they can be pretty good.

Speaker 2 (35:17):
J C. French going to be the starting quarterback?

Speaker 10 (35:20):
Yeah, that you know, that's how this goes well. The
guy that you bring in like the first quarterback that
steps on campus. Now, was there another quarterback they wanted
that ended up somewhere else, Yes, but J C. French
was the pivot from that got him on campus, got
him committed before he left. That's your starting quarterback. So

(35:42):
will there be competition if he's bad? Yeah, I'm sure
there will be. But I think all expectations Thanks spring balls,
like five weeks away, four and a half, five weeks away,
I think all expectations are the j C. French. We'll
step into that QB one role when camp begins.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Awesome as always, man, thanks so much. Thanks, Noe's that's
our guy. Chad Brendel Bearhead Journal dot com. Follow him
on Twitter at Chad brendel Well. Ask a question about
Dan Pitcher coming up at four to twenty. But first,
let's stop making something that's not important seem important. I'll

(36:22):
explain on ESPN fifteen thirty.

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Enter it now, Incinatti Sports station. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
You know why, you know why the Hall of Fame
seems important regardless of sport football, basketball, baseball. You know why?
You know why do you think it's important? It's because
you I think it's important. I'm gonna explain here in

(37:06):
just a second. Plus, does Dan Pitcher have a better
job than the new coach of the Browns? And the
face of the Reds needs to no longer be the
face of the Reds. By the way we did this,
we did the beta version. I think this is still
maybe a beta version as we tweak this and mess
with it. But we are streaming right now on Twitter video.

(37:27):
You could watch You could watch the show on Twitter.
This is probably not a finished product, but it's something
we want to do with some degree of regularity, perhaps
not fixed, not fifteen hours per week, but you know,
on occasion or if we have guests in studio. But

(37:47):
we can't perfect it if we don't try it, so
you could watch. It's really exciting. I mean, you know,
if you've ever wanted, like, boy, how glamorous is hosting
a radio show, We're showing you right now now at
moegar on Twitter, where you could you could literally watch
as you go about your afternoon. You could watch me
sit here and talk into a microphone. It is exceptionally glamorous.

(38:14):
It's amazing. So there it is. You could watch as
we do this. Obviously, whatever listening device that you're listening
to the show on is awesome. The iHeartRadio app, Good
Old Am fifteen thirty, WCKY, Alexa, Google, whatever it is,
whatever it is, ESPN fifteen thirty, dot Com, and now
Today Live. This is live. There's seventy three people watching

(38:38):
this at moegar on Twitter. Very very exciting. Six after four.
So the Bill Belichick thing, I think has been the
biggest story in sports this week. Here's how I feel
about the Hall of Fame class of twenty twenty six
in pro football. If Ken Anderson gets in, that's really

(39:01):
all that matters. If Ken Anderson gets in, that doesn't
validate his career. As far as I'm concerned, and I
think that's the proper opinion. I think that's the proper approach.
If Ken Anderson gets in, that's going to be awesome
for him and his family. That's why Hall of Fame

(39:22):
inductions are meaningful. Dave Parker made the Hall of Fame.
I believe, like many that Dave Parker's Hall of Fame
resume was unfairly overlooked when he was on the writer's ballot.
But when Harold Baines got in. Nothing against Harold bains
who was an awesome hitter. Dave Parker, in my opinion,

(39:42):
was better than Harold Baines. Dave Parker's also selfishly a dude.
I grew up thinking like that's one of my favorite players.
Later in life, having Dave Parker on the show, getting
a chance to know him a little bit, like awesome guy.
It was so awesome to find out that he was
going to get to Cooperstown because he was still alive.

(40:05):
To find out that he's going to be a Hall
of Famer. Unfortunately, and this was so sad. Although his
son gave an awesome speech on induction Sunday last year,
he wasn't there for it, Dave, because he passed away
a few weeks prior Parkinson's disease took him, but he
at least went to his grave knowing he was a

(40:25):
Hall of Famer, and that made me happy. That, to me,
is what Hall of fame inductions are really all about.
Being thrilled for the person if you have an attachment
to him, Being thrilled for the person and their family
who get inducted. Beyond that, we need to stop making

(40:46):
halls of fame out to be more important than they are.
They're museums. They're nice museums. But there are museums in
small hamlets in upstate New York, Ringfield, Massachusetts, Canton, Ohio.
There are obviously other halls of fame. The College Football

(41:08):
Hall of Fame is a cool museum in Atlanta. But
they're museums. They're museums just like most other museums. There's
a gift shop, and sometimes there's a snack bar or
a food court, not all of them. They're museums. Yet
the way we talk about these museums, you would think

(41:29):
they are these mythical places where if a player gets inducted,
they're given eternal life. We talk about halls of fame.
Like their churches. We talk about halls of fame like
their sacred They're buildings and in the building there's a
hall of plaques or busts, and they're nice esthetically, they're

(41:49):
beautiful rooms, but that's all they are. Most people never
visit them. Most football fans will never even think about
going to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Most fans,
including a lot of hardcore baseball fans, are never gonna go. Yeah,
let's drive to the middle of nowhere in New York
to go to the Baseball Hall of Fame. But we

(42:10):
make these places out to be bigger and more important
than they are. The beautiful thing about sports is we
have scoreboards. I've said this for years about the SP's.
I don't think I've watched the sb since I was
in high school or maybe college, not that I'm not
a huge sports fan, but like, we already have championships

(42:31):
and awards and we keep score. I don't need an
award show to hand out the award for best team.
We do that per sport. And then it's really sort
of stupid to compare a baseball team to a football team,
to a hockey team to a women's basketball team, like
it doesn't make any sense. We already we already crown
champions in sports. We don't need an award show Bill

(42:53):
Belichick won eight Super Bowls as a coach, six as
a head coach. That is inarguable and it cannot be
taken away. You can contextualize it if you like and say, wow,
he was breaking out the cameras and the Spygate, like
my guy was already going to be a Hall of
Famer before Spygate became a thing. But he won those championships.

(43:18):
You don't need for him to have a bronze bust
in a museum in Canton to validate what he did.
We know he is the most accomplished football coach of
all time. We know that no one won more championships.
We know that in this century, no football coach has

(43:38):
mattered more, at least at the professional level. Do you
need for him to have a bronze bust in a
museum that you go and check out before you swing
by the gift shop to buy a hat and order
for an order for that to be solidified. No, we
do this with baseball more than the other sports. We

(44:00):
talk about the Baseball Hall of Fame, which I have visited.
My dad and I went Memorial Day weekend of two
thousand and three, like the quintessential Dad's son trip, and
we drove forever to go hang out in Cooperstown, stayed
at some dumpy hotel ate a couple of bad meals,
went to the Hall of Fame, walked around for four
or five hours, looked at each other and said, I

(44:22):
don't know, you want to drive back and like stop
off in Buffalo or something as neat.

Speaker 10 (44:26):
It was cool.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
I'm glad I went. Cherished the time with my Dad's
a museum, nice museum, some cool stuff in it. It's
a museum, but we talk about it like it is
this mythical place that almost doesn't even exist. We make
it out to be this just sacred place where if
you are inducted, you are super human, you get automatic

(44:50):
entry to Heaven, you go past the pearly gates because
you're a Hall of Famer. Ever listen to some of
these crabby baseball writers talk about their Hall of Fame ballots. No,
not every baseball writer is crabby, but like the one
thing that can take like these some of these crotchety
baseball writers and turn them into a puddle of tears

(45:10):
is when that ballot is put in front of them
and nullo Pine about the heavy weight and the responsibility
of having to look at these men and check that
box or not check that box, and determine whether they're
cooper'stown worthy. It's like you're not looking at the guy's
death warrant man. You're determining whether or not he's gonna

(45:31):
get an engraved plaque with a likeness of him that
really doesn't resemble the guy, and it's gonna be stuck
in a museum in the middle of nowhere that most
people aren't going to visit. We need to stop making
these halls of fame out to be bigger and more
important than they are. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go visit.
If your thing is to drive to Springfield, Massachusetts and

(45:52):
check out the Basketball Hall of Fame, go for it.
Into the Basketball Hall of Fame. It's neat fine. I
I didn't need the Basketball Hall of Fame to validate
how good Bernard King was when I was growing up
watching them. You just so there, to me is the solution.

(46:15):
It's among us as fans, and yes, Hall of Fame
discussions are often fun but let's be honest, they're not
as fun as they used to be. A the advanced
statistical resolution or revolution. The advanced statistical revolution we've had
in sports has has sort of provided a lot of
folks for the trump card. You know, here it is,

(46:37):
here's here's I can I can tell you statistically, this
guy Clearcut was the best. Not that we always haven't
had stats, but now we have so many more that
there's there's not the Hall of Fame arguments and discussions
I don't think are as good. Also, because everybody is
addicted to being agreed with uh, the arguments turn into

(46:59):
well like heated like angry debates, and you know, to me,
anger is not supposed to be a part of a
sports debate. So there's the solution. Stop making halls of
Fame out to be as important as we've made them
out to be. Even some of these like football people
like well, I you know what they've done to Bill Belichick,

(47:20):
Like yeah, man, he should be in the Hall of Fame.
It's there's I read the writer in Kansas City who's
rationale is basically like I don't want to make the
older candidates wait any longer. Like else Greenwood, Roger Craig.
Roger Craig should be in the Hall of Fame too,
Ken Anderson, and so I'll make Bill Belichick wait, and
I understand the perspective, but like they'll talk about like boy,

(47:43):
I stayed up all night wondering what I'm going Like, dude,
we're electing people to have bronze bus at a museum.
I don't know if another museum that has talked about
in the same reverence as a sports Hall of Fame.
So there it is. And that doesn't mean that voting

(48:07):
shouldn't take I mean, we shouldn't have halls of fame.
But and again, like Joey Vado is gonna be I think,
really interesting when he goes on the ballot in a
few years, because there will probably be voters who just
don't see the counting stats. He didn't compile numbers, and
there will be voters who maybe look at the RBI

(48:28):
total and yes, it's just not there. And then there
are gonna be voters and frankly younger ones who I
think more fully appreciate Joey's body of work. And if
he gets to Cooperstown cool, it's probably gonna be an
awesome Hall of Fame speech. I know how good Joey
Vada was. I know his significance to this sport during

(48:50):
the time that he played. I know his significance to
the franchise that he played for. I know what a
great hitter looks like. I know what a great hitters is.
Numbers look like need seventy five percent of baseball writers
to determine a that he was a good enough baseball
player and also that he was a good enough person. Wait,
that's how dumb this process is. We've decided, the Hall

(49:13):
of Fame has decided that there's gotta be a character clause.
So now the baseball writers qualified to have a vote.
But the baseball writers, they're tasked with determining who the
best baseball players are. Which cool, that's their beat, but
also who the best people are because the character clause.
I don't know, man, I don't know that a baseball

(49:35):
writer is more qualified to talk about how good of
a human being a baseball player is than I am. Yes,
we assign them this task that just carries with it
such historical and sacred weight. You vote for the guy,
he gets in, he gets a plaque in a museum,
if you talk about it in those terms, why are

(49:56):
we making these places out to be more important than
they are. Bill is generationally wealthy, has had a better
life than ninety nine percent of people who have ever lived.
His place in sports history, not just football history, could
not be more safe. He will be talked about in
one hundred years. He is one of the faces of

(50:20):
this league. That was true Monday morning. It's true today.
It's going to be true when he finally gets to camp.
It's not going to be any more true because he
got to Canton. It's true today. So there's the way
to not let Hall of Fame voting bother. You don't
place any more importance on it. Don't make it out

(50:42):
to be bigger and more important than it is. It's
not a sacred place. It's not a church. It's a museum,
a brick and mortar museum. It's got a gift shop,
it's got bathrooms, it's got screaming kids, many of them
have snack bars. It's a museum with a bunch of

(51:04):
plaques and busts. That's all it is. Well, it documents
the history of these national institutions. Stop. We have the Internet,
We have people who have written extensive books, great ones
that chronicle of sports history. Hall of Fame discussions get

(51:27):
people just worked in a lather every single year. My
colleague down the Hall, Bill Cunningham, was like legitimately mad,
which is kind of par for the course, but like
legitimately mad about the Belichick thing. And I'm like, eh,
so what he doesn't get a bronze bust in the
museum for a year? Are you gonna go to cant

(51:47):
once he gets in?

Speaker 10 (51:48):
No?

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Oh, what do you care? I know there's gonna be
swaths of sports fans who hear this, maybe swaths of
Hall of Fame voters who hear this and get mad
at me. Look, it's cool. You get a chance to
vote on who's in the Hall of Fame. That's that's cool.
I have a Heisman Trophy vote. I take the voting seriously.

(52:09):
It's a trophy given to a college football player. Most
people couldn't tell you who won it three years ago.
I don't sit down with my ballot acting like I
have some higher purpose, like some higher calling is reaching
out to me, and I, boy, if I don't get
this right, oh, man, like dude's gonna win a trophy
and he's gonna have the night of his life and

(52:29):
then we're all gonna move on. We've I mean in
baseball specifically, because we've had We've had fifty sixty years
of people like Bob Costas and Ken Burns droning on
so Sacharine sweet about Cooper's town and what like, Man,
I went to Cooper Sound dude, Never forget it was
with my dad. It's like, it's pretty cool place. Neat

(52:54):
probably would have lived a happy life had I never
gotten here like Neat cool. It's fun. Fight never come back.
That's fine too. Bus are cool, the plaques are cool.
Stuff's overpriced in the gift store. It's nice. It's a
museum twenty one minutes after four o'clock. Something is only

(53:16):
important if you make it out to be important. Let's
stop making Halls of Fame out to be important, and
I think we'll all be much much happier at moeggor
on Twitter thanks to a Delta Dental, Delta Dental is
building healthy, smart, vibrant communities for all. Good to Delta
dentaloh dot com. The face of the Reds needs to

(53:37):
stop being the face of the Reds. I'll explain and
more on the college troops from last night, as well
more on what the Bengals may or may not screw
up this offseason and uh, don't feel bad for Dan Pitcher.
Next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 7 (53:53):
Thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

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Speaker 2 (54:31):
This report is sponsored question Yesterday at Molegar on Twitter
because that's where we post our pole questions. It's also
where we're streaming the show right now live at Mulegar.
So you four hundred and fourteen, four hundred and fourteen
people are watching this. Do we think that's a lot?

Speaker 6 (54:48):
Yes? It is a last Last time we got it
seven hundred, that was four hour.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
That was only for an hour. Do you think there's
anybody like four hundred and fourteen people have like clicked
on it like yeah, that's cool, and then moved on,
or like are watching it like just with rapt attention,
like putting off the rest of their days so they
could watch a guy talking to a microphone.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
No, I think four hundred and thirty are.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
Watching, watching, giving me their full and undivided I'll wave.
I'm waving right now. Hi. You see do you see
the chat up on your screen? There's people chat in
the check. Yeah, so that is if I click on
the thing the print, I can't read that. It's too small.

Speaker 6 (55:30):
Here, I'll pop on make it bigger for you.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yeah, it's do I want to read that stuff?

Speaker 6 (55:36):
Monarting. So it's good.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
It's good. Okay. So it's allowing people to engage with
the show. As we posted online on social media. There's
there's Austin Nomore. Austin Nollmore just said, what's up chat?
How about that?

Speaker 8 (55:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (55:50):
Well you gotta you gotta be friendly with the check,
communicate with the check.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
How do I how do I now see I've never done. Oh,
I just go in the stream yard and I say
something I'll watch this. This will be a big Okay,
how do I I want to click on something? Can't
post comments to x Twitter? I don't know what to do.
I don't. But you don't need to post. You can

(56:13):
just comment. Oh I could, now I could. I could
read the comments directly on stream yard that's exciting. They
say on the internet. Never read the comments, don't.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
They If you can answer something like I said, I'll
like when we want commercial answer some questions.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Ooh, there's a good idea, there's they Maybe I'll do that.
Will it be creepy if I spend because you know,
the camera's on and I you know, I typically don't
look into a camera. Is it creepy or or is
it more creepy or less creepy? If while I'm on
the air, I stare into the camera so that whoever

(56:47):
is watching things, I'm looking right at them.

Speaker 6 (56:50):
I'll got it in the studio here and that looks creepy.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
He looks creepy. Just staring at the camera looks creepy. Okay, anyway,
Poll questions thanks to United Heartland Insurance. See what you're
paying for insurance and then find out what the folks
that United Heartland Insurance can do for you. Go to
UHI and ask dot com. We asked yesterday who the
best coach in the AFC North is, which I think
is a fun question. Zach Taylor won. He got forty

(57:17):
two point four percent of the vote, beating Mike McCarthy,
who barely edged out Jesse Minner for second place. Todd
Monkin brought up the rear with just two point two percent.
I might ask a similar poll question as it relates
specifically to Dan Pitcher. Dan Pitcher was interviewed to be
the coach of the Browns. It didn't feel like he
was I don't want to say a serious candidate, but look,

(57:38):
they had a lot of folks pull out. They had
a lot of folks say I'm good. I'd rather go
back and be the coordinator for the Jags, or be
the offensive coordinator for the Chargers, or co coach Lamar
Jackson instead of Shan Watson Shadora Sanders. And yet still
Dan Pitcher didn't emerge as a finalist, which is fine.
I think the lesson about this is, yeah, that are

(58:00):
only thirty two head coaching jobs, but you can torpedo
your long term coaching prospects if you get stuck in
the wrong job. So I think it would be fascinating
to see what would have happened with Brian Callahan. Haddy said,
I'm not gonna take the Tennessee Titans job. I'm gonna

(58:22):
hang here for another year or two coach Joe Burrow
and then see what happens. Maybe he never would have
gotten another opportunity, but it's to me, it's about getting
the right job, not just taking any job. Yes, there's
only thirty two. Yes, these guys all understandably aspire to
be NFL head coaches. Say what you want about the

(58:43):
Cincinnati Bengals, and there's lots of very valid criticisms out there.
The Bengals rarely seem dysfunctional, like there's bad the team's
the last three years haven't been good enough. This year's
team was bad. It doesn't feel dysfunctional, doesn't feel like

(59:03):
there's a ton of upstairs meddling. There's meddling, there's not
a ton of upstairs meddling. Can you say the same
about the Cleveland Browns? Like it feels often like it's dysfunction.
Why take a job with an organization where dysfunction is

(59:26):
the rule. You could say that about other franchises as well.
I believe Dan Pitcher has a better job than the
one that he interviewed for. Todd Munkin may do awesome.
Maybe the Browns get out of the sort of purgatory
that Deshaun Watson has them in. Maybe some of their

(59:47):
young players end up being as good as everybody suspects
they will be. And there's some validity to that possibility.
But Dan Pitcher's attached to Joe Burrow. I disagree with
the the belief that Dan Pitcher himself may hold that
well because I'm with Burrow. Any success he has is
just going to be attributed to Joe Burrow. Maybe instantly, yes,

(01:00:12):
over the course of so many years, not so much.
Bengals get this thing turned around. You saw who some
of the candidates were this go around. A lot of retreads,
a lot of recycled, some guys who are younger than
you might expect a head coach to be. If they
get this franchise here turned around and have larger success

(01:00:34):
than they have had, certainly over the last three years,
it is impossible to imagine a world where Dan Pitcher
isn't given opportunities to seriously interview for head coaching jobs
twenty nine from five o'clock at Moegger on Twitter. We
got folks watching, watching the show, just watching the show.

(01:00:59):
Sports headline which will be brief because there are none.
And I'm gonna throw cold water. I'm gonna throw cold
water on something. I don't want to do this, but
I'm gonna throw cold water on something, probably needlessly.

Speaker 7 (01:01:10):
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic.

Speaker 8 (01:01:16):
From the UCE Health Traffic Center With a stroke every
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(01:01:39):
back from Kellogg Avenue northbound seventy five after seventy four
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Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Lines are a service of Kelsey Chevrolet, Home of lifetime
powertrain protection and guaranteed credit approval from their family to
yours for life kelseyshow dot com. There are no local
sports headlines this today. This is not a complaint. This
is I think the slowest Cincinnati sports news day we've

(01:02:10):
had in a while. Now. The Reds could change that
if if they find out about their TV money and
then uh Nick Crawl wakes up from his nap and
signs a guy that can help the offense. All right,
But that's that's the only like good news that I

(01:02:31):
think would happen between now and six o'clock. Anything else
that would turn into news I think would be be bad.
I was just during the break explaining to a couple
of colleagues of mine the difference between a lockout and
a strike. Little CBA one oh one. We are streaming
the show on Twitter today. I gotta I got an

(01:02:55):
email here asking for us to put it on threads.
That is beyond my comprehension. I only have bandwidth really
for three social media platforms, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. That's it.
That's it we are. We can connect it to Instagram.

(01:03:16):
The next time we do this, we'll put it on Instagram.
You can do multiple platform We can do multiple platforms.
See this is why, this is why it's good that
you're here to do all this. Well, we'll do the
next time we do that, we'll do it one day
next week. We'll put it on Instagram too for the
Instagram audience. You wanted me to answer some some questions
or address some comments we are getting in the chat,

(01:03:38):
the real time chat what up chat? All right, now,
it's hard for me to read these, so I'm gonna
have you read them. And it's hard for me to
read a number one on my on my laptop, Like
the font is I can't even I mean it looks
like it's tiny, right, it looks like what you would
see like an aspird bottle or something. So I need

(01:04:00):
you to read, filter them out, find the best ones,
and maybe throughout the course of the afternoon you could
read some of the comments or questions that you think
our best. Do you have any right now?

Speaker 6 (01:04:11):
All right? Yes, we got one from our friend Dulson
on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Dolson, Let's go Dolson. Thanks thanks for listening and watching.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
Do you think Pitch feels like the team is going
to have a better year this year and vastly improve
his options next year?

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yes? Hell yeah. Like if I'm Dan Pitcher, I go okay.
I got a quarterback who is gonna go through pretty
normal offseason. Maybe Joe's toe wasn't quite one hundred percent
at the end of the year, but I don't think
there's any reason to believe. You know, there have been
off seasons where you're wondering, all right, he's coming off

(01:04:45):
in injuries, rehaving an injury, that sort of thing. Obviously
that wasn't the case last year. Quarterback, normal offseason, all
the pieces in place, going into twenty twenty six, best
offensive line they've had in the Borough era. Uh yeah,
like our unit should be awesome. If our unit's awesome
and the defense is slightly better, we have a chance

(01:05:06):
to take off as a team. And I just Dana
and I were talking about this two weeks ago where
Dan was interviewing for the Buccaneers offensive coordinator gig and
I guess the motivation there was, I can call plays
in Tampa and I can get credit for the offense's
success that I can't necessarily get in Cincinnati. And maybe

(01:05:29):
there's validity to that, But the point was that maybe
being associated with Joe Burrow is holding Dan Pitcher back.
And I watched the Eric b Enemy saga unfold where,
for whatever reason, an offensive coordinator who wasn't tasked with
calling plays, just wasn't given quite the credit for how

(01:05:51):
that Chiefs offense took off once Patrick Mahomes became the quarterback.
Now I've heard Eric b Enemy has interviewed very, very poorly.
Whether or not that's true, I have no idea heard
that about other coaches like Mike Zimmer, and he ultimately
got his opportunity. I think though, number one, you saw
a very shallow pool of candidates this offseason. That's not

(01:06:13):
to say some of them won't go on to be
very good head coaches. But I don't know that there
was anybody that you were like, Wow, holy crap, boy,
wish wish the Bengals could hire that guy. And that's
in an offseason where John Harball was available. I'm not
sure that the pool of candidates is going to be
any deeper. You're probably going to have still anywhere from

(01:06:33):
five to six, seven, maybe eight teams looking for new
head coaches. Hell one of them might be the Bengals.
I just feel like if the team takes off this year,
he's going to be taken more seriously as a candidate.
Now at that point, it's on him, and it's on
him to interview well and make the right presentation and
maybe sell himself and have a clearly outlined vision for

(01:06:55):
what the organization's goals are going to be and how
he wants to get things done and all that. But
I don't know how there's a world where if the
Bengals are really good and the offense is a major
reason why, which I think most of us expect that
to be the case, where there's not some interest, like
serious interest. And by the way, if in the middle

(01:07:18):
of all that, Joe Burrow sprinkles some dust autumn and says,
you know what, don't want to lose my OC But
hell yeah, Dan Pitcher should be a coach that can't hurt.
So I think he has a better job than the
coach of the Cleveland Browns. Like there's young talent in Cleveland.
Tony talked about this often during the season. You know,

(01:07:38):
we'll see what happens with quin Shawn Judkins injury, but like,
I'd take that guy. I have some good players, still
have Miles Garrett, though he was posting cryptic messages on
Instagram after the Todd Munkin thing. But that's just an
organization that, for a variety of reasons just hasn't been
able to get out of its own way. Doesn't feel
like very good or stable ownership. They have cycled through

(01:08:01):
a whole bunch of coaches. That Deshaun Watson thing is
still a thing, and you know you're you're still in
a very The AFC North wasn't great this year, but
you're still in a competitive division with historically well run
franchises in Baltimore and Pittsburgh. Dan Pitcher has a great offense.

(01:08:25):
I know what Dan Pitcher. I know that the side
of the ball that Dan Pitcher is in charge of.
I know what they can be. The team that Todd
Munkins and part of a part of in charge of.
I know what they have been, and I'm skeptical about
what they can be. That was a good question, though
more throughout the course of the afternoon watching on Twitter

(01:08:45):
at Maleger, I don't want to do this, but it
came up on Sincy three to sixty, and it came
up briefly on my show today. You see won last night.
They're now eleven and ten, it has been suggested, and

(01:09:06):
don't overlook who they play on Saturday, a Houston team
that if you watched them last night against TCU just
played the quintessential Houston game, where like every time they
needed to make a play they did quite legitimately. The
team I hope wins it all this year. I wanted
them to last year, and they came damn close. I

(01:09:26):
admire the hell out of any program that in this
day and age can carve out an identity. But the
Bearcats have to play them on Saturday. Ain't gonna be easy.
And then the schedule does it eases up a tad.
Now you're still playing in the Big twelve, but you
get a stretch of games where you're going to play

(01:09:48):
starting on next Thursday at home. You're gonna play West Virginia,
who you lost to UCF, who you lost to. But
those games are here, Those are winnable games. You're gonna
go two Kansas State, who isn't great. You're gonna have
Utah come here, and then I hate to tell you,
then they have to go to Kansas and Texas Tech
and back to back games. But it does feel like

(01:10:11):
they've got some winnable games in front of them. I
don't even want to say. It feels like they're gonna
go in a little bit of a run. I have
seen it suggested on my social media feed. You know what,
if they could just win seven more, they've got a shot. Well,
if they win seven more, that puts them at eighteen

(01:10:31):
wins with thirteen losses. No two years are the same.
No two NCAA NCAA tournament fields or bubbles are the same.
But just as an illustration, West Virginia was one of
the last teams out last year. The Mountaineers finished with

(01:10:53):
a nineteen and thirteen record. They finished with a five
hundred record in the Big twelve twenty game schedule in
the twelve Last year ten and ten, the Mountaineers had
four Quadrant one wins. They had zero Q four losses.
They finished with a net rating of fifty. Their exclusion

(01:11:16):
from last year's tournament doesn't necessarily mean that any particular
school is going to be excluded this year, but their
net was fifty right now. Last I looked, Cincinnati's net
is in the seventies seventy four. The Bearcats do have
a Q four loss. They have just one Q four

(01:11:39):
win or Q one win like they're eleven and ten. Man,
there are nothing I want more than to sit here
one day and talk about the Bearcats NCAA Tournament chances
Number one from a basketball perspective. A team that has
struggled with consistency and has struggled on the offensive end
all season long. We're now we're putting them with wins

(01:12:01):
in seven of their last ten games. I hope they do.
They run the table. That'd be neat in the absence
of that. When they still have a schedule that plays
that has Houston, Texas, Tech, Kansas and BYU on it,
then you're gonna have to win one of those games
plus all the others. And then if you do that,

(01:12:25):
Eastern Michigan loss is not going away, and the math
is still going to be really, really hard. This is
not something we're gonna dwell on because they're eleven and ten.
Man Like, just at this point, just play better, more
consistent basketball. And I mean, we're not doing this with
Xavier right now. Xavier's got the same exact overall record
eleven and ten after losing last night, unfortunately, making the

(01:12:48):
tournament is just it's not happening this year. Man Like,
he get mad at me for saying it, and I'm
sure some will. It's gonna be a UC and zavior
less March madness this year and it pains me to
say that, But what looms over the entire conversation for

(01:13:08):
me is West Virginia not making it last year. And
you know there's always a team that is on the
outside looking in that people make the case for. I
looked at that and said, dude, you lost thirteen times,
win more games, and that was a team that didn't
have a Q four loss. There you go, there's the

(01:13:28):
cold water five point three seven four nine, fifteen thirty.
The face of the Reds is not Elie Dela Cruz
and it's not Hunter Green, and I can't wait for
that to change. Will make that make sense? Coming up
at five oh five on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 9 (01:13:45):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 8 (01:13:50):
Traffic from the UC Health Traffic Center With a stroke,
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(01:14:13):
minute to lay back from Kellogg on Kennedy Avenue. There
is an accident between Hill and Dale Drive and Woodford
Road on at Eazelic with traffic.

Speaker 6 (01:14:22):
Hey Alexa, who got cut?

Speaker 9 (01:14:24):
Getting ESPN fifteen thirty from iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Just hearing Steve Rawley do the weather, which the last
week or so, once the snow stopped. It's a little
bit like being a weather person in San Diego. Ever,
talked to a meteorologist in San Diego. Pretty easy gig
every day is seventy eight and sunny. Every day here
is like four degrees and cloudy, just brutal out I

(01:14:54):
as a rule, I don't we don't talk politics on
this show. Ever, I'm very proud of that there needs
to be places that people can go where they are
clear and free of a lot of the really lousy
stuff going on in the world and the real world
conversations that accompany that stuff. And this I pride myself

(01:15:17):
on being one of those places. But I will say
this very quickly that if any political candidate locally runs
on this platform of if your kid misses an entire
week of school because of whether and they're at home,
your employers should give you an extra week of PTO
any politician who runs on that platform, regardless of party,

(01:15:40):
gets my vote. I don't know about you, but that's
been our household every day, every day this week, Monday
and Tuesday got it, Wednesday, Eh, today tomorrow, especially because
I believe and we're in a very good district. Love
our teachers. But my understanding is that our district, the

(01:16:02):
teachers are there like they're there preparing for what's going
to happen when the kids come back. Why don't you
just have the you know, the kids back. So if
you were thinking about running for office nationally, locally, whatever
it is, and you want an official endorsement on this show,
run on that platform. If your child misses an entire week,

(01:16:26):
an entire week, which I'm certainly not complaining, but is
a little bit of a hassle when both parents work right,
kind of sprung on you suddenly. Uh you your employers
should be forced to give you an extra week of PTO.
And that's all I have to say about that. Uh

(01:16:54):
five point three seven four. I will take some phone
calls in the five o'clock hour. I absolutely promise, is
I make that guarantee to you. We do have folks
who are watching this right now on Twitter at Moeger
and we have more of their questions, comments and concerns
to get to Tarin during the breaks. I see that
you are putting on the screen a shot of downtown Cincinnati.

(01:17:15):
Is that live? Is that a live shot? It with
like ice on the Ohio River?

Speaker 5 (01:17:20):
It is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
It's very cool that you do that. I can't wait
to do this during the summer when that scenery is
a lot better. Where is that shot taken from? Uh,
somewhere in Kentucky. Somewhere in Covington. Ye, somewhere in Covington.
A shot of downtown is it like? Is it like
video or is it a picture so you could see
like barges going past and everything?

Speaker 6 (01:17:41):
Yes? Correct, very good.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Did you know that barge driver was the second occupation
I wanted after radio host? Looks awesome. Sitting in a
room driving a barge seems peaceful, seems nice. Maybe that's
my second career. Who knows? On the cold, no, I
would imagine like in the weather like this, it's it's

(01:18:04):
kind of crummy. Don't don't necessarily want to be doing that.
I'll complain more. I'm not complaining about the Hall of
Fame thing with Bill Belichick. I just I've gotten to
a point as somebody who has fallen into the trap
of believing that halls of fame are more important than
they are. I'm no longer stuck in that trap. So

(01:18:25):
you want to leave out my favorite athlete, leave my
favorite athlete, it ain't gonna change my mind. It's not
gonna make me mad or not gonna make me mad anymore.
More on that coming up, and we'll talk extensions on
ESPN fifteen thirty paid for by autodiscount Pops.

Speaker 1 (01:18:40):
To win one thousand dollars just entered this nationwide keyword
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Money. That's money entering.

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Now.

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No one coach the Bengals like ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati
Sports station.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
So I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't
do it often. The local newspaper columnist Jason Williams sports
columnist Jason Williams, who does a terrific job, works here
part time, does shows down the hall. Terrific guy, very
good columnist, was a great political reporter. He's answering a

(01:19:20):
letter about a letter to the editor that we referenced
last week. So the head of the Cincinnati USA Regional
Chamber wrote last week about it's time to forgive Phil Castellini.
It's time to move on, It's time to let go
of the bitterness and anger because of Phil's comments in

(01:19:41):
twenty twenty two, where are you going to go? Right?
And this is in the aftermath of Phil got booed
at a Xavier game where they introduced the partnership or
you know it kind of made public, celebrated the partnership
if you will, between the Reds and Xavier University and
Byron Larkin and Barry Larkin obviously did not get bood.
Phil Castellini did. And so there was a letter to

(01:20:06):
the editor by this Brendan call Guy, Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber.
And I know Brendan a little bit, and you know,
he made the point that the Reds do a lot
of great things in the community, and they stand for
a lot of good things, and hey, opening day is
supposed to Unitas and it's almost here. There was no
real mention of the you know, six months of baseball

(01:20:27):
every year that the Reds in recent history haven't been
good at and the lack of championships and the lack
of postseason advancement. But Okay, fine, And then so Jason's
writing about that today and it's a good piece. Go
read it, Cincinnati dot Com. Here should be a goal
And I was thinking about this while reading the piece.

(01:20:48):
There's nothing wrong with what Jason wrote, but go read
it for yourself. I'm not going to turn a column
into a show because we're not supposed to do that,
though we have in the past. Do you know who
the owner of the Golden State Warriors is? Off the
top of your head. Do you know, off the top
of your head, who the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers is?

(01:21:12):
Right now at the top of your head, who owns
the LA Dodgers, Off the top of your head, who
owns the Who's the Seattle Seahawks? Who owns the LA Rams.
The goal here for this franchise, whether it's right or wrong,
fair or not. The face of the Cincinnati Reds is

(01:21:35):
Phil Castellini. I don't say that disparagingly, but he's the
face of ownership, and with this franchise in particular, ownership
gets talked about a lot because when a team doesn't win,
ownership gets talked about a lot. I've been a Cincinnati
Bengals fan my entire life when they've been bad. Mike

(01:21:58):
Brown gets talked about a lot now, doesn't make himself public.
If there were a Bengals Xavier partnership they were introducing
that night, my guess is Mike wouldn't be the one
on the microphone neither, to be fair, was Bob Castellini.
But Phil is the face and voice of Red's ownership.
With when teams don't win, we talk about their owners

(01:22:20):
too much. A goal for this team should be this offseason, UH,
to get people talking more about the players on the field,
To get people talking more about the actual on field product,
to get people to feel so good about the brand
that ownership is never really a part of the discussion.

(01:22:40):
For the life of me and I bring up the
Brewers because they've kind of run this division this decade.
I couldn't tell you the name of their owner. I
don't care. Not a controversial person. A lot of owners,
maybe of successful teams, decide to be celebrity owners. Bob
Kraft does. Bob Craft's been a very successful owner. If
you have to put an owner in the Hall of Fame,
I'd say Heat is to be in. So does Bill

(01:23:01):
Belichick for what it's worth. But man by and large.
When I think of successful sports teams and their ownership,
I don't think of celebrities. I don't think of really anything.
I know, the Hunt family owns the Chiefs because the
Chiefs are among a handful of franchises that have been
owned by the same family for a very long time,

(01:23:23):
like the Rooneys, like the Browns, like the Hallas slash
McCaskey family in Chicago, like the Mayors in New York
with the Giants, and so you know, your your family
is a part of a franchise over so many generations.
Folks are gonna know. I can't say the last time
the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs made news for
doing anything other than being handed a trophy, because that

(01:23:48):
franchise even before they got mahomes and it's been pretty
successful on the field. So like that's how it changes.
Folks will probably always hold against Phil Casteline the opening
day comments from four years ago. It's it's it's it's
part of who he is. It's like booing yadi Air

(01:24:08):
Molina ten years after he fought Brandon Phillips. Right by
by then, you know, most kind of moved on from
Brandon Phillips versus YadA Air Molina. But you boot him
because you're kind of supposed to, by the way, folks
in Saint Louis did the same thing with Brandon Phillips.
You boom because this one thing happened and you're kind
of supposed to. But unfortunately with this franchise and this

(01:24:29):
offseason has been very quiet. Now that doesn't mean not productive,
because they've made the bullpen better, and I feel like
I have to keep mentioning that, so it sounds like
I'm I'm not, you know, just gratuitously banging on the Reds.
But overall, it's been a pretty quiet offseason. They haven't
addressed their biggest weakness right now. They're apparently in a

(01:24:51):
holding pattern, hoping the rest of the sport waits around
for them to figure out what their TV situation is
going to be. And then if they figure out what
their TV situation is going to be and there's some
money that they then can go try to get a bat.
We'll see. But in part because of the inactivity, in
part because of the losing, in part because Phil does
choose himself, or has historically less so over the last

(01:25:13):
couple of years, make himself a very public, forward facing
figure for the organization. It's kind of taken over as
the face of the franchise now. I think one might
argue pretty successfully that the face of the baseball part
of it is Tito Francona. There's some validity to that.

Speaker 6 (01:25:31):
To me.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
That's part of why I hire him, right, He's good
at delivering a message. Nick Crawl, not so much. Phil Castellini.
From a baseball perspective, maybe not so much. But the
goal should be for us to stop writing about talking
about reading about podcasting about ownership. There's only one way
that happens. If they win. We're not suddenly going to

(01:25:55):
start talking about how great ownership is all the time.
That's not how it works. You know, in Los Angeles
they talk about Shoe Heyo Tawny and Dave Roberts and
Mookie Betts. I don't know that they spend a ton
of Freddie Freeman. I don't know that they spend a
ton of time on ownership, maybe gloating about the financial

(01:26:20):
advantages they have. What I see or think successful franchise
I often the San Antonio Spurs were awesome for a
good fifteen year stretch, won five NBA titles. I couldn't
begin to tell you the name of their owner. I'd
have to strain myself to think about who was on

(01:26:41):
stage when they were getting handed the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
For the most part, with exceptions, well run franchises, the
most well known owners in sports dudes like James Dolan
nicks most of the century punchline. Although big win last night,
the HASLMS in Cleveland just a disaster. The dude who

(01:27:08):
you Daniel Snyder used to own the Commanders before then.
Obviously the Redskins. The longer they don't win, the longer
they're associated with the brand that they have, which is
don't go to the end of the earth to try
to win a title, the more ownership is going to
be talked about because of the public's reaction to it.

(01:27:33):
That's not going to change. It's not going to change
with one playoff appearance and two playoff losses to the
LA Dodgers. It's not going to change with a nice
eighty three win season. Not even sure it changes if
the reds are a little bit better this year. I
think it's going to change when folks feel like that
ownership is as invested as they are. It's going to

(01:27:55):
change when it if people who care about the Cincinnati
Reds look at this team and how it's run and
believe that, no matter what, ownership will do everything in
its power to deliver a World Series championship to Cincinnati.
And by the way, maybe they will. Right, Maybe they will,
And maybe they're working even harder for that to happen

(01:28:16):
than the public might perceive. And maybe they're more committed
than one may suggest they are. Maybe, But like it
or not, this is their brand. Like there are just
some things that from a public perspective, you can't get around.
Right now, you have a lot of college sports fans
who say I don't have the same connection with my

(01:28:37):
team because of all the player movement, and as long
as people feel that way, college sports as an institution
has a problem. Baseball, you have a lot of fans
who feel like, because of just the economics of the game,
my team has no chance. Maybe those people are wrong,
Maybe those folks should think, you know what, my team,

(01:28:59):
if it was more well run, made better financial decisions,
they would have a chance. But as long as you
have that enormous chunk of people who believe my team
has no chance, you know what you gotta that's reality
and you have to you have to work within that
reality when you talk about baseball's economics, and until things
change here where people feel like, you know what, ownership

(01:29:20):
isn't going to do everything it can to win, then
that's basically gonna be reality, and that's going to be
the brand, and that's what people are going to think
about when they react to the owner of the team
being at a public event. Might not be entirely fair.
To a degree it isn't like to a degree it isn't,
but that's not changing now. If things ever go the

(01:29:43):
other way, it ain't going to be like ownership is
going to be given large standing ovations every time it's introduced.
It's basically going to fade to the background. If the
face of your team, though, if the most talked about
figure is an owner, either there's a sale the team
going on, or there's probably losing outweighing the winning, or

(01:30:05):
there's a scandal. There's been no real scandal, been a
lot of losing a lot more than winning. When that changes,
the face of the team will not be the owner.
That should be the goal. Sixteen minutes after five o'clock
folks winning on hold one away, five one, three, seven,
four nine, fifteen thirty. We'll get you in eight sixty six,
seven oh two three seven seven six. More on the

(01:30:29):
college basketball from last night, and uh the I I
know the next time there's a Hall of Fame results
maybe even this coming week with the class of twenty
twenty six being unveiled, which is a week from tonight.
Uh in San Francisco. There's gonna be anger, it's gonna

(01:30:49):
be heated discussions, there's gonna be debates. Those things are
all really really fun, but we've got to stop attaching
more importance to a Hall of Fame than it deserves.
More on that coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati
Sports Station Block. On Twitter, we have how many folks
are watching right now? Tarren? How many people are watching?

Speaker 3 (01:31:08):
You're up to ninety four, nine hundred and forty four.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
What was that image you were showing? Live image that
you were showing during the break? Where was that from? Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:31:17):
That was from some camera up in matt Adams.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
So like, is that a thing? There's like live cameras
all over the city and we could just steal them
all over the world. Yes, all over the world thanks
to our friends of the earthcam. Wow, would it make
sense for us to find the earthcam like in Saint
Thomas or Tahiti or something to make people feel like
it's not negative five degrees out or whatever it is
right now?

Speaker 6 (01:31:39):
I think that is making me a you man.

Speaker 2 (01:31:41):
Yeah, probably probably some. We'll just remind everybody how miserable
it is outside. Our friend Jeff is in. Do we
have folks still participating in the chat? And are they
enjoying sitting here watching the show on Twitter?

Speaker 6 (01:31:52):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
There are some interesting comments in the chat. There are
always interesting comments in any chat. Are there any that
matter that? Are any that are Are there any that are
relevant into the show itself? Or are they just all
making fun of me?

Speaker 6 (01:32:04):
No? No, no, not making fun of them.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
It's okay if they are, trust me, trust me.

Speaker 6 (01:32:08):
There is one earlier that I wanted to get to
my friend since he Quinn.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
Since he Quinn five to one three.

Speaker 3 (01:32:15):
He said, I always pictured you doing this in a
smoke field room with a lit cigar.

Speaker 6 (01:32:19):
I'm disappointed.

Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
Well, it is a non smoking facility, unfortunately, Well not unfortunately,
it should be a non smoking facility. I don't know
that we have the proper ventilation in here to be
able to enjoy a cigar. But you know, I am
old enough to remember working with the great Andy Furman
and the before I really got into cigars, when I

(01:32:42):
was like in college, and I'd have to work on
Sunday mornings with Andy, but he would come in and
do the do Sunday morning sports talk with Tom Tinkle,
and Andy would sometimes bring in bagels and pastries and stuff,
but he would invariably enjoy a cigar while he was
doing the show. I'm old enough to remember working with
and doing remote shows at places like Reds Fest, like

(01:33:04):
the old Reds Fest, which is nowhere near as good
as the current Reds Fest. I remember once engineering and
producing a bunch of shows that he was doing from
like area Applebee's, and they still had a smoking section
and he would enjoy a cigar during the show. And
I'm envious to a degree of the fact that in

(01:33:24):
my career doing the show, it's I've not been able
to enjoy a cigar for the most part. That's We
did the show from the LPGA Golf tournament last year,
and that was the cool part about it was doing
the show outside and being able to enjoy a cigar.

Speaker 6 (01:33:39):
There is one place you can do.

Speaker 3 (01:33:40):
You can have a cigar into the show where your
backyard when it's warm.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
The backyard show would be fun. We've talked about doing that.
I've talked about doing the backyard Now we have a
live stream to incorporate.

Speaker 6 (01:33:52):
To man, but.

Speaker 2 (01:33:53):
Dude, do folks want to watch me sitting in my
backyard doing a radio show I'm gonna do. I'm gonna
do a backyard show next year. Uh Now, I mean
we need to be abundantly clear like that. That's not
that doesn't mean we're inviting a bunch of people I've
never met before over my house.

Speaker 6 (01:34:10):
No, no, no, no, like we don't.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
I don't need trust me. We we we most definitely.
I've had enough strangers visit my home already. We we are.
We are good there. But yes, this summer, we are.
This spring, We're gonna do it. I don't know if
we can do it during the summer when the equipment
might melt.

Speaker 3 (01:34:27):
But yeah, one of my biggest goals for this live
streaming is I want to I want to live stream
you guys one opening day wherever you're at at.

Speaker 2 (01:34:36):
Least Yeah, no, that I think we should make I
think that'd be fun. You know, we were typically we're
typically at Smoke Justice. I certainly hope we're back this year.

Speaker 6 (01:34:47):
Me too. There, I think we should.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
Do that and then live streaming. Yeah, right, that'll be
that'll be a goal for us. Well, you said, our
friend Jeff carr is in the chat. Has he had
anything to add.

Speaker 6 (01:34:57):
Yes, he said, points of your comment before the break.

Speaker 3 (01:35:02):
Phil also added to the idea of my team can't
win when he told the Rosie Rays the percentage of
teams who are out of the world serious attention on
opening Day.

Speaker 2 (01:35:12):
You know, I think Jeff, you're right, thanks for participating.
Bud Ceiling is in the Hall of Fame. And that's
you know, a pretty controversial, if you will, election, because
you know, the steroid guys, for the most part, have
been denied entry, but the commissioner during the steroid era

(01:35:35):
has been granted entry to the Hall of Fame. And
there were some really good things in large periods of
growth in baseball when Bud Sealing was the commissioner, and
some things he implemented that turned out to be pretty good.
But I think that Bud Ceilings, Bud Sealing's lasting legacy
in the sport is it was during his regime that

(01:35:56):
he almost went out of his way to convince baseball
fans that their team has no chance, to the extent
that he tried to tell fans in Minnesota, your team
is so ill equipped to win that we're going to
take it away. Remember when he tried to contract and
take away the Minnesota Twins. I'm grossly oversimplifying that situation,

(01:36:16):
but like that's that's that is to me, the legacy
he was commissioner from with ninety two to twenty fourteen.
When I think of that stretch, I believe he normalized
and started to put in people's heads, fans and owners,
the belief that your team has no chance. Many will

(01:36:38):
say that that is a misguided belief. Many will say,
all right, yeah, but look at all the small to
mid market teams that have had success. The Kansas City
Royals won a couple of or went to a couple
of World Series, won one. The Tampa Bay Rays have
been pretty consistent playoff teams. The Milwaukee Brewers continually have
teams in the postseason. And if you're in the postseason

(01:37:00):
and then you've got a shot. Even before Oakland A's
ownership essentially tank the entire franchise. They had a long
stretch where they were pretty good every year. The Pirates
had some success in the mid twenty tens where they
were at least in the postseason on a pretty frequent
basis for a couple of years. But I do believe this.

(01:37:22):
It's the biggest issue this sport has right now. Whether
it's a real issue or an imagined issue is irrelevant.
You have too many fans who feel like their team
has no chance. That's a fact. They may be wrong,
their perspective may be misguided, and believing that may may

(01:37:44):
allow some owners to get off the hook. Like I
think it's criminal how the Pittsburgh Pirates have been run.
It's criminal how the Oakland A's were run before they
moved to Sacramento, and which obviously will eventually be posting
up in Vegas. But you talked to a thousand baseball fans,

(01:38:05):
Maybe not the majority, but you're gonna get a huge
number of people who will say the biggest issue they
have in the sport is I feel like my team
has almost no chance. They may be right, they may
be a little bit off base, but that belief has
been fueled over the last number of decades by a

(01:38:27):
commissioner that went out of his way to communicate that
to a lot of fans, owners of teams who have
communicated that to their fans, and then you know results
like Kyle Tucker going to the two time defending World
Series champion. So the set it's the single biggest issue
the sport faces right now, and as as good as

(01:38:49):
so many of the you know, on field initiatives have been,
because the on field product right now in baseball truly
is awesome. It's great pitch clock, fewer pickoff throws, making
it more television friendly. We've got just a ton of
great stars right in their prime. We don't have as
many stodgy people talking about unwritten rules. We've kind of

(01:39:13):
gotten the game is global, like it is terrific on
the field. But I think for a lot of folks,
all of that is outweighed by the belief that their
team doesn't have a chance, doesn't have a chance for
like legitimate sustained success. You know, whether it's right or wrong, forever,
the Cincinnati Reds are going to be compared to the

(01:39:35):
nineteen seventies. It is often an unfair comparison, but they
were good for a decade, and really, if you go
into the early eighties and incorporate maybe the early sixties,
good for a really long time. There's a lot of
fans who feel like their team has no such run
in them. Think the Atlanta Braves in the postseason every
year from ninety one through two thousand and five as

(01:39:57):
a division winner. And we're using extreme examples, extraordinarily extreme examples,
but even a run like the Cardinals for twenty five
years relevant every single season. I didn't feel like here
when the Reds got really bad in the mid twenty tens,
which they were after they made the postseason in ten, twelve,
and thirteen, they ended up being wretched for essentially the

(01:40:18):
rest of the decade. And you had fans then who
just said, well, this is the cost of being good
for a couple of years, you have to be this
bad now. I don't believe that to be the case.
I don't believe that you have to go through years
of not being relevant if you're good for a couple
of years. I think that is woefully off base. But

(01:40:39):
as long as a lot of your customers or potential
customers believe that that's the case, you've got a problem.
And so this is not something I planned on talking
about today. But we're gonna go through this season coming up.
Hopefully here it goes well. We'll see if the Reds
get back to the postseason. But we are looking at

(01:40:59):
the possibility of a really, really long workstoppage and what
its result is going to be. My guess is using
history as a guide as the owners don't get what
they want. But I believe what is inescapable for both
sides is what I just talked about. There's tons of

(01:41:21):
people who love the game played it, love the ballpark experience,
want to jump in with both feet into every single season,
want to believe their team, if things go their way,
if they're well run, has a chance to win. I

(01:41:41):
hate the fact that people feel that way because I
feel like it bails out teams that aren't successful. It
bails out teams that don't try. It bails out teams
that are content to just sort of be mediocre. But
people do feel that way, and that is inescapable, and
it's a huge problem. So is my time management because

(01:42:01):
I'm late one thousand views, one thousand views. We've hit
one thousand views. Is that good? Like one thousand views
at a time. There are one thousand twenty people watching it.
There's more than a thousand people watching me talk about
baseball's economics, seated here in a studio by myself.

Speaker 6 (01:42:18):
Yes, wow, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
Thank you. Yes, I'll look at the camera. Thank you,
Thank you for watching, in for listening to ESPN fifteen
thirty and Mullwegger on Twitter.

Speaker 7 (01:42:32):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 8 (01:42:36):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center with a stroke
rapid life saving treatment and clinical trials. You see help
ucehealth dot com. Southbound seventy five, the left two lanes
are blocked off from an accident approaching Norwood Lateral. There's

(01:42:56):
a thirty five minute delay back from Shepherd Lane. Emergency
chrus have moved that crash south to get it out
of the contraflow lane. In Columbia Parkway accident at Delta Avenue.
I'm at ezelic with.

Speaker 7 (01:43:08):
Traffic in Natty sports station ESPN fifteen THIRTYUS sports headlines.

Speaker 2 (01:43:14):
There are none in the sports headlines right now. I
checked if there were sports headlines, they would be a
service of Kelsey Chevrolet Home of lifetime powertrain protection and
guaranteed credit approval from their family to yours for life
kelseyshev dot com. I will say this. I was asked
to issue this reminder. The West Miller Radio Show is

(01:43:37):
tonight at eight o'clock on seven hundred WLWS. You probably
know that show is typically broadcast from the original Montgomery In,
but because of renovations to the original Montgomery In, the
West Miller Radio Show is being moved to the studio.
So tonight at eight o'clock, you'll still have Dan, you'll
still have Terry, you'll still have West. I'll still be

(01:43:59):
talking about UC basketball, but you're not going to be
able to hang out with them, you know what. That's
maybe Dan and Terry will let you come up to
the studio. I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:44:09):
Maybe the stream.

Speaker 2 (01:44:10):
Maybe they'll live streams. They do that for the Richard
Patino Radio Show. Have you noticed that? Yes, they do.
They do a live stream on Is it on Twitter?

Speaker 6 (01:44:19):
Facebook?

Speaker 2 (01:44:19):
It's they put it on Facebook. Yes, So like everybody's
crabby sixty eight year old uncle could watch the Richard
Patina Radio Show. That's cool, So we're kind of like
them or are they kind of like us? So yeah,
maybe they'll maybe they'll stream it. I have no idea,
but anyway, you are certainly more more than encouraged to
go to the original Montgomery In, which frankly sounds amazing

(01:44:40):
right now, but there will be no West Miller Radio show.
So now you can go to the original Montgomery In
and bring a listening device like the iHeartRadio app, and
as long as you're not bothering the other patrons there,
you can listen to the show that they do in
studio in studio while enjoying some ribs or they're amazing
pork chops could go a gigantic vat of Sarah tooga

(01:45:01):
chips right now. The point is this no West Miller
show tonight at the original Montgomery End, but it is
on from eight to nine on seven hundred WLW. As
they talked about last night's U See victory over Baylor
and the Bears and Dan Skillings no Dan Skillings revenge
game last night. By the way, speaking of the iHeartRadio app,

(01:45:26):
if you missed yesterday, we had Chase Brown and t
Higgins on the show. Chase and T talked about contract
extensions and more. We also had a very good interview
with Sam Brookhouse from SUMER Sports. He joined us from
the Senior Bowl practices in will be able to talk
about some early Bengals draft storylines and Rick Boring on you.

(01:45:50):
I was gonna say in UK on Xavier and NKU basketball,
we should have gotten a UK guest. We shot to
call Matt Jones yesterday because tag bb and understandably so
having a meltdown after getting throttled by Vanderbilt on a
Tuesday night. All of that and so much more on
the iHeartRadio app tomorrow on the show The Off Season

(01:46:14):
Rundown with James Rapine the studio, he is gonna be,
He's gonna be on the phone. What does what he's doing?
He can make a trip up here, he can tarn However,
because schools are never going to reopen again, I will
be broadcasting from my house, gotcha, Because schools are not

(01:46:38):
going to reopen until it's at least sixty degrees.

Speaker 6 (01:46:41):
Are you bring your daughter to work day if you
really wanted to?

Speaker 2 (01:46:46):
Yeah, you know, my dad would bring me to work
when I was a kid, and I never liked it
like that. Other kids would like I get to go
to work with my mom or dad, Like I would
do that, Like I got like fifty years of my
life to go to work. Well, why why why do
I want to be here when I'm eight? But in

(01:47:06):
a pinch I have. I had to bring her to
Twin Peaks toward the end of the season because I
think we had a snow day and she was very good,
and I asked her, like, was that fun? She's like
got a bowl of ice cream out of it. Other
than that, wow, And tomorrow is National Fun at Work Day.
National Tomorrow is National Fun at Work Day.

Speaker 6 (01:47:26):
Yes, wow, the last Friday in January.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
I had no idea. So anyway, James Rapine and I
you'll like this, Tarran. I've asked the folks at Miami
if they'll get us Ron Harper, oh, because he's being
honored at their game on Saturday. I believe a five
time NBA champion Lakers, that's right, and a fun follow

(01:47:50):
on Twitter too, Like he'll come at folks. So if
anybody wants to send tweets to Ron Harper asking him
to come on the show tomorrow to talk about the
Red Hawks. And he's getting an honorary degree at Mallett
Hall on Saturday. That would be awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:48:06):
Son, Dylan, this is phenomenal.

Speaker 2 (01:48:08):
Yes, yes, we're talking about him too. So maybe we'll see.
I'm not promising, I'm not very hopeful, but we have
asked if perhaps, if not, we'll reach out to former
New York Nick Derek Harper.

Speaker 6 (01:48:24):
I think what Wally's erbiak is doing, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:48:28):
Wally's erbiak, this is before you produce. When Charlie Coles
passed away. The only person to talk to that's not fair,
but like the person to talk to, like the person
you wanted to hear from most was Wally's Rbiak. And
I think I think Lindsay Patterson was producing the show
at the time, and I think she just sent him

(01:48:48):
a tweet like, Wally, you want to come on? And
he was. He you know, you hate it that it
was those circumstances, but Wally could not have been nicer.
Came on, talked about his coach, talked about Charlie's impact
on him, and you know, told stories of playing for
him in the ninety nineteen that went to the Sweet sixteen.
And that was cool. But it'd be cool to have
Ron Harbor on the show We'll See You'll Hear Chad

(01:49:10):
Brendle next on ESPN fifteen.

Speaker 9 (01:49:12):
Thirty Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 8 (01:49:16):
Traffic from the UCE Health Traffic Center with a stroke,
ucehealth dot com. Northbound seventy one after reading road right,
two lanes blocked off from an accident that involving a
down to utility pull. Some big delays right now back

(01:49:39):
from Fort Washington, Waite southbound seventy five. Another accident blocking
the right lane approaching Norwood Lateral. I'm at ezelic with traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:49:48):
Mis Ripe on BC Sports, finalizing a deal with Joey
Votos to join US MLB coverage in twenty twenty six.
Chad Brandelparcadjournal dot com. I'll run this past ja UC
wins last night. It's been a frustrating season. One of
the things that frustrated to me, and maybe you disagree,
is this team is pretty good defensively.

Speaker 10 (01:50:07):
Yes, at times, Okay, I think I think the thing
that's been interesting for me this year is it's much
different than we've seen UCB defensively over the past thirty
five years. Like it hit is a lot more. They

(01:50:29):
have been great defensively over the years because their team defense,
the communication, the assignment, the scouting report, whatever, has been
awesome under Mick under Hugs at times, you know, most
of the West is run. The defenses have been really good

(01:50:50):
this year. It feels like there's more elite individual talent defensively,
but not as much of that cohesion. So that's why
you see the breakdowns against Arizona State, you know, the
second half against Arizona it doesn't feel like they're connected
at times, but there's more individual like Bob. Bob's been

(01:51:14):
outstanding defensively. Buck Harris is really good defensively, Dada's really
good defensively. Like they've got really good individual defenders. It
feels like, and maybe this is just a nature of
college basketball in twenty twenty six. These guys haven't played
together for a long time, so some of that communication
and the natural like understanding of where your teammate is

(01:51:38):
going to be has dipped a little. But the individual
talent defensively has been awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:51:45):
Do they have a prayer on Saturday in Houston.

Speaker 10 (01:51:50):
No, they had their chance against Houston and they missed it.
That's generally how this goes, right, Like when you play
one of these elite teams, and if especially when you
play him twice, they're not gonna let you get a
second bite of the apple. Cincinnati was up ten down
the stretch against Houston and they didn't get across the

(01:52:13):
finish line, especially going down there. I don't have a
lot of faith in them, you know, making this a
great game down to the wire type situation, because the
same thing I mean, just don't think they're good enough
offensively against Houston to sustain that for a second time

(01:52:39):
and play like they did back at the beginning of January.
I mean, you know, stranger things have happened, but that one.
Usually you get one shot when you're in a position
like Cincinnati in the fifties, sixties, in the metrics, you
get that one shot to take that team down the
second time around. Usually reality sets back in.

Speaker 2 (01:53:05):
I fear that was the answer, But I agree when
you have played twenty one games and like now, you
know attrition continues to be an issue. Seanabayev, that didn't
look like an injury that's gonna have him miss just
a game or two. Just watching him on the bench
in a boot, needing crutches, and so I'll assume that
at least in the short term, the fix isn't going

(01:53:25):
to come with, you know, him going through an offensive
a period of growth offensively that they can benefit from.
You've played twenty one games, your offensive issues have been
well established. You want to go on a run here
post Houston because they play some teams that are beatable,
including one they had on the ropes in UCF who
comes here next weekend. For them to go on a run,

(01:53:45):
they're going to have to achieve a level of offensive
efficiency that they haven't yet all season long, in the
absence of some dude coming in that maybe played for
the Chicago Bulls last year or something. How does that happen?

Speaker 10 (01:54:00):
The problem is what we've talked about for a long
time with these guards.

Speaker 2 (01:54:05):
Ma.

Speaker 10 (01:54:06):
You know, there are times Gisel James and Dade Thomas,
you feel like, hey, we had a lot of big
twelve games with these two, but ultimately they're inefficient players.
They don't get to the rim, they don't take a
lot of layups, they don't take a lot of shots
at the rim, they don't get to the free throw line,

(01:54:27):
and they shoot a lot of long mid range jumpers,
long twos and like. The analytics have become popular for
a reason. That reason is because they're usually statistically correct.
That's how analytics work. When you're not getting to the line,
when you're not taking a bigger number of shots at

(01:54:49):
the rim, and instead you're replacing them with seventeen to
twenty foot two point attempts, like the odds are eventually
going to catch up to you. And it feels like
that's why over the last three years we have not
seen this team be able to string together a four
to five game run right where they go four and
one or you know, five to zero and really gain

(01:55:11):
some momentum in the Big twelve. It's a lot of
play well for two or three games and then dip
for two or three games, then play well for two
or three games, and then dip for three or four games.
And a lot of that is because offensively they're just
not efficient. The brand of offense is not up to

(01:55:32):
par up to snuff in the modern era. They do
a lot of things that you know, the smart basketball
minds of twenty twenty six are no longer doing and
that's not changing this year, and that's going to make
it hard to get on any sort of extended run
to make it feel like there is a chance for

(01:55:53):
this team to turn a corner.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Awesome as always, Man, Thanks so much. Thanks, Well, gotta
go have a great night. Thanks to Terran for listening. No, well,
he listened. Thanks to Terran for producing. Thanks to you
for listening. We're back tomorrow and what a great ending.
Thanks for watching as well. This is ESPN fifteen thirty.

(01:56:17):
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