4/5/24 - The Mo Egger Show w/ Chad Brendel

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In fifteen thirty. Here we go. It's a Friday, O Laggers not

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here. Where is he? Idon't know where he is, but I
do thank you for choosing me.We have a great show today, a
great Friday show to take you intothe weekend, one of my favorite weekends

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of the year, Final four weekend. And really for the first time,
Tarn there might be more juice ofthe women's Final Four than the men's,
no question. Now, I dothink they could have bracketed a little better

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and had LSU in that bracket thatNorth Carolina State came out of. Maybe
North Carolina State still comes out ofit. But boy, if you had
Yukon and Iowa and then South Carolinaand LSU tonight you talk about hype.

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But the Women's Final Four is isfascinating tonight fascinating. Yeah, I was
just telling so I was just tellingDaving here, I don't know what to
watch smack down the Final four tonight. Yeah, I mean I will.
I will have the reds on becauseI have the reds on, but I

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will be clicking back and forth likethat that Iowa is that the second game?
Iowa Yukon? Yeah, Iowa.You say, thank goodness. I
mean, I will click back andforth and check on South Carolina n C
State. I think South Carolina winsthat one relatively comfortably. I just think
they have a better What Don Staleiahas done is incredible with that program.

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They're long, they're athletic, theyreally defend. They don't have like the
star this year that you know Yukonand Iowa and LSU had, But they
have the best team. They're undefeated. I think that speaks for itself.
But that nightcat Boy, who CaitlinClark, Page Beckers, and I'm fascinated.

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I want to think Yukon wins thatone. Taran, We'll get into
this later and I'll lean on youbecause you are much more knowledgeable about the
women's game than me. At somepoint. The all the injuries that Yukon
have to catch up to them eventually, having Paige can't be enough. Like
they have their starting five basically,and that's it, right, Yeah,

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So that's that's tough. But watchingCaitlin Clark and Pagebackers go at it is
going to be outstanding tonight. SoI'm looking forward to that. We get
the men's final four tomorrow. Myguy Danny Hurley looking to go back to
back. I sent him a goodluck little note before the tournament started.

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You know what? He ended hisnote to me back with what was it?
Who Day? Every time I texthim, the last two words he
tweets in the text start return texStar who Day? No matter what?
So that's gonna be really really interesting. I like both of the games.

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Purduance he state, I think isso uh, you know, David Goliath
type in terms of where the twoteams came from this season. I want
to see the national revolt that happenstearing if DJ Burns gets two fouls in
the first five minutes. America lovesthat man, and rightfully so. Did

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you see all the NFL talked hecame out. He's like, I'm not
interested in playing football, bro,Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm
a basketball player. He has escalatedme, like he's escalated at the college
basketball level. Yeah, remember Iescalated. Could do all that stuff right,

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the great footwork, like it didn'tmake any sense for a guy his
size to be that nimble and topass and dribble and move the way that
he does. There's a whole lotof escalating DJ Burns, but him against
Zach Edy is fascinating. Can theNC State guards speed up the Purdue guards
because that, you know, comeinto this run has been the bugaboo of

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Purdue, is speeding up their guardsand getting them out of their comfort zone.
Teams have not really been able todo that in this tournament. So
that's gonna be the fun part ofthat game. And then I just think
Yukon Alabama is fascinating because Alabama doesn'tcare. They're trying to get the ninety

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like they don't care if you score. Can Yukon defend well enough to take
Alabama out of what they want todo and if not, I think that's
a game that you're going to seein the final you know, final five
minutes come down to the wire.Now, if Yukon's defense gets Alabama out
of sorts, then I think itcould be another uh oh, Yukon's on

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a nineteen to one run and thisgame's over tarn If they win the championship,
we are going to have to havesome serious conversations about what Yukon has
done the last two years. Yes, it might be the most dominant team
of all time. I have thetournament. Yeah, I have said they
have Through the last ten games,they have been more dominant than anyone in

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NCAA tournament history. It's been themost dominant ten game stretch in tournament history.
The closest game is thirteen. Theaverage margin of victory over ten tournament
games is almost twenty three points.So as a college basketball junkie, I'm

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really really excited for what we're goingto get to see tonight, Tomorrow,
Sunday, and Monday. I thinkit's going to be a fitting end to
the college basketball season. Reds backin action tonight they take on the New
York Mets. I believe the rosteris out. We're City connect tonight.

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I think, yeah, yep,see, you can act India leading off,
Steer in left, batting second,in Carnacia and Strand at first,
batting third. Candelario, after ascary looking incident with his arm his elbow
on Thursday, is back as theDH. He's not at third in the

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field, but back is the DH. So that's a really good sign.
Fair Child and center batting fifth,de La Cruz batting six, playing shortstop,
Santiago Espinal at third, Will Bensonand Wright, and then Luke Meley
catching Hunter Green on the mound.I know everybody is piling on Hunter and

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wanting to see more and demanding tosee better pitch efficiency, and yes,
that that has to happen as thisseason progresses. I'm not overly going to
freak out about the first couple startsof the year as he is rounding into
form. But if we're three fourstarts down the road, eventually, eventually

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you are what you are. Andso far through his career as a starting
pitcher in the major leagues, HunterGreen is a guy that throws too many
pitches. He is a guy thatcannot comfortably get through the fifth inning and
into the sixth inning without you lookingat his pitch count and it being near

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one hundred. Will I overreact tonightif he's pitched inefficient, No, I
won't. But the data points arepiling up and it's got to be something
that we start to see improvement andconsistency on. And if not, guess

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what, then he's probably not atop He's probably not a top of the
rotation starter. He's probably more likea third or fourth starter with great stuff,
but not a guy you can putat the top of your rotation and
say, go give me six gogive me seven and get me to the
bullpen. So we'll talk some Redstoday. We'll talk about the Mets coming

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in. They just last night wontheir first game of the season. They
went thirteen innings without a hit inbetween a split doubleheader. He was the
longest stretch in Mets history consecutive inningswithout a hit. I worry a little
bit that they did get a winand kind of get that monkey off their

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back because sometimes you have that struggle. But the Reds have to do to
the Mets what teams have done tothe Reds, like four out of the
past five or six years, wherethey got off to a slow start and
teams didn't let off, teams justbare read them and they ended up three
and twenty two or whatever it wasa couple of years ago. So it

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is very important for this Reds team, especially You've got a really difficult stretch
coming up, starting right at theend of this month and into May.
You've got to build a little alittle cushion because things are gonna get tougher.
The competition's gonna get tougher. It'sgonna be a lot harder to hit
two home runs back to back withtwo outs in the bottom of the ninth

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as this goes on, the wayyou do that is you rack up wins
over bad teams. Their bets rightnow are a bad team. The other
thing I want to kind of getto the Stefan Diggs trade. The Bengals
now are looking at being in asimilar situation as the Chiefs and the Bills

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once they paid Mahomes and Josh Allen, and there are tough financial decisions that
have to be made for the Chiefs. What did that mean? It meant
moving on from Tyreek Hill for theBills. Now it means moving on from
Stefan Dicks for the Bengals. Alittle different scenario, but it looks like

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it probably means they're going to haveto move on from t. Higgins.
Why does Kansas City do that withcomfort? Because they know how good Patrick
Mahomes is. The Bills might bewrong in their estimation of Josh Allen and

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if he is good enough to beable to win without a guy like Stefan
Dicks. We found out last yearMahomes is good enough. We'll find out
this year Allen's good enough. Anddown the road we're gonna find out if
Burrow is good enough, but youknow what's on the Bengals and the Bengals
front office, they know what's coming. They have seen this play out in

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multiple markets. They know the moneyis not going to be there to just
load up on elite skill guys likethey were able to do in Burrow's rookie
contract. So it is now onthem to do better than Kansas City did
when it came to replacing Tyreek Hill. They have to be ready via the

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draft, via talent acquisition that whenthese moves happen, they're not left scrambling,
They're not left with You know,yes, the Chiefs won the Super
Bowl, but guess what happened throughoutthat season Last year? Their wide receiver
play was a disaster arriable. Nowthey have championship pedigree and they figured out

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how to go get another ring.But they did a bad job replacing Tyreek
Hill Taran. When you look onthat Bill's roster, do you think they'll
be fine without Stefan Diggs? Nope? I don't either. You know what
they don't have, they don't haveTravis Kelce. So the Bengals front office
has to know the storm is coming. Am I just gonna stand in the

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storm and wait for lightning to hit. Or am I gonna build a shelter?
Am I gonna have protection for whenthese things happen? Because they are
going to happen. Are they ready? And if not? How important is

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this draft for them to get ready? Because guess what odds are, although
I don't know, things might be. Odds are Tyler Boyd's not going to
be here. He was an importantpart of that offense. Next year,
Odds are t Higgins won't be here. He was a vital part of that
offense. Yes, Jamar Chase isawesome, He's not good enough to do

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it alone. So will they beready? Are they learning their lesson looking
at the two teams that are rightthere with them and what that has shown?
I think it's a valid question.Let's take a break. When we

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come back, let's talk some Redssolid start four and two, they've won
two series. Always good to havethat first week go well, Bone lines
are open five, one, three, seven, four, nine, fifteen
thirty back after this Cincinnati's ESPN fifteenthirty. We're going party Friday. Today,

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we're starting off party all again.I had another I had a d
M the other day. Uh,let's see what it was. It was
about something else, but it didsay in the interview or in the message

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how much that they loved listening toour our bumper music. Well, thank
you where you are well, Arran, whoever that is, I can't I
can't find it right now, butthank you. I appreciate you. The
Rats four and two. They havetaken down two teams that are the Phillies

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supposed to be good, Terran,you don't know, and I don't think
they're I think the Nationals are goingto be bad. I think the Phillies
are going to be maybe a teamthat hovers around five hundred. They're not
going to be very good. RightWhen you have these opportunities, you need

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to take advantage of them. Sofar, the Reds have done that.
They have another one coming in withthe Mets. The starting pitching has been
uh, pretty solid in terms ofwhat you would expect through the first six
games, and it looks like Nicolodolois going to be back next week.
I think you feel pretty good thereoutside of really one blow up from Alexis

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Diaz. The bullpen has been good. They're averaging right around five runs a
game. These are all very positivedevelopments for this Red's team. They are
still dealing with, you know,some injury issues, waiting to get some

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guys back. Unfortunately, Matt McClain, it doesn't seem like that's going to
be anytime soon. But like Isaid, Lodolo is expected back. He
would hope Freedel is back by theend of the month, and you start
kind of getting back to having thatdepth that you felt like was going to
be a strength of your team.You're also in a situation with Lodolo.

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He's going to be and started backinto the starting rotation. And the guy
that would make the most sense isNick Martinez because he has experience in the
bullpen, kind of going to thebullpen and be in your Swiss army knife,
which he has been good at inthe past. A guy where you
know, maybe your starter runs outof gas with two on and one out
in the fifth and he can bridgeyou through the rest of the fifth,

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the sixth, and the seventh,get you to the eighth inning to where
you don't don't burn up three armsthat day. So you're starting to stack
some wins. You've won the firsttwo series, you have this this series
with the Mets coming up. TheMets have been dreadful, and you have

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a chance to continue to capitalize onwhat has been a pretty solid start.
And I think especially when you lookat this three game series with the Mets,
then you have the Brewers in town. I think for four, right,

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it's a seven game homestand yeah,so you get the Brewers for four
next week Monday through Thursday. Andthe Brewers have started off well their form
one. I we'll see how thatholds up since they, you know,
got rid of a lot of talentat the top of their roster. But

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I think the most important thing todate, and we experienced this a season
ago, was that you didn't startthe season off already over overworking, over
using, over relying on your bullpento save you. What we have not

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seen so far is a starter gothree and a third. You know,
a guy only able to give youtwo innings. And they did that in
stretches far too frequently last year,and you had a good bullpen. But

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what you do is in stretches whenthat happens. If you have a two
week stretch where your starters can't geta whole lot of death, then all
of a sudden, your bullpen spendstwo weeks saving the starting rotation, and
then what happens at the end ofthat two weeks. Your bullpen is gassed

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for a week or two. Thenyou're playing catchup. Now you're playing catch
up, and that's when, allof a sudden, you see one of
these runs over three weeks where youonly win five games. And I think
the positive that we can take fromthis to date, And look, we
did this with the first week ofspring too, right, Remember the first

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week of spring the starters were dominantand we started getting a little pie eyed,
and then over the next two weeksthey got their brains kicked in a
little bit, and all of asudden, we weren't talking as much about
starting pitching as we were before.But if this is a solid quality rotation
with a little bit of depth,you know, a couple guys behind those

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first five that if a guy's gotto miss a couple weeks and shoulder tightness
or you know it tweaks a muscleor something, that there's enough depth that
you're not going down and pulling upguys from Triple A that really have no
business here. I think we wouldagree for the first time in a couple
of years. This is a startingrotation with all you know, pretty quality

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MLB starting talent. If they canrepeat what they've done this week. I
really like where this Reds team sits, at least through the first month of
the season, and then it getsreal once you get to May. Don't
go look at that May schedule.Don't do it. It's not good for

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your health. Just enjoy April rightnow. Taren, don't do it,
Tarren, No, Tarran, Taren, don't do it. All right,
I gotta I gotta go console,Terran. We're gonna take a break.
We'll be back after this. SinceNati's ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN.

(22:38):
This Foor guy who's waiting on holdof I know, I figured as much.
I figured as much, little littlefunk, A big funk guy.
The funny thing is, if yougo back to the Funk era, you
hear every rap song you've ever listenedto in your life. Yeah, it's

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all in there. That's have youseen some of those TikTok accounts. That's
like, you know a parent anda child where the child is like,
our music's hot, and they'll playit and the parent just looks at him.
And turns on like the original.The kid looks at him like,
how do you do that? Everytime? Nothing's new anymore? That's hip

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hop? Hip hop? Yeah,it's nothing's new anymore. That's why Dayla
Soul wasn't streamed for two decades,because they just didn't want to fight the
fight that it took to get allthat music on streaming. What would you
have done if MO and I bothwould have came in here today, Tarren,
That'll have been one hell of ashow. Honestly, do you think

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we should have done the show together? Yes? At least an hour?
Okay, and then one of youflip a coin decided who's going home?
But at least the hour. Hewould have been so mad. I mean,
he would have been mad mad ifI if I, if he didn't
know and I showed up and thenI pulled out the schedule, and I

(24:06):
was like, it says that Iworked today. MO would have been on
a heater. Would you agree?I would agree, But but I think
I a thought that would have mademost job. He's like I said,
you would have had no problem stayingfor at least an hour. Yeah,
but you know him, he wouldjust go home, just go it's fine,
go home, he did. Igot it. Now he gets to
enjoy an actual off day. Andhe did bring up when in his tweet

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about being off today. Uh,he did bring up one of the best
things, and that is that,like post, you know, you get
up, you get the kid offto school, and then you know you
might have like an hour or twowhere you don't have anything to do,
and you get that post kid isgone like little siesta in h So good,

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so good. If you're if you'renot, if you're not a parent,
you just don't understand. Let's goto the phones. Mike in l
A, Mike, what's going onmy brother? Uh, breadings from the
Low Coast gentlemen, what's up?Did you like like a little pfunk there?
It was very much appreciated, bro, Thank you, team, appreciate
that. Chad Antique appreciated big time. What's on your mind? Brother?

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Well, in case you don't know, and I am not an East Coast
fan of any teams of any kind, but uh, it's Philad Healthia team
is going to be right there barking, barking on somebody's heels in the playoffs.
When it comes to it, doyou think so, oh my god,
they got the same team they hadlast year, same pitching stamps together.

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I don't and most of the guysI've heard on MLB A couple of
them picked them to win. Soso yeah, that's it makes the win
for the series that much more impressive. Man. Sure, especially now with
more balance scheduling. If they aregoing to be a team that that's a
playoff team. Every time you canwin a series against a potential playoff team,

(26:03):
that's that's a good That's a verygood thing. That's what I thought.
Now, what's weird about this seriescoming up? Jed? Oh,
by the way, how are youand your family doing? Uh? Yesterday
sucked, but uh, you know, I'm up and at him and in
a good mood today, so uhwe're doing what we can. It was
Uh, for those that don't know, yesterday was the one one year anniversary

(26:25):
of my wife passing. Uh.It was not a fun day, but
you know, we we we persevered. Uh, the daughter and I hung
out all day and we had agood day and we battled through it.
Well. I sincerely hope it doesn'tyou know, bother you when I bring
it up, but I feel somerespect to you. That it's only there

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because it's a big damn deal.It's a really big damn deal, Mike.
It sucks. The nice thing isis this does give me uh an
outlet to kind of uh not notthinking about it as much. You know,
I just finished lunch with some withsome soft shells and seven eleven crab.

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Uh Uh you got crab from sevento eleven. Yeah, that's just
some own crab seven spots on oneside or on the other. Yeah.
I had it with and Dow anice gumbo. Man, it was.
It was killer down some little holein the wall joint in San Clemente.

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It was pretty cool. Hey,what's weird about this Red Series with the
Mets is? You know, theMets are they get the third rated pitching
staff with a with a two pointthree seven e R the probably enough Boston
The Red Sox are the only teamsub to may get a one point five
four ERA so far, the RedSox. But uh, but then the
Mets are last and hitting at pointone seven three. So there there is

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their woes. I suspect right this, Yeah, that's their offense has been.
I mean, they didn't get ahit for thirteen inning yesterday, Mike.
Yeah, thirteen innings and Sandy Kopekwasn't pitching last I checked, right,
Yeah, exactly what I'm saying.I'm really jacked up for this tournament

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like you probably are this week.I love it. I think it's I
think it's a lot of good basketball. I had this weekend. I did
too, and I found the statthat I thought you might find interesting.
Who. Well, it's a littlebit of a trivia. Who do you
think has the most Actually Mo gotthis the other day, but I was
going to test you. Who hasthe most points scored in the NCAA tournament

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over their career and it's played fourhundred points. The first name that comes
to mind would be Later, you'rethe man bro ding ding ding ding Give
me some sound, give me alittle sound too. Yeah, that's I
mean, he played in He playedin a lot of tournament games. I

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got over four years. He playedin a lot of tournament games, and
anymore. If a guy was thatgood, he wouldn't he wouldn't be there
four years like he you know,two years maybe and he would be off
to the league. So yeah,that one he was. He's a jerk.
He's a damn good college basketball player. Yeah. And but here's what's

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ironic and brings it back to Cincinnati. Oscar roberts played in I'm going to
read it to you. There havebeen eighty NCAA tournaments since nineteen thirty five,
and the only face looks I'm atthe rosspots Uh. Oscar Robertson scored
eighty percent of the point total thatLatner had, and he in less than

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half the games from fifty eight tosixty. He played from fifty eight to
sixty late and had fourth year Oscarscored eighty percent of the of that saying
of his point total, which islike Oscar's is like three sixty four.
And I just always think that peoplejust that aren't my age just don't have
a clue how unusual Oscar Robertson wasat that time. It's interesting you bring

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that up, Mike, and Igotta, I gotta let you go here
in a second. But Oscar hadthree thousand points right at three just I
think just a tick under three thousandpoints for his collegiate basketball career. The
next best Cincinnati Bearcat is Sean Kilpatrick, who was like twenty one hundred twenty
two hundred. Sean played four yearsyep, and thirty five games a year.

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Essentially, Oscar played three years atlike twenty eight to thirty games a
year. They didn't have as manygames in the regular season, the postseason
wasn't as long. There weren't conferencetournaments to pad your to to continue to
add and compile your numbers. Oscardid all that in three seasons. Think

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about a guy that's a thousand pointsa season, a thousand points a season
and three three consecutive years, notthat his peak season was a thousand points
where you know he built up overa career, but freshmen weren't allowed to
play. Sophomore, junior, senior, Oscar scored three thousand points. I

(31:30):
got enough head right here he goes. He says, uh. He said,
uh, oh, hell, whatdid you say? Mind? You
gotta go? I know his side. He says Oscar was six three.
I said, no, Oscar wassix foot five. Every it's not if
not sixty six. People say heplayed the point not really heeds some of

(31:53):
that, but more of a scoringguard, right the scoring guard. I
used to I used to uh.I used to pee next to Oscar at
halftime of every game, Mike,and he was he's a large man.
Thanks for that, Mike. That'sfor real, Taran, that's true.

(32:15):
I did you so the bathroom.Oscar used to sit front row, remember,
for every game, and at thattime, before they had taken all
the media tables away, that's wherethe media sat. So there was a
bathroom back behind like that section,and we would go and use the bathroom
at halftime, and generally every halftimeI would take a leak next to Oscar

(32:38):
and he was every bit of sixfive sixty six. This is a tall
man. I didn't speak to himwhile we were going. I thought that
would be odd. Yeah. No, No, no conversation ever be held
in the bedroom. Yeah. Theonly thing I ever say when I go
to the bathroom, Uh, andsomebody's next to me. Just to make

(32:58):
it a little uncomfortable, I go, water's cold. We'll see it.
Right after this, Keegan Nickison comingup from Bearcat Journal dot com. Since
then, he's the ESPN fifteen thirtymirror Mirror on the wall, Tell me,

(33:22):
mirror is wrong? Can it bemy day? Is it just my
days? People? Subroy the dove. When it's just me myself and I
I think I'm not even there's noway Keegan knows this. Keegan's parents might

(33:47):
not be all enough to know this. Welcome in beat Writer Extraordinary from Bearcat
Journal dot com and also act oneof the best substitutes in the city,
Kegan nickoson good Kegan students students likeyou, like, do you let them

(34:07):
watch a movie? Do you tryto teach? You're not the sub that
tries to teach, are you seethese days all used to do is tell
them that they can be on theirphones and they just don't bother you.
So there's no bill ny are wheelingin a TV card anymore? So you're
stealing money? Yeah, basically that'swhy your babysitting. You just show up

(34:30):
from eight to three and you babysitand you let the kids play on your
phone their phones, and then yougo to football practice. I'm liability insurance
at the best. Just make surethe classroom doesn't get burned down, young
man. Yes, basically. Uh. Two announcements today Uh Keegan a Z's

(34:52):
bandego announces that he intends to return, but he will test the NBA draft
waters for guys going into their finalyear if they have NBA aspirations and obviously
as he's does, you're kind ofstupid not to at least go through the
process, meet with NBA teams,hear what they have to say, take

(35:13):
the feedback from all indications. Hefully intends on being a bear Cat next
year. But it's it's bad businesspractice not to go and learn as much
as you can learn about your future. Yeah, and I think it's as
you said, he has NBA aspirations, and he's one of the few players
on Cincinnati's roster that can actually claimthat he just has so much upside he

(35:37):
can jump out of the gym basicallydo what ever he wants besides shoot.
And I think that's some of thefeedback that he'll get from those nbagms or
scouts. It's that he has todevelop some sort of a mid range game,
maybe a back to the basket hookshot, something of that nature.
Can't really go into the NBA.Is just a lob threat. But this

(35:58):
isn't a time of concern or anythinglike that for Cincinnati fans. It's a
very calculated move, and I thinkthat coach Miller would have told him,
you know, this is what youshould do, Like there's no part of
me that wants you to just sayI'm back and I'm you know, not
going to get test the NBA waters. I think it's a good look for
Cincinnati that they have these kinds ofplayers. Yeah, so that that's the

(36:21):
story with disease. I fully expecthim to be back. You've now got
Simas Lukashia's back, A Z's back. You're still waiting on you know,
a couple more that that I thinkare coming. But then you also hear
today Josh Reid uh is planning onbeing back in the program. I'm sure
you'll have a conversation with a relativeof mine about that in the near future.

(36:44):
But when you're losing John Newman,Josh Reid was essentially your replacement for
John Newman off the bench, evenif he doesn't move up to that starter
level. When you're building a roster, not everybody is going to be a
top three or four guy on yourroster, and you need some specialists.

(37:04):
And if Josh Reid's specialty is defenseand rebounding and bringing some of the culture
things that Wes Miller relies on,I think it's a good roster spot for
Cincinnati. Yeah, and it's whatthey need. A player like a player
like John Newman is not easily replaceable, if replaceable at all, just that
guy that you know, practices whathe preaches in terms of knowing the Cincinnati

(37:28):
way, knowing what Wes Miller wantsin terms of the leader of the program.
And Josh Reid, well, Idon't think he brings a level of
John Newman defense. He's the nextbest thing at the end of the day.
And you know what's in everybody's mindsright now when they see he's coming
back is the three to four airballsthat he had in the Big Talk Tournament
and the n T And well,I understand that, you know, I

(37:50):
don't think that's going to be thenorm for him next season. And I
don't think that he's going to,you know, average twelve or thirteen points
a game by any means. ButI think he's going to be a legitimate
option to at least get you sixto seven points, especially when he enters
next season, you know, noton the on the cusp of the rotation
or on the end of their rotation, and he can kind of establish himself

(38:13):
as a guy that's going to geta lot of minutes and there isn't that
pressure if I mess up I'm notgoing to play type of thing. So
I think, you know, hehe has momentum going in the next season
just knowing his role and how importantit is and how much Wesmower value is
that. Yeah, and I alsothink there's something too. Last year,
the rotation, the top of thatrotation was was pretty solidified, and what

(38:34):
Josh was being asked to do waspretty specific, and I think he was
in a spot where he tried tojust play within his role. I do
think he needed to be more assertive, more mentally ready offensively for when opportunities
came his way. I thought hepassed a couple up that you know that

(38:57):
you've got to be ready and inlike position to shoot, you've got to
be ready to attack a close out. Things like that that I think he
needs to spend some time working onin the off season. But you know,
if you're looking at one of yourrotation guys off the bench being Josh
Red, you're fine. You're finein this league. Yeah, absolutely,
And I think he can also justopen up the thing of getting to the

(39:20):
basket offensively. You know, therewas times last year where you know,
he drove to the basket and alot of people are shocked. It's like
he's usually just been a catch andshoot guy. So I think, you
know, as I said before,he's carrying some momentum and I like that.
You know, he could have hadthe opportunity to maybe go somewhere and
be a starter. I don't knowif that's solidified in west Miller's mind,

(39:40):
whether that's gonna be the case nextyear, but you know, Wes Miller
was one of the first recruits,or Josh Reed was one of the first
recruits coach Miller had. So Ithink it's important to know that that culture
is being built and it's being valued. If you're not a member of Bearcat
Journal, first, what the heckare you doing? You should be second
on the front page right now inthe top slot. An article from Cincinnati

(40:07):
Bearcats beat writer Extraordinary Keegan nickoson bestbeat Writer The covers the Bearcats in the
City about Cincinnati's new defensive coordinator andtheir their new kind of new take on
an old scheme. First off,what did you learn about the Like?
I know when people think like threefour four three three three five, like

(40:29):
if you run it, you're yourun the same thing. The three three
five is becoming its own kind ofnew thing with many, many different variations.
What did you learn about defense incollege football as as you've kind of
adjusted to the Tyson Vite era.Yeah, well what I learned is that,
you know, Cincinnati's been running thethree three five for a while and

(40:52):
that that just this one, justnot this one exactly. I was yelled
at by a superior, but youknow, I'm to know more about college
football before I read articles, whichI was thankful of. But basic word,
Yeah, but basically, you know, if you take last year's defense

(41:15):
and you move to Seawan Pace orsomeone similar to Deshaun Pace's kind of game
to the back of the defense,in between the strong and the free safety,
that's kind of what you're looking atfor this Tyson Bite defense. So
they have a lot of the sameresponsibilities. But this defense, it's this
star position is mainly you know,covering tight ends, it's covering crossers across

(41:39):
the middle, and it's getting downhillin the run game, when last year
it was kind of that star wassetting the edge, which is where you
saw de Sean Pace do a lotof damage. So I think it's trickled
down to the defensive line a littlebit. Dante Courlion. He told us
that he's way happier in this scheme, just that he can get north and

(42:00):
south and get up to the quarterbackinstead of having to fill a gap east
or west in the run game.So I just think it's got some potential
and that the changes are significant enoughthat fans should be happy and fan should
be looking forward to a new defenseand a possibly more productive one. We
are a week in a day awayfrom the spring game. What will be

(42:23):
one of the one or two thingsreal quick that you are going to be
looking for, not this Saturday,but next Saturday when the Bearcats take the
field for the spring game. I'mjust going to be looking at the quarterback
play. I think a lot ofpeople were excited about Brendan Soerby, and
from what he's shown so far throughspring practice, that's credible. But you

(42:44):
know, at this time last year, Sadurfield was kind of deciding between Imory
Jones and Ben Bryant. Then BenBryant decided to transfer to Northwestern, So
I think, you know, lookingat Brendan Sowersby and Brady Lickenberg, it's
an interesting kind of thing of havinga returner then having that incoming transfer.
But I'm just I'm looking for,you know, hitting some deep balls and

(43:05):
looking for chemistry between the receivers.That's another thing. Where spring game last
year the only receivers and the rosterwere Dee Wiggins and Barry Jackson and Stroman
Burkhalter and Chris Scott were the oneson scholarship. So you know, I
think you have to look at thequarterbacks and then you know, look at
some pass rushers too. Look atwho Look at how Micah Coleman's playing,
Jared Bartlett, Darien Varner, kindof a under the radar guy that came

(43:30):
in who's had a decent spring.Those are two areas where that were lacking
last season for Cincinnati. And ifthose two areas can be kind of a
bright spot, I think you're lookingat a completely different season. Yep,
all right, where can I findyou? At? Kay Nicholson forty two
on X. And then, asChad said earlier, if you're not subscribed

(43:51):
to Barcott Journal, what are youdoing? Right? Do that? Now?
Go now, we'll be here.You can do it on your phone
while you've listened to this show,than brother, and get back out to
football practice. Well, you cando it if you're driving, if you're
at a stoplight, or if youpulled over, you can pull over on
the side of the road, subscribeto Bearcat Journal, and then get back

(44:12):
on the road. How's that.There you go? All right, let's
take a break. Our number onein the books. Richard Skinner from Local
twelve, coming up an hour.Number two, Mike Decorsi the Hall of
Famer from Phoenix at five point thirtymore after this, Cincinnati ESPN fifteen thirty.
This report is our number two.Here we go, Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen

(44:52):
thirty. We got to get oneof these cameras on it. So I
think the camera you have up rightnow, I think it's just flipped upside.
This is down. I think that'sthe one that looks at you.

(45:13):
But it's just yeah, there yougo. That's better. There we go.
It went limp. All right,Now I feel better. I could.
I felt bad because I could seeyou but you couldn't see me.
I feel like, that's not that'snot a fair exchange. Correct Richard Skinner

(45:37):
coming up here in about fifteen minutes. No telling them where that one's gonna
go. It's always entertaining, butyou know, I just Richard and I
we we have a history. Wewe live together on another in another radio
life, and uh, you knowI will start probably with Reds, but

(45:58):
who knows where he's gonna take us. So looking forward to talking to Richard
then Mike Decorsi live from Phoenix atfive point thirty. So a lot of
get the feeling, a lot ofcollege basketball, a lot of Final four
talk as it should be as wehead into Final four weekend. Let's get

(46:19):
to the Bengals for a few minuteshere. This week, we saw the
Kansas City Chiefs trade Stefan Diggs tothe Houston Texans. First off, why
Taran? If you're the Bills andyou are trying to scratch and clall to

(46:42):
stay at the top in that group, that is challenging Kansas City, which
really right now before this trade,Bills, Bengals Ravens with the Texans on
the come and maybe the Jaguars.They did not have a the breakout year

(47:02):
that many expected. That's the dangerouspart about projecting these quarterbacks to to take
that massive leap that puts them intochampionship contention. Trevor Lawrence wasn't able to
do it last year. We'll seej Stroud be able to do it this
year. Why in the world wouldyou trade Stephan unless you're trying to like
sabotage their locker room with Stefan Diggs. Why would you trade your your most

(47:29):
valuable weapon for Josh Allen to theteam that is on the rise, that
is that is looking to punt youout of your spot. I don't understand
that. Well, that's what Iheard. I heard that in the locker
room like it's been. It wassplit down the middle, like he was
almost a cancer in the locker room. So I mean, you really think
that their philosophy was We're going tosend him to the Texans and let him

(47:52):
mess up their locker room. Andlike, I don't, I don't see
that. I just don't understand whyyou send him there. Well then then
I think, I mean, Jasonhas been expressed by days, like almost
two seasons ago, that he wantedto get out of Buffalo. Sure,
I just don't trade him to oneof the teams that's that's trying to knock
me off as like a contender.Yeah, trust me, when this is

(48:15):
Minnesota, would it's his first handhe wanted out? Yeah, but we
send him to the AFC. Right, send him somewhere that he can't hurt
you. Maybe he goes there andhe's happy with CJ. Stroud, But
then maybe again maybe Houston. Houstonwas the only team offering maybe And if
you don't, I can't believe that. And if you don't have that many
I mean, do you see whatthey they restart to his contract so they

(48:36):
can get out next year. Yeah, it's a one. It's essentially not
they can get out. They theywill get out, right like, Yeah,
they bought out his remaining years,uh and gave him an extra three
million up front, so he ison a one year deal in Houston.
That's kind of a prove it deal. So yeah, I mean I don't
know that. Just it perplexes meon why you send him. I would

(48:59):
think the same thing saying if theBengals traded t Higgins to Jacksonville and gave
Trevor Lawrence a major, major weaponoffensively. But we have now seen this
in Kansas City, we have seenthis in Buffalo, You've seen it elsewhere.
When the rookie, which by theway, Houston does play Buffalo this

(49:19):
year, that'll be fascinating. Wehave seen it when the big money quarterback
where the contract really starts to goin effect and teams start having to make
tough decisions. Tyreek Hill Chiefs didn'thave a choice, had to move on.
At least they capitalized and got onewith them. That the thing with

(49:40):
Buffalo. Yeah, but did theyI mean that wide receiver corps and I
know it was the year after thetrade. That wide receiver corps was trash
for Kansas City. Last year theycouldn't catch. I mean, it probably
cost them three or four wins onjust if a wide receiver makes a play

(50:00):
a pretty like Mahomes made the throw. If the wide receiver makes the catch,
the Chiefs win. And they lostmultiple games that way in the regular
season. It didn't end up matteringbecause they still managed to win the Super
Bowl. But I mean, ultimately, though, if you're the Bengals,
now you have seen this multiple times, Yeah, you have to be ready

(50:24):
for this now. I guess inthe Chiefs case, the Chiefs had other
guys they had to pay. They'repaying three elite guys, they're paying Mahomes,
they're paying Kelsey, they're paying ChrisJones long term. So if you're
the Bengals, there is some hopethere that you can pay Joe, you

(50:45):
can pay Jamar, and you canhave one other. I don't think it
can be a skill guy. Ithink it's got to probably be a defensive
guy at that point. But thisis a critical draft. This is a
critical window for the Bengals because uzyou have an opportunity now to be ready
for the next step of the JoeBurrow era, or you put him in

(51:09):
a situation where you weren't prepared andBoyd leaves and Higgins leaves and you don't
necessarily have a tight end and you'vehad a revolving door at right tackle,
and now you don't have your defensivetackle that was kind of the anchor of
your defense, and you don't havea star corner, and you start looking

(51:32):
around and you're going, man,I know Joe's good, But are they
doing enough to have this roster readyfor what it means to have an elite
quarterback and Tarnce I'm not sure yet. I'm not saying they don't. I'm
just saying I'm not sure. Idon't see enough yet to know comfortably that

(51:55):
this roster is ready for phase twoof elite quarterback? Is that fair?
I think it's fair. It's nottoo far out over my skis. No,
that's fair. But look, whenyou have Joe Burrow, you're gonna
win. The question becomes, areyou going to be them? Well,
that's a different question. But butthere's a lot of teams that have a

(52:17):
really good quarterback or a franchise quarterbackthat don't end up winning super Bowls because
they don't have the right roster construction, they don't have the right player development,
and so much is tied up intothat one spot that they're not they're
not able to figure out how tocontinue to stay relevant at the top of

(52:39):
the sport. So they settle intothe upper middle. And that's kind of
where you know, this city expects, Tarren am I right orround. This
city expects a Joe Burrow super Bowlchampionship. Well, it's on the franchise.
It has happened this year. Yeah, I mean, I don't even

(52:59):
know that. It just it's pointJoe Burrow needs to be a championship quarterback
at some point. This year willbe the most ideal. You're right,
because this is really the last yearbefore the roster is impacted by Joe's escalating
salary. But long term, Noboy this year unless something crazy happens and

(53:23):
he ends up like kind of havingto come back because nobody takes him.
I mean, the Steelers, Iguess have closed that door because he's asking
for too much. But then Higginsis gone, and like I said,
you've not found a suitable tight endreplacement. Joe Mixon is gone. I
like Zach Moss at running back,but I don't think you have a top

(53:46):
of the league running back on thisroster. To you. No, You've
got one star receiver, no eliterunning back, no elite tight end.
And after this year Higgins is gone. Does that make you feel great about
twenty twenty five. They've got toget this draft right. They've got to

(54:07):
figure out not only they they've gotto be in a space where it's not
only when now for twenty twenty four, but protect your future for twenty twenty
five and beyond. And I thinkI don't think they're I don't feel comfortable
that they're close to that. Andthat is something that is being signaled when

(54:31):
you watch what is already happening inplaces like Kansas City and Buffalo, where
their quarterbacks are a couple of yearsfarther down the road than Borrow, and
those teams are a couple of yearsfurther down the road and what roster management
looks like with a star quarterback.But honest I don't. Part of me,
it feels like the Beagles can't.We can look at it like from

(54:53):
years to four, but the Bengalshave to focus on this upcoming season and
do what we can with what weThat's my surmise. All the guys were
going to have this year worry abouttwenty twenty five next year when it happens.
To an extent, I agree,but I think there is some part
of draft prep that has to beI on long term at least someone at

(55:20):
least somewhat For me, I justfeel like I just can't believe that some
some fans are giving up on thereceivers they drafted last year already. I'm
not, but I'm not confident,right I mean, and that comes with
I mean absolutely experience, Yeah,player development, our coaches as well.

(55:43):
That that part is going to bean interesting part of twenty twenty four is
do any of those guys make itto where they have to play. You
know that there's a line of freshmanlinebacker in Cincinnati that we've been watching in
spring football, and every day youstart looking at yourself going, you're gonna
have to find a way to getthis guy in the field, like he's
too good not to play. Wehaven't heard that last year from any of

(56:07):
these new receivers. This is theyear where you need to start hearing that
about these guys. This dude isout here making plays every day. They
gotta find a way to get himon the field and get them the ball.
That's the next step. Let's takea break when we come back.
Richard Skinner, digital content editor forLocal twelve, joins us. Since Anty's

(56:29):
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati, youfound Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty. Damn,
it feels good to be a gangster, A real kanks a type play.

(56:50):
Please call up right, a realgangster type play? Enough? But was
this grow up gangsters plays don't startfights? That's right? Got a hot
cap show? Is that he's ESPNfifteen thirty. Chad Brindle in for mo
Eggar Tarren Mose said he was gonnacheck in at some point today. He
has not checked in yet. We'llcall the givebub day. What he's doing.

(57:13):
Yeah, that's that's you know,he was gonna, he was gonna
let us know. I don't wantto call him. I want this to
be organic. I want him tocall us to let us know what he's
doing. Skinny. Have you everhave you ever had this happen to you
before? Where uh? Moe foundout yesterday live on air with Tony that
he was off today. Nothing surprisesme in this world anymore crusty. So

(57:37):
Moe came in to do the finalsegment of Tony's show and to get into
his show, and Tony's like,it's your Friday and Mo was like,
what are you talking about? AndTony's like, well, we talked to
Chad earlier in the week and Chadhe's in on Friday, and I was
like, I'm off tomorrow, andhe had to pull up the schedule and
sure enough there was my name andnot his name. So he found out

(58:00):
on the air yesterday he had anoff day, which usually in this business
is not a good thing. No, it's not. That's a bad signal.
But here's the question. Did hehave like a comp day coming that
he didn't know about it? Takea vacation day? He didn't even know
about. Apparently he took a vacationday and forgot about it. Okay,
so then technically that's way on him. Then, Yeah, I wish they

(58:20):
wouldn't said anything. I would loveto have seen his face today if I
would have showed up for his showand he was here. Best part was
you could have then turned around andwalked away and still put him down for
the invoice exactly they I would havehad to have charged them if I came
in, and really that was notmy fault, that's their fault. Skinny
draft is coming up. I knowwhat mock are you on at this point.

(58:45):
I just got done doing two lastlast week ish, and I did
him intently this way where I wentto the Draft Network simulator and the first
time I did it, both ByronMurphy and J. C. Latham were
there, and so I thought,okay, I'm gonna do the two different
drafts, one taking Latham in thefirst round, see how it worked itself

(59:06):
out, one taking Byron Murphy inthe first round, and then seeing how
it worked out. I like myByron Murphy went a whole lot better.
It just the tackles that I wouldhave liked and ended up taking. Felt
like I really reached when I tookjac Latham in the first round. I
felt like I took a quality tackle, a kid from BYU right tackle.
In the second round of the ByronMurphy Draft, still got another tackle before

(59:28):
Day two was over with, SoI just felt way better about that draft.
The reason I ask is Tarren andI were just having a lovely discussion
about this draft for the Bengals,and when you look at what has happened
with the teams in similar places tothe Bengals, but a couple of years
ahead. Where the Chiefs are acouple of years ahead with the Mahomes contract

(59:52):
and they had to move on froma Tyreek Hill. And this week we
saw the Bills. I don't knowif they had to move on for steph
On Diggs or if they wanted tomove on from Steph On Diggs, maybe
a combination of both. But howmuch of this if you're the Bengals,
do you have to enter this draftknowing the Joe Burrow rookie contract era is
over and we have to start well, you may be not draft with like

(01:00:15):
strictly twenty twenty five and beyond inmind, you have to know, like
what we've done, is now aboutto change? Yeah? I mean,
and I think I learned a pieceright before free agency started about how they're
kind of paying at the moment tothe twenty one and twenty two draft drafts
not being good. I mean,the Jamar Chase picked and Evian McPherson picked

(01:00:37):
aside in twenty one. I mean, that's a draft that had Jackson Carman,
Deontay Smith, a second round anda fourth rounder. At this point
of their careers, they're still intheir rookie contracts, albeit entering their final
years. They should be more ofa contribute than what they were last year.
I mean, honestly, second roundershould be starting by now. I
don't think that's too much. AsTyler Sheldon was in that draft class,
he should be at least a rotationalnose tackle by now. He was a

(01:01:00):
fourth round get two, and he'snot. And so you're really paying the
price for that. You know,Dak's filling in twenty two. You know,
all of a sudden, it doesn'tthat he's gonna work out of safety.
Maybe he becomes a great corner,which is his natural position anyway,
but we don't know, And sothat's where you're starting to pay the price
for some of these drafts where youcan't just spend on free agency at every

(01:01:21):
position. They've literally had to rehulthe offensive line through free agency and that
got costly. And you know,you only have one guy who who's your
own in that Corda Volson who startson the offensive line right now. And
you know, the tight end's kindof been a one year thing for them,
so yet, I mean, theyneed to start hitting on guys who
can play, maybe not plug andplay their first year, but need to

(01:01:43):
be contributing by year two and beyondand maybe in a major way. And
to the point of this year's draft, by the end of day two,
which is through the third round,where they have four total picks. Two
in the third round, I thinkyou have to walk away with a right
tackle who can, at the minimumcompete with Trent Brown, if not a
guy who eventually beats out Trent Brownat right tackle and Trent Brown becomes your
swing tackle. A guy who's goingto compete with Charlie Jones with the slot

(01:02:07):
receiver and maybe win that job.And then two defensive tackles. And that's
where I know everybody, you know, the brock Bowers thing slides. I
just don't think it's in the equation. I think they have more pressing needs
elsewhere to fill and to fill forthe future. And to me, you
got to come out of Day twowith with that kind of minimum hale.
Yeah, I mean the reality ofit for me, Skinny is I like

(01:02:28):
Zach Moss. Do I feel likethey have one of the top rushing games
in the NFL with Zach Moss andand Chase Brown. No? Uh,
but I'm just talking about going forward. That's where you're at at running back.
I love Jamar Chase, Tyler Boydhas gone. T Higgins is gonna
be gone. I don't feel greatabout wide receiver. Tight End's been a

(01:02:52):
revolving door. There's a bunch ofcontracts that are gonna come up on the
offensive line. Like they are notmaking this easy for themselves as they enter
this period where Joe was about totake up a considerable sum of money after
this season. That's just kind ofwhat I was getting at, Like it
feels like none of these teams learnfrom each other. No, and I

(01:03:14):
listen. I know they drafted MilesMurphy as a preemptive strike to eventually get
out from under Trey Henderson's contract.But Trey Henderson's playing at such a high
level that I don't know if you'reready to move on from him anytime soon.
You may have to by default becauseof money having to be spent elsewhere.
But that's where it goes back toyou better start hitting on picks that
can play sooner rather than later.And listen, I think one position,

(01:03:36):
I don't worry about his wide receiver. There's too many guys coming out of
college today. There's play guys.I mean, Higgins was a plug and
play guy. Jamar Chase is aplug and play guy. There. There
are plenty of those guys around.So that's a position of least amount of
worry for me. But to yourpoint of the offensive line, you had
to refill it with free agents.Don't have a lot in the pipeline at
the moment to replace those free agents. And eventually that bill comes due to

(01:03:57):
where you're going to resign those guysin late twenties, early thirties, the
big contracts. Are you gonna circleback around to other free agents? You
got to hit on some pitchs atsome point, Yeah, And it's it's
it's a concern. Red's this weekend. The Mets are the Mets offense stinks.
They're pitching is pretty good, uh, but their offense has been dreadful.
You you have to continue the trendand get two out of three here

(01:04:18):
minimum, right, Yeah, theyand I do like like to think a
lot of the things they've done tothis point. I mean, I think
the lineup depths has been really reallygood. Yeah, you know, trying
to get Antonossi and Strand start tohit two and that's just going to add
to it. You know, startingpitching outside of and Nick Martinez probably went
an inning too long and hundred Greenobviously wasn't pitch a fishing But you've gotten

(01:04:40):
four good starts. Otherwise. Thebullpen hasn't been very good there as in
the fives. But you know that'sthat's a Brent Suter grand slam allowed.
That's a bad inning from Alexis Diaz. This time of year, you know,
bullpen e are being played by abad outing here or there. But
if they bullpen hasn't been good,that's that's the point. But the final
line is if you look at theback of the baseball cards of most those
guys, they're pretty good pitchers,and so I don't really worry about that.

(01:05:03):
So yeah, I mean two seriesin a row. Chance to make
it three in a row and keepthe ball roller. I mean, I
think that was the one thing wasavoid a slow April, don't bury yourself,
and they haven't done that right.And honestly, the starting pitching I
think is for me maybe the biggestbright spot, even though it hasn't been
great. But if you're getting fivesix from these guys at this point in

(01:05:25):
the year, at the point Imade earlier last year, it felt like
three point two, four point one, one, one point two like and
then the bullpen just got so overworkedand there was no balance to any of
it. At least you're getting fivesix solid from these guys and you feel
like you're able to keep some momentum. Yeah, I mean, Ashcrafter,

(01:05:46):
I thought I had a nice outing. I mean, you know, Abbot
gave up, you know, acouple in five and some change. You
know. The Nick Martinez started,like I said, he got hit around
probably that last inning and probably lasted. It had a little bit too long,
but I thought he threw the ballwell at times. Obviously, Aki
Moncas has been just great, andyou're getting Nickeldolo back next week, so
you have to make a decision therewith probably pretty Marquinez back to the bullpen,

(01:06:06):
and then you're both been even stronger. Is there a point I'm not
ready to go there yet, andthen I don't think it's imminent, But
there has to be a point withHunter Green that we just accept that he's
not going to be pitch efficient ifhe does not start to show improvement in
that area soon. I don't knowthere needs to be tonight. But if

(01:06:30):
we are in May and this guy'sstill at you know, seventy four pitches
as he gets out of the fourthinning, you have to be worried that
this is who he is, don'tyou Yes, And I'm not there yet
either. You know, there's apotential we look back at that first start
and go, hey, still struckout seven in floing. Sure he used
one hundred pitches, but it wasjust the first start. There is that

(01:06:53):
potential too. But I also thinkthat potential exists that if if this continues
to be a guy who shows electricstuff but but isn't pitch efficient, can't
get you deeper into games you know, occasionally gets rocked because you know his
his fastball straightens out and he getsback. I think at that point you
have to start considering him as apotential closer. And that's not an awful

(01:07:13):
thing. I think people look atit as your damn to the bullpen.
I mean, we'll forget a rolls. Chapman was supposed to be a starting
pitcher for this team and became agreat closer. I'm not there yet with
Hunter Green. I don't think anybodyis, nor should anybody be. But
you can't keep doing this more timesthan not going out and throwing four two
thirds with one hundred pitches and strikingout seven and looking like man, he's
on. He he really gets peopleout, but it's also four walks and

(01:07:35):
it's also a big home run giveup. And again I'm not there yet,
but tonight it would be a goodplace to start, to start to
prove prove everybody wrong. It's abad offense. Now. I do have
a question there because I think everybodyjust says starter or closer. Is maybe
the reality that he's a third orfourth starter and not an ace. Because
if you're if you're throwing, ifyou're getting five and giving up one or

(01:07:58):
two runs, like you can bea little pit in efficient, but you
expect your third or fourth or yourfifth starter to be a guy that's,
you know, a little more inefficientthan your top of the rotation guys.
I do think there's a place whereyou can just come to the realization that
he might not be an as hemight be a middle of the rotation guy.
Yeah, but a nice problem onthe horizon line. Rich Aspire,

(01:08:20):
sure at louder Chase Petty, BrandonWilliamson sure still kind of in that pipeline.
And I think that's the thing thatif this doesn't work out the way
we all would hope, which ishim being a starter in a perfect world,
they pop in the rotation starter,then I do think you do have
options with with him and with therest of the pitchure. Well, you

(01:08:40):
know what, those guys don't haveskinny and two more hour fastball. They
also don't have four years guaranteed moneycoming at them. That's also helpful.
You're right, Uh, college basketballthis weekend. I can't believe I'm asking
you this question, and it's avery legitimate question. Is the women's final

(01:09:02):
four bigger than the men's Final fourthis year? I think it is something
I do too. I do too, you know, cause I think we
all have this four done conclusion.I'm surprised we don't have on the women's
side to South Carolina. That's thething. Southilla is probably the third storyline
behind Caitlin Clark and Paige Bucker's andbe undefeated. Oh, by the way,
undefeated South Carolina's in this final,right, just a team that hasn't

(01:09:23):
lost all damn year. Yeah,that's taken a back to seat to all
of this, which is which ispretty odd, but it is pretty cool
because I mean the storylines abound,star power players, all of those things.
And I think unfortunately and you probablyfall in the same camp, and
we've all crowned Yukon already on themen's side, and I don't think we're
wrong. Yeah, Alabama to meis fascinating because Alabama just wants to score

(01:09:46):
ninety? Can can yu Khon holdthem in the seventies? If they do,
I think Yukon wins pretty easily.But if Bama's hitting threes and they're
rolling up into the eighties, that'sgoing to be a game. Yeah,
she had and I need him towin in a pool too. Very very
desperately, So that's why I don'tkid about my daughter has. So she

(01:10:09):
she asked me who I had,and I said, look, I'm gonna
take Danny because Danny's my guy andI love him and I want him to
get another one and cement himself likehis place in history. She showed me
her bracket. She had Clemson inthe final four, and I told her,
I told her, you are nuts. They lost their last four games
and they got blown out by BostonCollege in the a SEC tournament, so

(01:10:32):
she changed it. Uh. Andthen when when Clemson went up by thirteen
in the elite eighth, she sentme a not nice text that told me
what she thought about me. Butshe then Alabama got hot, and then
Alabama got hot, so I wasoff the hook. So now she needs
Ukon to win. So I wanther to win her her school pool because

(01:10:55):
she wants to. She wants tolet the boys know that I know college
who Yes, of course, WellI've also got the I've got Mark Sears
and in one of those five playersscoring things too, So I could use
Mark Siares having a big two games, which means for him to have two
games, they have to beat Yukon. What do you think the public reaction
is going to be when DJ Burnshas two fouls in the first five minutes

(01:11:16):
of the Purdue NC State game,They'll cry a foul. But I gotta
be honest with you. I mean, I know everybody hates Zach E for
being big, but I really threwa questioning him play in the post.
I think he's really really good downthere, and I can't he is so
skilled with it, great footwork,just a great touch, really patient,
all of those things. And boy, I'll tell you what I thought.
Tennessee probably fouled him ten more timesand he got called fouls off. So

(01:11:40):
I get it. And people dothink there's a Zachi E bias among officials,
and you know that he gets awaywith a lot of fouls. I
really do like watching the play.That matchup is fascinating. It's fascinating,
can't because you know, it feltlike we were in that era of it
was all going to be five outdriving kick, driving kick, and we've
got really three centers there are inthe final four that can be played through.
Yeah, I mean, and thething is all of them can pass

(01:12:01):
like they're all pretty skilled, likethey're not just you know tall, So,
uh, I think it's gonna bea really good night of games tomorrow.
Who do you got tonight? Yougot, you got Paige or you
got Caitlyn. I'm going to CaitlinRoun. I talked to I talked to
uh to Karen about that before Iwent on. We went back and forth
on it. I do think Gino'sgonna come up with a better plan and

(01:12:25):
just say, Hayley Vanelift, tryto trail her around screen so she can
catch and score. I thought Lsujust did a terrible job trying to defend
Caitlin Clark and she's, let's getshe's hard to defend, right, So
yeah, I'm I'm going that route. But uh, you know, Pat
Buchers does an awful lot for herteam. She may not be a spectacular
jacking up thirty foot threes, butshe still put stuff to stat line as
a good defender, and its simplyput a winner. Yeah, I think

(01:12:47):
the only thing I worry about withyou I would I want to take you
kon, but I just they're theinjuries that they have sustained. They just
don't have any depth, And Ithink Iowa win is a close one,
but that one is going to befascinating tonight in the night cap, that's
gonna be. I think those two, Caitlin and Page just going bucket for

(01:13:08):
bucket, because remember Paige Buker's wassupposed to be Caitlyn Clark before the injuries.
That's right. For the injury,it was a horrific injury. Yeah,
well and then she had two ithappened again, So I mean,
I think this is kind of maybea potential for her redemption arc. But
I will be dialed in on thatone, and I'm gonna be dialed in

(01:13:29):
on Saturday. So appreciate you,man, and enjoy the weekend YouTube chet
take it there. You got RichardSkinner at Local twelve Skinny and go consume
all of Skinny's content, including theSkinny podcast. You can find that on
Local twelve's social media pages. Takea break. More after this Cincinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty Cincinnatis Fund of Peoples,not big booking, Let's get hill,

(01:14:02):
that's right, was calling your floAnd when it comes to don't scandalize month,
I spent too much time stray talkedwith the catch. That's my line
walk for crop. Who goes Welcomeback to ESPN fifteen thirty. Chad Brendle
from Ogar. I'm not Chadbrendle.I'm Chad Brandle. Sorry when I'll tell

(01:14:30):
you that was a phone call Ihad to answer doing a radio show right
now. Yeah, but you know, some phone calls you have to answer,
Darren, that's fair. You knowsometimes when you look down and the
phone's ringing, go. I thoughtI had maybe an extra minute on that

(01:14:53):
commercial break that I didn't have,and the people could have just listened to
that phenomenal song with Daylight Saul andRedman. Yeah, I mean that would
have put us up to Brenman andJones was up next about three minutes.
Did do you do you? Howmuch did women's basketball history changed because Paige

(01:15:15):
Becker? Paige Becker got hurt likeI think she would. I don't know,
because Yukon probably has a little bitmore talent than Iowa, so Iowa
had to lean on Caitlyn a littlebit more. But Page would have been
a three thousand points like she wouldhave been the talk of the sport,
I think if she didn't get hurt. Yeah, And I just think with

(01:15:36):
Yukon, like we've seen so manygreat talent come from Yukon like it would
just I think Paige was just fellin line right with her, right,
she'd have been another in a line. Yeah, but with Ia Kaylyn Clark
doing it at Iowa and then,like I said, the way she's doing
it, I think that's I thinkthat's the main difference. Someone's talking to

(01:15:59):
me earlier, one of the otherproducers here's talking about why didn't Kaitlyn,
Why didn't you know, get bothKaitlyn and Uh Page. I was like,
I don't think Kaitlyn Bull would hadthe same impact if you would have
went to Yukon. Well, ifif Page didn't, Caitlyn would have the
two of them together would have beenunstoppable, right, but best I don't.

(01:16:20):
I don't think I said Caitlyn wouldhave been their star, would not
be spright. Yeah, although,man, look we're in a we're in
an era right now. Did yousee the men's three point Championship last night?
I did not uh the uh thekid from Nebraska, the Asian kid.
I don't know where he's from inAsia, So I don't want to

(01:16:43):
offend anybody. Yeah, I knowyou're talking about he in his first in
his first round he ended up winning. In his first round, he went
all the way through and then hegot to the gold ball in the last
rack, and he had like eightseconds left on the clock and he just
stopped and drive it a couple oftimes, and he was on the right
side of the far rack. He'sleft handed, but he was on the

(01:17:04):
right side of the far rack,so he's basically standing on the baseline,
waited until the shot clock got toone, and then put it up and
turned around and gave the crowd likethe like the pump it up sign yeah,
and it splashed. And then hedid it again in the second round,
and made it again in the secondround, and then in the championship

(01:17:28):
round he had already won and hemissed it. He missed the gold ball,
but he had already you know,made enough hit enough shots to be
the winner. But like there's alittle when when that style Cayleb Carr pulls
up from half court like she's StephCurry of women's basketball. She doesn't care,

(01:17:49):
like if you're going to give herspace thirty seven feet from the hoop,
She's not only going to pull upand hit it, but she's gonna
hit it like confidently in your faceto face. Yeah, but something tells
me Gino wouldn't have let that happened. I'm sorry. We look man,

(01:18:10):
you know when you know, whenthey start letting it happen, tarn,
everyone thinks they can when you makeit, When you make it, the
coach starts going, well, Imean that's true. I mean but honestly,
like if you really pay attention,like and look at like her,
like her shot selection from three,Like she doesn't make a lot of them,

(01:18:31):
Like it's nice when she goes in, like when she gets she makes
them, but it's times where she'slike five eighteen from three. Yeah,
she's a volume scorer for sure.And Geno's not going for that. I
mean he would he if you ifyou put up forty, he might make
it, make an accept and thenhell, I think if she's surrounded with
other talent on the clore floor,doesn't have to They're not going for that.

(01:18:54):
Yeah, yeah, all right.Vernaman and Jones on baseball coming up,
Sincinty's ESPN three eighteen thirty gudu Awish there we go, our number

(01:19:26):
three rolling into the weekend, ChadBrenda and from O Ecker Arran do you
think I have like a copyright claimon commercial that uses this music? Now?

(01:19:50):
Probably not? Well, I thinksee they did the smart thing right.
They used the original song. Theydid not use international Player's anthem.
They used whatever the song was itinternational players anthem sampled. So I don't
think i'd have much of a case. It's unfortunate. I think Outcast might

(01:20:14):
have maybe have a case maybe.I mean, that's a water under the
bridge. I've been an Outcast fanlong enough. I think they would understand.
It's a it's a sign of tribute, of course, you know it's
a imitation is the sincerest form offlattery. I guess it's the best way

(01:20:40):
to put it. What's your what'syour Friday night look like? Get home
and get ready for some women's finalfour? That said, I'm going to
job number two? Oh you don'tget to watch the final for tonight.
I'll have it on my phone.Okay, yeah, how does how does
job number two look upon that?I mean, I'm one of the better

(01:21:00):
workers, so they don't If theywant me to be happy, just leave
me alone. I'll do my work, but I'm gonna be listened though.
Watch that game. I got ityou'll still get you'll still get done with
your assignment requires you to get doneexactly. But just no, I'm watching
the game. How long is thatshift you got, like a full shift?
No? No, no, it'sonly a four and a half hours.

(01:21:21):
That's not terrible. Nine to twoin the morning. Oh yeah,
Oh see, do you get homeand get a quick nap in No?
No, no, no, I'lljust stay up here and I'll just go
okay, yeah, I'll go straightfrom here. Yep, you won't get
a nap in here. No,I'm pretty good about that. Yeah.

(01:21:45):
Well, I mean, so whattime would you go to sleep? What
tonight? Yeah, say about threeo'clock. Just no, I'm not doing
anything. I'm not I might notleave my house this weekend. Okay,
with WrestleMania being this week in finalfour, I'm not leaving the houses we
can. So let's tut WrestleMania fora second. I'm tempted to get Sunday.

(01:22:09):
I'm tempted. It's gonna be agreat card. I have not been
this excited or interested in we usedto like I was. We were die
hard. Actually the two thousand WrestleMania, which I think is the most complete,
like the best WrestleMania ever. Thatwas like the twelve hour WrestleMania extravaganza

(01:22:33):
that culminated in Triple H The Rock, Mick Foley and the Big Show Fatal
four way match, but the headlinerwas tables, ladders and chairs, Christian
and Edge, the Hardy Boys andthe Dudley's which was one of the great
matches in WWE history. They arethey're onto something right now, like that

(01:22:58):
they feel like Sling is a littlehot again. Right, Oh, for
sure, no question. So Idon't know that that's going to be a
game time decision for me. Sunday, what's your what's your your your most
anticipated match on the card? Uh? For me, most anticipated matches honestly
brother versus Brother, twin versus Twin, Yeah, Jimmy versus Jusa. Is

(01:23:21):
that Saturday or Sunday night one nightone? Okay? That's the problem is
I don't I don't watch like theyhaven't sucked me back in to where I'm
watching. I am watching, Uh, like the social stuff there's a lot
of on TikTok. There's a lotof wrestling content creators that do like live

(01:23:45):
reactions as they're watching the shows,and then I will catch those pretty much,
just to see the rock every week. The Final Boss thing perfect,
right, like it is so good, so good, and he's brought back
like a little bit of that Attitudeera, you know, with the the

(01:24:06):
language and the violence, and uh, going to Netflix next year. Yeah,
they are going to Netflix next year. Anything, anything is everything's off
the table, right, So Ithink they're leaning into that already, Like
this is who we're gonna be whenwe're on Netflix. I don't know.
I think it's gonna be a reallygood card. Uh it's gonna be Bloodline

(01:24:30):
Rules on Sunday though, right,more likely. Yeah, that's the only
way I think Cody has to win. Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't.
I can't deal with this finish mystory thing for another year. I
can't, right, Like the storyhas to They've built it up to the
point that the story has to finish. Yes, so Cody has to win
and you can't. I don't thinkit's as legitimate. I don't think it

(01:24:55):
carries as much weight if he wins. But it's a regular match, like
it's whatever. Yeah, I'm justlike we can all predict, predict Cody's
gonna win. I just want toknow how he's gonna win, Right,
that's the thing. How you thinkwe get a gold dust sighting? I

(01:25:15):
thought about that, but unfortunately Ibelieve he's still under contract with the other
company, is he. Yeah,it's WrestleMania. Come on, like you
can come up with something. Youthink Rikishi's gonna come back? Yeah?
I think I think he plays.I mean his sons are twin versus twin,
right, his third son will probablybe involved in that metch somehow I

(01:25:39):
think has to get involved. IsSolo his third son? Yes, Okay,
I didn't know that. I knewthe twins. I didn't know Solo.
Yep, so those he's five yearsyounger than Okay, No, I
think it's gonna be Uh. Thatmakes for an exciting WrestleMania. I used
to have massive like we had amassive WrestleMania party. It was actually that
was actually the second time Kelly andI ever hung out. Was WrestleMania two

(01:26:00):
thousand. Oh wow. Yeah.And this actually feels like be like Lil
Wayne's performing, yeah, Meek millis going to be there, Coco Jones
is doing the national anthem like thisit just feels me, you know,
one of the highlights of WrestleMania twothousand, Iced Tea, Iced Tea with
the hoe Train, the Godfather.I want to play that so bad,

(01:26:21):
but it's not. You can't.I don't. You can't even clean it
up. Yeah no, there's nocleaning. Oh boy, No, it's
it's gonna be a good show.It's gonna be a good show. Mike
de Corsi coming up here in abouttwenty minutes live from Phoenix. I'm super
excited for that to get Mike's takeon not only the men's game, but

(01:26:41):
the women's game. Have you amo talked a lot of women's basketball?
Uh? No, because I meanno one mo. I mean I said,
this is really his first year beinginvested in college basketball, women's college
basketball. The thing is, andI will kind of Fenmo here. Year
one in the Big twelve, likegetting into anything that wasn't Big twelve basketball

(01:27:06):
was difficult because you had games allday on Saturday that were great games,
and then you had games Tuesday andWednday, you know, the Monday Night,
the Big Monday Game. But themajority of the Big twelve schedule was
Tuesday and Wednesday and then Thursday.There's really not a lot of good games
on and Sunday. There's really nota lot of good games on like Power

(01:27:30):
Conference games. You get, youknow, a couple here and there,
but you know, that was oneof don't tell anybody I said this maybe
one of the good things that theAmerican was, Like it was that Thursday
Sunday schedule, so you had timeto watch the rest of college basketball.
I didn't have time to watch therest of college basketball this year, like
I had time to watch the BigTwelve because we do content that talks predominantly

(01:27:54):
about Cincinnati and about the Big Twelve. I didn't have a whole lot of
time for other college basketball. Butit was really interesting to see the shift
in attention towards the women's game becauselet's be honest, there's not a lot
of I mean, you look atthis final four outside of Zach Edy,

(01:28:16):
where's the star power in this finalfour? Danny? Yeah, Danny's the
biggest star. That's how men's collegebasketball used to be. The coaches were
the big stars. I mean forore, just just the tournament. I mean,
DJ Burns has become somewhat of us, yes, but he is like
a shooting star, right, Likewe weren't talking about DJ Burns before the

(01:28:43):
ACC Tournament. Now by the endof the ACC Tournament, everybody loved the
guy. He's this year's I forgetthis small guard last year for Kansas State
Marcus Marquis Nooel. Yes, likehow he captivated everyone last year, Like
this is what Dj Burns is thisyear. But it's usually a guard,
right, It's almost never a bigguy like Jim or and you go back

(01:29:04):
even like Golkie from Oakland. Well, that's the thing with with with all
these tournaments like the Key I thinkthe kei to to win well, I
mean, I guess kind of takesa from my point issue with Edie,
but most years you need that thatgood guard. Well. But Purdue,

(01:29:24):
their downfall last year wasn't Zach Edy. It was that their young guards weren't
good enough. They have been goodenough so far. That's still my question
tonight or tomorrow night is will theirguards be better or be significantly better than
NC State's guards. I don't knowthat they are, And you know it
would be funny what it What hasbeen Purdue's the knock against Purdue the last

(01:29:48):
three years they lost in the tournamentto double digit seeds. What seed is
NC State they're at eleven mm hmm. Wouldn't that be funny if they do
make it to the final four andthey still get bounced by a double digit
seed. Wow, it would befitting, would it not. It almost

(01:30:10):
makes me want to like jump onmy phone right now and go NC State
money line because it would just carryover that storyline that next year. We
can say the last four years,Perdue has lost to a double digit seed
in the NC Tournament. But themen's tournament feels inevitable. It feels like,

(01:30:33):
you know, the death March ofYukon Don don dun undun dunna,
like just walking to the title yepand rolling over everybody. I again,
if they roll over Alabama, man, because that Alabama offense is unbelievable.
It is unbelievable. And the crazything is it's almost all mid major guys.

(01:31:00):
If you look at where they alltransferred from to Alabama, like nat
Oates went and found a bunch ofguys that fit and complimented each other.
But there's isn't this back to backyears that like a transfort transfer portal team
mostly like made a deep run inKansas State last year was like that.
Yeah, and and noel like hewas. He was at Kansas State when

(01:31:21):
Jerome Tang got there, but hehad transferred in the year before. And
then they took uh the major riskon Johnson that from Florida that had the
heart issue. Nobody else would clearhim, but their team was predominantly transfers.
So yeah, this is this iskind of two in a row where

(01:31:43):
you you get a team in thefinal four that is not homegrown, but
the others have transfers that have supplementedtheir roster. Purdue is almost all homegrown,
but Yukon obviously they lost a bunchlast year and had to replace it.
UH and and have as well asanybody. And you know n C

(01:32:05):
State is there's transfers. It's Imean, Kevin Keats was was on the
hot seat very much. So yes, going into the NCAA tournament. The
run that they're on has triggered atwo year extension in his contract. I'm
good, I'm good. Yeah,And guess what, like he's he's Teflon

(01:32:28):
in rally for a little while becausehe's made this run and gotten them to
the final four. Do you doyou think there's any Jimmy v magic with
NC State? I was thinking thatbecause well, we're my I don't want
my math thirty nine years. Uhno, it's eighty two, right,

(01:32:48):
was eighty three eighty three? Itmight have eighty two eighty three, so
it would be it would be fortyone forty one. Yeah, okay,
yeah, I mean you know weare we gonna get Kevin Keats running around
looking for somebody to hug on Mondaynight. Maybe. I don't know.

(01:33:11):
F C Cincinnati in action tomorrow againstthe New York Red Bulls. I'm always
confused on the the Is this homeor away? Are they first? Yeah,
they're first? Yeah, they're home. Then I don't like that.
Just do it like everything else.Why does soccer have to be different?
Why does everything about soccer have tobe different just for the sake of being

(01:33:33):
different? And every other thing?When I pull up the game schedule,
the home team is on the bottom, correct, And in soccer, the
home team is on the top.It's a field. No, it's a
pitch. It's a jersey. No, it's a kit. Just didn't wear
in America. Huh what a kity? Ain't no will? I'm never calling

(01:33:57):
this soccer. Drasey a kid,right, that's what the the shirt and
the pant like the shorts, they'recalled a kit. The kit, No,
like the car from night Rider,Michael, Why do I do those
jokes that just date myself every time? Because those are the those are the
references that are in my head.Put the home team on the damn bottom,

(01:34:19):
thank you, Cincinnati at home hostingthe New York Red Bulls. They
would be without their starting goalie potentiallyfor what they say in soccer is an
extended period of time, which couldmean does that mean the exact opposite?
Does that mean he'll be back attheir next match? Like we call it
a game, No, it's amatch. It annoys me, Tarren,

(01:34:45):
I'm noticed, we get it.You're soccer. You're different. Like,
okay, we understand the game wasn'tcreated here. We got a football football.
Football wasn't created here. Well,if you're playing it here, you
put the home team on the bottomon the Google search anything else bout soccer
That Upsetsue. No, that's reallyI like soccer. I played soccer growing

(01:35:09):
up. I'm a soccer guy.I just don't like this thing where we
have to pretend like soccer is somethingdifferent than every other American sport. The
home team goes on the bottom.If I look up final four games,
whoever's going to be wearing white ison the bottom. If I look up
the Reds on Google, if Igoogle Cincinnati Reds schedule, New York Mets

(01:35:31):
will be on top, Cincinnati Redswill be on the bottom. And then
if I google soccer, it's flippedstupid. Speaking of the Reds, six
forty tonight, Hunter Green, LuisQuintana, they are both. They both
have the exact same era three eightysix Quintana, Oh one Green, No

(01:35:56):
decision tomorrow postgame fireworks? Why notif it's Friday? I know, But
they said on official Rice Twitter theysaid there will be no postgame fireworks show
on April fifth due to the OhioRiver level affecting the safe operation of the
fireworks. Baryeh, that makes sense, Okay, I'm okay with that.
We don't need barges running into bridges. Oh no, yeah, no,

(01:36:20):
no, whatever is going to keepthe bridges safe. Well, I'm okay
with the fireworks being canceled on FireworksFriday. Now, back like like a
decade ago, that was my dadwould take Kelsey on Friday nights and she
would spend the night so that theycould go and watch the fireworks on Friday,

(01:36:40):
and then Kelly and I would geta night off on Friday. So
if this was ten years ago,I would have been irrationally mad, But
now I don't care, understandably,So now I don't care. Just keep
the bridges up so I can getback and forth across the river. We
need the bridges. Saturday for tenuh, Luis Severino against Nick Martinez,

(01:37:01):
they also have the exact same era A tarn uh. Yeah, and
then Sunday Abbott against Maneya. Ithink that's how it said, Uh,
that one's at Let's take a breakmore when we come back. Cincinnati's ESPN
fifteen thirty, Cincinnati. I usedto listen to this on repeat over and

(01:37:44):
over and over again, sir,on my home those one of my Bobby
was so good. It takes meback, takes me back. Cincinnati's esp

(01:38:20):
IN fifteen thirty. How mad doyou think people get when I just sing
to them in their car? I'mnot that mad. I love them.
Probably single right along, yeah,that's probably. I mean, if you're
of a certain age, they'll probablysingle right along so they can drown you
out that's probably the smartest, thesmartest way to go. I'm not gonna

(01:38:40):
lie, probably the smartest way togo. H we got Mike the course,
he coming up here shortly, soa little touch and go here.
But you want to you want tosee a cautionary tale. Look at the
Mats right now. That is aa multi billion dollar owner who basically came
into that franchise and said, Iam going to buy everything and we are

(01:39:02):
going to win. And I thinkTony Pike could get strikeouts, get outs
against this Mets team on the mound. Tony likes to talk about how he
could how he could hit major leaguepitching. I think Tony could get outs
on the mound against the Mets rightnow. But what fears me, Taran
the teams struggling like this through theirfirst six games. They get a win

(01:39:23):
last night, and then they comeinto Cincinnati with a little, just a
tiny bit of confidence. Like Isaid, Cincinnati's got to do what teams
have done to them over these pastcouple of years when they've started slow and
just squash them quick quick, whichmeans Hunter Green has to be good tonight,

(01:39:43):
both in this show with a littlebit more reds, but let's take
a break. The Hall of FamerMike Decorsi live from Phoenix at the Final
four to give us a preview ofthe weekend. Right after this, Cincinnati's
ESPN fifteen thirty, Cincinnati's ESPN fiftyWelcome back. It's not E's ESPN fifteen

(01:40:13):
thirty. Chad Brendle and from Oegar. You can buy me on Twitter at
Chad Brendle. You can buy meat Bearcat journal dot com. Let's get
right to it. We got abusy man. We do not want to
take his time. Mike the course, he from the Sporting News and many
many, many, many, manymany other places. Mike, I didn't
I forgot. I wanted to tellTaran to do Steely Dan for you,

(01:40:36):
but you got Daylas Soul, whichessentially is like the Steely Dan of my
generation. So it's close, ifyou say so, Mike. Yea.
I asked tarn this earlier. I'mgonna ask you. Is the Women's final
for the bigger story this year thanthe men's Final Four? I mean,

(01:40:59):
I don't know. I don't knowthat it's really a contest. They're having
a great moment, they are havinga spectacular moment, and and you know
the appeal of Caitlin Clark, andand she continues to deliver, and she
continues to be demeaned by her bythe women in her game, which is

(01:41:20):
just staggering. I wrote a columnsix weeks ago now about uh. There
was a series of specific comments uh. Kim Maulkie made one. Don Staley
made one uh. And there wasa series of specific comments that were kind
of either open shots at her orkind of subtle digs. And it was

(01:41:43):
kind of surprising to me that herealong comes a young woman who is changing
the paradigm of the sport that peoplehave been pleading and or demanding for decades
to gain more attention, and she'sbrought it. And instead of saying,
wow, thanks, this is great, keep it up, they say,

(01:42:05):
no, it's not that great nowin my day. Like Larbach, my
friend from the Athletic and Serious examinterviewed Brianna Stewart, the great player from
w NBA Seattle, I think she'sin New York now and Yukon multi time
champion and asked her can she beone of the greats without a title,

(01:42:27):
And Brianna Stewart said no, Imean, that's just ridiculous. I mean,
and you know what my response onTwitter was, And you'll appreciate this,
everybody, listen, I'll appreciate it. I just said Oscar Robertson says,
hello, right, because Oscar is. When I did my book twenty
years ago on the one hundred greatestcollege basketball players of all time, Oscar

(01:42:47):
was number three, number three,with no titles, three final fourth but
no titles. And here is hereis now Caitlin Clark playing without any five
stars, maybe not even any futureNBA players on w NBA players on her
team, in her second Final fourin a row, and they can't say

(01:43:10):
yes, I'm not saying she's thegreat. It's that's a lot of competition,
but one of come on, right, You're not allowed to be great
if you didn't win a championship,except for all the people that have been
great that didn't win a championship.That I mean, it's silly, It's
silly. The games tonight, Pageversus Caitlin, I have said, I

(01:43:32):
want to pick. I have reallyenjoyed watching Page Beckers play for a long
time. I think the injuries finallycatch up to Yukon and this one,
unfortunately, because I want to pickYukon to win UH and then South Carolina,
and it feels like we're heading foran inevitable South Carolina. Don Staley
versus Caitlin Clark National Championship on Sunday, Well, selfishly, I want I

(01:43:58):
went to win because I want tosee Caitlin play one more game. I
mean, every time that they sheplays, something happens that just leaves my
jaw drop it. They're one oneof my reactions to outrageously great performances as
I laugh out loud. Like whenDalton connect went off against Auburn a couple
of weeks ago, I was laughingfor like twenty minutes. And when I

(01:44:21):
was watching the LSU Iowa game theother night, it was the same reaction.
I was laughing out loud at thethings that she can do and the
things she kept doing it under underthat much pressure. It was staggering,
and I I just I want tosee that as much as I can see
it. She's gonna bring that tothe w NBA soon. She's gonna bring

(01:44:44):
that to Indianapolis some time for mywife and I to leave and we will
be where are you going? Weare going back to Pittsburgh oh, I'm
sorry. No, I know youlove Pittsburgh. I know I thought maybe
we were gonna get lucky and youwere coming back to Cincinnati. No,
we we have. My wife retiredtoday. She finished, she did our

(01:45:08):
last days at the Inna Farm Bureau, and we are moving to Pittsburgh.
But that doesn't mean you're rid ofme because I'm not retiring. Good good,
good? Wait, what would youretire from? You love this?
It's fun? Well? No,I mean what I would retire from is
one of my multiple times, themen's three four years whatever it was.

(01:45:31):
Danny Hurley says you better get usnow because we're coming, and I believed
him. I didn't know that itwas gonna be this. I mean the
rise for Danny over the past twoseasons. People forget he had not won
a tournament game entering last year's NCUBLEAtournament, And now I have said this.
I don't know if you agree.He has had the most dominant ten

(01:45:53):
game stretch in NC DOUBLEA tournament history. Their closest game has been thirteen points.
They feel inevitable. It's somewhat does. I do think that if Purdue
is able to avoid the upset tomorrowthat Monday's game will be competitive. Yes,
you don't think Alabama's going to becompetitive. I well, my caveat

(01:46:15):
in that has been I believe thatAlabama made twenty seven to threes in their
two in their in their sweet sixteenin the lead eight games, and I
believe that if they can make twentyseven in tomorrow's time. The thing that's
wild about Alabama is they don't getThey're just trying to score ninety like the

(01:46:35):
chips will fall where they may.But we're going to do everything we can
to get to ninety. I thinkYu Kon's defense will have something to say
about that. But yes, itjust it's so impressive to see Danny come
into his own I mean you,I've known him for a long time.
You've known him for a long time. Yes, he he's never going to

(01:46:57):
be comfortable in his skin, likehe's a maniac, but he is a
controlled maniac. Now. Well,I think I think he has become really
good at at being Danny Hurley.I think he's much better at it than
he was. It looked understand thatwhere he was when I was covering Pitt

(01:47:18):
and he was playing for Seaton Hallin the early nineteen nineties. His father
was the literal greatest high school basketballcoach of all time. Yes, his
brother was watching the twenty five orthirtieth, twenty five or thirty best college
basketball players of all time. Andif if Bob if Dan had been a
piano player, none of that wouldhave really had an impact on I knew

(01:47:41):
had been like, Hey, mybrothers and dad are doing cool stuff,
But what do I care. I'ma piano player. But he was a
basketball guy too. It was maybeit was inevitable growing up in that family,
but he was. He was abasketball guy. So there's all that
to deal with, and it washard for him, and it and it
never got easy for him. Maybewhen he got to Saint Benedict's and he

(01:48:02):
started to carve out his own identity. Uh, Saint Benedict's being an elite
prep school in New Jersey, thatwas really where he got his start as
a coach, and I think hestarted to carve out his identity and then
he you know, I think itwas helpful for him when he became the
head coach at Wagner and his brotherwas his assistant, so he was not

(01:48:24):
the guy behind, he was theguy in front and I think all the
way through he has continued to growas a person and as a coach.
I think he, like he yesterdayat the at the press conference, was
very comfortable in his canitaults and wasreally funny when people were just dying for
him to bash the n C doubleA because of the plane incident the other

(01:48:45):
night, and he and he andhe instead turned it into an opportunity to
one say look we're fine, uhand and two to say to be funny.
You know, he said that,you know, he said that the
icing was therapeutic for him. Itwas hysterical, and I thought that that

(01:49:05):
was really a great approach. Iwas worried that he was going to come
in here and do that because Ididn't think it would be good for him
or for Yukon. A lot ofwhat happened was Yukon's fault, to be
honest with you, because Purdue washere on Tuesday, Alabama was here on
Tuesday, NC State came in Wednesdaymorning, and Yukon was the one that
chose to delay their departure and havea sending off party at three o'clock in

(01:49:30):
the afternoon on Wednesday, So thatwas already pushing it and then when something
went wrong, it went really wrong, right Purdue. I joked about this
earlier, Mike. The storyline isstill there for them, not the one
you think. They've lost to adouble digit seed three years in a row.

(01:49:56):
They could lose to a double digitseed in the final four. I
don't think they're going to. Ithink their guard play. I do think
NC State's guards can give Purdue's guardstrouble more than anybody else has in this
tournament. I think Purdue gets aclose one, but NC State winning would
not surprise me. No, Idon't think so. I think they've beaten

(01:50:16):
too many really good teams to saythat this one's out of reach. They
did it to Duke twice in singleelimination events, they did it to Carolina
with a trophy on the line,and so no, I don't think it
would be outrageous if they were ableto do this. I do expect that
Purdue with Edie's ability, with NCState not being the deepest on the inside,

(01:50:39):
they basically have a three man frontcourt. Yeah, it usually takes
a few more guys than that.DJ Burns is one and a half with
there. You got me there asone hundred percent truth is he is,
and it's really it's really cool towatch how much fun he's having with this,
how much fun people are having withwith him and his performances. I

(01:51:02):
think that's really been awesome to watch. Who cuts down the nets on Monday?
Oh, I've had yukon from thestart of this. When I look
at the things that you need todo to win, they need to have
to win. There are like sevenor eight categories that every champion fills,

(01:51:27):
and it's there's almost no exceptions.And so when the tournament started and people
were picking Houston, I'm like,hey, lou you lose, it's over.
You're out. And they're not gonnado it. I mean, even
with Jamal Shd had not gotten hurt, they were not winning this thing.
But they have been here. Surethey're really good, but they weren't gonna
win it. And there are onlya handful of teams in this tournament that
could. For Doe is one,Tennessee was one, Creighton was one.

(01:51:53):
There are a few. Carolina Ithought could. Everybody said Illinois could,
and then you come went on athirty to nothing run. No Illinois could
not. They never could. No, No, you can't win with the
one hundredth be defense and that's whyAlabama here. Right. But you you
those teams Purdue and Yukon both canwin. Yukon has the greater edge there

(01:52:16):
there. They have more ability,they have more talent. Uh, they
have the confidence to know they cando it. The pressure of getting here
is over. I think that they'reyou know, if they win it,
Uh, it's not going to bea matter of you know, oh gosh,
there's so much heat on us totry to do it again that there
never was because it was a differentteam. And now that they're here in

(01:52:40):
in Glendale, I don't think there'sany more pressure on them to win it
than anybody else heading into the weekend. All right, we appreciate it.
Thank you so much for taking timeout of a very busy schedule from Phoenix
and enjoy the weekend and another excellentfinal four Thanks Mike, you're the best.
All right, check you to thankThere you go, Mike to course

(01:53:02):
the Hall of Famer live from Phoenix. That's that doesn't get you fired up
for the final four teen? Andwhat the heck does Let's take a break,
one final break. We'll be backright after this. Since any's ESPN
fifteen thirty getting your biggest second.You can't even say yeah, just say

(01:53:26):
oh baby, I like it,Yeah baby, I like it. Oh
baby, I like it, Yeahbaby, I like it. Answer to
me. Give me the much soI could take it away. Oh yeah,
from the Home of the dodging.But don't even touch my skill.

(01:53:53):
You gotta goot to one anyway.Now, stop that down. That's all
around. Get holds on the groundforming. That's how you. That's how

(01:54:15):
that's how you. That's that's theproper send off to the weekend. It's
a proper send off to the weekend. Let's get to the phones one more
time before we get out of here. My buddy Tony from dry Ridge.
Tony, what's going on, myfriend? How are you? Yeah,
Chad, just one quick question withthe with the too big sleeping you see
in the transport portal, huh.And I was thinking, there's a name

(01:54:40):
I haven't heard, and I've beenlooking for it because if we back got
him last year and his coach justleft, you probably know a young man
of talking about he's from Georgia,and I know he hadn't hit the portal
yet, and I just wanted towhere where did this coach Lee from?

(01:55:00):
Is coach left ufc oh R andTim Page. Yeah, I'd pass on
that one. I will. I'mnot a stinking cheat. He's developmental.
And if they don't need developmental,they need they need fifteen minutes a night
at the five and probably ten totwelve minutes a night at the four.
They with the number of spots youare, you are not in the range

(01:55:25):
of right now of taking developmental guys. I mean it, it looks like
if things go as planned, youare gonna have Gisel Day Day, Dan
uh siemas Azaz, Josh Reed,uh Ravon, Griffith, Tyler, McKinley,

(01:55:46):
uh Tyler, Betsy and I feellike I'm forgetting somebody in that mix.
But you're only gonna have two orthree spots that to play with,
and you need to win. Like, let's let's be honest right now,
Wes Miller's got to make the tournamentin twenty twenty four to twenty five.

(01:56:06):
He's not gonna get fired or anythingcrazy like that, but they have to.
If they've got limited spots, youhave got to go get guys that
can impact the top of your roster. Arrenton Page I watched Arrington Page a
lot. When I watched him playwith Isaiah Callier, he was excellent.
When I watched him play without IsaiahCallier, I wondered when he started playing

(01:56:29):
basketball, and uh, unless unlessIsaiah Callier is coming with him, then
I would pass on that one.The only reason that I would. I
just think he's more afloated, gonnahave more upsides than say it stage would.
Well. Yeah, but so ifSage left, then you traded them.
I guess maybe, But I Iwas never big on Arrenton Page if

(01:56:55):
it did not include the Isaiah Callierjust because I don't think. I think
he still has a lot of development. He has a long way to go.
He did not make much of animpact on a terrible USC team,
but they had a lot of bigs. That's why I was surprised he went
there anyway, because the door wasopen for Caller. But my thing is,
if we don't say, look ata guy like him, Okay,

(01:57:15):
let's say the big guy Saint Joe's, who's a French kid here we got
some connection and Sarah. I justhate going next year with Sage because if
I'm West, I would scare thehell out of it. I would not
worry about the sage, being likethe way the transfer portal works. You
know, Tony, you worry aboutnow and if you have holes for next
year, you take care of themnext year. If they can get a

(01:57:39):
guy with a couple of years,I'm sure they would like to do that,
and that would be great. Butagain, you asked me about Arrenton
page. I am not an Arrententpage guy. Okay, one last thing.
Tody will get the crap beat outof him Sunday Chad, but he
will. He's kind of like DannyHurley. He was a little brother behind

(01:58:00):
Dustin who everybody always thought would takeDusty sieves. But that he will win
that match, Sundy Diskiva to makeall the Cody people happy. Well,
it's like Terrence said, we alreadydid this last year. They can't do
it another year, right, Theycan't do the storyline of you know,

(01:58:21):
completing his story, all that stufflike that that they got. They played
it exactly right. They got aton of juice out of it. It
is the hottest thing that they've hadstoryline wise in a long time. You
can't try to milk much more outof it. I don't think I think
I think the Cow is about dryon Cody getting his shot and the Rock

(01:58:45):
coming back to the heel. Wasstroke a genius, just like when Hogan
turned heel. That made d nwyoas got to the rifts and that was
a great idea. Sure, Ithink the difference there being like Hogan had
never been a heel, like whenHogan turned heel. Like kids are crying
in the audience, remember when thelike the Rock was a heel, Like

(01:59:08):
he was a bad guy at thebeginning, and then he was just so
charamatic, charismatic that like the theRock is actually he changed wrestling because the
line between good guy and bad guyall of a sudden didn't exist anymore.
The bad guy was the good guybecause everybody loved him because he was funny
and he was great on the mic, and he had this charisma, and

(01:59:30):
they couldn't they almost like couldn't pretendthat he was a bad guy anymore because
he blurred the line. Now he'sbad like it's I love the the the
act he is he is pulling offright now. It's fantastic. Thanks Tony,
appreciate it. Man Tarn. Youwant to give predictions, you want

(01:59:57):
to give a rundown of what Tarrensees the two nights? Got what three
minutes left? I think you canget through this real quick, got three
minutes. That's let's get Terrence predictionsfor WrestleMania. I need to pull up.
I need to pull up the fullcar because the top of my head.
I can't remember all that well.And you don't wanna you don't want
to miss right? Uh you youget, you get Uchino in Thursday.
Uh, I've got new heights atKnippert Stadium, so I won't be here

(02:00:19):
Thursday. You guys gonna do allwrestling all day Thursday. Maybe not all
wrestling, but there will be agood significant amount of wrestling. Yes,
Yes, a w's in town.I know Rick's got a lot of a
W connections. That's that's correct.So uh, let's go Night one.
Let's start with Jimmy or JUSO Twinversus Twin. I'm going Jay Us Younger

(02:00:43):
Brother. Okay, uh we gotuh Dwayne the Rock, Johnathan Romeraines versus
Cody Rose Seth Rollins. I'm goingbloodline there. Yeah, we get We're
gonna get bloodline rules for sure.Key keynote, The Rock gets the pin
okay, which sets up something possiblyfor Sunday okay with him and who possibly

(02:01:04):
Roman okay? So okay. Ithink Dominic Mysterio beats his dad this year.
They're in a tag team match thisyear, not one versus one.
I think dom beats Ray this year. Okay. Uh, Bianca Belair,
Naomi j Cargill or the Damage Control. I'm going Bianca and Naomi and Jade,

(02:01:28):
who's also Brandon Phillips's wife. Ifyou didn't know, yeah, I
didn't know that. Yeah, Guntheror semis Aim for the title. Give
me, give me Gunther retaining Let'sgo to night too, Logan Paul,
Randy Orgon, Kevin Owens. I'mgoing Randy Orton for that with the win
in saying r KAO and Logan Paulsomehow that God should be a good one.

(02:01:51):
Logan Paul can wrestle. Yeah,he's not. He he has impressed
me since he's he's he's been hisgame. I think he's gonna be a
world champion some point. No,no, no, I think that's drawing.
I think that's drawing, drawing theline, Okay, going too far.
I think Drew McIntyre beat Seth Rollinsalthough but drew it won't be champion.
I think there will be a cashin winning the bank. After the

(02:02:13):
match, Bailey becomes your new Women'schampion over EO sky l A Knight bes
Aj Styles and then the main eventBloodline Rules Match Roman Race was Cody Rhoades.
You have to go, Cody,you have to have to have to
have to all right, that's gonnawrap it up. That was that was
a Rock Cost Rock Cost Roman,Roman Rock. What do you want?

(02:02:38):
H The the search page I wason when I looked up f C Cincinnati
to see their game time, itjust it's something popped up and said was
this search helpful? And I wantedto go off on them to put the
home team on the bottom. Damnit. I don't know when I'm back.
I'll see you whenever. That is. Thanks everybody for tuning in.

(02:02:59):
It's the Moager's Show. I'm JedBrendel, see you next time. Since
I's ESBN thirteen thirty and I'm listeningto the radio, I'm listening to a
sad girl sang saing about us.He got a corn thro he move me
to to sto. I just wantme something, not youro when you're alone,
it gets dyl. Don't act.Listen if you didn't talk. No,

(02:03:24):
she let me play with her card. I'm working late, I said,
I'll soon be home. All aboutthe girl was home. Let me
tell you what she crying for.Why? Because I'm flying, super fly
make I'm flying, you know me, super fly with me. I'm looking

(02:03:46):
with duper and I'm super duper flyfly