December 2, 2024 • 38 mins
Tom talks Kentucky football with Van Hiles and Cameron Mills talks Kentucky basketball.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Bingie beef Turkey podcast of the Leach Report is
also presented by Boons Butcher Shop, one hundred old Bloomfield
Pike in Barnestown, fresh meat cut on location daily and
they're family owned and operated, have been since nineteen forty six.
Good day, everybody, Welcome into the Leach Report, presented by
Bobcat Enterprises as we start the new week, full week
(00:22):
of shows after a couple of holiday pre recorded editions
of our program. And I hope everybody had a wonderful
Thanksgiving and a what's the best way? An efficient or
a productive Black Friday of shopping. I guess there were
records set for online purchases. Today's Cyber Monday, so happy
(00:45):
shopping again today for those of you that are participating.
Coming up on the show today, we have two participants.
We'll talk Kentucky football in the first half with our
shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback edition of the program.
Van Hiles, the former wild Cat dB will join us
and a bit of a little take on the Louisville game,
just a post mortem of the season with a Van.
(01:07):
And then the second half of the show, Cameron Mills
will be with us to talk Kentucky men's basketball, as
the Wildcats have an important week coming up. They go
to Clemson tomorrow and then head to see Attletll play
Gonzaga on Saturday night. Wildcat News of the Day is
presented by Joseepes of Lexington. And I'll just know because
of the basketball game tomorrow, that means Coach Pope and
(01:29):
the guys are traveling tonight or later today to Clemson,
and that means in those situations, the coaches shows get
pushed to Wednesday. So the final installment of the Mark
Stoop Show for this season will be Wednesday at six
and the second Mark Pope Show will follow and then
(01:50):
the rest of the programming on the UK Sports Network
that'll be on Wednesday this week. Jump into the Wildcat
News of the Day. It's a service of Giuseppes of Lexington.
There used to be a chaotic slash, tumultuous, slash, any
other adjective you want to use for the football program.
This week, it's signing day and coming up this week
(02:12):
and it's also leading up to the opening of the
transfer portal a week from today, so you'll start to
hear names of guys that are entering the portal from Kentucky,
probably speculation on who will be coming to Kentucky and
just there's to be a lot of roster turnover. Anyway,
(02:36):
got off to a bad start yesterday for Kentucky with
two prominent recruiting d commitments. Their highest rated commitment running
by Marquise Davis from the Cleveland area. He is flipping
to Missouri at this point with just a few days
before signing day. And then offensive lineman Tucker Katis, the
younger brother of Josh Katis. He is being flipped by Clemson.
(02:58):
So big names now going elsewhere for Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What you hope, if.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You want to be the optimist, is that Kentucky ended
up with Josh Allen because somebody decommitted and they ended
up offering Josh Allen a scholarship. So you know, that's
what you hope happens. But in the short term, it
is not good to lose two guys of you know
(03:29):
that two of your higher regarded recruits that are flipping
to go to other schools. Now Stone Saunders, the quarterback.
He did a post on x that would seem to
suggest he is solid. There was speculation that you know,
he'd be announcing he's going somewhere else, and then he
did a post to the BBN of him in his
Kentucky uniform, seemingly reaffirming his commitment. Mark Stoops said after
(03:53):
the game on the UK Network and in his news
conference that he is committed to getting the program back
on track, acknowledge that it's gone off track under his watch,
and so he's the guy that has to get it
back on track and he's going to They said he
was going to be in the office yesterday starting on
(04:14):
that mission. So again, just going to be a very
newsy week for Kentucky football, I would think with the
Cummings and the Goings men's basketball, as I said, they're
heading down to Clemson later today. The game will be
at nine to thirty Eastern time tomorrow, and it'll be
the first road game of the season for the Wildcats
against a Clemson team that is seven and one on
(04:38):
the season but hasn't played anybody close to Kentucky's caliber yet.
Their one loss was a thirteen pointer to Boise State
and it was on the road. Volleyball number three seed
overall in the NCAA Tournament, and they will host a
subregional on Thursday and Friday at Historic Memorial Coliseum. Kentucky
will take on Cleveland State a eastern time on Thursday.
(05:02):
That'll be following the match between Western Kentucky and sixth
seed Minnesota, and then the winners will play on Friday.
Brooklyn Delay named SEC Player of the Year and Kentucky's
Craig Skinner named SEC Coach of the Year after Kentucky
won an eighth SEC championship. So congratulations to Brooklyn and
(05:23):
to coach Skinner. Wildcat News of the Day a service
of Giuseppes of Lexington, and if you're looking for a
hard to buy for a person for a Christmas present,
consider Jusepes gift cards. You can order them online and
they'll mail them out to you. Better yet, go to
Open Table and make your reservation for a special night
out at Giuseppes and pick up the gift cards yourself
while you're there. They're located off Nicholasville Road here in Lexington,
(05:47):
and it is a one of a kind, truly dining
experience at Giseppes. We'll get to break our show's presented
each day by Bobcat Enterprises, and when we come back,
we'll get started on some football talk with Van Hiles
on the Later Report Radio network quarter past the top
of the hour. We come to you from the Clark's
Pumping Shop studio, Return Refresh and Refuel at Clark's and
(06:08):
joined on the Club blueinil dot com hotline by Van Hiles,
the former Wildcat, dB and NFL player with the Bears,
and it's our Shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback Edition.
We'll talk a little bit about the game, kind of
a postpartum of the season. But let me start with
one different thing.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Van.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
We're having a nice Thanksgiving meal and I had written
off the Bears, your former bear. I had written off
my Bears. They were down sixteen to nothing, I think
at one point. So we had a nice Thanksgiving meal
and I pick up the phone after we finish and
I see they've got the ball and they're down three.
So we run in. We turn on the TV just
in time to see them get their coach fired.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yes, oh man, that's.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
This season for the Bears has been and confounding for me.
It's in the bad point about I think they have
the pieces. It's the pieces are there, they just find
a way to lose games. And some of it is
coaching and some of his players.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's it's some guys.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I would say this, it's interesting that we're having the
same problem these grown men. A lot of these guys
have not bought in, and there are DJ Moore is
a guy whom is just not bought in. Some of
the things he has done prior to the last about
two to three games. I just can't get with. And
it's unfortunate that it got to that level.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But I don't I don't.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I don't understand how these guys don't understand that they
got a guy fired, and that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Somebody's family is uprooted.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Because of US players, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You know, you like me, you're Bears fan of the
Wildcad fans. So if even out over time, you should
be in. We were a great twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You will.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, let's jump into a little bit of Kentucky. We'll
start with with the game. You've posted your cutups at
v Style seventeen on X and you can see Van's
analysis of that. And it was a game that seemingly
was off to a great start for Kentucky and the
second play they handed off to Will Cox, and you
(08:28):
had this in your first cut up, I think, and
they block it well and he gets fifteen out to
the forty yard line. Second play looks like something similar
kind of play and he, you know, up the middle
again and he's storming across midfield in inside the Louisville
forty five yard line. You have a first down around
there forty three, except that you just let the other
(08:52):
team's safety McDonald just take the ball away and head
the other direction. Defense stopped him, but that started the
whipping in the field position that eventually got Kentucky in
a hole from which it could never emerge.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, that I'm a look that was That's a microcosm
of the season. If if you look at the play,
the the I think it's the back judges, the one right.
That referee is the one that cost the the the
fumble because will Cox lost sight of that defender. He
had the ball high and tight all the way up
(09:28):
to the ref Then we got I guess impeded by
the ref He I think in his head thought that
the louis guy was gone because he lost sight of
a different color and he relaxed, and I mean that
guy just picked his pocket. That was the cleanest strip
I think I've seen in my life, and that was
just that's a microcosm of the season. We have been
closing so many games and somehow we find a way
(09:50):
to fumble ball in the fumble game away. And it's
unfortunate that it happened to that guy because he's had
a great season and to have two fumbles in this game, man,
it was It's a bad way to end a good
season for him.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Kentucky had turned it over three times in five years
against Louisville when they had the winning streak, they had
five turnovers on Saturday. That was their seventh consecutive game
with two or more turnovers and teams I think they
scored like sixteen points off the turnover Saturday, which that
could have been worse. And so that was a big problem,
(10:26):
one of several big problems for the offense. But on Saturday,
going in with freshman Cutter Bowley making his first start,
you know, true freshman starting the rivalry game, it's a
tough spot. But you you know, if you're a Kentucky fan,
you're hoping he gives you some hope win or lose
(10:46):
that you carry into the next season and As it
turned out, it was a rough day for Cutter because
he was running for his life a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, I've been I've said this for the last two weeks.
It is easy to be a backup and not in
a bad way. You can get comfortable in the game.
Cutter never got comfortable. If you look at the second series,
the first past he had. We had a similar situation
in Texas where he manipulated the pocket, stepped up, vaarded rush,
(11:20):
made a great downfill throw and it was like, Okay,
this is the future. And on Saturday had a similar
situation and he didn't step up in the pocket, he
went out the back end of the pocket, which you
just cannot do this on this level of football, and
he did, and it's just a difference. He missed some layups,
he missed some things because he never got in a
(11:40):
rhythm for himself. I think been a local, an in
state kid, he knows what the robbery is all about.
He was probably a little too amp and he never
got his feeding firmly on ground. He was just offul
little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Plus the other guys. The coordinator on the other side
has a week to know that you're the star. He's
prepared for Texas, has prepared for Brod Vandergriff the week before. Uh,
this time, they get to you know, have a plan
to uh attack Cutter bowllye and show him a lot
of things he hadn't seen yet at this level, that
kind of thing exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
And and in this situation, it was the one thing
I like about it is I never saw him get
out of character. I never seen him get unwrapped, get rattled.
He was still composed with a team that kind of
knew what as you said, they have game plan for us,
they game plan against him. But he still seemed like
(12:36):
still like Cutter Bowl, he just wasn't It just wasn't
his best game. It wasn't the freshman's best game. And
the one thing you can do is you can build
off of it, and you can say, Okay, guys, this
is the this is the worst for us.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
As freshman, as freshman starters. Now we have something to.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Build on for next season, because I'm very I'm hoping
that you can still build around the core of him
and Wilcox.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Chat with Van Hiles on our Shuffle being Coffee Monday
Morning Quarterback Show. We'll take a break, come back and
have another segment. As we head of the break, We'll
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We'll be right back with Van Hiles if I passed
the top of the hour and Van Hiles is with us.
Our shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback Show recapping a
little bit of the Louisville game and just the season
and on the ladder side of it, Van defensively in
September when Kentucky went three and got the upset at
(14:01):
all miss nearly upset of then number one Georgia team.
The defense was stuffing the run and keeping Kentucky. You
kind of had the feeling they were gonna keep Kentucky
in every game, and it was just a matter of,
you know, could the offense improve enough to do what
they wanted to do. And then they starting in UH
with the Vandy game. After the bye week, UH teams
(14:23):
really started to have success running the ball. H Derek
Jackson got hurt in the Auburn game or was lost
for the season in the Auburn game, it was probably
hurt before that. Some other guys were dinged up. Was
it injuries that did it? Was it something else? What
did you see?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah, that's that's the million dollar question. If it if
d jack was dinged up, I think that's a major factor.
I think there's some things that we didn't do well
and in the front three and as and as linebackers
that people attacked. But honestly, he did start after DJ
(15:01):
got hurt. I mean, Pavia did some things that every
team has had trouble with and we only gave up
twenty points. I mean that game twenty whatever points. Like
it's an interesting thing. As a guy who played on
a iny fishing offense. When I played in nineteen hundreds,
it's it's it wears on a defense. It truly wears
(15:22):
on the defense, and they could have had some mental fatigue.
And sometimes you try to do too much as a
defensive player because you know that you have to make
plays in order for you to stay in the game.
And it could be that it could be the guys
trying to do too much because they know that we
can't allow a team to score over twenty points because
(15:43):
we haven't scored that many points in the game for
ourselves against a pall five team. So it could be
it could be a myriad of things. I think injuries
definitely hurt us, and that's probably number one, But then
I think there was some things between the ears that
that probably got a off kilter.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I think back to that Florida game. Christian Story picks
off a pass, nearly ran it all the way back,
but they he's weaving through the players on the offense
that we're trying to tackle him, and he gets it.
I think back to the eleven yard line and I
can't remember what the score was for sure, but if
Kentucky I think was either close to tying it up
or going ahead there, and they failed to get it
(16:21):
in from the eleven yard line and end up kept
coming away with no points. They've failed on fourth down,
and that seemed to kind of the floodgates opened in
that game against the defense, and that was an example,
certainly within that one game of what you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Yeah, you as a defensive players, as coach Arps and
coach Smith, you to tell me, tell us guys, is
do your job. Do not worry about what the other
side of the ball is doing. Your job is to
stop teams, regardless of where they're at on the field.
If they're inside the thirty, you hold to a field goal.
If they the fifty beyond, you stopped them. And sometimes
(17:01):
as young kids, you you kind of let that go
in one ear and off the other, so you start
to do things that are contrary to what your job is.
And the funny thing about defense is you have to
do your job and be on your assignment because once
you do something that you're not supposed to, it's just
eerily a problem that that ball goes to where you
were supposed to be and most times more than not,
(17:25):
it's going to be a touchdown because we'll all depend
on everybody to be in a certain spot, and when
they're not there a great offense, it's gonna capitalize on it,
and a lot of times it ends up being six points.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Then we're coming up on the heartbreak at the bottom
of the hour. So once this all sorts out with
you know who's gonna be here and who's not gonna
be here, we'll get you back and kind of take
a look at what the roster can look like, what
they can look like moving forward. But I think there's
a lot we don't know right now that will play
out over the next week to ten days. So put
(17:57):
your feet up and watch it unfold and then on
the locker. It's Wednesday nights at nine Eastern with you
and another former cat, Anthony White.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right exactly now, be you on Easter in the time.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I promise you would not want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
All right, get that one Wednesday night at V Style
seventeen on X. Thank you, Van, Thank you. It's the
Late Report. We'll be right back. It's the Late Report
presented by Bobcat Enterprises for locally owned locations around Kentucky.
So when you need to buy or rent heavy equipment
for a job. Just google Bobcat Enterprises. You'll find the
(18:35):
location nearest you and they'll take great care of you
in the process of making the deal and after the
sale or the rental agreement as well. It's Bobcat Enterprises.
Cameron Mills joins us on the club blueinil dot com.
Mine to talk to some UK men's basketball. So big
week for Coach Pope and the guys, Cameron. They go
(18:55):
play their first road game at Clemson tomorrow night and
then we'll play and Zaga on Saturday night in Seattle.
And they come off two games in which they got
roughed up a little bit last week, very physical Georgia
State team and Western was just collapsing on defense and
just a lot of Coach Pope said, they use the
(19:17):
term hansy, but there are a lot of foul shots
in the last two games.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah. And by the way, what was the name of
the what was the number of the player at for
Georgia State that caused the whole Hulla balloon in the
second half.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Believe it was twenty one. It's Clash Peters nephew, former
Duke star Cherokee Parks.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Right. I was looking at his stats. He's a goon.
He was in the game twelve minutes and he had
five fouls. That's his only stat line.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Twenty Yeah, it is twenty one. I just found it.
Six ' nine, two hundred thirty pound freshmen.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
He played twelve minutes, about five fouls. He was sent
in there to do nothing but rough us up. Did
he play any more in that game? Is absolutely absurd
to me.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Ever see a movie called slap Shot. He was a
handsome brother.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Sadly I saw that way too young than I should have.
That was That was one of those movies I saw
at a friend's house during a sleepover. And then when
my parents found out I saw it, they were not
happy about it. So yeah, But here's a good thing
is that Pope has been saying, honestly, since I feel
like the very first game of the year. Now, you know,
he's been saying he's wanted his players to get roughed up.
(20:27):
But I think mainly what he meant was, you know,
he wants his players to be in part facing Look,
we you know, we're tired of facing each other. This
is early in the season when they've only been playing
and practice against each other, and you know, I think
a lot of it too, was the do game was
important because Okay, we're going to see how good we are,
but they just they need to be pushed this way.
And the exciting thing about it was, I mean, if
(20:48):
you watch the game, this is kind of what got
me fired up and watching highlights of the game, especially
because you don't see a lot of the things that
went on in that game by this by this Peters kid.
But I mean he was throwing elbows and throw punches
the entire game. And so what was interesting to me
is going back and watching that as angry as it
made me as a fan and as a former player,
(21:08):
because I've played in those games where you've got somebody
that's literally just out there to cause problems. I mean,
they're not out there to play basketball. He was not
out there to play basketball. But the way we handled
it in both ways, I mean, we kept our cool
for the most part all game because I problems. You
can't play twelve minutes. You go back to watch the college.
He is throwing cheap shots the entire game at us,
and we kept our cool, which is good. But when
(21:30):
things got elevated to the point where okay, now we've
had enough. The entire team backed up a Mari Amari
got shoved. They called the intentional off out. It should
have been if you add up the entire play of
this clown, he should have been ejected from the game.
I can't believe they let him back in, and I
can't believe the coach put him back in towards the
end of the game. But we kept their cool for
you know, most of the game as he sat there
(21:51):
and had his cheap shots. And then when it came
to all right, it's team now, so we you know,
you've we've reached our kind of explosion point. We're not
going back. And then the entire team had in Mary's back.
So I think we handled it perfectly both ways. And
then after the kind of scruffle there in the second half,
I think we went on a forty four to twenty
three run. So it's like it was a I wouldn't
(22:12):
say a nip and tuck game. But once that happened,
it's like, okay, now we're responding. So it kind of
woke us up in a way.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, they had cut it to six at one point,
and I think Otega had a bucket to make it
eight and then I think that's when all that happened.
And Kentucky what it's what's sealed line somewhere from a movie.
You know you won't like me when I'm mad.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I think it's just about it. About every movie. There's
probably a great line every good movie. This is a
great line. And but what's good though, is again we
responded well. We didn't play, we didn't shoot well, and
I think that's the key thing, especially from three pointers.
We had two back to back games against Western and
Georgia State where we shot I think below thirty percent
from the three point life. And as a reminder, we're
(22:55):
going to have games like that where our other aspects
of our team have got to win our skins. We
can't lie solely on three point shots to win us
every game this year. So when we have those games,
two back to backers where we you know, it's just
not falling the way we've seen it fall, we got
it done in other ways. We pointed the paint against
Georgia State, even transition against Georgia State. I think we
won the battle of the boards both offensively and defensively
(23:17):
against both Georgia State and Western. So those other stats
came through and as you said at the very beginning,
going forward, now we've got two essentially road games, one
down in Clemson, and I doubt the Seattle game is
going to be much of a neutral site game. It
might be, I know it's supposed to be, but it's look,
it's going.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
To be mainly neutral site game.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, but you remember Tom back in the day. It's
like when it was Freedom Hall, especially when we would
play Indiana, Right, we played Indiana and Freedom Hall and
then we claim its Rcia Gump. That was like the
fifty fifty.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Oh yeah, that was more neutral, But all the other
games in Freedom Hall were not neutral.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
True.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, when we played Old Mints at Freedom Hall, that
was very much a game. Might a little bit at Repper.
But now we've got we're getting to the harder part
of our schedule. The encouraging thing is what we did
against Duke. We know we can play at that high
level when we need to, and we've run through all
of the and you know, I hate saying this, but
don't the house subscribe it. The quote unquote cupcakes of
(24:15):
this early season. We handled them all pretty easily, even
though we got roughed up. So I'm pretty happy with
where we're sitting, and I think Post was probably pretty
happy not only where we're sitting record wise, because what
matters more is we've had every kind of game I
think he would want us to have. We've had the
close one against Duke, a team that was supposedly better
than us that we beat. We beat every other team
that we were supposed to be and beat them pretty handily.
(24:38):
And even though we had some issues that we had
to work out in game, didn't have our shots, so
we had to win the game other way in other ways.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, I think back to the year. It was the
one season when Tayshawn got it was his junior year,
got on a great role and he was just you know,
putting a big numbers game after game, and they finally
got to the I guess was the Sweet Sick and
they played Southern cal and they just made every time
he went through the lane, he got bodied, he got chucked,
(25:08):
he got you know, bounced around like a pinball. And
the thing is when you're rolling like that as a
player or as a team like Kentucky was when they
through that game, where through that series of games that
culminated with the seventeen threes against Jackson State. You know,
the other teams you're gonna play are gonna look at
it and say, Okay, let's see how they look when
they can't play pretty so to speak. Yeah, and just
(25:31):
make it rougher for him. And that's that's just naturally
going to happen. And so it is good that they
showed that they could you know, uh, emerge from that
and still take care of business.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, no, exactly right, And I think that was an
encouraging thing. I think also the other really encouraging thing
is probably the most consistent player we've had all years
been Owayn't I don't know that anyone would would argue that,
but the second most consistent player. It's hard to say
consistent because he had a couple you know, so so
games early the season, but it seems like in the
big games or in the games when we need him,
(26:04):
he shows up. And that's Andrew Carr. I mean, Andrew
showed up against dude. Andrew showed up. I believe. I
certainly did against Georgia State. I believe he had a
double double. He almost had a double double against Western.
I may have those slips, but you know, something came
out of the Western Kentucky game where apparently Andrew's nickname
is Team Dad, which I just steaks hysterical because if
you meet Andrew, he he just seems to have this
(26:26):
very oh, I don't know how to describe it without
it tries sounded like I'm insulting him, because I'm not,
because I love his attitude. But he's got this very
mature attitude. You know, like when he when he first
showed up on campus, the most impressive thing to him
was walked that lodge And when you ask him why,
it says, because we all get to be in there
like a family. Now those are my words describing what
he said, but it's like we want to be there
as a team. It's because he didn't have that a
(26:47):
win for us, So I think it's exciting. Like Andrew
is like he he He's had some games where he
hasn't really played great, but more than the games where
we needed him to, you know, the last two games,
you know, almost having averaging a double double played huge
in that Dude game, and that's been encouraging me because
Oway Kobe, you know, Lamar Creasa, we've seen them kind
(27:09):
of excel, but we're seeing Andrew kind of get the
dirty work and he's getting it done and that's what's
exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Talk with Cameron Mills and you hear him on the
Countdown to tip Off shows with Dave Baker, and then
it'll be starting at eight Eastern time tomorrow for the
game at Clemson, and we'll continue talking about Kentucky men's
basketball when we return here on the Leach Report Radio Network,
coming to you from the Clark's Pumping Shop studio. Return,
Refresh and refuel.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Can't you can't get too carried away emotional. You got
to keep taking all the emotion and funneling back to focus.
I thought our guys did a spectacular job of doing
that and at the same time meeting the physicality of
the game.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I was really proud of our guys and.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
It felt good, It felt it felt nice our guys.
You know, when things got salty, our guys leaned into
each other. They looked into each other, they were making
eye contact with each other, were talking each other, they
were backing each other up. And that's what you want
from a team. And our guys felt it too. They
talked about it in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
After that was Mark Pope after the game on Friday
night against Georgia State, talking about what Cameron was just
talking about here on the lead report. Cameron Mills coming
to us on the Club BLUEINIL dot com hotline. That's
the official collective partner of UK Athletics and that's how
Kentucky's building the pool of funds for NIL and fans
(28:29):
can get involved for as little as twenty five dollars
a month. There are special perks for members when you
sign up, and you can go to Club Blueinil dot
com and see what some of those look like and
see if it's for you, and if it is, sign
up at Club Blue nil dot com and help out
UK's in IL efforts. Cameron Mills, you are a noted
(28:53):
disdain guy for rankings. Just wondering if your opinions. I
wonder if your opinion is going to change with your
dear friend Mark Pope, now the coach of your alma
mater about to move maybe into the top five in
the AP poll this week.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Absolutely not Now I hold on it. This opinions of
the day I died. Tom Good ins the thing because okay,
has Mark said anything? Have we heard Mark talk about
the rankings at all, and I'm genuinely asking this, okay.
And here's the thing. You don't hear coaches talk about
it much because if you and you remember back to
the day again, I maybe they still have it. I
(29:31):
try to ignore these things as much as possible, even
though it's thrown in my face, and I don't even
use them as kind of Okay, well you'd like to
do game well, we weren't supposed to be doing well.
Why well because they were ranked higher. I don't even
fall into that trap. But yeah, I look, I'm excited
by the fact that, hey, we've climbed the poles. But look,
the bottom line is that it's all guesswork. It is
(29:53):
so all guest work, and it's guess worked by people
in the media. It's guess worked by you know, the coaches.
Polish do even have the coaches polling more?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, it's it's there.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
But Tom, who.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Votes in the coaches?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Paul?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You know this as well as I do.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Well, I'll give you a story about that. The SEC
tournament was at rupp I think this was in ninety three,
and Whip Sanderson won Coach of the Year by one vote,
and it came out that he voted for himself. Well,
it turned out that he didn't vote for himself. It
was somebody in the athletic department that filled out his
(30:29):
ballot and voted for him. And I walked. I happened
to walk into Rupp Arena getting ready to attend a
UK practice, just as Alabama was coming off the court,
and just as coach Sanderson had learned from that individual
about what had happened, and it was not safe for radio.
Let's say I.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Wouldn't think so, because I wouldn't think, you know, I
would think most coaches would vote for themselves, Nor did
he in this case, because the SID votes in the SID.
But I mean, listen, how many there's three hundreds of
my Division one teams? Do we honestly think the three
hundred and semi Division one coaches have seen every team
play and therefore can accurately vote on who's number one,
who's number two, who's up to number twenty five? No,
(31:09):
And the preseason parts even more ridiculous, especially with the portal,
because the portal of you, you have no idea what
you're gonna get, and you might have a bunch of talent,
just like Arkansas had last year, it didn't compute into
a title run or even an SEC run. They had
a below average team last year even with all that talent.
So it's all, Look, I get it that the media
loves it, gives us something to talk about, something to
(31:32):
compare to. But my problem is is when we put
it like, oh, well that's accurate, Well it's not accurate.
If it was accurate, then they wouldn't have to redo
it every week, and they have to redo it every week,
and so that's what bothers me. So as excited as
I am that we have worked our way into this
position where we are being recognized as one of the
better teams in the country, we deserve that we beat
one of the better teams in the country, and Duke,
(31:53):
we have not lost the game. We've not even come
close to losing a game except Duke, and we've blown
everyone out. We're avaking what ninety seven points a game.
So look, the superlatives are there, and we have not
lost the game. So we deserve to be quote unquote
ranked high. But let's also, on the other hand, not
in the thinking that that's truly where we are right now,
(32:15):
that that's the accurate representation of where Kentucky basketball is
as opposed to where the rest of D one is.
Because the reality is, and I think Mark would back
me up on this, is nobody's hanging banners in early December.
You're hanging and no one's hanging banners based on the
rankings either. You hang banners on what happens in March
and what happens in early April, and that is what
Mark cares about. So all the rest of the stuff
(32:37):
is interesting. Maybe it's frustrating to me, but it's interesting
to a lot of people, fair enough. But what matters
is are we ranked number one come April seventh or
April eighth, whenever the Sunday or I'm sorry, Monday night
National Championship game is, when that game is over, are
we ranked number one? That is what is going to
put another banner up in the Upperna Raptors. And that,
as coach Focus said time and time again, that is
(32:59):
the assignment, not to be ranked in the top five
in early December.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
We've all heard about, you know, Mark's background, and he's
obviously highly intelligent guy about basketball, but just about a
lot of things. But he and because of that, I
think he throws some things at you that make you think, huh, okay,
let me think about that one of them. Last week.
I can't remember if you were there after shoot around
(33:23):
or not, but he was talking to one of the
TV guys and he used the term emotional reservoir, and
I asked him about it on the pregame to elaborate
on it and basically to try to condense it. It's like,
you can't die on every hillo anymore. You can't take
the shoot around to a level ten and the pregame
meal to a level ten and then have the players
(33:44):
be at a ten for forty minutes of a game
like your coach did in a different time. But that
just shows you nobody has more respect for coach p
than Mark Pope, and yet he knows you have to,
you know, evolved. You can't just you know, copy that
guy's style or anybody else's one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
So I was at practice a few weeks ago and
and just like you know, we had those moments. Because
I was there, I did hear Mark talk about the
emotional reservoir. So after practice a couple of weeks ago,
we're sitting down and it practice is over, and we're
just kind of we're just kind of catching up on
stuff we're not really talking a lot about. But as
you said, Mark is so stupidly intelligent and and not
(34:25):
and not just in you know, the ways of the world,
but certainly basketball where you've I mean, you've you've been
part of the press conference. He uses words that I
feel like the entire media, including myself, who I feel
like I should know the same basketball terms that he
does because we played for the same coach and learned
these words in the same coach. He doesn't. He has
brand new words, and they completely throw me off. It's
(34:47):
absolutely baffling. I mean, like, every time I sit down
and have a talk, I've got like six words and say, okay,
can you define these six for me? So I at
least sound like I know what I'm talking about, because
I mean, there are all these new words. But that
emotional the way he used it with me was the
emotional buck it and he, like you said, with you guys,
he or the TV guys that they he was using
an emotional reservoir. But it was interesting to me because
(35:07):
what's interesting is it goes back to the ninety six,
ninety seven, and even ninety five. My three years under Patino.
Those three years were an A lite eight in two
national title games and one national championships. So what that
says to me, and I think to a lot of
my teammates, is this is the way that works. And
if you, if you recall, that's kind of what the
transition to Tubby was made so difficult bias he does
(35:28):
things differently. Does his way work? Well, it turns out
it does. When Mark got here, I honestly, out of ignorance,
expected him to almost to sub degree. Obviously he's not
with Patino, but to some degree I expect it to
be very very similar. Right, He's gonna shoot a lot
of threes, That's what coach p did. So I kind
of expected, you know, maybe not a full court, full court,
(35:48):
forty minute press, but I expected a lot of the
same kind of preparation, game day preparation things. And it's
very different. And that's one of the biggest differences is
he's not we're not intently focused on the time every
single day on our next opponent. Right. He lets them
have fun. There was a practice I think it was
the same practice actually that we were talking about. The
emotional reservoir, emotional bucket. They played They've had this hard
(36:12):
for an hour and fifteen minutes, and then they played woofleball.
They had a woofleball match on the court, which again
that even harkens back to the days when when Mark played,
because we would get home from a nine o'clock ESPN
game at three am, having classed in about four hours,
and we would go to Memorial Coliseum and play a
big game of woofleball as a team, just the kind
(36:32):
of because we were all wired. Nobody could sleep. I
mean when they get back from Seattle, and I presume
they're going to spend the night Seattle and then come home.
But I mean, you got these late games and they're
a long way, and you're gonna fly home because you
got class the next day. It's just that that drains
you emotionally. I mean, you're just wired, and you know so.
I think Mark is being very very careful about that,
and I think he even told the TV guys and
(36:54):
all of us they were sitting there, this all came
from a bunch of psychologists he had had when I
believe he was at Utah that BYU basically talking this
that look, you cannot completely you're going to drain the
emotional bucket. Whereas what he said to me was, is
that Kim, do you remember we were numb. We were
numb to the intensity. Hey, we get to the point
where you just can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Ye gotta get to a break, got to get to
our final break here. I appreciate it. But it's interesting
stuff and we'll keep talking about it throughout the course
of the season. Thank you for the time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
You're welcome. Thanks Tom.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Final segment. Will we come right back on the leads
report presented by Bob Cat Enterprises. The stan Wildcat History
is the service at the Kentucky Road Show Sports cards
and Memorabilia on Romney Road in Lexington and at roadjoecards
dot com. A couple of Wildcat birthdays. Brandon Night celebrating
a birthday today and another legendary Kentucky point guard was
born on this day, Ralph Beard. What a prince of
(37:45):
a guy. I enjoyed getting to know Ralph. So those
are the two Wildcat birthdays today. C Rod ninety four
yards for the commanders yesterday and they went over the
Titans in thirteen carries and he had one touchdown. Shuffle
being the Coffee is a great Kentucky company and they
make a great cup of coffee. It starts with the
best coffee beans. And you read about the process and
(38:06):
the commitment to quality into excellence at Shufflebean dot us
and you can order some of the product while you're there.
You can get it through Amazon too, or go to
central Kentucky Myer stores and pick up some there. You
can get the whole bean, you can get it already ground,
you can get cured capsules. Just get shuffle Bean coffee.
You're gonna love it. Put some hustle in your shuffle
and we had a hustle out the door. We'll talk
(38:28):
to you from Clemson tomorrow for the Leads Report, presented
by Bobcat Enterprises
This Bingie beef Turkey podcast of the Leach Report is
also presented by Boons Butcher Shop, one hundred old Bloomfield
Pike in Barnestown, fresh meat cut on location daily and
they're family owned and operated, have been since nineteen forty six.
Good day, everybody, Welcome into the Leach Report, presented by
Bobcat Enterprises as we start the new week, full week
(00:22):
of shows after a couple of holiday pre recorded editions
of our program. And I hope everybody had a wonderful
Thanksgiving and a what's the best way? An efficient or
a productive Black Friday of shopping. I guess there were
records set for online purchases. Today's Cyber Monday, so happy
(00:45):
shopping again today for those of you that are participating.
Coming up on the show today, we have two participants.
We'll talk Kentucky football in the first half with our
shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback edition of the program.
Van Hiles, the former wild Cat dB will join us
and a bit of a little take on the Louisville game,
just a post mortem of the season with a Van.
(01:07):
And then the second half of the show, Cameron Mills
will be with us to talk Kentucky men's basketball, as
the Wildcats have an important week coming up. They go
to Clemson tomorrow and then head to see Attletll play
Gonzaga on Saturday night. Wildcat News of the Day is
presented by Joseepes of Lexington. And I'll just know because
of the basketball game tomorrow, that means Coach Pope and
(01:29):
the guys are traveling tonight or later today to Clemson,
and that means in those situations, the coaches shows get
pushed to Wednesday. So the final installment of the Mark
Stoop Show for this season will be Wednesday at six
and the second Mark Pope Show will follow and then
(01:50):
the rest of the programming on the UK Sports Network
that'll be on Wednesday this week. Jump into the Wildcat
News of the Day. It's a service of Giuseppes of Lexington.
There used to be a chaotic slash, tumultuous, slash, any
other adjective you want to use for the football program.
This week, it's signing day and coming up this week
(02:12):
and it's also leading up to the opening of the
transfer portal a week from today, so you'll start to
hear names of guys that are entering the portal from Kentucky,
probably speculation on who will be coming to Kentucky and
just there's to be a lot of roster turnover. Anyway,
(02:36):
got off to a bad start yesterday for Kentucky with
two prominent recruiting d commitments. Their highest rated commitment running
by Marquise Davis from the Cleveland area. He is flipping
to Missouri at this point with just a few days
before signing day. And then offensive lineman Tucker Katis, the
younger brother of Josh Katis. He is being flipped by Clemson.
(02:58):
So big names now going elsewhere for Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
What you hope, if.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
You want to be the optimist, is that Kentucky ended
up with Josh Allen because somebody decommitted and they ended
up offering Josh Allen a scholarship. So you know, that's
what you hope happens. But in the short term, it
is not good to lose two guys of you know
(03:29):
that two of your higher regarded recruits that are flipping
to go to other schools. Now Stone Saunders, the quarterback.
He did a post on x that would seem to
suggest he is solid. There was speculation that you know,
he'd be announcing he's going somewhere else, and then he
did a post to the BBN of him in his
Kentucky uniform, seemingly reaffirming his commitment. Mark Stoops said after
(03:53):
the game on the UK Network and in his news
conference that he is committed to getting the program back
on track, acknowledge that it's gone off track under his watch,
and so he's the guy that has to get it
back on track and he's going to They said he
was going to be in the office yesterday starting on
(04:14):
that mission. So again, just going to be a very
newsy week for Kentucky football, I would think with the
Cummings and the Goings men's basketball, as I said, they're
heading down to Clemson later today. The game will be
at nine to thirty Eastern time tomorrow, and it'll be
the first road game of the season for the Wildcats
against a Clemson team that is seven and one on
(04:38):
the season but hasn't played anybody close to Kentucky's caliber yet.
Their one loss was a thirteen pointer to Boise State
and it was on the road. Volleyball number three seed
overall in the NCAA Tournament, and they will host a
subregional on Thursday and Friday at Historic Memorial Coliseum. Kentucky
will take on Cleveland State a eastern time on Thursday.
(05:02):
That'll be following the match between Western Kentucky and sixth
seed Minnesota, and then the winners will play on Friday.
Brooklyn Delay named SEC Player of the Year and Kentucky's
Craig Skinner named SEC Coach of the Year after Kentucky
won an eighth SEC championship. So congratulations to Brooklyn and
(05:23):
to coach Skinner. Wildcat News of the Day a service
of Giuseppes of Lexington, and if you're looking for a
hard to buy for a person for a Christmas present,
consider Jusepes gift cards. You can order them online and
they'll mail them out to you. Better yet, go to
Open Table and make your reservation for a special night
out at Giuseppes and pick up the gift cards yourself
while you're there. They're located off Nicholasville Road here in Lexington,
(05:47):
and it is a one of a kind, truly dining
experience at Giseppes. We'll get to break our show's presented
each day by Bobcat Enterprises, and when we come back,
we'll get started on some football talk with Van Hiles
on the Later Report Radio network quarter past the top
of the hour. We come to you from the Clark's
Pumping Shop studio, Return Refresh and Refuel at Clark's and
(06:08):
joined on the Club blueinil dot com hotline by Van Hiles,
the former Wildcat, dB and NFL player with the Bears,
and it's our Shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback Edition.
We'll talk a little bit about the game, kind of
a postpartum of the season. But let me start with
one different thing.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Van.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
We're having a nice Thanksgiving meal and I had written
off the Bears, your former bear. I had written off
my Bears. They were down sixteen to nothing, I think
at one point. So we had a nice Thanksgiving meal
and I pick up the phone after we finish and
I see they've got the ball and they're down three.
So we run in. We turn on the TV just
in time to see them get their coach fired.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yes, oh man, that's.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
This season for the Bears has been and confounding for me.
It's in the bad point about I think they have
the pieces. It's the pieces are there, they just find
a way to lose games. And some of it is
coaching and some of his players.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's it's some guys.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
I would say this, it's interesting that we're having the
same problem these grown men. A lot of these guys
have not bought in, and there are DJ Moore is
a guy whom is just not bought in. Some of
the things he has done prior to the last about
two to three games. I just can't get with. And
it's unfortunate that it got to that level.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But I don't I don't.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
I don't understand how these guys don't understand that they
got a guy fired, and that's a big deal.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Somebody's family is uprooted.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Because of US players, and that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
You know, you like me, you're Bears fan of the
Wildcad fans. So if even out over time, you should
be in. We were a great twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
You will.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Well, let's jump into a little bit of Kentucky. We'll
start with with the game. You've posted your cutups at
v Style seventeen on X and you can see Van's
analysis of that. And it was a game that seemingly
was off to a great start for Kentucky and the
second play they handed off to Will Cox, and you
(08:28):
had this in your first cut up, I think, and
they block it well and he gets fifteen out to
the forty yard line. Second play looks like something similar
kind of play and he, you know, up the middle
again and he's storming across midfield in inside the Louisville
forty five yard line. You have a first down around
there forty three, except that you just let the other
(08:52):
team's safety McDonald just take the ball away and head
the other direction. Defense stopped him, but that started the
whipping in the field position that eventually got Kentucky in
a hole from which it could never emerge.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Yeah, that I'm a look that was That's a microcosm
of the season. If if you look at the play,
the the I think it's the back judges, the one right.
That referee is the one that cost the the the
fumble because will Cox lost sight of that defender. He
had the ball high and tight all the way up
(09:28):
to the ref Then we got I guess impeded by
the ref He I think in his head thought that
the louis guy was gone because he lost sight of
a different color and he relaxed, and I mean that
guy just picked his pocket. That was the cleanest strip
I think I've seen in my life, and that was
just that's a microcosm of the season. We have been
closing so many games and somehow we find a way
(09:50):
to fumble ball in the fumble game away. And it's
unfortunate that it happened to that guy because he's had
a great season and to have two fumbles in this game, man,
it was It's a bad way to end a good
season for him.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Kentucky had turned it over three times in five years
against Louisville when they had the winning streak, they had
five turnovers on Saturday. That was their seventh consecutive game
with two or more turnovers and teams I think they
scored like sixteen points off the turnover Saturday, which that
could have been worse. And so that was a big problem,
(10:26):
one of several big problems for the offense. But on Saturday,
going in with freshman Cutter Bowley making his first start,
you know, true freshman starting the rivalry game, it's a
tough spot. But you you know, if you're a Kentucky fan,
you're hoping he gives you some hope win or lose
(10:46):
that you carry into the next season and As it
turned out, it was a rough day for Cutter because
he was running for his life a lot.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Yeah, I've been I've said this for the last two weeks.
It is easy to be a backup and not in
a bad way. You can get comfortable in the game.
Cutter never got comfortable. If you look at the second series,
the first past he had. We had a similar situation
in Texas where he manipulated the pocket, stepped up, vaarded rush,
(11:20):
made a great downfill throw and it was like, Okay,
this is the future. And on Saturday had a similar
situation and he didn't step up in the pocket, he
went out the back end of the pocket, which you
just cannot do this on this level of football, and
he did, and it's just a difference. He missed some layups,
he missed some things because he never got in a
(11:40):
rhythm for himself. I think been a local, an in
state kid, he knows what the robbery is all about.
He was probably a little too amp and he never
got his feeding firmly on ground. He was just offul
little bit.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Plus the other guys. The coordinator on the other side
has a week to know that you're the star. He's
prepared for Texas, has prepared for Brod Vandergriff the week before. Uh,
this time, they get to you know, have a plan
to uh attack Cutter bowllye and show him a lot
of things he hadn't seen yet at this level, that
kind of thing exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:15):
And and in this situation, it was the one thing
I like about it is I never saw him get
out of character. I never seen him get unwrapped, get rattled.
He was still composed with a team that kind of
knew what as you said, they have game plan for us,
they game plan against him. But he still seemed like
(12:36):
still like Cutter Bowl, he just wasn't It just wasn't
his best game. It wasn't the freshman's best game. And
the one thing you can do is you can build
off of it, and you can say, Okay, guys, this
is the this is the worst for us.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
As freshman, as freshman starters. Now we have something to.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Build on for next season, because I'm very I'm hoping
that you can still build around the core of him
and Wilcox.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Chat with Van Hiles on our Shuffle being Coffee Monday
Morning Quarterback Show. We'll take a break, come back and
have another segment. As we head of the break, We'll
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com today corn brad Hemp, this is the good life.
We'll be right back with Van Hiles if I passed
the top of the hour and Van Hiles is with us.
Our shuffle being Coffee Monday Morning Quarterback Show recapping a
little bit of the Louisville game and just the season
and on the ladder side of it, Van defensively in
September when Kentucky went three and got the upset at
(14:01):
all miss nearly upset of then number one Georgia team.
The defense was stuffing the run and keeping Kentucky. You
kind of had the feeling they were gonna keep Kentucky
in every game, and it was just a matter of,
you know, could the offense improve enough to do what
they wanted to do. And then they starting in UH
with the Vandy game. After the bye week, UH teams
(14:23):
really started to have success running the ball. H Derek
Jackson got hurt in the Auburn game or was lost
for the season in the Auburn game, it was probably
hurt before that. Some other guys were dinged up. Was
it injuries that did it? Was it something else? What
did you see?
Speaker 4 (14:38):
Yeah, that's that's the million dollar question. If it if
d jack was dinged up, I think that's a major factor.
I think there's some things that we didn't do well
and in the front three and as and as linebackers
that people attacked. But honestly, he did start after DJ
(15:01):
got hurt. I mean, Pavia did some things that every
team has had trouble with and we only gave up
twenty points. I mean that game twenty whatever points. Like
it's an interesting thing. As a guy who played on
a iny fishing offense. When I played in nineteen hundreds,
it's it's it wears on a defense. It truly wears
(15:22):
on the defense, and they could have had some mental fatigue.
And sometimes you try to do too much as a
defensive player because you know that you have to make
plays in order for you to stay in the game.
And it could be that it could be the guys
trying to do too much because they know that we
can't allow a team to score over twenty points because
(15:43):
we haven't scored that many points in the game for
ourselves against a pall five team. So it could be
it could be a myriad of things. I think injuries
definitely hurt us, and that's probably number one, But then
I think there was some things between the ears that
that probably got a off kilter.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
I think back to that Florida game. Christian Story picks
off a pass, nearly ran it all the way back,
but they he's weaving through the players on the offense
that we're trying to tackle him, and he gets it.
I think back to the eleven yard line and I
can't remember what the score was for sure, but if
Kentucky I think was either close to tying it up
or going ahead there, and they failed to get it
(16:21):
in from the eleven yard line and end up kept
coming away with no points. They've failed on fourth down,
and that seemed to kind of the floodgates opened in
that game against the defense, and that was an example,
certainly within that one game of what you're talking about.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
Yeah, you as a defensive players, as coach Arps and
coach Smith, you to tell me, tell us guys, is
do your job. Do not worry about what the other
side of the ball is doing. Your job is to
stop teams, regardless of where they're at on the field.
If they're inside the thirty, you hold to a field goal.
If they the fifty beyond, you stopped them. And sometimes
(17:01):
as young kids, you you kind of let that go
in one ear and off the other, so you start
to do things that are contrary to what your job is.
And the funny thing about defense is you have to
do your job and be on your assignment because once
you do something that you're not supposed to, it's just
eerily a problem that that ball goes to where you
were supposed to be and most times more than not,
(17:25):
it's going to be a touchdown because we'll all depend
on everybody to be in a certain spot, and when
they're not there a great offense, it's gonna capitalize on it,
and a lot of times it ends up being six points.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Then we're coming up on the heartbreak at the bottom
of the hour. So once this all sorts out with
you know who's gonna be here and who's not gonna
be here, we'll get you back and kind of take
a look at what the roster can look like, what
they can look like moving forward. But I think there's
a lot we don't know right now that will play
out over the next week to ten days. So put
(17:57):
your feet up and watch it unfold and then on
the locker. It's Wednesday nights at nine Eastern with you
and another former cat, Anthony White.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Right exactly now, be you on Easter in the time.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
I promise you would not want to miss this one.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
All right, get that one Wednesday night at V Style
seventeen on X. Thank you, Van, Thank you. It's the
Late Report. We'll be right back. It's the Late Report
presented by Bobcat Enterprises for locally owned locations around Kentucky.
So when you need to buy or rent heavy equipment
for a job. Just google Bobcat Enterprises. You'll find the
(18:35):
location nearest you and they'll take great care of you
in the process of making the deal and after the
sale or the rental agreement as well. It's Bobcat Enterprises.
Cameron Mills joins us on the club blueinil dot com.
Mine to talk to some UK men's basketball. So big
week for Coach Pope and the guys, Cameron. They go
(18:55):
play their first road game at Clemson tomorrow night and
then we'll play and Zaga on Saturday night in Seattle.
And they come off two games in which they got
roughed up a little bit last week, very physical Georgia
State team and Western was just collapsing on defense and
just a lot of Coach Pope said, they use the
(19:17):
term hansy, but there are a lot of foul shots
in the last two games.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Yeah. And by the way, what was the name of
the what was the number of the player at for
Georgia State that caused the whole Hulla balloon in the
second half.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Believe it was twenty one. It's Clash Peters nephew, former
Duke star Cherokee Parks.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Right. I was looking at his stats. He's a goon.
He was in the game twelve minutes and he had
five fouls. That's his only stat line.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Twenty Yeah, it is twenty one. I just found it.
Six ' nine, two hundred thirty pound freshmen.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
He played twelve minutes, about five fouls. He was sent
in there to do nothing but rough us up. Did
he play any more in that game? Is absolutely absurd
to me.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Ever see a movie called slap Shot. He was a
handsome brother.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Sadly I saw that way too young than I should have.
That was That was one of those movies I saw
at a friend's house during a sleepover. And then when
my parents found out I saw it, they were not
happy about it. So yeah, But here's a good thing
is that Pope has been saying, honestly, since I feel
like the very first game of the year. Now, you know,
he's been saying he's wanted his players to get roughed up.
(20:27):
But I think mainly what he meant was, you know,
he wants his players to be in part facing Look,
we you know, we're tired of facing each other. This
is early in the season when they've only been playing
and practice against each other, and you know, I think
a lot of it too, was the do game was
important because Okay, we're going to see how good we are,
but they just they need to be pushed this way.
And the exciting thing about it was, I mean, if
(20:48):
you watch the game, this is kind of what got
me fired up and watching highlights of the game, especially
because you don't see a lot of the things that
went on in that game by this by this Peters kid.
But I mean he was throwing elbows and throw punches
the entire game. And so what was interesting to me
is going back and watching that as angry as it
made me as a fan and as a former player,
(21:08):
because I've played in those games where you've got somebody
that's literally just out there to cause problems. I mean,
they're not out there to play basketball. He was not
out there to play basketball. But the way we handled
it in both ways, I mean, we kept our cool
for the most part all game because I problems. You
can't play twelve minutes. You go back to watch the college.
He is throwing cheap shots the entire game at us,
and we kept our cool, which is good. But when
(21:30):
things got elevated to the point where okay, now we've
had enough. The entire team backed up a Mari Amari
got shoved. They called the intentional off out. It should
have been if you add up the entire play of
this clown, he should have been ejected from the game.
I can't believe they let him back in, and I
can't believe the coach put him back in towards the
end of the game. But we kept their cool for
you know, most of the game as he sat there
(21:51):
and had his cheap shots. And then when it came
to all right, it's team now, so we you know,
you've we've reached our kind of explosion point. We're not
going back. And then the entire team had in Mary's back.
So I think we handled it perfectly both ways. And
then after the kind of scruffle there in the second half,
I think we went on a forty four to twenty
three run. So it's like it was a I wouldn't
(22:12):
say a nip and tuck game. But once that happened,
it's like, okay, now we're responding. So it kind of
woke us up in a way.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, they had cut it to six at one point,
and I think Otega had a bucket to make it
eight and then I think that's when all that happened.
And Kentucky what it's what's sealed line somewhere from a movie.
You know you won't like me when I'm mad.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
I think it's just about it. About every movie. There's
probably a great line every good movie. This is a
great line. And but what's good though, is again we
responded well. We didn't play, we didn't shoot well, and
I think that's the key thing, especially from three pointers.
We had two back to back games against Western and
Georgia State where we shot I think below thirty percent
from the three point life. And as a reminder, we're
(22:55):
going to have games like that where our other aspects
of our team have got to win our skins. We
can't lie solely on three point shots to win us
every game this year. So when we have those games,
two back to backers where we you know, it's just
not falling the way we've seen it fall, we got
it done in other ways. We pointed the paint against
Georgia State, even transition against Georgia State. I think we
won the battle of the boards both offensively and defensively
(23:17):
against both Georgia State and Western. So those other stats
came through and as you said at the very beginning,
going forward, now we've got two essentially road games, one
down in Clemson, and I doubt the Seattle game is
going to be much of a neutral site game. It
might be, I know it's supposed to be, but it's look,
it's going.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
To be mainly neutral site game.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
Yeah, but you remember Tom back in the day. It's
like when it was Freedom Hall, especially when we would
play Indiana, Right, we played Indiana and Freedom Hall and
then we claim its Rcia Gump. That was like the
fifty fifty.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Oh yeah, that was more neutral, But all the other
games in Freedom Hall were not neutral.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
True.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, when we played Old Mints at Freedom Hall, that
was very much a game. Might a little bit at Repper.
But now we've got we're getting to the harder part
of our schedule. The encouraging thing is what we did
against Duke. We know we can play at that high
level when we need to, and we've run through all
of the and you know, I hate saying this, but
don't the house subscribe it. The quote unquote cupcakes of
(24:15):
this early season. We handled them all pretty easily, even
though we got roughed up. So I'm pretty happy with
where we're sitting, and I think Post was probably pretty
happy not only where we're sitting record wise, because what
matters more is we've had every kind of game I
think he would want us to have. We've had the
close one against Duke, a team that was supposedly better
than us that we beat. We beat every other team
that we were supposed to be and beat them pretty handily.
(24:38):
And even though we had some issues that we had
to work out in game, didn't have our shots, so
we had to win the game other way in other ways.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Yeah, I think back to the year. It was the
one season when Tayshawn got it was his junior year,
got on a great role and he was just you know,
putting a big numbers game after game, and they finally
got to the I guess was the Sweet Sick and
they played Southern cal and they just made every time
he went through the lane, he got bodied, he got chucked,
(25:08):
he got you know, bounced around like a pinball. And
the thing is when you're rolling like that as a
player or as a team like Kentucky was when they
through that game, where through that series of games that
culminated with the seventeen threes against Jackson State. You know,
the other teams you're gonna play are gonna look at
it and say, Okay, let's see how they look when
they can't play pretty so to speak. Yeah, and just
(25:31):
make it rougher for him. And that's that's just naturally
going to happen. And so it is good that they
showed that they could you know, uh, emerge from that
and still take care of business.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, no, exactly right, And I think that was an
encouraging thing. I think also the other really encouraging thing
is probably the most consistent player we've had all years
been Owayn't I don't know that anyone would would argue that,
but the second most consistent player. It's hard to say
consistent because he had a couple you know, so so
games early the season, but it seems like in the
big games or in the games when we need him,
(26:04):
he shows up. And that's Andrew Carr. I mean, Andrew
showed up against dude. Andrew showed up. I believe. I
certainly did against Georgia State. I believe he had a
double double. He almost had a double double against Western.
I may have those slips, but you know, something came
out of the Western Kentucky game where apparently Andrew's nickname
is Team Dad, which I just steaks hysterical because if
you meet Andrew, he he just seems to have this
(26:26):
very oh, I don't know how to describe it without
it tries sounded like I'm insulting him, because I'm not,
because I love his attitude. But he's got this very
mature attitude. You know, like when he when he first
showed up on campus, the most impressive thing to him
was walked that lodge And when you ask him why,
it says, because we all get to be in there
like a family. Now those are my words describing what
he said, but it's like we want to be there
as a team. It's because he didn't have that a
(26:47):
win for us, So I think it's exciting. Like Andrew
is like he he He's had some games where he
hasn't really played great, but more than the games where
we needed him to, you know, the last two games,
you know, almost having averaging a double double played huge
in that Dude game, and that's been encouraging me because
Oway Kobe, you know, Lamar Creasa, we've seen them kind
(27:09):
of excel, but we're seeing Andrew kind of get the
dirty work and he's getting it done and that's what's
exciting to me.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
Talk with Cameron Mills and you hear him on the
Countdown to tip Off shows with Dave Baker, and then
it'll be starting at eight Eastern time tomorrow for the
game at Clemson, and we'll continue talking about Kentucky men's
basketball when we return here on the Leach Report Radio Network,
coming to you from the Clark's Pumping Shop studio. Return,
Refresh and refuel.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Can't you can't get too carried away emotional. You got
to keep taking all the emotion and funneling back to focus.
I thought our guys did a spectacular job of doing
that and at the same time meeting the physicality of
the game.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
I was really proud of our guys and.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
It felt good, It felt it felt nice our guys.
You know, when things got salty, our guys leaned into
each other. They looked into each other, they were making
eye contact with each other, were talking each other, they
were backing each other up. And that's what you want
from a team. And our guys felt it too. They
talked about it in the locker room.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
After that was Mark Pope after the game on Friday
night against Georgia State, talking about what Cameron was just
talking about here on the lead report. Cameron Mills coming
to us on the Club BLUEINIL dot com hotline. That's
the official collective partner of UK Athletics and that's how
Kentucky's building the pool of funds for NIL and fans
(28:29):
can get involved for as little as twenty five dollars
a month. There are special perks for members when you
sign up, and you can go to Club Blueinil dot
com and see what some of those look like and
see if it's for you, and if it is, sign
up at Club Blue nil dot com and help out
UK's in IL efforts. Cameron Mills, you are a noted
(28:53):
disdain guy for rankings. Just wondering if your opinions. I
wonder if your opinion is going to change with your
dear friend Mark Pope, now the coach of your alma
mater about to move maybe into the top five in
the AP poll this week.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
Absolutely not Now I hold on it. This opinions of
the day I died. Tom Good ins the thing because okay,
has Mark said anything? Have we heard Mark talk about
the rankings at all, and I'm genuinely asking this, okay.
And here's the thing. You don't hear coaches talk about
it much because if you and you remember back to
the day again, I maybe they still have it. I
(29:31):
try to ignore these things as much as possible, even
though it's thrown in my face, and I don't even
use them as kind of Okay, well you'd like to
do game well, we weren't supposed to be doing well.
Why well because they were ranked higher. I don't even
fall into that trap. But yeah, I look, I'm excited
by the fact that, hey, we've climbed the poles. But look,
the bottom line is that it's all guesswork. It is
(29:53):
so all guest work, and it's guess worked by people
in the media. It's guess worked by you know, the coaches.
Polish do even have the coaches polling more?
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, it's it's there.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
But Tom, who.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Votes in the coaches?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Paul?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
You know this as well as I do.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Well, I'll give you a story about that. The SEC
tournament was at rupp I think this was in ninety three,
and Whip Sanderson won Coach of the Year by one vote,
and it came out that he voted for himself. Well,
it turned out that he didn't vote for himself. It
was somebody in the athletic department that filled out his
(30:29):
ballot and voted for him. And I walked. I happened
to walk into Rupp Arena getting ready to attend a
UK practice, just as Alabama was coming off the court,
and just as coach Sanderson had learned from that individual
about what had happened, and it was not safe for radio.
Let's say I.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Wouldn't think so, because I wouldn't think, you know, I
would think most coaches would vote for themselves, Nor did
he in this case, because the SID votes in the SID.
But I mean, listen, how many there's three hundreds of
my Division one teams? Do we honestly think the three
hundred and semi Division one coaches have seen every team
play and therefore can accurately vote on who's number one,
who's number two, who's up to number twenty five? No,
(31:09):
And the preseason parts even more ridiculous, especially with the portal,
because the portal of you, you have no idea what
you're gonna get, and you might have a bunch of talent,
just like Arkansas had last year, it didn't compute into
a title run or even an SEC run. They had
a below average team last year even with all that talent.
So it's all, Look, I get it that the media
loves it, gives us something to talk about, something to
(31:32):
compare to. But my problem is is when we put
it like, oh, well that's accurate, Well it's not accurate.
If it was accurate, then they wouldn't have to redo
it every week, and they have to redo it every week,
and so that's what bothers me. So as excited as
I am that we have worked our way into this
position where we are being recognized as one of the
better teams in the country, we deserve that we beat
one of the better teams in the country, and Duke,
(31:53):
we have not lost the game. We've not even come
close to losing a game except Duke, and we've blown
everyone out. We're avaking what ninety seven points a game.
So look, the superlatives are there, and we have not
lost the game. So we deserve to be quote unquote
ranked high. But let's also, on the other hand, not
in the thinking that that's truly where we are right now,
(32:15):
that that's the accurate representation of where Kentucky basketball is
as opposed to where the rest of D one is.
Because the reality is, and I think Mark would back
me up on this, is nobody's hanging banners in early December.
You're hanging and no one's hanging banners based on the
rankings either. You hang banners on what happens in March
and what happens in early April, and that is what
Mark cares about. So all the rest of the stuff
(32:37):
is interesting. Maybe it's frustrating to me, but it's interesting
to a lot of people, fair enough. But what matters
is are we ranked number one come April seventh or
April eighth, whenever the Sunday or I'm sorry, Monday night
National Championship game is, when that game is over, are
we ranked number one? That is what is going to
put another banner up in the Upperna Raptors. And that,
as coach Focus said time and time again, that is
(32:59):
the assignment, not to be ranked in the top five
in early December.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
We've all heard about, you know, Mark's background, and he's
obviously highly intelligent guy about basketball, but just about a
lot of things. But he and because of that, I
think he throws some things at you that make you think, huh, okay,
let me think about that one of them. Last week.
I can't remember if you were there after shoot around
(33:23):
or not, but he was talking to one of the
TV guys and he used the term emotional reservoir, and
I asked him about it on the pregame to elaborate
on it and basically to try to condense it. It's like,
you can't die on every hillo anymore. You can't take
the shoot around to a level ten and the pregame
meal to a level ten and then have the players
(33:44):
be at a ten for forty minutes of a game
like your coach did in a different time. But that
just shows you nobody has more respect for coach p
than Mark Pope, and yet he knows you have to,
you know, evolved. You can't just you know, copy that
guy's style or anybody else's one hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
So I was at practice a few weeks ago and
and just like you know, we had those moments. Because
I was there, I did hear Mark talk about the
emotional reservoir. So after practice a couple of weeks ago,
we're sitting down and it practice is over, and we're
just kind of we're just kind of catching up on
stuff we're not really talking a lot about. But as
you said, Mark is so stupidly intelligent and and not
(34:25):
and not just in you know, the ways of the world,
but certainly basketball where you've I mean, you've you've been
part of the press conference. He uses words that I
feel like the entire media, including myself, who I feel
like I should know the same basketball terms that he
does because we played for the same coach and learned
these words in the same coach. He doesn't. He has
brand new words, and they completely throw me off. It's
(34:47):
absolutely baffling. I mean, like, every time I sit down
and have a talk, I've got like six words and say, okay,
can you define these six for me? So I at
least sound like I know what I'm talking about, because
I mean, there are all these new words. But that
emotional the way he used it with me was the
emotional buck it and he, like you said, with you guys,
he or the TV guys that they he was using
an emotional reservoir. But it was interesting to me because
(35:07):
what's interesting is it goes back to the ninety six,
ninety seven, and even ninety five. My three years under Patino.
Those three years were an A lite eight in two
national title games and one national championships. So what that
says to me, and I think to a lot of
my teammates, is this is the way that works. And
if you, if you recall, that's kind of what the
transition to Tubby was made so difficult bias he does
(35:28):
things differently. Does his way work? Well, it turns out
it does. When Mark got here, I honestly, out of ignorance,
expected him to almost to sub degree. Obviously he's not
with Patino, but to some degree I expect it to
be very very similar. Right, He's gonna shoot a lot
of threes, That's what coach p did. So I kind
of expected, you know, maybe not a full court, full court,
(35:48):
forty minute press, but I expected a lot of the
same kind of preparation, game day preparation things. And it's
very different. And that's one of the biggest differences is
he's not we're not intently focused on the time every
single day on our next opponent. Right. He lets them
have fun. There was a practice I think it was
the same practice actually that we were talking about. The
emotional reservoir, emotional bucket. They played They've had this hard
(36:12):
for an hour and fifteen minutes, and then they played woofleball.
They had a woofleball match on the court, which again
that even harkens back to the days when when Mark played,
because we would get home from a nine o'clock ESPN
game at three am, having classed in about four hours,
and we would go to Memorial Coliseum and play a
big game of woofleball as a team, just the kind
(36:32):
of because we were all wired. Nobody could sleep. I
mean when they get back from Seattle, and I presume
they're going to spend the night Seattle and then come home.
But I mean, you got these late games and they're
a long way, and you're gonna fly home because you
got class the next day. It's just that that drains
you emotionally. I mean, you're just wired, and you know so.
I think Mark is being very very careful about that,
and I think he even told the TV guys and
(36:54):
all of us they were sitting there, this all came
from a bunch of psychologists he had had when I
believe he was at Utah that BYU basically talking this
that look, you cannot completely you're going to drain the
emotional bucket. Whereas what he said to me was, is
that Kim, do you remember we were numb. We were
numb to the intensity. Hey, we get to the point
where you just can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Ye gotta get to a break, got to get to
our final break here. I appreciate it. But it's interesting
stuff and we'll keep talking about it throughout the course
of the season. Thank you for the time.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
You're welcome. Thanks Tom.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Final segment. Will we come right back on the leads
report presented by Bob Cat Enterprises. The stan Wildcat History
is the service at the Kentucky Road Show Sports cards
and Memorabilia on Romney Road in Lexington and at roadjoecards
dot com. A couple of Wildcat birthdays. Brandon Night celebrating
a birthday today and another legendary Kentucky point guard was
born on this day, Ralph Beard. What a prince of
(37:45):
a guy. I enjoyed getting to know Ralph. So those
are the two Wildcat birthdays today. C Rod ninety four
yards for the commanders yesterday and they went over the
Titans in thirteen carries and he had one touchdown. Shuffle
being the Coffee is a great Kentucky company and they
make a great cup of coffee. It starts with the
best coffee beans. And you read about the process and
(38:06):
the commitment to quality into excellence at Shufflebean dot us
and you can order some of the product while you're there.
You can get it through Amazon too, or go to
central Kentucky Myer stores and pick up some there. You
can get the whole bean, you can get it already ground,
you can get cured capsules. Just get shuffle Bean coffee.
You're gonna love it. Put some hustle in your shuffle
and we had a hustle out the door. We'll talk
(38:28):
to you from Clemson tomorrow for the Leads Report, presented
by Bobcat Enterprises
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