May 20, 2025 • 37 mins
Tom talks with Larry Vaught, Darren Headrick and more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello there, Welcome into our show for a Tuesday. As always,
we are presented by Bobcat Enterprises and coming up on
the show today, we will lead off with an interview
I did with UK assistant basketball Coachman's assistant coach mckail
McClain just recently signed a new two year contract to
(00:22):
stay with the Cats and got a chance to visit
with him talk a little bit about his first season
at Kentucky and looking ahead the year two. Larry Vaught
will be with us per usual on a Tuesday, and
Darren Headrick checking in from Hoover, Alabama, where the Kentucky
baseball team will take the field later today. And that
(00:44):
leads us into our Wildcat News of the Day, which
is the service of j Sepees of Lexington. Kentucky Baseball.
We'll take on Oklahoma. Kentucky is the thirteen seed, Oklahoma
the twelve, and the winner gets to play five seed Georgia.
It's a single nation SEC tournament this time, not set
up like a you know, the state tournament is for
(01:06):
boys and girls basketball here, but you have teams that
the higher seeded teams get buys out further into the
tournament and you know Georgia's a five seed, they get
a first round by But anyway, Kentucky and Oklahoma today,
Kentucky's twenty nine, twenty three, thirteen, and seventeen in the league,
(01:27):
and the folks that follow college baseball closely and do
the bracket projections, the kind of the feeling is thirteen
SEC wins will get you into the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky,
I would think it would feel a whole lot better
getting the fourteenth. So that's what's on the line today,
(01:47):
and we'll talk about that with Darren when he joins
us a little bit later. On the latest projections I've
seen everywhere all seem to suggest Kentucky is going to
get in no matter what happens today. But I'm curious
to see who Kentucky will put on the mound. Well,
it obviously won't be clever because he just pitched on Saturday.
Is their best pitcher, but will they go with one
(02:11):
of their Friday or Saturday pitchers in this first game.
The coverage will be on the UK Radio Network with
Darren Hedrick approximately two pm. It's the second game of
the day. SEC Network on TV for the whole tournament,
So Kentucky and Oklahoma. A little afternoon baseball today with
(02:32):
some important stakes. SEC All Freshman Team is out and
Kentucky shortstop Tyler Bell is on it. He's had a
tremendous first season as a Wildcat. He had just four
airs in one hundred and ninety nine chances this season.
That's a zero point nine to eight zero fielding percentage.
(02:54):
This is from a release from UK. He is the
only Wildcat to bat over three hundred in conference play,
led the team in doubles, home runs, RBI and slugging
percentage in those games. First Wildcat named the All Freshman
Team since Sean Jelly back in twenty sixteen. So just
a you know, tremendous first year. Tyler Bell came in
(03:16):
with a high expectations and he has been as good
as advertised. Links to the stories that we talk about
each day you can find those on the Bud Light
Leach Report page at Tom leachky dot com. Brandon Hawthorne
set to announce his college basketball choice at seven Eastern
time tonight via twenty four to seven Sports. Kentucky, Duke Pitt, West, Virginia,
(03:39):
and Virginia Tech the five finalists he visited all five,
so that announcement will come at seven Eastern time tonight
when we come back mchae, we'll hear from mc McLain
and then Larry Vaughton Darren Hedrick a little bit later on.
It's the opening segment presented by Chiseppies of Lexington and
they have Open Table is where you go to get
(04:01):
your reservations and try to sit in the lounge there
if you can and experience a fantastic meal accompanied by
the live jazz music from Dave Hall. It is just
a really special night out. The food's fantastic hostas homemade
see food shipped in fresh handcut steaks a lot of
locally sourced ingredients in their dishes at Giuseppe's Lexington dot Com.
(04:23):
Check them out. We'll be right back on The Lakes
Report present it by Bobcat Enterprises. It's the Lake Report
coming to you from the Clark's Pumping Shop studio with
their new Loyalty rewards program to help you save money
on gas and items in the store, return refreshed, she
and refuel at Clark's. At his news conference last week,
Mark Pope talked about how well the staff worked together
(04:45):
in their first year of his time at Kentucky and
how much improved video thinks he'll see in that relationship
in year two. One of the key pieces this guy
who just signed a new contract. That's Mikail McLain and
I had a chance to sit down with him last week.
So Miquel coach Pope's recent news conference, he said, I
asked you about the staff being together for a second year,
(05:05):
and he says, it's gonna be one hundred percent better.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You got the new contract. Is that all on you?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I don't want to say it's all on me, but
definitely it's gonna be a team effort. Excited to get
to work with this staff. Authentically think we have the
best staff in the country, and we compliment our strengths,
all compliment one another. So when we're all, you know,
clicking on the same accord, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We talked a lot last season as people who you know,
fans meeting whatever they cover the team about how all
these guys from different backgrounds had to come together and
a lot of them for just one year and be
a team. But as a coaching staff, I mean Mark
had a couple of guys that were with him at BYU.
But there were a lot of guys that make up
the staff that you guys hadn't worked together before. Maybe
(05:49):
you knew each other a little bit, I don't know,
But how did that dynamic evolve?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And definitely it was a process for sure, because we
all come from different backgrounds, different roles.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
You know, Coach Fox was a head coach.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Coach Robinson was a head coach, Jason Hart was a
head coach of the G League IG Night, Alvin Brooks
has been an associate head coach. Cody's worked with, you know,
Coach Pope the longest. So it's just a matter of
kind of.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Figuring out we don't need everybody trying to.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Do the same thing. So that's why I said just
talking about like complimenting each other's strengths. I think Coach
Fox did a really good job just kind of keeping
us organized as assistants, and like I said, like I
think a lot of us, you know, like you know,
whether it's development, whether it's recruiting, whether it's x'es and o's,
whether it's offense, whether it's defense, special situations. I think
(06:36):
Coach Fox and Coach Pope especially did a really good
job of delegating roles, and in that delegation once we
got a rhythm of kind of okay, I really don't
need to I'll just focus on this one thing. I
don't need to focus on a million different things. It's
the same thing we tell our players, like, focus on
one thing you want to get better at. Every day
we focus on the one role that we want to
get better at. And as the season went on, we
(06:58):
kind of got a rhythm in it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You know, a president gets the cabinet around a conference table,
a chief executive gets some senior staff. How many times
are you guys together as a group in a given
week discussing things. It sounds like it must step in off.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, no, No, we meet once a day for sure,
but sometimes it's two or three. Sometimes we do like
smaller group meetings. So we'll always do one big group
meeting as a staff. We'll do an offensive meeting with
just the offensive guys. We'll do a defensive meeting with
just the defensive guys. But you know, I would say
as a group at least twice a day, and we
(07:35):
are very on schedule, just like our practices, Like our
practice has what we're going to work on we're boom
boom boom our staff meetings.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, this is the emphasis today, this is the agenda.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We're gonna hit those three or four agendas and then
we'll kind of branch off and talk about some other things.
But in terms of like just x's and o's, in
terms of recruiting, in terms of just staff delegation, we're
very very well put together. And Coach Robinson leads the
delegation of the agenda.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
For the day.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That's what coach Nick Robinson does.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
What about for preparing for an opponent, So you're putting
together a game plan, somebody's got the scout on whoever
you're playing, and then how does that kind of evolve
leading up to a game?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So in terms of scout prep, the so there's offensive coaches,
defensive coach. We'm not gonna name who they are, but
the offensive coach puts together there's two offensive coaches and
there's three defensive coaches.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Two offensive coaches put.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
One guy puts together the game plan in terms of
how to attack the defenses, and then the entire offensive
staff meets. In terms of defense, we have one of
the three defensive guys gonna put together the defensive plan
and then all of the defense meets. But as that
one guy puts it together, we're all in unison working together,
whether it's offense or defense. And then when we go
(08:45):
to coach Pope, we just present the final packet versus
going in with a blank canvas and then we're all
putting a bunch of stuff on the you know, on
the canvas, and then you're wasting three hours. Like so,
I think that's something we for sure as we got
each other's them as the season went on, I think
we got really really good at being very efficient with
our time.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And it just is I think it's probably interesting to
fans just to kind of pull the curtain back a
little bit when you guys are together. If too many
people are making too many suggestions, it can extend the meeting.
So you know, how does you know, how does the
back and forth work? And is there kind of like okay,
we're going to take five minutes to go back and
forth on this or who's got the most important point now?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So we definitely we try to meet his assistance before
we go in there with the head coach.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's just like anything in any business.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Try to make sure that we have, you know, like
we don't need to have the answer, but we want
to kind of be on the same page about what
we're presenting. And then if we have a strong difference
about it, we try to solve those before we go
to Coach Pope. That way, once we're in there with
Coach Pope, it's his thing versus the one or two
different things that we're thinking about.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
We find a way to marry that I did together.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And like sometimes we might meet like two days prior
to a game. We might think that this is the
game plan that works, we scrap the entire thing, then
we go the next day, and then it might be
the right before the game that we figure out exactly
how we want to attack it or how we want
to defend something. And then once we kind of have that,
we're ready to go. And we try not to give
the players too much information, like we might meet for
a long time, but we get the players very detail oriented.
(10:13):
This is what we're doing, this is how we're doing it,
and then this might be our curve ball if we
need to.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You do a lot of work with the Biggs. Let's
talk about BG coming back next season. We saw certainly
flashes of him at his best. What needs to happen
for him to make that more sustained and to be
all that he wants to be and all of you
guys need him to be.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, biggest thing we talked to BG is just continuing
to be in the lead shape.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
He finished the season.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
You know, by the time he got midway through conference,
I think he was He wasn't out of shape, but
he got to the point where he could be in
the shape that for what he wants to accomplish in
his life, he can do that. He didn't get as
many minutes because the Mary Williams was playing at such
a high level, but he kind of stayed in shape
and he stayed ready everything. But everything we talked about
is just you know, getting stronger, being an elite shape
(11:01):
so that he can sustain his motor He's an energy player,
He's a motor guy.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He's an extra possession.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Obviously, everyone sees him banging threes now and everyone sees
him making big plays. But like his worth just comes
from being energy and being relentless. So a big step
of his development is just continuing to be an elite shape,
improving his three point shot to where he's getting five
to seven attempts a game and just rebounding at a
high level. That's a big part of the weight room
and continuing he gets stronger.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
You know, one of the national players of the year
here was Willie Cauley Stein and there was a game
table was playing home miss and he got switched off
on Marshall Anderson and guarded him for a sustained time.
I think back to the Oklahoma game for BG, and
there were times he was able to defend when he
switched off on Fears, who's obviously one of the top
point guards in the country. That to me was one
(11:48):
of the games where you maybe get to see what
the best of Brandon could look like in terms of
guarding like that, blocking the shot late and making big
plays offensively.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
A big reason that Brandon took a big jump, so
everyone remembers.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
A lot of people forget is what I should say.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
We had our pro day here and we had twenty
eight different scouts here and there was a clip that
went viralt Brandon Garrison playing defense three straight possessions where
he stopped Lamont, he stopped Colin Chandler, and he stopped
I want to say, Otega, and it was a clip
that went viral to him guarding and he's always That's
why I talk about like him being in great shape.
When he's in great shape, he can do a lot
(12:27):
of things at a high level. But he's always been
a great on ball defender one through five. And when
BG started to earn more minutes was actually at Oklahoma
game because we realized we could play Beg and Amari
together because BG can guard one through five and he
could also make a three.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So BG's role began to change.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That's a big part of his development this offseason is
being able to play the four and the five. That
way he gets you know, eight to ten extra minutes,
but he has the versatility to do it. He takes
pride in being a defender, and I mean I can
speak for him, and I know he wants to be
in the you know, conference Player of the Year defensively,
so that's something he wants.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Focus officer is several big guys that are coming in
that you didn't know until you know after you do
the seasons open that they were going to be part
of this place. But there's one that you did and
that's Malachi And so you guys, could you know, follow
him over the course of his final high school season,
and a little video clip that came out recently on
social media just showing one of his workouts, some excellent footwork. Like,
(13:22):
what is the what are the skills that are most
impressive to you that he'll bring.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I think Malaku Malachi's size. Obviously, he has great size.
He has really good touch for our biggest size, and
he has good playmaking ability. Those are the things that
made him attractive us attractive to us as a recruit.
He has really soft touch, and he's developing his perimeter
game where he could put the ball on the floor
one or two different dribbles. But where Malachi is worth
(13:48):
where he'll get to play a lot as the freshmen's
just being able to show the physicality and have the
presence defensive, their defensive rebound to play without.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You know, taking care of the ball.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And then like we don't really need him to be
a great jump shooter at the start of his career,
but he has to touch to where like by the
time we get the conference play, just like Garrison, I
think he can make the jump to way. He's shooting
threes as well, So we're very excited to have him
he's been in constant communication with our staff.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
We followed him closely.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We talked to him and his brother all the time,
and we're keeping track of him and he's progressing well
in a development plan we gave him.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It's it helpful to have a player who's had a
brother that played big time college basketball, or maybe a
dad in some cases that they maybe are a little
more tuned into what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Like yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I mean it's the best of both worlds, because Malachi
is just so thirsty to get better, Like he's hitting
up Randier's hitting up you know myself a coach figure,
coach Pope, Like hey, like okay, I finished this part
of the plan, Like what can I work on next?
Like he wants to come in and play right away,
Like he knows it. He's talented enough to play in
the association. He knows that he has all the gifts.
And his brother and his mother do a really good job,
(14:53):
and his dad do a really good job of keeping
him level headed and keeping the main thing the main thing,
so he'll be ready to play next year.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And lastly, we talked to a lot of the players
that come through here about you know, are you ready
for what the Spotlight's going to be like?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Or what I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
You probably heard about it certainly before you came here,
and now I have worked a year in it. What's
it like versus what you expected?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I still remember this day when I got the job
and I had no idea how this place work. I
remember dev got on me. I think I had put
on my Twitter bio. I'd accepted the job at all
the paperwork, and I didn't realize it was a process
of the announcement and stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'll
just change my bio blah blah blah, thinking nothing of it,
and within seconds it was a post saying that I
(15:36):
got the job. I was like, oh, I think I
just announced my own So at that point I became
very aware of everything because you hear about it, but
until you live it, you know, you don't understand it.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like you go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Everywhere you go, people know who you are, and if
you live in your life the wrong way, that's a
bad thing. But you know, you enjoy it, man, like
just the process of it and family getting to enjoy
it as well.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So it's great.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I love working here, came basketball assistant coach, became McClain
with us here on the Leach Report, presented by Bob
Cant Enterprises. We'll be right back. It's the Leat Report,
and Larry Vatt joins us on the Club Blue Nil
dot com hotline. And Larry, it's an important day for
Kentucky baseball. You've got a story up at your sports
(16:19):
edge dot com about Keith Madison confident or you believes
Kentucky is a truly an NCAA tournament team and you look,
they've played really good teams. You can't argue with that,
but they right, they're right there on the on the
fringe of making sure they get in.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yeah, losing those three games the way that they did
is dandy. It's been odd last three week weekends for them.
I guess Mississippi State and then swept Oklahoma and then
go to Vandy and very easily could have won all
three games instead.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Lose all three.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
So, I mean, I know they're right now projected as
being in the tournament, but way in today would sure
help take any suspects at all out of the pairings.
I think when they are released, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, it is down in Hoover, Alabama, and they if
they win, they get Georgia, which is i think the
first team they played in a conference play and Georgia
was top five in the country and they played them tough.
So it's I'm sure frustrating a year for not only
fans but for the coaches because they've been so close.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Yeah, it seems like almost every SEC game they've played,
they've had the lead at some point in the game
but just hadn't been able to close them out. Ended
up with only thirteen league wins such I think having
the lead in twenty seven of the thirty games.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
So I know that the frustrating stat for Nick van Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
We're chatting with Larry Vaught and we will continue doing
that when we come right back halfway home. On this
Tuesday edition of The Leach Report, presented by Bob kat Enterprises.
Guests on thely T Report come to you via the
Club blueenil dot com hotline, and they have a new
initiative for kids. It's Club Blue Kids, and you can
(18:11):
go to the website Club Blueenil dot com and click
on the kids tab to register. You had big things
coming soon, but for now, you know you're gonna get
a T shirt, a membership card, a lanyard, exclusive events
that you can participate in, athlete experiences, meet and greets,
et cetera with Club Blue Kids. So go to Club
(18:32):
Blueenil dot com and get your extra signed up Club
Blue Kids, where future Wildcats rep the Blue and White
with Priday as we chat with Larry Vatt from your
sports edge dot com and votsviews dot com. You hear
them on the Sunday morning sports talk show here on
our flagship affiliate in Lexington on Sundays. And you guys
(18:53):
had Reese Potter on the show last Sunday.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Right, Yeah, with the former Lexi Catholic stand down who's
now going to be a Kentucky wild captain. It's interesting
to listen to him talk a little bit about the
process of gutting back to Lexington and how excited he
is about being back. And I think there's some speculation
maybe he'll be red shirted, maybe he won't, but Reees
(19:17):
certainly is not coming in thinking that he's coming in
believing that he can help in certain ways. And for
Mark Popen, I think there's no doubt. If there's an
offense that's made for Reese Potter and his skills. It
would be what Mark Pope does, because what Reeese can
do is he can shoot the ball at seven feet
and he can also handle the ball at seven feet,
(19:38):
but then he can turn around and protect the room.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
For you if you need to.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
So it sounds like the perfect match for him with
Mark Pope, and he's really eager to be back. If
you didn't get to hearing, you can go check out
the podcast.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
You know, finding guys like that, I've always said, guys
like you know, Jared Poulson, if you could find that
kind of player is Cameron Mills was another example in
an earlier time where it's a very good high school
basketball player from Kentucky that just has a great passion
to be a Kentucky Wildcat and is willing to take
(20:15):
on a lesser role than they could have somewhere else
to be a part of this program. And if circumstances
put them in a bigger role than you maybe originally expected,
they can come through for you, like guys like Cameron
and Jared.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
Did absolutely And with Reese, I mean you've got Jaden
Clinton's coming in who you think or expect to be fantastic,
but he's also coming off that knee surgery, so exactly
when he will be back nobody knows. You've got Malachi
Marino coming in a McDonald's All American, but he's going
to be a freshman. Reese has played two years of
(20:50):
college basketball, so he could turn out to be a
lot more valuable piece for this year's team than maybe
what's expected right now. And if not, he's certainly really
good insurance to have sitting there in case you do need.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Absolutely. I've been asking this of various guests that have
come on since Coach Popett's news conference last Tuesday, and
what were some of the takeaways that you had from
what you heard?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
I think, to me time just the biggest one was
just how kind of giddy Mark Pope was. He just
kind of reminded me of one of my young grandkids,
just talking and excited about a trip or something that's coming.
That he just seems so happy about everything connected with
the team, who they were going to play, who he's
brought in, everything. He just seemed genuinely, genuinely just overjoyed
(21:41):
with everything and didn't seem to have a concern at all,
which is easy to do at this time of year.
But I just was impressed with just the way that
he seemed so happy about the way that he had
things set up to go for next year. And obviously
he talked about all the guys he had, but he's
always positive about those, and so I was just struck
(22:02):
by just genuinely how happy he seemed to be with
everything he had lined up right now.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And a guy that you know, well, you've followed his
career since I don't know as long as long as
he's been in the world. Probably he's Asper Johnson, knowing
you know the Johnson family as well as you do.
He had some glowing things to say about what he
thought Jasper could be in his time at Kentucky.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Yeah, I had listened to him talk about the other
guys that the transfer portal guys that were coming in,
and I just thought, well, I'm just as you said,
I've known Jasper since the day he was born. I thought,
I'm just curious what he thinks about Jasper and Malachas.
So I just kind of lobbed at what I thought
was a pretty easy question about what would be the
expectations for those two guys coming in, and even with Mark,
I just expected kind of the standard coach speak for
(22:50):
something like that. Right off the bat he goes, well,
Jasper gonna be a superstar. I mean not he's going
to be good, He's going to help us, He's going
to be a superstar. So I guess that would probably
go into the category. I did jump out at me
for one of the things that Mark said, because that's
just not something you hear most coaches talk about a
freshman coming in, especially Gad that's not what in ranked
(23:10):
as a top five or a top ten player. I
think it will be really really good. But to have
him just come right out and say he's going to
be a superstar and we needed to be a superstar now,
it was a little stronger than what I was expecting
from Mark.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
When people talked about and when I say people, when
analysts pundits talked about Kentucky last season in terms of,
you know, weak spots, one of the things they would
mention would be do they have a guy who can
you know, just go get his shot when everything's breaking down,
it's late in the shot clock. And he mentioned that
is one quality that the Jasper will bring.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Yeah, and Jasper certainly was able to do that in
the overtime. You lead when you play against a really
good competition every day when you're there, and I think
Jasper got a lot better this year in that situation.
And he's always a guy that's been able to do that.
Mark's very confident he's going to be able to do
it again, and I probably it's also a little bit
surprised when he talked about Jasper's defensive capabilities and what
(24:09):
he liked that is how Jasper could do on the
defensive end. For is that's something you really don't hear
a lot of people talk about. When you mentioned Jasper Johnson.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Assuming Otega is back and we'll I guess next Wednesday's
the deadline day, the twenty eighth for making that decision
about staying in the draft process or coming out. So
assuming he's back, uh, you know, he he's I would
assume going to play the I would think the most minutes.
Jalen Lowell point guard because he's the point guard, will
(24:38):
play a lot of minutes. But it's gonna be really
interesting to see how the minutes shake out for the
rest of that roster because he has a lot of
different ways he can go.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Yeah, and it may be some games that one guy
plays in abundance of minutes, in the next game he
doesn't play quite as many minutes because he's got the
versatility to kind of match up if he wants to,
or just go ahead and dictate what he wants done.
But yeah, it's really a deep roster. I've got some
guys that could be really good defensive players. I think
probably gonna be a little bit more physical roster than
(25:09):
it was last year. Maybe not quite as good an
overall three point shooting team, but then again, who knows,
Maybe it'll be better what the numbers would indicate, because
it seemed like a lot of guys shut the ball
better this year for Mark than what they had at
other places. So he's got a lot of things he
can tinker with. And he's also got some guys that
are used to what he does, and I think that's
(25:31):
going to help him too.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
If start as a three point shooting I think it's
potentially maybe a little better than people might think, excuse
me might think, because I think, assuming again Otega is back, I.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Think it's there's a.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Good chance he could be a few percentage points better
as a three point shooter. Coach Pope talked about that
would be one focus for Otega if he's back here
is you're getting a shot off maybe a little quicker.
As one thing he mentioned, you know you've got Jalen
Lowe's numbers I think are going to be significantly better
(26:07):
as a three point shooter in this system than they
were in the situation where he was in last year.
Colin Chandler, I think, you know, his numbers will be
his three point shooting percentage will be better. We saw
just the way he came on in the last game
or two of the regular season and in the postseason.
And he's a guy in the way he talks about
a whole lot, but you know, he he showed us
(26:30):
some real flashes of what he could be.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Yeah, as soon as he gets across Smid Cordy's in
shooting range. He's what he did the last month of
the season. So as a as a great point about him.
And then with Jalen Lowe, his father Marlin, the first
time I talked to him after Jalen committed to Kentucky,
that's one thing he talked about. He said, I want
the three point percentage for you, because he said he
had to take a lot of tough, bad shots at
(26:55):
the end of shot clocks at pitt just to get
the ball up. And he said he with shots he
wouldn't want to take, but he had to take with.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
The situation he was in. But said he's a better
shooter than what that number shows.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
And I think Mark has kind of indicated that too,
and hopefully that's going to be correct, because I think
Jalen's going to be a guy, as you said, it's
going to be on the court a lot for them
because just the way he can handle things.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
And I'll soo if his numbers go up on that.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Three point shot, that really really helps them, kind of
what like what Lamont Butler's did last year.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, that's a very good point, Larry, appreciate the time
as always. Thank you, all right, Tom Larry Mott joining
us here on the Leech Report. The LPGA Legends are
coming to Woodford County next month. That's the Woodford Legends
Invitational Golf Tournament on Saturday, June the seventh and eighth,
(27:46):
and some of the top players in the history of
the LPGA Tour are going to be playing. Lord Davies,
Pat Bradley, Julie Yngster, Jan Stevenson and more. You can
get tickets at Woodford Clubfoundation dot org. Proceeds benefit KVC Coulducky.
Tickets costs fifteen dollars a day. Go get more information
at Woodford Club Foundation dot org. We're back with Darren
(28:07):
Headrick from Hoover, Alabama talking about the SEC Baseball Tournament.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
In just a moment.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
It's Lake Repoar.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Present up by Bob Kannt Enterprises, and we go to Hoover,
Alabama on the Club BLUEINIL dot com hotline to bring
on Darren Headrick for the UK Radio Network. He will
be on the call around twish Eastern time today for
Kentucky and Oklahoma in the SEC Baseball Tournament. So what
time is the pregame schedule? What? One forty five?
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yeah, we're hoping to fire up about one for today.
Is a lot of it's just going to depend on
obviously some weather and how long that first game takes.
But we're looking at roughly a one forty five start.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So what is the weather looking like down in Hoover?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Well, it's uh, we actually should be okay today. I
think it's it's sunny right now, but I think later
the satsinoon and the end of the evening it could
get a little rough down here, but we should be
okay for our game this afternoon. Fingers crossed.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Do we know yet who's going to get the ball
to go out on the mound to start the game.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
I think Kentucky's going to go with Scott Rouse. He
started the midweek game against Northern last week, was not
used this weekend against Vanderbilt, so he should be rested
and ready to go today.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Does that suggest to you that coach Ben Jones confidence
there in the NCAA tournament, no matter what.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I think. So, but you know, Scott has performed well.
He pitched well in the SEC and had a fantastic
outing against Northern Kentucky. He's also stretched out, he can
go four or five innings. And I'm sure Oklahoma's in
a similar spot with what they're having to do. But
I think Kentucky feels really good about where they are.
(29:51):
Most of the projections have them solidly three seed, and
most of them have them solidly in the field.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
Yeah, they're they.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I guess the Friday night starter actually pitched on Thursday
last week, so that would have been the the I
guess the the the other option if you went with
one of your weekend guys, right, but he'd have been
coming back from Thursday to Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Yeah, it would have been short rest for Nate Harris.
And so you know, Scott is rested up and ready
to go, and I'm sure it's going to be all
hands on deck behind him in the bullpen with guys
like maybe an Ethan Walker and they've they've got plenty
of other arms too, so I'm sure it'll be all
hands on deck today.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You're around these guys, a lot players and coaches. That
was hard to handle those first two nights, especially in Nashville.
I guess it was Friday night. I think I was
watching and I thought, okay, they went they went ahead,
and I thought, okay, they're they're in good shape. Went
(30:56):
up to uh, go to bed, flipped on the radio
just in time to hear you call the second straight
walk off win, a home run for Vanderbilt. Just a
brutal gut punch two nights in a row. So you know,
how did they handle that emotionally?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, it's it definitely was hard. I did think they
showed fight. They bounced back on Sunday, Tom. You know,
they had a three nothing lead through five innings, six
innings like something like that, and Vanderbilt fought back again.
It was just one of those things last weekend. It's
sort of like the old heathw song. If it weren't
for bad luck, they had no luck at all. Oh yeah,
(31:40):
I glue to spare and agony. But you know, they
showed a lot of fight this weekend, had a chance
to win all three games. It just didn't work out.
So but we'll see. I think they've got a pretty
good mindset going into today.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, it's kind of, I guess a reset now that
you move into the postseason and you know, on one hand,
they have had some way too many frustrated losses I'm
sure for their own taste, but they know that they
can play with anybody in the best league in the country.
So you get into a regional and you'd feel, you know,
(32:16):
have good chance to be have good reason to be optimistic.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Yeah, you know, you look at their SEC games. They
lost what was it, I think it was eleven SEC
games by combining fifteen runs. They had a lead in
twenty seven of their thirty SEC games, and you know,
I think one thing when you look forward now to
the postseason after the SEC tournament, should they get into
a regional is you go back to last year when
(32:43):
they made that run to Omaha. Tom Kentucky did not
lose to a team outside the SEC in the postseason.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Last year.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Their only losses in Omaha were to SEC members schools,
And that just underscores how tough this league is, how
tight the margin for air is a lot of It's
just like football and basketball in the league. And you
know this, It's just it's so tight, and one little
mistake can be such a huge turn in a game.
And unfortunately for Kentucky and some of these type games,
(33:12):
it's a pitch here, it's an a bat there, and
they've come out on the short end. But yeah, you're right,
they are right there with some of the best teams
in the country.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Tyler Bell named the EL Freshman Team. I saw that
released yesterday. He has had He's been as good as advertised,
we'll say, in his first year right now.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Yes, yeah, oh, no question about it. That young man
has lived up to all the expectations and all the hype.
And I had a chance to interview him while we
were at Vanderbilt, and I asked him about the fact
that that word expectations or expectations. I said, you've got
to be used to that by now, and he said yeah,
and he said, I have just learned to live with it,
(33:50):
learned to tune it out. But you're talking about a
young man that has ten home runs. He's been solid defensively.
I think his field in percentage is ninety eight for
sin on almost two hundred chances for the year. He
just continues to be a steady presence in the top
of the order and reached safely in fifty one to
(34:10):
fifty two regular season games. He's got on base streets
of twenty seven and twenty four and he's got a
base hit now and I think it's sixteen of his
last seventeen games. He's just he has been phenomenal this year.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Darren, thank you much. Have a great call today, and beyond,
stay down there a while.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
We're hoping to Tom. Thanks so much for the time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
That's Darren Hendrick. He'll be on the call today round
two Eastern time. Look at a one forty five Eastern
pregame for Kentucky and Oklahoma in the SEC Tournament quick
Break and we'll come back with our final segment of.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
The Leach Report for Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Let's talk about corn Bread Hemp. I ain't got a
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Try the good life for yourself. Get twenty percent off
your first order. Put in the kode tom and check out.
You'll get that discount at cornbreadhamp dot com. This is
the good life, the staying Wildcat History. It's a birthday
(35:33):
and a scanner celebrating a birthday today. Kentucky Road Show
Sports Cards at Memorabilia on Romney Road here in Lexington
present our wildcat history notes there at Roadshow cards dot
Com as well. Journalism has settled in at Saratoga after
shipping up from Baltimore. That happened yesterday. A run of
(35:55):
the Belmont Stakes is still up in the air, however,
trainer Michael McCarthy wants to see how his horse bounces
back from the Preakness win, so they figure to handle
this like they did with the Preakness run, where it
was about a week later before they made the announcement
that Journalism was going to go. And with three weeks
(36:16):
between the Preakness and the Belmont as opposed to two
between the Derby and the Preakness, then I think might
even be a little longer before they determine if Journalism
is going to run. But clearly the connections they shipped
him up there they would like to run in the
Belmont Stakes, and hopefully that happens because it'd be a
great storyline for this year's Belmont Stakes to have the
(36:37):
Derby Winter sovereignty in the Preakness, Winter Journalism squaring off
and Baeza lurking there on the edge after that great
run that he had in the Derby. He'll be coming
back for the Belmont. Our triple Crown coverage again. The
Spring is presented by Clayburne Farm doing the usual, unusually
well for more than a century. Saw a note from
Donna Brothers of the NBC Triple Crown coverage team, and
(37:02):
it's about the passing of Larry the Merit, a trainer.
You may remember his story from last year's Kentucky Derby.
NBC told it beautifully in a feature. He had West
Saratoga that qualified for the Derby, and it was his
first Derby horse. And Larry's a trainer that had a
rep for having his horses outrun their odds. And he
(37:24):
certainly beat the odds in terms of battling cancer, which
finally has taken his life. But I think he was,
as he said in that feature, was given a short
timetable a long time ago and he beat the odds.
But he has passed and lost his battle with cancer.
So that note coming from Donna Brothers, and we share
her wish for a rest in peace for Larry. That's
(37:48):
going to do it for this edition of the Leech Report.
Dick Gabriel be subbing for me the next couple of days.
I'll see you back here on Friday. The Leach Report
presented by Bobcat Enterprises,
Hello there, Welcome into our show for a Tuesday. As always,
we are presented by Bobcat Enterprises and coming up on
the show today, we will lead off with an interview
I did with UK assistant basketball Coachman's assistant coach mckail
McClain just recently signed a new two year contract to
(00:22):
stay with the Cats and got a chance to visit
with him talk a little bit about his first season
at Kentucky and looking ahead the year two. Larry Vaught
will be with us per usual on a Tuesday, and
Darren Headrick checking in from Hoover, Alabama, where the Kentucky
baseball team will take the field later today. And that
(00:44):
leads us into our Wildcat News of the Day, which
is the service of j Sepees of Lexington. Kentucky Baseball.
We'll take on Oklahoma. Kentucky is the thirteen seed, Oklahoma
the twelve, and the winner gets to play five seed Georgia.
It's a single nation SEC tournament this time, not set
up like a you know, the state tournament is for
(01:06):
boys and girls basketball here, but you have teams that
the higher seeded teams get buys out further into the
tournament and you know Georgia's a five seed, they get
a first round by But anyway, Kentucky and Oklahoma today,
Kentucky's twenty nine, twenty three, thirteen, and seventeen in the league,
(01:27):
and the folks that follow college baseball closely and do
the bracket projections, the kind of the feeling is thirteen
SEC wins will get you into the NCAA Tournament. Kentucky,
I would think it would feel a whole lot better
getting the fourteenth. So that's what's on the line today,
(01:47):
and we'll talk about that with Darren when he joins
us a little bit later. On the latest projections I've
seen everywhere all seem to suggest Kentucky is going to
get in no matter what happens today. But I'm curious
to see who Kentucky will put on the mound. Well,
it obviously won't be clever because he just pitched on Saturday.
Is their best pitcher, but will they go with one
(02:11):
of their Friday or Saturday pitchers in this first game.
The coverage will be on the UK Radio Network with
Darren Hedrick approximately two pm. It's the second game of
the day. SEC Network on TV for the whole tournament,
So Kentucky and Oklahoma. A little afternoon baseball today with
(02:32):
some important stakes. SEC All Freshman Team is out and
Kentucky shortstop Tyler Bell is on it. He's had a
tremendous first season as a Wildcat. He had just four
airs in one hundred and ninety nine chances this season.
That's a zero point nine to eight zero fielding percentage.
(02:54):
This is from a release from UK. He is the
only Wildcat to bat over three hundred in conference play,
led the team in doubles, home runs, RBI and slugging
percentage in those games. First Wildcat named the All Freshman
Team since Sean Jelly back in twenty sixteen. So just
a you know, tremendous first year. Tyler Bell came in
(03:16):
with a high expectations and he has been as good
as advertised. Links to the stories that we talk about
each day you can find those on the Bud Light
Leach Report page at Tom leachky dot com. Brandon Hawthorne
set to announce his college basketball choice at seven Eastern
time tonight via twenty four to seven Sports. Kentucky, Duke Pitt, West, Virginia,
(03:39):
and Virginia Tech the five finalists he visited all five,
so that announcement will come at seven Eastern time tonight
when we come back mchae, we'll hear from mc McLain
and then Larry Vaughton Darren Hedrick a little bit later on.
It's the opening segment presented by Chiseppies of Lexington and
they have Open Table is where you go to get
(04:01):
your reservations and try to sit in the lounge there
if you can and experience a fantastic meal accompanied by
the live jazz music from Dave Hall. It is just
a really special night out. The food's fantastic hostas homemade
see food shipped in fresh handcut steaks a lot of
locally sourced ingredients in their dishes at Giuseppe's Lexington dot Com.
(04:23):
Check them out. We'll be right back on The Lakes
Report present it by Bobcat Enterprises. It's the Lake Report
coming to you from the Clark's Pumping Shop studio with
their new Loyalty rewards program to help you save money
on gas and items in the store, return refreshed, she
and refuel at Clark's. At his news conference last week,
Mark Pope talked about how well the staff worked together
(04:45):
in their first year of his time at Kentucky and
how much improved video thinks he'll see in that relationship
in year two. One of the key pieces this guy
who just signed a new contract. That's Mikail McLain and
I had a chance to sit down with him last week.
So Miquel coach Pope's recent news conference, he said, I
asked you about the staff being together for a second year,
(05:05):
and he says, it's gonna be one hundred percent better.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You got the new contract. Is that all on you?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I don't want to say it's all on me, but
definitely it's gonna be a team effort. Excited to get
to work with this staff. Authentically think we have the
best staff in the country, and we compliment our strengths,
all compliment one another. So when we're all, you know,
clicking on the same accord, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We talked a lot last season as people who you know,
fans meeting whatever they cover the team about how all
these guys from different backgrounds had to come together and
a lot of them for just one year and be
a team. But as a coaching staff, I mean Mark
had a couple of guys that were with him at BYU.
But there were a lot of guys that make up
the staff that you guys hadn't worked together before. Maybe
(05:49):
you knew each other a little bit, I don't know,
But how did that dynamic evolve?
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And definitely it was a process for sure, because we
all come from different backgrounds, different roles.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
You know, Coach Fox was a head coach.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Coach Robinson was a head coach, Jason Hart was a
head coach of the G League IG Night, Alvin Brooks
has been an associate head coach. Cody's worked with, you know,
Coach Pope the longest. So it's just a matter of
kind of.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Figuring out we don't need everybody trying to.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Do the same thing. So that's why I said just
talking about like complimenting each other's strengths. I think Coach
Fox did a really good job just kind of keeping
us organized as assistants, and like I said, like I
think a lot of us, you know, like you know,
whether it's development, whether it's recruiting, whether it's x'es and o's,
whether it's offense, whether it's defense, special situations. I think
(06:36):
Coach Fox and Coach Pope especially did a really good
job of delegating roles, and in that delegation once we
got a rhythm of kind of okay, I really don't
need to I'll just focus on this one thing. I
don't need to focus on a million different things. It's
the same thing we tell our players, like, focus on
one thing you want to get better at. Every day
we focus on the one role that we want to
get better at. And as the season went on, we
(06:58):
kind of got a rhythm in it, for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
You know, a president gets the cabinet around a conference table,
a chief executive gets some senior staff. How many times
are you guys together as a group in a given
week discussing things. It sounds like it must step in off.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, no, No, we meet once a day for sure,
but sometimes it's two or three. Sometimes we do like
smaller group meetings. So we'll always do one big group
meeting as a staff. We'll do an offensive meeting with
just the offensive guys. We'll do a defensive meeting with
just the defensive guys. But you know, I would say
as a group at least twice a day, and we
(07:35):
are very on schedule, just like our practices, Like our
practice has what we're going to work on we're boom
boom boom our staff meetings.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, this is the emphasis today, this is the agenda.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
We're gonna hit those three or four agendas and then
we'll kind of branch off and talk about some other things.
But in terms of like just x's and o's, in
terms of recruiting, in terms of just staff delegation, we're
very very well put together. And Coach Robinson leads the
delegation of the agenda.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
For the day.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
That's what coach Nick Robinson does.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
What about for preparing for an opponent, So you're putting
together a game plan, somebody's got the scout on whoever
you're playing, and then how does that kind of evolve
leading up to a game?
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So in terms of scout prep, the so there's offensive coaches,
defensive coach. We'm not gonna name who they are, but
the offensive coach puts together there's two offensive coaches and
there's three defensive coaches.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Two offensive coaches put.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
One guy puts together the game plan in terms of
how to attack the defenses, and then the entire offensive
staff meets. In terms of defense, we have one of
the three defensive guys gonna put together the defensive plan
and then all of the defense meets. But as that
one guy puts it together, we're all in unison working together,
whether it's offense or defense. And then when we go
(08:45):
to coach Pope, we just present the final packet versus
going in with a blank canvas and then we're all
putting a bunch of stuff on the you know, on
the canvas, and then you're wasting three hours. Like so,
I think that's something we for sure as we got
each other's them as the season went on, I think
we got really really good at being very efficient with
our time.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And it just is I think it's probably interesting to
fans just to kind of pull the curtain back a
little bit when you guys are together. If too many
people are making too many suggestions, it can extend the meeting.
So you know, how does you know, how does the
back and forth work? And is there kind of like okay,
we're going to take five minutes to go back and
forth on this or who's got the most important point now?
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So we definitely we try to meet his assistance before
we go in there with the head coach.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
It's just like anything in any business.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Try to make sure that we have, you know, like
we don't need to have the answer, but we want
to kind of be on the same page about what
we're presenting. And then if we have a strong difference
about it, we try to solve those before we go
to Coach Pope. That way, once we're in there with
Coach Pope, it's his thing versus the one or two
different things that we're thinking about.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
We find a way to marry that I did together.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And like sometimes we might meet like two days prior
to a game. We might think that this is the
game plan that works, we scrap the entire thing, then
we go the next day, and then it might be
the right before the game that we figure out exactly
how we want to attack it or how we want
to defend something. And then once we kind of have that,
we're ready to go. And we try not to give
the players too much information, like we might meet for
a long time, but we get the players very detail oriented.
(10:13):
This is what we're doing, this is how we're doing it,
and then this might be our curve ball if we
need to.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
You do a lot of work with the Biggs. Let's
talk about BG coming back next season. We saw certainly
flashes of him at his best. What needs to happen
for him to make that more sustained and to be
all that he wants to be and all of you
guys need him to be.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, biggest thing we talked to BG is just continuing
to be in the lead shape.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
He finished the season.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
You know, by the time he got midway through conference,
I think he was He wasn't out of shape, but
he got to the point where he could be in
the shape that for what he wants to accomplish in
his life, he can do that. He didn't get as
many minutes because the Mary Williams was playing at such
a high level, but he kind of stayed in shape
and he stayed ready everything. But everything we talked about
is just you know, getting stronger, being an elite shape
(11:01):
so that he can sustain his motor He's an energy player,
He's a motor guy.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
He's an extra possession.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Obviously, everyone sees him banging threes now and everyone sees
him making big plays. But like his worth just comes
from being energy and being relentless. So a big step
of his development is just continuing to be an elite shape,
improving his three point shot to where he's getting five
to seven attempts a game and just rebounding at a
high level. That's a big part of the weight room
and continuing he gets stronger.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
You know, one of the national players of the year
here was Willie Cauley Stein and there was a game
table was playing home miss and he got switched off
on Marshall Anderson and guarded him for a sustained time.
I think back to the Oklahoma game for BG, and
there were times he was able to defend when he
switched off on Fears, who's obviously one of the top
point guards in the country. That to me was one
(11:48):
of the games where you maybe get to see what
the best of Brandon could look like in terms of
guarding like that, blocking the shot late and making big
plays offensively.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
A big reason that Brandon took a big jump, so
everyone remembers.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
A lot of people forget is what I should say.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
We had our pro day here and we had twenty
eight different scouts here and there was a clip that
went viralt Brandon Garrison playing defense three straight possessions where
he stopped Lamont, he stopped Colin Chandler, and he stopped
I want to say, Otega, and it was a clip
that went viral to him guarding and he's always That's
why I talk about like him being in great shape.
When he's in great shape, he can do a lot
(12:27):
of things at a high level. But he's always been
a great on ball defender one through five. And when
BG started to earn more minutes was actually at Oklahoma
game because we realized we could play Beg and Amari
together because BG can guard one through five and he
could also make a three.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
So BG's role began to change.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
That's a big part of his development this offseason is
being able to play the four and the five. That
way he gets you know, eight to ten extra minutes,
but he has the versatility to do it. He takes
pride in being a defender, and I mean I can
speak for him, and I know he wants to be
in the you know, conference Player of the Year defensively,
so that's something he wants.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Focus officer is several big guys that are coming in
that you didn't know until you know after you do
the seasons open that they were going to be part
of this place. But there's one that you did and
that's Malachi And so you guys, could you know, follow
him over the course of his final high school season,
and a little video clip that came out recently on
social media just showing one of his workouts, some excellent footwork. Like,
(13:22):
what is the what are the skills that are most
impressive to you that he'll bring.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
I think Malaku Malachi's size. Obviously, he has great size.
He has really good touch for our biggest size, and
he has good playmaking ability. Those are the things that
made him attractive us attractive to us as a recruit.
He has really soft touch, and he's developing his perimeter
game where he could put the ball on the floor
one or two different dribbles. But where Malachi is worth
(13:48):
where he'll get to play a lot as the freshmen's
just being able to show the physicality and have the
presence defensive, their defensive rebound to play without.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
You know, taking care of the ball.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And then like we don't really need him to be
a great jump shooter at the start of his career,
but he has to touch to where like by the
time we get the conference play, just like Garrison, I
think he can make the jump to way. He's shooting
threes as well, So we're very excited to have him
he's been in constant communication with our staff.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
We followed him closely.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
We talked to him and his brother all the time,
and we're keeping track of him and he's progressing well
in a development plan we gave him.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
It's it helpful to have a player who's had a
brother that played big time college basketball, or maybe a
dad in some cases that they maybe are a little
more tuned into what it's going to be.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Like yeah, no doubt.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
I mean it's the best of both worlds, because Malachi
is just so thirsty to get better, Like he's hitting
up Randier's hitting up you know myself a coach figure,
coach Pope, Like hey, like okay, I finished this part
of the plan, Like what can I work on next?
Like he wants to come in and play right away,
Like he knows it. He's talented enough to play in
the association. He knows that he has all the gifts.
And his brother and his mother do a really good job,
(14:53):
and his dad do a really good job of keeping
him level headed and keeping the main thing the main thing,
so he'll be ready to play next year.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
And lastly, we talked to a lot of the players
that come through here about you know, are you ready
for what the Spotlight's going to be like?
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Or what I mean?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
You probably heard about it certainly before you came here,
and now I have worked a year in it. What's
it like versus what you expected?
Speaker 2 (15:14):
It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
I still remember this day when I got the job
and I had no idea how this place work. I
remember dev got on me. I think I had put
on my Twitter bio. I'd accepted the job at all
the paperwork, and I didn't realize it was a process
of the announcement and stuff. So I'm like, okay, I'll
just change my bio blah blah blah, thinking nothing of it,
and within seconds it was a post saying that I
(15:36):
got the job. I was like, oh, I think I
just announced my own So at that point I became
very aware of everything because you hear about it, but
until you live it, you know, you don't understand it.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like you go to the grocery store.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Everywhere you go, people know who you are, and if
you live in your life the wrong way, that's a
bad thing. But you know, you enjoy it, man, like
just the process of it and family getting to enjoy
it as well.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
So it's great.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
I love working here, came basketball assistant coach, became McClain
with us here on the Leach Report, presented by Bob
Cant Enterprises. We'll be right back. It's the Leat Report,
and Larry Vatt joins us on the Club Blue Nil
dot com hotline. And Larry, it's an important day for
Kentucky baseball. You've got a story up at your sports
(16:19):
edge dot com about Keith Madison confident or you believes
Kentucky is a truly an NCAA tournament team and you look,
they've played really good teams. You can't argue with that,
but they right, they're right there on the on the
fringe of making sure they get in.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Right.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Yeah, losing those three games the way that they did
is dandy. It's been odd last three week weekends for them.
I guess Mississippi State and then swept Oklahoma and then
go to Vandy and very easily could have won all
three games instead.
Speaker 6 (16:50):
Lose all three.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
So, I mean, I know they're right now projected as
being in the tournament, but way in today would sure
help take any suspects at all out of the pairings.
I think when they are released, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Yeah, it is down in Hoover, Alabama, and they if
they win, they get Georgia, which is i think the
first team they played in a conference play and Georgia
was top five in the country and they played them tough.
So it's I'm sure frustrating a year for not only
fans but for the coaches because they've been so close.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Yeah, it seems like almost every SEC game they've played,
they've had the lead at some point in the game
but just hadn't been able to close them out. Ended
up with only thirteen league wins such I think having
the lead in twenty seven of the thirty games.
Speaker 6 (17:45):
So I know that the frustrating stat for Nick van Jim.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
We're chatting with Larry Vaught and we will continue doing
that when we come right back halfway home. On this
Tuesday edition of The Leach Report, presented by Bob kat Enterprises.
Guests on thely T Report come to you via the
Club blueenil dot com hotline, and they have a new
initiative for kids. It's Club Blue Kids, and you can
(18:11):
go to the website Club Blueenil dot com and click
on the kids tab to register. You had big things
coming soon, but for now, you know you're gonna get
a T shirt, a membership card, a lanyard, exclusive events
that you can participate in, athlete experiences, meet and greets,
et cetera with Club Blue Kids. So go to Club
(18:32):
Blueenil dot com and get your extra signed up Club
Blue Kids, where future Wildcats rep the Blue and White
with Priday as we chat with Larry Vatt from your
sports edge dot com and votsviews dot com. You hear
them on the Sunday morning sports talk show here on
our flagship affiliate in Lexington on Sundays. And you guys
(18:53):
had Reese Potter on the show last Sunday.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Right, Yeah, with the former Lexi Catholic stand down who's
now going to be a Kentucky wild captain. It's interesting
to listen to him talk a little bit about the
process of gutting back to Lexington and how excited he
is about being back. And I think there's some speculation
maybe he'll be red shirted, maybe he won't, but Reees
(19:17):
certainly is not coming in thinking that he's coming in
believing that he can help in certain ways. And for
Mark Popen, I think there's no doubt. If there's an
offense that's made for Reese Potter and his skills. It
would be what Mark Pope does, because what Reeese can
do is he can shoot the ball at seven feet
and he can also handle the ball at seven feet,
(19:38):
but then he can turn around and protect the room.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
For you if you need to.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
So it sounds like the perfect match for him with
Mark Pope, and he's really eager to be back. If
you didn't get to hearing, you can go check out
the podcast.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
Think you'll enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
You know, finding guys like that, I've always said, guys
like you know, Jared Poulson, if you could find that
kind of player is Cameron Mills was another example in
an earlier time where it's a very good high school
basketball player from Kentucky that just has a great passion
to be a Kentucky Wildcat and is willing to take
(20:15):
on a lesser role than they could have somewhere else
to be a part of this program. And if circumstances
put them in a bigger role than you maybe originally expected,
they can come through for you, like guys like Cameron
and Jared.
Speaker 5 (20:29):
Did absolutely And with Reese, I mean you've got Jaden
Clinton's coming in who you think or expect to be fantastic,
but he's also coming off that knee surgery, so exactly
when he will be back nobody knows. You've got Malachi
Marino coming in a McDonald's All American, but he's going
to be a freshman. Reese has played two years of
(20:50):
college basketball, so he could turn out to be a
lot more valuable piece for this year's team than maybe
what's expected right now. And if not, he's certainly really
good insurance to have sitting there in case you do need.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Absolutely. I've been asking this of various guests that have
come on since Coach Popett's news conference last Tuesday, and
what were some of the takeaways that you had from
what you heard?
Speaker 5 (21:17):
I think, to me time just the biggest one was
just how kind of giddy Mark Pope was. He just
kind of reminded me of one of my young grandkids,
just talking and excited about a trip or something that's coming.
That he just seems so happy about everything connected with
the team, who they were going to play, who he's
brought in, everything. He just seemed genuinely, genuinely just overjoyed
(21:41):
with everything and didn't seem to have a concern at all,
which is easy to do at this time of year.
But I just was impressed with just the way that
he seemed so happy about the way that he had
things set up to go for next year. And obviously
he talked about all the guys he had, but he's
always positive about those, and so I was just struck
(22:02):
by just genuinely how happy he seemed to be with
everything he had lined up right now.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
And a guy that you know, well, you've followed his
career since I don't know as long as long as
he's been in the world. Probably he's Asper Johnson, knowing
you know the Johnson family as well as you do.
He had some glowing things to say about what he
thought Jasper could be in his time at Kentucky.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
Yeah, I had listened to him talk about the other
guys that the transfer portal guys that were coming in,
and I just thought, well, I'm just as you said,
I've known Jasper since the day he was born. I thought,
I'm just curious what he thinks about Jasper and Malachas.
So I just kind of lobbed at what I thought
was a pretty easy question about what would be the
expectations for those two guys coming in, and even with Mark,
I just expected kind of the standard coach speak for
(22:50):
something like that. Right off the bat he goes, well,
Jasper gonna be a superstar. I mean not he's going
to be good, He's going to help us, He's going
to be a superstar. So I guess that would probably
go into the category. I did jump out at me
for one of the things that Mark said, because that's
just not something you hear most coaches talk about a
freshman coming in, especially Gad that's not what in ranked
(23:10):
as a top five or a top ten player. I
think it will be really really good. But to have
him just come right out and say he's going to
be a superstar and we needed to be a superstar now,
it was a little stronger than what I was expecting
from Mark.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
When people talked about and when I say people, when
analysts pundits talked about Kentucky last season in terms of,
you know, weak spots, one of the things they would
mention would be do they have a guy who can
you know, just go get his shot when everything's breaking down,
it's late in the shot clock. And he mentioned that
is one quality that the Jasper will bring.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Yeah, and Jasper certainly was able to do that in
the overtime. You lead when you play against a really
good competition every day when you're there, and I think
Jasper got a lot better this year in that situation.
And he's always a guy that's been able to do that.
Mark's very confident he's going to be able to do
it again, and I probably it's also a little bit
surprised when he talked about Jasper's defensive capabilities and what
(24:09):
he liked that is how Jasper could do on the
defensive end. For is that's something you really don't hear
a lot of people talk about. When you mentioned Jasper Johnson.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Assuming Otega is back and we'll I guess next Wednesday's
the deadline day, the twenty eighth for making that decision
about staying in the draft process or coming out. So
assuming he's back, uh, you know, he he's I would
assume going to play the I would think the most minutes.
Jalen Lowell point guard because he's the point guard, will
(24:38):
play a lot of minutes. But it's gonna be really
interesting to see how the minutes shake out for the
rest of that roster because he has a lot of
different ways he can go.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Yeah, and it may be some games that one guy
plays in abundance of minutes, in the next game he
doesn't play quite as many minutes because he's got the
versatility to kind of match up if he wants to,
or just go ahead and dictate what he wants done.
But yeah, it's really a deep roster. I've got some
guys that could be really good defensive players. I think
probably gonna be a little bit more physical roster than
(25:09):
it was last year. Maybe not quite as good an
overall three point shooting team, but then again, who knows,
Maybe it'll be better what the numbers would indicate, because
it seemed like a lot of guys shut the ball
better this year for Mark than what they had at
other places. So he's got a lot of things he
can tinker with. And he's also got some guys that
are used to what he does, and I think that's
(25:31):
going to help him too.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
If start as a three point shooting I think it's
potentially maybe a little better than people might think, excuse
me might think, because I think, assuming again Otega is back, I.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Think it's there's a.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Good chance he could be a few percentage points better
as a three point shooter. Coach Pope talked about that
would be one focus for Otega if he's back here
is you're getting a shot off maybe a little quicker.
As one thing he mentioned, you know you've got Jalen
Lowe's numbers I think are going to be significantly better
(26:07):
as a three point shooter in this system than they
were in the situation where he was in last year.
Colin Chandler, I think, you know, his numbers will be
his three point shooting percentage will be better. We saw
just the way he came on in the last game
or two of the regular season and in the postseason.
And he's a guy in the way he talks about
a whole lot, but you know, he he showed us
(26:30):
some real flashes of what he could be.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
Yeah, as soon as he gets across Smid Cordy's in
shooting range. He's what he did the last month of
the season. So as a as a great point about him.
And then with Jalen Lowe, his father Marlin, the first
time I talked to him after Jalen committed to Kentucky,
that's one thing he talked about. He said, I want
the three point percentage for you, because he said he
had to take a lot of tough, bad shots at
(26:55):
the end of shot clocks at pitt just to get
the ball up. And he said he with shots he
wouldn't want to take, but he had to take with.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
The situation he was in. But said he's a better
shooter than what that number shows.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
And I think Mark has kind of indicated that too,
and hopefully that's going to be correct, because I think
Jalen's going to be a guy, as you said, it's
going to be on the court a lot for them
because just the way he can handle things.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
And I'll soo if his numbers go up on that.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
Three point shot, that really really helps them, kind of
what like what Lamont Butler's did last year.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, that's a very good point, Larry, appreciate the time
as always. Thank you, all right, Tom Larry Mott joining
us here on the Leech Report. The LPGA Legends are
coming to Woodford County next month. That's the Woodford Legends
Invitational Golf Tournament on Saturday, June the seventh and eighth,
(27:46):
and some of the top players in the history of
the LPGA Tour are going to be playing. Lord Davies,
Pat Bradley, Julie Yngster, Jan Stevenson and more. You can
get tickets at Woodford Clubfoundation dot org. Proceeds benefit KVC Coulducky.
Tickets costs fifteen dollars a day. Go get more information
at Woodford Club Foundation dot org. We're back with Darren
(28:07):
Headrick from Hoover, Alabama talking about the SEC Baseball Tournament.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
In just a moment.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
It's Lake Repoar.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Present up by Bob Kannt Enterprises, and we go to Hoover,
Alabama on the Club BLUEINIL dot com hotline to bring
on Darren Headrick for the UK Radio Network. He will
be on the call around twish Eastern time today for
Kentucky and Oklahoma in the SEC Baseball Tournament. So what
time is the pregame schedule? What? One forty five?
Speaker 4 (28:35):
Yeah, we're hoping to fire up about one for today.
Is a lot of it's just going to depend on
obviously some weather and how long that first game takes.
But we're looking at roughly a one forty five start.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
So what is the weather looking like down in Hoover?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Well, it's uh, we actually should be okay today. I
think it's it's sunny right now, but I think later
the satsinoon and the end of the evening it could
get a little rough down here, but we should be
okay for our game this afternoon. Fingers crossed.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Do we know yet who's going to get the ball
to go out on the mound to start the game.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
I think Kentucky's going to go with Scott Rouse. He
started the midweek game against Northern last week, was not
used this weekend against Vanderbilt, so he should be rested
and ready to go today.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Does that suggest to you that coach Ben Jones confidence
there in the NCAA tournament, no matter what.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I think. So, but you know, Scott has performed well.
He pitched well in the SEC and had a fantastic
outing against Northern Kentucky. He's also stretched out, he can
go four or five innings. And I'm sure Oklahoma's in
a similar spot with what they're having to do. But
I think Kentucky feels really good about where they are.
(29:51):
Most of the projections have them solidly three seed, and
most of them have them solidly in the field.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
Yeah, they're they.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
I guess the Friday night starter actually pitched on Thursday
last week, so that would have been the the I
guess the the the other option if you went with
one of your weekend guys, right, but he'd have been
coming back from Thursday to Tuesday.
Speaker 4 (30:15):
Yeah, it would have been short rest for Nate Harris.
And so you know, Scott is rested up and ready
to go, and I'm sure it's going to be all
hands on deck behind him in the bullpen with guys
like maybe an Ethan Walker and they've they've got plenty
of other arms too, so I'm sure it'll be all
hands on deck today.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
You're around these guys, a lot players and coaches. That
was hard to handle those first two nights, especially in Nashville.
I guess it was Friday night. I think I was
watching and I thought, okay, they went they went ahead,
and I thought, okay, they're they're in good shape. Went
(30:56):
up to uh, go to bed, flipped on the radio
just in time to hear you call the second straight
walk off win, a home run for Vanderbilt. Just a
brutal gut punch two nights in a row. So you know,
how did they handle that emotionally?
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, it's it definitely was hard. I did think they
showed fight. They bounced back on Sunday, Tom. You know,
they had a three nothing lead through five innings, six
innings like something like that, and Vanderbilt fought back again.
It was just one of those things last weekend. It's
sort of like the old heathw song. If it weren't
for bad luck, they had no luck at all. Oh yeah,
(31:40):
I glue to spare and agony. But you know, they
showed a lot of fight this weekend, had a chance
to win all three games. It just didn't work out.
So but we'll see. I think they've got a pretty
good mindset going into today.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, it's kind of, I guess a reset now that
you move into the postseason and you know, on one hand,
they have had some way too many frustrated losses I'm
sure for their own taste, but they know that they
can play with anybody in the best league in the country.
So you get into a regional and you'd feel, you know,
(32:16):
have good chance to be have good reason to be optimistic.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Yeah, you know, you look at their SEC games. They
lost what was it, I think it was eleven SEC
games by combining fifteen runs. They had a lead in
twenty seven of their thirty SEC games, and you know,
I think one thing when you look forward now to
the postseason after the SEC tournament, should they get into
a regional is you go back to last year when
(32:43):
they made that run to Omaha. Tom Kentucky did not
lose to a team outside the SEC in the postseason.
Speaker 6 (32:49):
Last year.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Their only losses in Omaha were to SEC members schools,
And that just underscores how tough this league is, how
tight the margin for air is a lot of It's
just like football and basketball in the league. And you
know this, It's just it's so tight, and one little
mistake can be such a huge turn in a game.
And unfortunately for Kentucky and some of these type games,
(33:12):
it's a pitch here, it's an a bat there, and
they've come out on the short end. But yeah, you're right,
they are right there with some of the best teams
in the country.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Tyler Bell named the EL Freshman Team. I saw that
released yesterday. He has had He's been as good as advertised,
we'll say, in his first year right now.
Speaker 4 (33:28):
Yes, yeah, oh, no question about it. That young man
has lived up to all the expectations and all the hype.
And I had a chance to interview him while we
were at Vanderbilt, and I asked him about the fact
that that word expectations or expectations. I said, you've got
to be used to that by now, and he said yeah,
and he said, I have just learned to live with it,
(33:50):
learned to tune it out. But you're talking about a
young man that has ten home runs. He's been solid defensively.
I think his field in percentage is ninety eight for
sin on almost two hundred chances for the year. He
just continues to be a steady presence in the top
of the order and reached safely in fifty one to
(34:10):
fifty two regular season games. He's got on base streets
of twenty seven and twenty four and he's got a
base hit now and I think it's sixteen of his
last seventeen games. He's just he has been phenomenal this year.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Darren, thank you much. Have a great call today, and beyond,
stay down there a while.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
We're hoping to Tom. Thanks so much for the time.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
That's Darren Hendrick. He'll be on the call today round
two Eastern time. Look at a one forty five Eastern
pregame for Kentucky and Oklahoma in the SEC Tournament quick
Break and we'll come back with our final segment of.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
The Leach Report for Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Let's talk about corn Bread Hemp. I ain't got a
great deal for you right now. You get twenty percent
off your first order of corn Bread Hemp products if
you put in the code Tom at checkout, and they
have a variety of products for the different needs that
you might have. If you have trouble getting to sleep,
the sleep gummies are fantastic, no melatonin hangover the next day.
(35:08):
If you have acky joints, their bombs and lotions will
do the trick. And if you just want to relax
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Try the good life for yourself. Get twenty percent off
your first order. Put in the kode tom and check out.
You'll get that discount at cornbreadhamp dot com. This is
the good life, the staying Wildcat History. It's a birthday
(35:33):
and a scanner celebrating a birthday today. Kentucky Road Show
Sports Cards at Memorabilia on Romney Road here in Lexington
present our wildcat history notes there at Roadshow cards dot
Com as well. Journalism has settled in at Saratoga after
shipping up from Baltimore. That happened yesterday. A run of
(35:55):
the Belmont Stakes is still up in the air, however,
trainer Michael McCarthy wants to see how his horse bounces
back from the Preakness win, so they figure to handle
this like they did with the Preakness run, where it
was about a week later before they made the announcement
that Journalism was going to go. And with three weeks
(36:16):
between the Preakness and the Belmont as opposed to two
between the Derby and the Preakness, then I think might
even be a little longer before they determine if Journalism
is going to run. But clearly the connections they shipped
him up there they would like to run in the
Belmont Stakes, and hopefully that happens because it'd be a
great storyline for this year's Belmont Stakes to have the
(36:37):
Derby Winter sovereignty in the Preakness, Winter Journalism squaring off
and Baeza lurking there on the edge after that great
run that he had in the Derby. He'll be coming
back for the Belmont. Our triple Crown coverage again. The
Spring is presented by Clayburne Farm doing the usual, unusually
well for more than a century. Saw a note from
Donna Brothers of the NBC Triple Crown coverage team, and
(37:02):
it's about the passing of Larry the Merit, a trainer.
You may remember his story from last year's Kentucky Derby.
NBC told it beautifully in a feature. He had West
Saratoga that qualified for the Derby, and it was his
first Derby horse. And Larry's a trainer that had a
rep for having his horses outrun their odds. And he
(37:24):
certainly beat the odds in terms of battling cancer, which
finally has taken his life. But I think he was,
as he said in that feature, was given a short
timetable a long time ago and he beat the odds.
But he has passed and lost his battle with cancer.
So that note coming from Donna Brothers, and we share
her wish for a rest in peace for Larry. That's
(37:48):
going to do it for this edition of the Leech Report.
Dick Gabriel be subbing for me the next couple of days.
I'll see you back here on Friday. The Leach Report
presented by Bobcat Enterprises,
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.