2025-10-28 - LEACH REPORT

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast of the Leech Report is presented by Boone's
Butcher Shop in Barnestown at one hundred old Bloomfield Pike,
family owned and operated since nineteen forty six, with fresh
meat cut on site daily. Boons Butcher Shop. Good Day,
Everybody welcome in. It is the Leach Report, presented by
Bob Kat Enterprises. For a while, it looked like they

(00:21):
might still be playing Game three of the World Series
when we hit the airwaves, but it finally handed after
eighteen innings and the Dodgers won, so they are up
to one in the in the World Series. But that's
not what we're here to talk about today. We'll be
talking UK sports and we'll lead it off with Larry Vaught,
Mark's story from the Herald Leader and Maggie Davis from

(00:45):
BBN Tonight l X eighteen. That's the lineup and Wildcat
News of the Day presented by Joseppes of Lexington. A
lot of injury updates and depth chart debates or talk
about from both sides yesterday of the Kentucky Auburn matchup
that'll happen Saturday night down in Alabama. Mark Stoops said

(01:07):
that seth McGowan will try again this week comes down
to if he feels secure that he can secure the ball.
Stoop said that was ultimately the deciding factor on Saturday
night because Seth warmed up when he saw him out
there with his teammates, but never got the call when
the game started, and ultimately we got word that he
wasn't going to be able to go a late scratch

(01:31):
with Steven Soles as well. He is expected back this week,
according to coach Stoops. To Ryan, Nichols had to leave
at some point during the game, and Stoops didn't seem
to want to make a commitment or have a commitment
to make yet as far as what it would look
like for to Ryan this week, he's really thin that

(01:55):
corner spot because the previous week Nasir Addison is out.
Who's there third or fourth guy in the rotation, and
he came back last week and played down the stretch Saturday,
so he's not at full strength, Stoope said. Also was
asked about Willie Rodriguez, who got hurt late in the
game and hardly Gilmore, and he said we'll see on

(02:16):
both of them, so perhaps he'll be an update by
Wednesday when he does the sec teleconference, but most likely
we'll hear it later in the week or even game day.
On the radio show last night, and Coach Stoop's talk
a little bit more about something he was talking about
after the game was comparing Cutter Bowllie's career arc a

(02:41):
little bit to Andre Woodson, who emerged as kind of
cemented himself in the role of the starter early two
thousand and six through some adversity that he battled through
in a loss to Louisville, and Coach Brooks was so
impressed with how he stood in and kept throwing the
ball and completing big pet passes for big plays, and

(03:01):
that's what convinced him that Woodson was his guy. And
we saw Cutter do some of that in the Tennessee
loss on Saturday, and he seems to be growing weaked week. Anyway,
Coach Stops talked about how Andre had and Cutter have.
Andre had reached out to Cutter and so they have talked,
so there's a little bit of a connection there, which
is kind of interesting. And then he also talked about

(03:22):
Mike Hartline, who's on the staff and a grand assistant.
I'm not sure what the official title is, kind of
an offensive analyst something like that. I have to look
up the exact title for Mike, but anyway, we had
him on the show a few weeks back and talking about,
you know, his thoughts on Cutter's development. But Stoops singled
out Heartline for being really helpful in working closely with Cutter,

(03:48):
and they have a similar body type if you go
back and see some tape of Mike and very underrated
QB for his time here. So that was interesting. Is
it really lates to the development of Cutter Bowley and
I think probably the biggest thing for the Wildcats, and
Stoops said yesterday he's confident that they'll answer the bell

(04:09):
is just the emotional toll of the last two weeks
where you go down to the wire against Texas and
you miss an opportunity to get a big signature win there,
and then you go up against Tennessee and ultimately it
came down to just a real mismatch with the passing

(04:29):
game for the Valls in Kentucky having its certainly injury
issues in the secondary, and the Valls just torched them
for a ton of big plays and it just does
not look good when that happens. So now can they
bounce back from that and that will be the thing
to watch, But he's confident that they will and it
is a group that see it has seemingly been pretty resilient,

(04:53):
think about after that awful night down at South Carolina,
and they have continued to come back. So we'll see
if they can do it again down at Auburn on Saturday.
And we don't know who the quarterback is going to
be for Auburn. You Freeze yesterday talked about it's going
to be an open competition between Jackson Arnold and Ashton Daniels.
The latter relieved the former at halftime and led Arkansas

(05:17):
to a or Auburn to a comeback win over Arkansas
on the road. So coach Freeze said that those two
will split the reps this week, and we'll see if
that means they'll split the reps and one will be
the starter pretty much for the game, or if they'll
split the reps even during the game as well. So
that'll be one of the key story lines on the
Auburn side for that matchup. Kentucky men's basketball will be

(05:39):
back in action on Thursday night and the second of
two exhibitions against Georgetown. Behind the scenes video that was
released yesterday from UK Sports Video really really good. All
their work is fantastic, but they get some really cool shots.
Look that up if you have not seen it. There's
one late in the game where Jasper Johnson makes a
nice pass and just looks kind of straight at the

(06:02):
camera excuse me. So that was one of the many
cool shots that they got out of that game. Links
to the stories that we talk about each day, you
can find those on the bud Light Leach Report page
at Tom Leitchky dot com. We're gonna come back and
chat with Larry Vott. Opening segment presented by Giuseppes of
Lexington And they have gift cards for the holidays, So

(06:24):
if you have someone that's hard to buy for, the
Giuseppes gift card could be the ticket. You can get
them at the restaurant or you can go to Giuseppes
Lexington dot com and handle it there and they will
mail them out to you and you'll be ready to
go for the holidays. Gonna be right back with Larry Vott.
It is the Leech Report presented by Bobcat Enterprises. See

(06:46):
past the top of the hour. We welcome Larry Vaughan
into the program from your sports Edge dot Com and
Vaught's views and Larry will start with basketball, and I
imagine over your Way and Danill, where you interact with
a lot wild Cat fans, plus on the Sunday morning
sports talk show each week here in Lexington, that there
is quite a bit of buzz after that performance last

(07:09):
Friday night. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
I think there was a lot of buzz about the
men's team before that, but after the way that everybody
on the team played, that's about how anybody wants to Well,
there's two things, but that's mainly what anybody wants to
talk about when you're out anywhere right now. Just the
overall excitement of thinking the team's going to be good,

(07:32):
and I think now thinking the team's going to be
even better than what you thought it was going to be,
which is kind of hard to imagine after this one
exhibition game, but I think that's the impression that left.

Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, and we heard so much about the emphasis on
getting better defensively and then looked at the roster that
he put together and thought, you can see why they
could be much better defensively. But that was particularly impressive
to me because you know, it's a veteran Purdue team.
I know it's an exhibition game, but it's not the
guy that like Braden Smith and the rest played you

(08:03):
ten minutes. I mean they played a lot and they
struggled to make shots and score.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Yeah, and it's not like they didn't want to win,
like they were throwing off or anything like that. So yeah,
I think it was very very encouraging. I think Modia
Body brought everything to this team that I thought he
was gonna bring, and maybe even a little bit more.
And I think to me also that Denzel Aberdeen's a
better defender than what I imagined he was gonna be. But

(08:31):
really time, when I went up and down the roster,
there wasn't anybody that I thought, well, this guy's gonna
have a hard time playing. He just didn't quite as good,
or he's got to work on this. Everybody that he
put in you could see, yeah, this could work in
this role, in this role. And I just don't know
how Mark's gonna get everything to play out. But he's
a pretty smart guy and I know he's going to

(08:52):
figure that out. But he's got a lot of pieces
that he can put in there, and they all look
like really.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Good pieces, and it looks like because of the variety
of skill sets, and you've got to get like Yellowich
who's still coming on, but he has a you know,
kind of a unique package of skills. The abate does
you know a Colin Chandler. I mean, you go through
them all, and you could see in a given night
how there wouldn't be a from maybe game to game

(09:20):
necessarily a consistency of the distribution of minutes. And yet
it usually seems to sort out to the point where
there is a consistency to the distribution of minutes for teams.
So that's gonna be interesting to watch.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, it is. I know, I was kind of sitting
watching the game and I'm thinking to myself, well, man,
if I'm coaching, I want this guy playing twenty eight
to thirty minutes. I know that for sure. And all
of a sudden I realize I've counted like nine guys
that way. It's probably not gonna work. But again, like
I say, he's gonna have a lot of flexibility from
game to game of what he wants to do. But
I think the greatest thing is if for some reason

(09:54):
they have the luck or the bad luck with the injuries,
that they had last year. Whole lot more ways to
cope with that this year than what he had last season.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
That's true. And if you were Mark Pope and you
went through dealing with all of that last year, you
could see why you wouldn't want to go through it
again if you could help it.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, absolutely, But I know I'm just sit and thinking, well,
you know, when Jayden Clayton is going to get back,
he's gonna.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Play, and he's gonna play a lot.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
But then I think, well, who's gonna sit on the
bench and sit on the bench a lot so that
he gets to play all those minutes because there's just
so many guys that can play, and you get Jalen
lowback and that's going to cut into other guys minutes there.
But it's just a really nice problem to have, And
I think everything flowed so well, and you can tell
those teams. I think gonna be a very unselfish team.

(10:41):
And I think even though they didn't shoot great from
three point range against Purdue, I think most nights they're
going to shoot adequately from three point range that that's
not going to be a big issue for him.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
And they feel like they're going to be a better
offensive rebounding team. And I'm talking to assistant coach Cody
Fieger earlier in the summer. Two stats where they'd really
be much better would be the offensive rebound percentage and
the two point field goal percentage for the opponents. And
you know, even if you're not making you know, as

(11:12):
many threes in a given game, as you were saying,
if you can get a second chance, the volume will
play in your favor.

Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I don't know about you, but I feel like anytime
that a body's in the game, he's gonna get the rebound.
Kind of gave me like an Oscar like vibes.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
The way he goes afterday. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, he just has a knack for being there and
he goes after and it's nice to see Kentucky have
a guy that could kind of knock other people around
and bump them around and do things like that. I mean,
I thought he was going to be a good addition
to this team. Thought he was a really good player
when he did what he did to Otega last year.
But I think, like I said, he's far better overall

(11:51):
than what I thought.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
He was going to be. He made a play in
practice one day last week where he caught it at
the high post and just drove down the lane and
muscled his way up for a shot and finished it
through contact. And I just been watching it. I thought
they didn't have anything like that last year.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Now, and I could see him. I mean, this is
going way back here for the old guy, but like man,
let him get loose on the face break coming in
for a dunk the way that James Lee, yeah, years ago,
and I can't see anybody wanting to stand in his
way and take a charge.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
I'm glad you said that. During the broadcast Friday night,
at one point, bye, they ripped off a rebound and
drove it up the floor and I turned to Goose,
I said, he has some James Lee and him.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah, And I mean teams just used to get up.
They sometimes would be one guy over down and take
a charge from James. But after one guy did it,
it seemed like that lane usually cleared. But he came
down through there because the next guy didn't want to
get founded.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
It is so true. We'll switch to football for the
longest time. Slogan you would hear from football coaches was
remember November, Remember how you finish and Kentucky. That's kind
of where Kentucky is right now. They head into a
you know, a point in the schedule. It's funny, you
guys moving you guys on Sunday talking about this with

(13:12):
Anthony and Jack and bow about there are only one
game off the schedule or the results that I think
a lot of people had for them at this point,
and yet it doesn't feel like that there's excitement about
a potential turnaround, right.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
I think that's exactly right, Tom, and I think most
fans were kind of down in the dumps where we're
down in the demps met the football team, I think
already going into the Tennessee game, and then you get
behind twenty eight to seven, and everybody just give it
up and think, well, this is it. Then all of
a sudden, it's twenty eight to twenty one. The offense
is starting to kind of click, and you think, well, man,

(13:55):
if the defense could just get this stopped in to
have cutter the offense get the ball back to start
and half, and it could be twenty eight twenty eight. Instead,
you give that touchdown, You give a two when the
offense doesn't click immediately in the third quarter and all
of a sudden, it's gone from twenty twenty one to
forty nine to twenty one, and you just kind of
feel like you've been ripped out again. So it's it's

(14:16):
it was a very difficult game to watch because you've
kind of lost faith. But you finally got an offense
that made some big plays and have guys that created things.
So you end up with thirty four points. But then
you get kind of a defense that just for whatever reason,
matchups or whatever, just you felt like Tennessee could have
score one hundred if they wanted to. So it was

(14:38):
a tough game to watch. And now you're thinking, here's
some games you thought were winnable, but has your defense
just gone away down Now you had to just depend
on offense.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
To do it.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
I don't know, because all this quitlock against Alburn. They've
lost four SEC games, but we're in every one of
the games that they lost, so I'm sure they're thinking
that this is their time to get it well too,
so uh but it's going to be here. But it
was really nice to see Cutter and the offense do
what they did no matter what the score was.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Larry Vall, thank you much, all right, Tom twenty five
past the top of the hour, Mark story'll join us
from the Harold Leader. We come right back from the
Clarks Pumping Shop Studio, Return, refresh and refuel at Clark's
Mitrid Part's presented by Bob Kat Enterprises, and we welcome

(15:30):
in Mark's story from the Lexington Herald Leader Kentucky Sports
dot Com. Mark, I think it's on one of your
stories or articles that the headline I saw in Kentucky
Sports dot Com made reference to a battle of coaches
on the hot seat Saturday down at Auburn and Kentucky.

(15:50):
Isn't that every coach when the day they get hired nowadays.

Speaker 4 (15:54):
Yeah, there's there's not a lot of a lot of
patients as we were seeing and what is already been
a while the coaching care of Cell Cycle and I
suspect we're just I don't know, there's still a lot
to come, would be my guests.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
Absolutely, And you know it's just every the money is
is so great for the coaches, the players. Now for
the fans it's it's not so great, but it's a
lot more of it that's cost them each year to
follow their teams, and so none of that's going to change.

(16:30):
In terms of the expectations, is it.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
No, And I think coaches that's sort of there's you know,
as their salaries have just grown exponentially. This is the
other side of it. If you go back and look
at some of the old coaches, the legendary coaches a
Bear Bryant or Vince Dooley, you know, they would have
some off years. Yeah, and you know, and then you

(16:55):
know they would usually bounce back and everybody would just
roll on.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:00):
In today's environment that wouldn't you know, that wouldn't be possible.
But those guys would have a lot more money. They'd
both be very, very wealthy, but they probably wouldn't have
lasted this long.

Speaker 1 (17:09):
I think about in the at the professional level, at
organization like the Steelers that see they haven't had many
coaches and Chuck Noll and Coward Tomlin. I mean, they
get a guy and they feel like they've got the
right guy. They just kind of ride it out through
the ups and downs. That didn't happen much.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
No, No, I'm a Dodger fan and that's what they
used to do. Walter O'Malley and Walter Austin and Tom
Lasorda managed the Dodgers for like fifty years.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, that's very true. By the way, just you surely
didn't stay up till the end of eighteen innings, did you.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
I'm embarrassed to say. I fell asleep as the fifteenth
inning was starting. The last thing I heard was the
Dodgers were bringing in Will Klein and he was the
last pitcher they had available. And I woke up at
three forty two and picked immediately picked up my iPad
see who had won the game, and was happy with
what I saw.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Well, congratulations to your Dodgers for last night. Quick break
more with Mark story when we return. It is the
Leach Report Radio Network, Leach repart presented by Bob kNN
Enterprises and WHI chat with Mark's story. It's at Mark
C's story on x you read his work in the
Lexington Herald Leader, Kentucky Sports dot Com and Mark, you

(18:21):
and I have been around watching the UK various programs
for a long time, so we've seen a lot of
the movies that look similar over time. I think back
to six and it was actually right about this time
Kentucky had lost forty nine nothing at LSU. The record
I think was three and four and the feeling was

(18:44):
rich Brooks was headed out and Kentucky won a game
at Mississippi State close one next week upset Georgia went
on to win the first bowl game in a long time.
I can't remember what the new year was at the time,
but anyway, they won the Music City Bowl, won a
second one the next year, and Brooks turned it around

(19:06):
and had a streak of bowl games and as a
beloved figure. You know, I think back to Frank Hersey's
breakout team in seventy six. They were about I think
they were at five hundred late in the season, finished strong.
The thing was that was early on in Fran's tenure,
early on in coach brooks tenure four years. This is
a deeper in there. There doesn't seem to be that

(19:29):
hope for a turnaround, even though the schedule is kind
of playing out like a lot of people thought that
it would, and they're going to have a much better
matchup on paper than they had in the last three.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
Yeah, I mean even you know Mark Soups in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
That's all.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
That's another one, right, Yeah, got going late. So there
is you know, some history of Kentucky football seasons. You know,
sort of turning midway or even later. Now, as you
point out, usually that's been you know, on front end
of a coaching team. You're not on the what not
not deeper into it. You know, if winning could fix

(20:08):
a lot of things, If they somehow could win at
Auburn and come home and beat Florida and and spoil
Tennessee Tech's undefeated season.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
How about that?

Speaker 4 (20:16):
People would start to yeah, how about that? And they
put up a ton of points too, that that's going
to be an interesting game. But you know, I think
people would start to feel better. And then if you
you know, upset Vandy or upset louisgo, you know, then
maybe you can make a different case for where this
needs to go. But you know that's uh that for

(20:36):
a program that's you know, in in the throws of
various negative losing streaks, that that's that's asking a lot.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah it is. And and in political races they talk
about the phrase changing hearts and minds, and that's kind
of where Kentucky football is at the moment, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
I would agree with that. I mean, you know, one
thing that's difficult for a coach when they get kind
of did this spot a lot of times when you know,
people sort of take a public stance that all right,
I'm done with this guy needs to go. It's hard
to get them off that stance no matter what you do.
But I do think winning fixes a lot of a
lot of things. Win some games, I think people would

(21:15):
start to feel a little more positive about about the
whole operation.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
It looks to me like, I'll see if you agree
that this this team. You hear sometimes when coach, when
it's a program, is in a struggling mode, that the
coach has lost the locker room. It certainly doesn't look
like that has has happened, but from the standpoint, not
from the standpoint of a coach losing the team. But

(21:42):
this week's going to be interesting to me because it's
just been a couple of different types of gut punches
the last two weeks for those group, that group of
players to lose the way they did against Texas and
then to have it just kind of get pummeled by Tennessee.

Speaker 4 (21:58):
Yeah. I thought last year's team was an example of
a team that maybe let go of the rope. I
have not seen that so far this year. I do
think they're playing hard, you know, I think we're going
to see that tested because you point out, you know,
they've had some tough experiences. Now you're going on the
road against you know, a team, another team that is

(22:19):
struggling to some extent. You know, are they going to
be able to get back up? You know, will they
have the same effort they had against Texas? You know,
come home Florida. I don't you know, I think the
crowds so far have held up. Well. Now there's been
you know, there are a lot of Texas fans, a
lot of Tennessee fans. I'm gonna guess Florida is not traveling,
you know, given their situation real well, so we're probably

(22:40):
gonna sort of see where that's at. And you know,
those are all challenges. Can they keep playing hard? You know,
can they as we to, can they hold on to
the rope? And what is an adverse situation?

Speaker 3 (22:54):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (22:54):
Well, maybe the guy holding the rope tried to get
everybody to grab on and try to pull themselves back
onto the boat. To continue this analogy is cutter Bowley.
And if you know, if you if you see a
guy there that you generate some hope as a teammate,
maybe that makes it a little easier to hang on
and keep fighting because the play at Bowley has seemingly

(23:19):
lifted the people around him, certainly on that offensive side.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
Yeah, I don't think there's any question I thought he played.
I was encouraged by the way he played at Georgia.
I thought he played better than that against Texas, and
I thought he was really good last week, you know,
against Tennessee, other than you know, the the interception which
was kind of a I don't fluke may not be
the right word, but it was kind of an unfortunate play.
I got tips the pass and then he was able

(23:44):
to just run under it. You know, it's funny when
a team is not going well that the bounce of
the ball just doesn't seem to be in its favor.
I go back to that fumble that was returned at
South Carolina that Kentucky, you know, had a guy fall
on and it popped out, and then you have that
weird play, you know, the guy just you know, deflects
the pass and it comes right to him for a

(24:04):
pick six. But that play aside, you know, I thought
Cutter was really good and he's come a long way
in a short time, and you know, I think, you know,
Bush Hamdon has obviously taking a lot of criticism in
his tenure here, and they haven't scored many points, so
you know, you understand that. But I think he's done
a really good job. I think they've put Cutter in

(24:24):
situation to succeed, and that offense has gotten.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Better, absolutely has. Let's shift heres to basketball gets some
thoughts from you as we talked to Mark's story from
Kentucky Sports dot Com with Kentucky's performance against Purdue last week,
and I know your longtime a champion of Kentucky high
school basketball and two former Kentucky high school basketball stars

(24:50):
guys that played in the Sweet sixteen had a quite
a smashing debut for Jasper Johnson and Malachi Marino.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
They did, you know, they both both look good and
and Trent Noah played well. You know, there was that
stretch there late in the second half where Malachi powered
in a layup, Trent banked in a three from the top,
and then Jasper hit a three from the left leg
where an adoh all Kentucky homegrown run and the crowd,

(25:21):
the rough crowd that they liked that it got pretty
loud in there.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
He absolutely did and it's you know it's going to be.
It was talking with Larry Vaught about this earlier. It's
been an interesting discussion point as we've built up to
this season just how coach Pope will will manage all
of that talent. It's, as they say, a good problem
to have, and he seemingly does a really nice job

(25:46):
of building the culture or chemistry or whatever you want
to call it for his teams to where you know,
if you have a spree of corps there where you
care about the other guys, then you can tamp down
any selfishness that might come up in other situations.

Speaker 4 (26:06):
Yeah, it's interesting. Somebody asked him, asked Mark in his
post game after Purdue that very question. You know, how
are you going to distribute minutes, especially you've got two
guys that are probably two of your three most talented
players that didn't even play in that game, and once
you have everybody back, how are you going to handle that?
And Mark, who was as coaches go answers more direct

(26:28):
questions than maybe any coach I've ever seen, he skipped
that one. He didn't really answer it. So that is
going to be interesting. You know, he plays a lot
of people, but you know, I went back and when
he was hired, I went back and looked at his
BYU teams and he usually plays ten, but not more
than ten. What makes this interesting is I think he's
got at least twelve viable players and may have more

(26:49):
than that. So yeah, this is going to be really
interesting to see how he handles the minutes distribution.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
At Mark c story on x Mark read his work
at Kentucky Sports dot com in the pages of The
Hair Leader.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
Thank you Mark, Thanks Tom, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
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with the very best of coffee beans. You can read
about the process that they have at Shufflebean dot us

(27:26):
and you can pick up some of the product there.
Get it already ground or in the curing capsules, or
in the whole bean variety, whatever you prefer. Pick it
up at Central Kentucky Myer stores, order it through Amazon.
Just make sure you try shufflebean coffee. We'll be right
back with Maggie Davis on the Leach Report. Leat Repart's

(27:46):
presented by Bobcat Enterprises with four locations around Kentucky. When
you need to buy or rent heavy equipment, make it
Bobcat Enterprises. Maggie Davis joins us from bb in tonight
l ex eighteen dot com. And you were down there
at Rufferena last Friday night. So what were your first
impressions of what getting to see Mark Pope's team against

(28:09):
outside competition.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Oh, I mean, you don't come away with anything but
a good first impression after a game like that, I think.
I mean, there was kind of a mix I felt
like before the game as well as after it. Just
how much stock are we allowed to put in a
preseason exhibition? And I think, you know, if Kentucky have lost,
maybe we would have put less stock in it. But
being that Kentucky won and one honestly pretty handedly, I

(28:34):
think it's easy to get excited, and why not. This
is a fun time of the year. I'm all for it.
Get excited, go all in, make the bets, get the
forty and oh tattoo, whatever you guys, want to do
because it's supposed to be fun and beating the number
one team in America on your home court to start
the season, the first chance you get to see this team,
Let's make it fun, let's lean in, let's let's just

(28:55):
go all out with this thing. And I think that
was exactly what Mark Pope wanted to do. So there
was also a bigger conversation kind of happening around the
game of will he be coaching to win or is
he coaching to see as many guys as he could see?
And I think if you go back, you look at
all the different lineup combinations he tried, you look at
the minute disparity, and really outside of Denzel Aberty, nobody

(29:17):
played more than twenty two to twenty three minutes. I
think he really accomplished both which I wasn't sure he'd
be able to do. He won the game and he
saw almost every single player on the roster who was available.
So for me, depth was the big takeaway. Ten guys
scored and half of them hit a three pointer, and
so for me, that kind of depth. It'll be interesting

(29:38):
to see how that is sort of replicated or not
against Georgetown this week. And then of course, once the
real games get going here soon as well.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Amen to all of that. It'd be an interesting question
if you did, like a weekly poll of things on
the BP and if you asked him who's your favorite
player on this team? That would be spread out.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
I would think that's a good idea. Tom, You're giving
me good content ideas for BBN tonight, because if you
don't do it, I might because I think that will
be really interesting. Even after this first game, I feel
like I heard a lot of people, like I heard
a lot more Mo Diabase than I would have thought,
Like Mo played really well. I really have enjoyed getting
to talk to Mo so far this year, but I
heard a lot of that after the game. Obviously, Jasper

(30:22):
Malachi played really well. Trent Noah's going to have a
lot of favorites. We talked to a lot of kids
after the games, and I hear a lot of Colin
Chandler from some of those guys. So there's such a
fun mix on this group, and I think to your point,
it will probably change every week, and again, I think
that goes back to the depth of this team and
hopefully we continue to see not only that, but I

(30:43):
mean these guys' personality to continue to come out. I
think that could kind of help people figure out which
guy's going to be their favorite things.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
I think I always feed off somebody that just plays
with great passion or just plays especially hard. That certainly
is is Diabate.

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Yeah, absolutely, we saw that, I mean his rebounding efforts,
and honestly, watching the game, I'd like to go back
and watch it a second time. I'm crazy, I think
I might do that. I watched it in person at
REB obviously covering the game, but I'd like to go
back and watch the broadcast because in my head, I
remember thinking during the game a couple times like that
might not show up on the book score, but Mo
helped this team do that. So I'd like to go

(31:22):
back and kind of maybe do a little tally of
all the things he did that we didn't necessarily see
recorded anywhere, because I think to your point, yes, like
he did a lot of those kind of little things
to help the team win. He played really hard, and
also I got to give a shout out to the bench.
That was a real defining sort of cultural moment last year.
Last year's team was so locked in, they were in

(31:42):
lockstep every single game on the bench, and I didn't
know how that would go this time around, not because
the guys are any different, but some of the guys
on the bench are there because of injuries that have
to be just crushing for them right now. Like you know,
Jalen Lowe worked all summer to transfer here to play
at the school, to get to play the point guard
against the number one team in America, and yet he
was over there completely invested in the game. Mark Pope

(32:06):
afterwards saying he was probably like the second MVP of
the night behind Colin Chandler. So I found that really
kind of interesting. So I'd be excited to kind of
see how that develops as well too.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah, hopefully. I don't know if we'll see him Jalen
this week or if they'll wait till next week. I
would think obviously it all assumes that he's feeling well,
but says like that's going in the right direction that
they would certainly love to get him some on court
action before the game against Louisville on the eleventh.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
Oh, I think we would all like that, yes, And
I think, honestly, like for Jalen's sake, that is best
case scenario. At this point, I don't know that we're
going to see him out there against Georgetown. Popes kind
of alluded to that. We'll see if there's another update
this week, but from everything we've heard to this point,
I think, yeah, if you could see him against Nichols
or just in some capacity, even if it's I mean

(33:00):
take away only played what sixteen seventeen minutes against Purdue,
I think even if you see Jalen in kind of
a limited role like that as he works his way back,
I'm happy with that. And you know, I don't want
to speak for him, but I feel like any sort
of action at this point is all you can hope for,
just to start working him back in without pushing it
too hard too quickly.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Today is a media day for the women's basketball program.
Coach Brooks will talk and then is the media will
get a chance to get one once with all the players.
That is a group that is maybe going to be
possibly what the tallest women's team Kentucky's ever had.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
I think so.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
I remember a couple of weeks ago, Kenny Brooks was
talking and mentioned that this is probably the tallest team
he's ever had, and you look at it on paper,
It's kind of funny me. If anyone remembers Klara Silva
transferred out this year, you lost someone who was six
foot seven, and all in all, the roster of this
year is taller, So to me, that's kind of funny.
The backcourt specifically is where you see that difference because

(34:03):
all of the guards are taller than last year's guards.
So it's another team where I'm excited to see the debths.
I'm excited to see some of the reserves come off
the bench. Brooks has talked about that a lot this
off season. He went back through the box scores of
every NCAA tournament team who went on a real run,
and he compared their bench points to what Kentucky had
last year. I don't have the number off the top

(34:23):
of my head, but I know Kentucky was last in
the SEC in terms of bench points a season ago
and one of the worst in the country. So I
think that's an area he's really circled. So that's what
I've highlighted to kind of pay attention to this year.
But it is worth noting. Unfortunately Dominica Parova is out
for the entire year. She's re injured her acl that
kept her out all last year as well, so that

(34:43):
is one piece. Unfortunately we won't get to see contribute
in that way. But still a lot of really interesting,
good pieces on this roster and I'm excited to hear
from some more of them today. We'll have a whole
recap on BBN tonight.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
I thought that was an interesting story from coach Brooks
about how he looked, you know, looked at the teams
that are that made it to where he wants to
take his team and Okay, is there something I can
learn from what they're doing?

Speaker 4 (35:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
And I mean he's done this a long time. And
he said something I think at SEC media days of like,
why would I say I want to get to the tournament.
I've been to the tournament. I want to win the tournament.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
You know.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
So he's very blunt, he's very honest, he's very confident,
and I like all of that in the coach. So
I'm good with it, and I think he's fired up
for this year.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
All right, Maggie, thank you for the time. As always,
we'll look for the content from Women's Media Day on
BBN tonight and all the other coverage of the Cats
all week long and BB in Game Day on Saturdays.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Thank you much, Thank you so much. See you back
at REP soon.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
And if you miss any of that content each night
during the week on BBN Tonight Bbintonight dot Com, you
can go and get caught up there. It is the
Leach Report. It's presented by Bob Kat Enterprises, and we'll
be right back. It's the Lead's Report, coming to you
from the Clarks Pumpin' Shop studio. Return, refresh and refuel

(36:09):
at Clark's. This Day in Wildcat History presented by Kentucky
Road Show, Sports Cards and Memorabilia. It's on Ronnie Road
in Lexington and at Roadshowcards dot Com was talking with
I think it was Mark story earlier about and I
referenced the six Kentucky team and a win down at
Mississippi State that started their turnaround. That happened on this day.

(36:31):
Kentucky won thirty four to thirty one, a game where
Dickey Lions made Dicky Lions Junior made maybe the greatest
catch I've ever seen in a game, and it first
was ruled out of bounds and then overturn and Kentucky
got a very important touchdown there and then would go
on to upset Georgia the next week and start the

(36:52):
run of bowl games for rich Brooks. So a pretty
significant win on this state of the two thousand and
six season down in Starkville. Happy birthday to Andrew and
Aaron Harrison celebrating birthdays today, as is another former Kentucky
basketball player, Damian Collins. Celebrating recognition are two volleyball players
for Craig Skinner. Cassie O'Brien, who is having an incredible year,

(37:17):
was named not only a Center of the Week but
Player of the Week in the SEC. Her teammate Brooklyn
Delay offensive Player of the Week in the weekly awards
from the conference, and Kentucky gets one or two of those,
it seems each and every week. They have Vandy at
home on Friday night and then they go to play Texas,
the only other undefeated team in league, play on Sunday.

(37:39):
And Jen Smith had a post on Facebook used to
cover Kentucky football for the Hair Leader, now professor in
the UK College of Communications and Journalism. I saw this
from her post, so I will add congratulations to the
staff of the Kentucky Colonel Student newspaper for a history
making fifty nine awards they won at the National College
Media Convention. Well done, goodness. See will be back tomorrow

(38:03):
on the Leach Report, presented by Bob Kat Enterprises