Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
God Day. Everybody, Welcome into the Leach Report for this Tuesday.
We are always presented by Bobcat Enterprises. Coming up on
the show today, well chat with Gary Parrish from CBS
Sports where he covers college basketball and the I does
the Eye on College Basketball podcast with Matt Orlander. Van
(00:21):
Hiles will check in. We'll talk some Kentucky football with him.
We haven't talked to Van here on the show since
the hiring of Will Stein. And then Justin Rowland from
on three Sports. That's the lineup from today on three
Sports and Cats Illustrated, So that's the lineup. Wildcat News
of the Day presented by just Sepies of Lexington. Mark
(00:42):
Pope Radio Show last night had a couple of pieces
of news to pass along if you didn't catch it
on the UK Sports Network. He said, Jaden Quaintance is
quickly getting to the point of no limitation on his
minutes other than fatigue, so great to hear that things
are going so well in the practice is that resumed
a couple of days ago for the Cats, And then
(01:04):
with Jalen Lowe, Pope said they're just cautious with the
full contact work that he does in practice, so he's
done a little bit, but they will proceed in that
fashion probably for the entire season, to limit the amount
of full contact work and the risk to that shoulder.
Pope said, the biggest risk he thinks is when Jalen
(01:26):
gets tired to re injuring that shoulder. So that's one
thing they'll do within games is to try to look
to manage that. He also was asked by a listener,
why not start Jalen Lowe instead of bringing him off
the bench since he is so important to Kentucky's attack,
And Pope talked about that and what they're thinking is
(01:49):
and basically just said, look, we may not have the
right answer right now. He said, quote, We're going to
kind of explore that as we go. He said, it
gives you a chance maybe to have him not be
the headline guy on a scouting report if he's not
out there at the start of the game, and maybe
can ease in a little bit more. He talked about
(02:10):
the fact that Jalen's not doing a lot of contact
work in practice. Then it's the thought is let's start
the guys that are getting the most work done in
practice together. But they haven't been starting great, so maybe
that'll change. It just sounded like it's something that is
still in flux at the moment as they analyze their
(02:31):
team relative to trying to manage the health and keep
everybody out on the court. Last night, Alabama, the next
opponent and the sec opener for the Cats, beat Yale one,
two seventy eight. They did it without LeBaron file On,
their leading scorer was out with a left leg injury,
but coach Natoates said after the game that it's quote
pretty likely he'll play against Kentucky on Saturday. Alabama shot
(02:52):
fifty four to threes and made twenty two in that
win over Yale. Links to the stories that we talk
about and find the on the bud Light Leach Report
page at Tom Leach Kwhy dot com. Go ahead to
a break and when we come back, we'll hear from
Gary Parish and it is the Leech Report opening segment
always presented by Giuseppes of Lexington. Get to open table
(03:13):
and make your reservation for your next special night out
at Giuseppes. It is just a really special experience when
you eat at Giuseppe's. Food's fantastic. I mean, that's the
best place for a restaurant to start right and the
service is great. But sit in the Loungerry you can
listen to Dave Hall and his jazz music live every night.
It is just a fantastic accompaniment to a wonderful meal
(03:36):
at Giuseppes. We'll be right back with Gary Parish. Welcome
back into the show, coming to you from the Clark's
Pumping Shop studio. Return, refresh and refuel at Clark's.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Scary.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Parish joins the line. You're read him at cbssports dot com.
You know, so hear him and men Orlander on the
CBS I on College Basketball podcast, which I was listening
to on the flight down to Atlanta on December the
nineteenth and heard you saying you were going to reroute
yourself to Atlanta for the Kentucky Saint John's game, mainly
(04:09):
because Jaden Quainton's was going to make his debut, which
I think, if I remember correctly, you had said you predicted.
So what'd you think of what you saw?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
He's obviously an instant impact guy, and you could see
that from his first session on the court. He didn't
get to start, as you know, but he checked in
pretty quickly and he just changes the way Kentucky looks.
There aren't many humans who can move the way he
moves at his size, who can reach places he can reach.
(04:37):
I remember being on the sideline at an Arizona State
game last season, and he was already hurt at this time, sidelined,
So not only was he not in the game, he
didn't even make the trip. But talking to people around
ASU's program, they consistently said two things that he does
things in practice that other people just you know, cannot do.
(04:58):
You know, his elbows in the reach places that other
people cannot reach. And then also they just compliment him
as an a plus young man. And everything I've heard
about him suggest that that's true. And it looks like
UK's got a really nice package and a second year
college basketball player who can change the way this season
(05:19):
has been unfolding before. He is presumably a lottery pick
in the twenty twenty six NBA draft.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Mark Pope put this roster together with the idea of
being more physical, being better defensively, some of the things
where they came up short last season, even though they
won a bunch of games against good teams and didn't
look like it was going so well for a while,
sort of after Gonzaga, but now that Diabate's healthy again
(05:45):
and Quaintance is out there on the floor, and Lowe
is going to hopefully be able to make it through
the season. But in particular Diabate and Quaintance, it's a
much different kind of Mark Pope team. But it does
seem to be kind of like the one he must
have envisioned when he built.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The roster, right, there's no question.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And you know, as I wrote in my column from Atlanta,
I was talking to somebody, let's just say, connected to
the Kentucky program pregame, and they had just sort of expressed,
you know, the thought that that Marquette, I believe the
quote was that he had been taking some bullets from
fans and critics because you know, it's great to have
twenty two million dollars to roster build, but if it
(06:27):
doesn't go well, that number gets thrown in your face
pretty quickly. And that is what happened to Mark as
Kentucky struggled to a five and four start. But I
thought the main thing we all needed to remember is
that the ideal lineup that you know, had Kentucky ranked
in the preseason top ten that lineup had quite literally
(06:48):
never appeared on the court together until the second half
of the CBS Sports Classic. Where it goes from here,
we'll see. But when you are missing Jalen Lowe, missing
Jaden Clayton's and you know, haven't had those guys on
the court together literally for even a second until December twentieth,
well then it shouldn't be surprising that maybe the first
(07:11):
month plus of the season was a little uneven, And
so I would assume the best is ahead of Kentucky
and the worst is behind them. But as you know,
a lot of this is going to be determined by
Jayalen Lowe's shoulder because after the Saint John's victory, Mark
was very clear that he's going to try to play
through this. But that implies it's not something that's just
(07:33):
going to get all better tomorrow or next week. He's
gonna have to play through it. And obviously he missed
the subsequent game, and I believe the plan is for
him to return this upcoming weekend and never miss another game,
But that's going to be up to his shoulder more
than it's up to him.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, and it could change, as we saw at Atlanta.
You know, from game to game or within a game
when we didn't think he was going to come back.
And it seems to me that you you build the
roster to get better defensively and to address some of
those issues, but you also have to find a way
to score at the other end. And if you the
(08:10):
best defensive lineup is not a lineup that plays the
way Mark's first team here did. You can't do five
out you don't have a you know, Amari Williams and
some of those other pieces that they had. So Jalen
Lowe is a key piece to being able to find
your efficiency at the other.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
End, right, There's no question. And you saw it in
the second half of that game. I mean, Kentucky went
from a team in the first half that had trouble
scoring to a team that was scoring on a per
possession base at a pretty outlandish rate. And I don't
want to say all of that was Jalen Lowe, but
as Mark said after the game, we played basically one
(08:45):
half with him and one half without him. You saw
the difference. He just he's a real point guard. You know,
he's under control with the bonus hands at all times.
He knows how to use ball screens to you know,
create scoring opportunities for both he and his teammates. He can,
you know, get paint touches with the bounce, and that's
very important. I think sometimes you know, in a traditional
(09:08):
way of thinking about basketball, you think of paint touches
as throwing it to a big man. Well, that's one
way to do it, I guess. But just anytime the
ball gets into paint, good things can happen on the
offensive end of a basketball court for you. And Jalen
Low is the type of guy who can give him
a ball screen, he can get there, collapse the defense,
and then he's got the vision and the passing ability
to get the ball where it needs to be. And
(09:30):
so simply put, yeah, Kentucky's not going to be the
best three point shooting team in America. It doesn't look
like they have the roster to do that. But they
can still be one of the best offensive teams in
America as long as that young man stays healthy and
on the court.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So if he does stay healthy and stay on the court,
Quainton's builds on what we saw in Atlanta. What's the
best version of Kentucky capable of looking like.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Like a national champion. Now, I think there's probably seven, eight, nine,
ten teams that could win a national championship this year.
The race does seem pretty wide open. And to be clear,
I would not make Kentucky my favorite. But to answer
the question directly, what does the best version of Kentucky
look like? It looks like the best team in the
country perhaps. I mean, you clearly got the you know,
(10:17):
the talent in place. You've got the requisite, you know,
difference maker lottery pick that is usually required in Jaden
Quainton's and now it's just a matter of you know,
staying healthy and giving it time to all come together.
Will Kentucky win the SEC I don't know. Will Kentucky
go to the Final four, I'm not sure, But certainly
(10:37):
with the way they played in the second half against
Saint John's, which is quite literally the first time the
season we've seen that version of them on the court together,
that version of them against Saint John's in that second half,
that looked like a team that on any given day
could be anybody put in front of them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Not just talking about Kentucky here, but just all of
college basketball. Any opinions that you had prior to the season,
that had have changed as we start to move into
the conference play phase.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think my biggest and it's the one that's got
the most attention. I am maybe the one person in
the world who had Saint John's number one in the preseason.
Now it's in fairness to me. Basically everybody had Saint
John's in the top five. Some people had him as
high as number two. But I'm the one that put
the one next to their name, and that was a
miscalculation on my part because it's pretty clear at this
(11:24):
point Saint John's has real point guard problems. They enrolled
Ian Jackson, the transfer from North Carolina, with the idea
either that he could play that position or that they
could play a more modernized style of basketball without a
point guard.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Do they go to the waiver wire now.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
They would like to? I mean, honestly, like who knows,
I mean exactly the idea of that, But like we
could hang up this phone and in thirty minutes, Saint
John's just enrolled some dude from the G League who's
a twenty four year old point guard. I mean, everything's
on the table right now. Given the way the NCAA
seems to be handling eligibility cases. Tom, there's you know,
(12:03):
you and I have been around the sport for a
long time, you longer than I and I would have
never thought that. I mean, you lived through the Nis
Canter thing like innes Cantor used to be the line
where we drew it, like, if you've done the things
he's done, you can never play college basketball again or
at all. And now that is completely out of the
(12:23):
window for people who are maybe unsure of what we're
talking about. The young man named James Nage, who was
the thirty first pick in the twenty twenty three NBA Draft,
who was a part of a Carl Anthony Towns trade,
is now enrolled at Taylor mid semester and going to
play for the Bears this season. And so that's obolously
thrown a wrench into everything with coaches wondering out loud
(12:47):
like who can I recruit and who can I not recruit?
But I bet you that this thought has run through
the Saint John's office. Is there a point guard out
there that we didn't think would be eligible for college
basketball that might be eligible now given what we just
saw happen at Baylor. I don't know that it goes anywhere.
But I bet you Steve Maiello and everybody else on
that staff has been making some phone calls to try
(13:08):
to see if there is somebody out there because they
need something.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, it would make sense. You can read Gary Parrish's
work at cbsports dot com. What's the schedule for when
and where they can find the podcast.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
We will be back to recording Friday morning the Ion
College Basketball Podcast, Me and Matt Norlander. We're going to
take the rest of this week off because frankly, there's
not much going on until the weekend. So we'll be
back live Friday morning on The Ion College Basketball Podcast.
You can find it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It is a great listen. Gary, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Happy New Year time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You're the best. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
That is Gary Parrish and this is the Leach Report.
One of our longtime partners is Shufflebean Coffee. Group of
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Starts with the best coffee beans, finishes up with a
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(14:02):
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time out. What if I passed the time of the hour?
(14:24):
Let each report coming to you from the Clark's Pumping
Shop studio, return, refresh and refuel at Clark's. We welcome
in Van Heiles. You hear him throughout the football season
on our Monday morning quarterback shows and Van, I don't
think we've talked since Kentucky made its new hire. And uh,
what was your take on landing will Stein to be
the next football coach for your alma mater?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I will say this, I am impressed and the expediency
of that hire that means we had we had this
on our brain for a while and to get a
young and a data offensive mine is a big win
for us.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
What is it in pretend I mean, you played on
the defensive side, you were a dB. What what is
it about UH an offensive oriented head coach at this
particular time that excites you.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I said, for now, is that in a portal in recruiting,
you have to be able to score points.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
And and I have a young guy who has been
successful at Oregon and UTSA.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think it helps us with the with the potential
of getting some difference makers on the perimeter at the
skill position. So I think that's the positive that we
can get some guys on that on the perimeter that
can make a difference for us on Saturdays.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
With so much roster turnover. Now in this portal era,
at least for now, is it a game where it's
I assume much more challenging to build a great defense.
So that maybe makes offense, really good offense even more
important because maybe a great quarterback or a great quarterback
(16:09):
with a couple of you know, top notch receivers can
just on an individual skill make more plays than maybe
one or two great individuals could make on defense.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, I mean, especially for a program like US, until
you reach a point where where we have a history
of developing corners and defensive ends and making them a
big money in the NFL is those guys with the
big money of other programs are probably going to leave
to go elsewhere as we develop them like we have
(16:40):
in the past. So I think that's the fear on defense.
But offensively, yeah, you can almost plug and play at
receivers and running backs, and that's the key to offenses
getting a good quarterback who has good guys around him
that can help them succeed. And yes, I think there
are a lot more guys in the portal because there's
a lot of guys and I could want to play offense.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
There's a lot of skilled guys.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
In this league that we could always go out and
try to poach to to come to Kentucky if we
have already not recruited him, like I think, we will
have a better chance with will Stein as a head
coach and offensive coordinator that can we can probably get
more guys from high school than we have in the past.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
We'll continue discussing this when we come back. We're coming
up on this hard break, so only about thirty seconds left,
so I'll use that time.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Van.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
People have traditions for the New Year, and I know
you love to cook, so do you have anything, Traditionally
you fix up for heading into a new year.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I am a big brisket guy, so if I have time,
I'm definitely gonna hit the brisket. If I don't hit
the brisket, I'm going to reverse here a good old
New York stript steak.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Oh my goodness, you may have people showing up at
your house. I always do files with us. It's at
V Style seventeen on X and we'll be right back
to continue the discussion on the Leads Report presented by
Bob Cat Enterprises. It's the Late Report presented by Bob
Cat Enterprises. We're chatting with Van Hiles and you can
(18:12):
catch him Wednesday nights, nine Eastern time on the Locker
on YouTube. You guys do that all year long, you
and Anthony White.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yes, sir, we do it all year long. Obviously on
holidays though when we have family conflicts. But yes, hopefully
forty plus times a year you'll hear us and as
an entertaining watch and list.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And I promise you, oh well, perhaps you guys will
be talking about the college football playoff this week, since
it starts on Wednesday night. Of the final eight teams,
you see any upsets coming in these games this week.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Oh you know what, I was very close to picking
Ole Miss until I heard about the Lacy potential injury.
So I think Oregon gets Texas Tech. But that's the
one that's kind of a clear one. But man, Texas
Tech can put up points. But I do like Oregon's defense,
so I can say those two are probably the teams
(19:10):
I can see winning. I don't think Miami beats Ohio State,
and I just don't think Bama has enough.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
To beat IU which is crazy to say.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right God to say that they don't have enough? It's crazy?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
But yeah, I think this is what I want fans
to understand is I know Mendoza won the highest and
I know all that good height. That defense is one
of the best in the country. Those guys really play
well together and they are stingy. That's that is the
thing that I think is not talked enough about the
college football.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It's how good Indiana defense is.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean that's a good point. That's a counter
to what I was saying earlier about building a great defense.
They certainly have been able to do it. And the
fact that you uttered that phrase that you don't think
Alabama has enough to beat Indiana. Is the phrase that
gives Kentucky football fans hope in a new era that's
about to start. So how does Kentucky start to accomplish
(20:10):
something like Indiana has accomplished.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Do we have like about two more and more Cubans
that can it.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
There's a lot of money to the program, I mean, unfortunately,
that's the name of the game. This is the part
of football, college football that got me like wow, it
has really changed is when teams are saying and fans
are saying that college football, for your program to succeed,
you have to get a GM.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
When you start getting GMS, that's means money is involved.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So for us, so when people started saying that, that's
the hardest part is that you have to find a
way for people to invest in your program. And unfortunately
it's not the ten twenty thousand probably was when I
was playing.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Now we talk about multi medionaires that have to invest.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
I mean, dylanhan was asked for I think twenty million
dollars for Arizona State, Like that's really a true full number.
You have to invest in the program, man, And if
we can get that, like many other programs.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It's all about the money. If you can get the money,
then you can.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
You can buy the best team you can in a country, apparently,
because that's why you did.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, it is UH, as they said a long time
and in other parts of UH society, follow the money.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Follow the money. You're right.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
UH.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Let's talk about where a position that usually costs the
most money, which is quarterback. Do you think Cutters the
guy that they go with, and if so, what can
you see him doing in will Stein's offense.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
That's a tough one because it all depends on if
can cut A can give us a hometown discount so
we can put some better pieces around him that could
possibly work.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I would say this.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Having a guy already in a building makes the transition easier.
The problem is is when you have a new coach,
you gotta make he has to be comfortable and is
he comfortable with Cutter having the keys to the program?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I'm gonna put that.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I'm allowed coach Stein who to make that the decision,
because I'm not sure if he feels like Cutter is
a great fit. If he does, then let's roll with
Cutter and then invest in the offensive line because we
need a whole new offensive line and maybe one or
two a receivers. I think we definitely need that for
the for the for the team next year. If you
(22:32):
go with Cutter, I think you need two tackles and
you probably need a center or guard and one wide receiver.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And that is a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
It's weird saying, and that's gonna take you a lot
of money to get that, which I think is better
than to try to bring a three million dollar quarterback
in here.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And if there's a receiver out there that you think,
well you've read that's headed to the portal or already
in there, anybody that would be high on your list
to go get if you could get him.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
There is a guy from Auburn named Cam Coleman.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Can we actually talk names now, because I know back
in the day you couldn't say names as coaches.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
If co just can, but we can.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
If we can get Cam Coleman.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
I think that guy offers a lot size, speed, explosiveness,
great hands. He's been a number one receiver. If we
can get him around the two millers, I think.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
That can be a great start for this program.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And if you can get Cam mill I think it
has other guys in the porter look like WHOA, they
might be going all in on this. I think that
is a guy that's playing set, who knows how difficult
he is playing his conference. If we can go get him,
I think that's a guy that can make a difference
for us.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
You know, Kentucky had a couple of teams in eighteen
and in twenty one that ended up winning ten games.
Those were teams that would have been kind of like
a Vanderbilt this year in the hunt for the play off.
Didn't Bandy, didn't White get there at ten and two. Usually,
you know, you would think ten and two might might
get you in, especially I think a will of thy expand.
(24:08):
But anyway, point being is they had an NFL caliber
quarterback in Levis, and they had an NFL caliber receiver,
not with the size of Colebyn, but that ability in
one Dale Robinson. And that's and I'm saying all that
to give a little love to one Dale because he
had eleven catches for one hundred and thirteen yards for
(24:28):
the Giants on Saturday, I think it was Saturday or Sunday. Anyway,
huge game went over a thousand yards at five eight
smallest receiver to go over one thousand yards in NFL history.
So you played in that league. What's how strong is
that statement?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
That is huge? And you saw it here. He is
as what us players back in the day. He's a dog.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
There's things he did here at Kentucky that's like, dude,
if he can do it here.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
It's not going to be that. It's not for fest
to see him doing the NFL. His ability, his work
ethics seems like it's off the chart.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
His ability to play well on games, which means to
me he practices well. And in the NFL, if you
don't practice well, you're not gonna play. So I think
those two things has has shown that he would have
this potential success and it's crazy that he's done it
with a rickey quarterback.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
For the most part, he is.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
Going to be a guy because of the things he
does preparing himself week in and week out that it's
gonna allow himself to stay in the league a long time.
Because the talent is always there. Everybody in college really
has talent. I don't know if fans understand that if
you get a scholarship, you are pretty talented. But the
work ethic and the putting the work and the hone
your craft is the most important thing is to create longevity,
(25:46):
and he has shown that in college and obviously he's
doing it in New York now.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
That is Van Hiles. You hear him during the season
with us here on the Monday morning quarterback shows. Catch
him with Anthony White on the Locker on YouTube Ube
on Wednesday nights at nine Eastern time. Follow on x
at V Style seventeen. Van, thank you so much for
the time, and Happy New Year to you and your family.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Happy New Year to you and yours appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Quick break and when we come back, Justin Rowland's joining
the program since we will have a best of show
on Thursday for the New Year's Day holiday, we move
justed up a Tuesday this week and he'll be with
us next on The Leach Report presented by Bobcat Enterprises
for locations around Kentucky. For Bobcat Enterprises. When you need
to buy or rent heavy equipment, that's who you need
(26:34):
to go to. It is the Leach Reports. And we
are coming to you from the Clarks Pumping Shop studio. Return,
Refresh and Refuel at Clark's. Make sure you sign up
for their loyalty program as well. We're trying to reach
Justin Roland and striking out at the moment, so we're
(26:56):
going to keep working on that. In the meantime, let
me catch you up on a few other news. A
couple of Kentucky football names into the portal from the
defensive side of the ball, Nasir Addison, cornerback and Austin Ramsey,
defensive lineman. Both guys played really well in the upset
win at Auburn on November The first, Addison kind of
(27:19):
set the tone early when Auburn tested him. You remember,
he was making his first start at corner and Auburn
immediately went at him with the aforementioned Cam Coleman that
Van Hiles was talking about, and he made a one
on one tackle in space on a screen out to
the edge against Coleman and kind of set the tone
(27:41):
for what Kentucky's defense was going to do that night.
And like with the block punt of the Louisville game,
one particular play early in a game can sometimes have
a big influence, so wish here well. And then Austin
Ramsey got his chance in the second half of the
season to get into the rotation board took advantage of
it played some good football, So which both of those
(28:04):
young men well as they find their new home portals
getting ready to open up here in a couple of days,
a few days, and it'll be a lot of player movement,
and there's a short window for all of this to
play out. And there's not the second one in the
spring like there has been in the past where Kentucky
picked up Seth mcgawan, for instance last season. So a
(28:26):
very important couple of weeks coming up for new coach
Will Stein and his staff. Note from Mark's story in
the Lexington Harold Leader today, I was happy to see
this Jordan Burks down at Central Florida. I had not
been following Jordan's career, of course, started here at Kentucky,
went to Georgetown last season, now at Central Florida, and
(28:47):
he's averaging, according to Mark's column today in The Harold
Leader in Kentucky sports dot Com, about fourteen points a game.
Really nice young man, and was happy to see him
doing well down at Central Florida. And then Mark also
notes Travis Perry had a twenty one point game in
a game against NC State on December twenty first, and
(29:09):
Travis has played his way back into the starting lineup
at Ole Miss. They'll come in here next month to
rub arena. Justin Rolling joins us now from Cats Illustrated
in the on three Sports network. We're talking about the
portal there with a couple of Kentucky defensive players heading out.
This all cranks up here in just a few days.
(29:29):
Justin and anything in particular that you're hearing that is
encouraging or concerning for the Wildcats.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
No, I think right now the people who are on
staff probably think they have a decent idea of where
this whole thing is going. As far as we know,
we want to keep this guy around. This guy's very important.
But if he goes, you know, you're going to have
to make a calculation. You're going to have to make
(29:59):
a decision. I think they have in their heads probably
an idea of where they wanted to go, but the
portal is going to be unpredictable. There's going to be
different decisions made that that were a surprise, and so
now it's just got to play out. But probably probably
a little bit of nervousness, especially a couple of positions
like quarterback. But I think that they've worked their relationships
(30:20):
and probably feel like they're in a good spot.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I was gonna start with quarterback because I think
from a fan standpoint, that's the one that everybody's focused on,
especially since it's a Kentucky guy that finished the season
as the starter. So uh, any any guests there on
how that will play out.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I've heard mixed things. I'll be honest, like there there
have been times when people have spoken to me and
said they think that he'll probably be back, and there
have been other other times when I've heard people say
they think they've heard that he might he might not
be I'll be honest, I have no idea, I really
have no I think he has a good situation at Kentucky.
Right he started a bunch of games last year. Everybody
(31:01):
knows about him. At Kentucky, you've got a great quarterbacks coach,
offensive coordinator, head coach coming in. If he were to
go into the portal, there's no guarantee he finds a
better situation. And so the question is is he gonna
be okay with with Kentucky bringing in another quarterback from
the portal? And you heard Joe Sloan say every Power
(31:22):
conference program in the country is going to bring four quarterbacks.
They're gonna have four quarterbacks on scholarship, and so, you know,
it's a very tough thing, like how do you allot
resources there if you're if you're gonna have two quarterbacks
that could be the guy. You know, it's gonna have
to get creative in how they think about it too.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, it would seem to be a hard thing to
pull off as you're trying to build a program to
invest a high at a high level in two quarterbacks
right now.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Not only that, but maybe two offensive tackles. That's going
to depend on whether you've evaluated somebody like Malachi Wood
as a starter or not. But that's just the kind
of thing that they'll know internally. So if you if
you're already going to pay two quarterbacks and two offensive tackles,
and you know you got to go out and get
a receiver one or maybe even a top couple of
(32:12):
receivers and another running back to compliment Dowbtle. Yeah, you
can see how this stuff adds up pretty quickly. And
that's why keeping Bully around is so important on one level.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, when Tim Kouch went to the Browns, I was
really optimistic because you had people from that forty nine
er that you know, built up the forty nine ers
organization that were in charge then at Cleveland, and Okay,
they'll know what he needs to be successful and build
around him. And they never did. Never got him aligned,
never got him top notch receivers, never built a great defense.
(32:46):
And so if you're gonna, you know, spend that kind
of money on a quarterback, you're wasting it if you
don't budget in the ability to help make him successful.
And I'm sure you'd probably get an aim in from
from Tim on that. So that's the challenge now is
to not only find the great quarterback, but be able
to have the budget to make it work.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
One hund And that's true. I mean, they kind of
became a caution every tale and how not to managing
a great quarterback draft pick in the process. But you see,
different schools have different strategies on this. And you know,
whereas you've got the Oregon guys coming in, Pat Biondo
coming in to run the program. You know, he's been
at Texas A and M in Oregon the last few
(33:30):
years and those are like the two biggest, big name,
big money brands in college football. If as you're just
thinking about purely, this program is going to spend a
lot of money to win, and a Kentucky it's gonna
be very different. You think about a place like Duke.
Duke is one of the programs right now that's spending
a ton of money every year to bring in a
(33:50):
big time quarterback, and it seemed to be working for them.
But that's not the only way to do it. There's
gonna be you know, just just like before Nil there
were different approaches air Raid or maybe Mark Steep's approach.
You know, you're gonna have some schools that are going
to be shopping for high dollar quarterbacks every single year
and some schools that want to develop guys, and other
(34:11):
schools that are just going to focus on other positions.
So it's interesting now Kentucky is in a quarterback mode.
For the last twelve years, the quarterback position was really
just like the cherry on top, like how do we
maybe improve the team, And now it's going to be
how they build the entire team around somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Shift gears to basketball. For one last question before we
let you go, is League play starts on Saturday afternoon
down at Alabama. How much did the performances against Indiana
and Saint John's and the return of Jaden Quaintance and
the cross your fingers hope that Jayala Low gets through
(34:47):
the season. Change what you were thinking about Kentucky versus
what you were thinking on December the night of December
fifth in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
It makes it makes a huge difference. I mean, but
they're going to play bully ball, and that's what they're doing.
I think the ceiling and the big picture is probably
a little bit lower. There's a question how Pope coach
is a team like that, because that's not it's not
the kind of team that he's coached. But that is
probably the best. The best half forward for this team
is just when those two get back, just beat teams
(35:16):
up inside, play fast, attack the offensive. Last kind of
what Charles Barkley was saying on the broadcast during a
game earlier this season. They could they could beat anybody
on any given day playing like that. But they're just
gonna have to hit more threes like they did last
time out to really reach their potential.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's what makes this game so interesting on Saturday, I
think to start with, because Alabama has made twenty two
threes on fifty four attempts last night, and certainly, you know,
doesn't seem to be Kentucky's game at the moment. You know,
last man. Part of why they're probably built the way
that they are is from the Alabama games last season, right.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Right, no doubt. And and you know, just when you
think you know a team, Kentucky hits what sixteen to
three pointers or whatever it was last time out. So
so we'll they got some momentum. I'll see if they
can continue it in the early conference league, win a
couple of big games early in conference play. It feels
like an entirely different season.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Justin thank you about happy to year, Thanks a lot,
som as justin Rowland and you can read him and
his team's work at Katzillustrated dot Com on the on
three Sports Network. One Last Breakkad, We'll come back and
close out this edition of the Leech Report presented by
Bobcat Enterprises, This Day wild Cat History presented by Kentucky
(36:29):
Roadshow Sports Cards and Memorabilia. They are on Romedy Road
in Lexington at Roachhowcards dot Com. Nineteen seventy eight, number
thirteen Kentucky beat number two Indiana eighty one to seventy
six in that annual game at Freedom Hall we talked
about yesterday was and Notre Dame team that had four
longtime NBA guys on the and its roster, and it's
(36:50):
I think all of them started. It was a freshman
that had a breakout performance, Dwight the Blur. Anderson scored
seventeen and Notre Dame was playing his zone and Joe B.
Hall made an adjustment to put Anderson in the middle
of it and he ate it up about the way
Goose did Duke's zone in the NCAA Finals the previous season,
(37:14):
and Anderson just worked the middle of that zone and
Notre Dame never adjusted. And a star is born was
the line that Al McGuire uttered on NBC that day.
Happy Birthday, Eloy Vargas and also born this day another
former Kentucky basketball star, Jack tingle Well. If Cornbrad Hemp's
(37:35):
been on your radar, the New year's great time to
get your wellness routine started or upgraded. And right now,
if you're a new subscriber at cornbredemp dot com, you
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good life and we will see you tomorrow on the
Leech Report
God Day. Everybody, Welcome into the Leach Report for this Tuesday.
We are always presented by Bobcat Enterprises. Coming up on
the show today, well chat with Gary Parrish from CBS
Sports where he covers college basketball and the I does
the Eye on College Basketball podcast with Matt Orlander. Van
(00:21):
Hiles will check in. We'll talk some Kentucky football with him.
We haven't talked to Van here on the show since
the hiring of Will Stein. And then Justin Rowland from
on three Sports. That's the lineup from today on three
Sports and Cats Illustrated, So that's the lineup. Wildcat News
of the Day presented by just Sepies of Lexington. Mark
(00:42):
Pope Radio Show last night had a couple of pieces
of news to pass along if you didn't catch it
on the UK Sports Network. He said, Jaden Quaintance is
quickly getting to the point of no limitation on his
minutes other than fatigue, so great to hear that things
are going so well in the practice is that resumed
a couple of days ago for the Cats, And then
(01:04):
with Jalen Lowe, Pope said they're just cautious with the
full contact work that he does in practice, so he's
done a little bit, but they will proceed in that
fashion probably for the entire season, to limit the amount
of full contact work and the risk to that shoulder.
Pope said, the biggest risk he thinks is when Jalen
(01:26):
gets tired to re injuring that shoulder. So that's one
thing they'll do within games is to try to look
to manage that. He also was asked by a listener,
why not start Jalen Lowe instead of bringing him off
the bench since he is so important to Kentucky's attack,
And Pope talked about that and what they're thinking is
(01:49):
and basically just said, look, we may not have the
right answer right now. He said, quote, We're going to
kind of explore that as we go. He said, it
gives you a chance maybe to have him not be
the headline guy on a scouting report if he's not
out there at the start of the game, and maybe
can ease in a little bit more. He talked about
(02:10):
the fact that Jalen's not doing a lot of contact
work in practice. Then it's the thought is let's start
the guys that are getting the most work done in
practice together. But they haven't been starting great, so maybe
that'll change. It just sounded like it's something that is
still in flux at the moment as they analyze their
(02:31):
team relative to trying to manage the health and keep
everybody out on the court. Last night, Alabama, the next
opponent and the sec opener for the Cats, beat Yale one,
two seventy eight. They did it without LeBaron file On,
their leading scorer was out with a left leg injury,
but coach Natoates said after the game that it's quote
pretty likely he'll play against Kentucky on Saturday. Alabama shot
(02:52):
fifty four to threes and made twenty two in that
win over Yale. Links to the stories that we talk
about and find the on the bud Light Leach Report
page at Tom Leach Kwhy dot com. Go ahead to
a break and when we come back, we'll hear from
Gary Parish and it is the Leech Report opening segment
always presented by Giuseppes of Lexington. Get to open table
(03:13):
and make your reservation for your next special night out
at Giuseppes. It is just a really special experience when
you eat at Giuseppe's. Food's fantastic. I mean, that's the
best place for a restaurant to start right and the
service is great. But sit in the Loungerry you can
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It is just a fantastic accompaniment to a wonderful meal
(03:36):
at Giuseppes. We'll be right back with Gary Parish. Welcome
back into the show, coming to you from the Clark's
Pumping Shop studio. Return, refresh and refuel at Clark's.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Scary.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Parish joins the line. You're read him at cbssports dot com.
You know, so hear him and men Orlander on the
CBS I on College Basketball podcast, which I was listening
to on the flight down to Atlanta on December the
nineteenth and heard you saying you were going to reroute
yourself to Atlanta for the Kentucky Saint John's game, mainly
(04:09):
because Jaden Quainton's was going to make his debut, which
I think, if I remember correctly, you had said you predicted.
So what'd you think of what you saw?
Speaker 3 (04:16):
He's obviously an instant impact guy, and you could see
that from his first session on the court. He didn't
get to start, as you know, but he checked in
pretty quickly and he just changes the way Kentucky looks.
There aren't many humans who can move the way he
moves at his size, who can reach places he can reach.
(04:37):
I remember being on the sideline at an Arizona State
game last season, and he was already hurt at this time, sidelined,
So not only was he not in the game, he
didn't even make the trip. But talking to people around
ASU's program, they consistently said two things that he does
things in practice that other people just you know, cannot do.
(04:58):
You know, his elbows in the reach places that other
people cannot reach. And then also they just compliment him
as an a plus young man. And everything I've heard
about him suggest that that's true. And it looks like
UK's got a really nice package and a second year
college basketball player who can change the way this season
(05:19):
has been unfolding before. He is presumably a lottery pick
in the twenty twenty six NBA draft.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Mark Pope put this roster together with the idea of
being more physical, being better defensively, some of the things
where they came up short last season, even though they
won a bunch of games against good teams and didn't
look like it was going so well for a while,
sort of after Gonzaga, but now that Diabate's healthy again
(05:45):
and Quaintance is out there on the floor, and Lowe
is going to hopefully be able to make it through
the season. But in particular Diabate and Quaintance, it's a
much different kind of Mark Pope team. But it does
seem to be kind of like the one he must
have envisioned when he built.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
The roster, right, there's no question.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
And you know, as I wrote in my column from Atlanta,
I was talking to somebody, let's just say, connected to
the Kentucky program pregame, and they had just sort of expressed,
you know, the thought that that Marquette, I believe the
quote was that he had been taking some bullets from
fans and critics because you know, it's great to have
twenty two million dollars to roster build, but if it
(06:27):
doesn't go well, that number gets thrown in your face
pretty quickly. And that is what happened to Mark as
Kentucky struggled to a five and four start. But I
thought the main thing we all needed to remember is
that the ideal lineup that you know, had Kentucky ranked
in the preseason top ten that lineup had quite literally
(06:48):
never appeared on the court together until the second half
of the CBS Sports Classic. Where it goes from here,
we'll see. But when you are missing Jalen Lowe, missing
Jaden Clayton's and you know, haven't had those guys on
the court together literally for even a second until December twentieth,
well then it shouldn't be surprising that maybe the first
(07:11):
month plus of the season was a little uneven, And
so I would assume the best is ahead of Kentucky
and the worst is behind them. But as you know,
a lot of this is going to be determined by
Jayalen Lowe's shoulder because after the Saint John's victory, Mark
was very clear that he's going to try to play
through this. But that implies it's not something that's just
(07:33):
going to get all better tomorrow or next week. He's
gonna have to play through it. And obviously he missed
the subsequent game, and I believe the plan is for
him to return this upcoming weekend and never miss another game,
But that's going to be up to his shoulder more
than it's up to him.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Yeah, and it could change, as we saw at Atlanta.
You know, from game to game or within a game
when we didn't think he was going to come back.
And it seems to me that you you build the
roster to get better defensively and to address some of
those issues, but you also have to find a way
to score at the other end. And if you the
(08:10):
best defensive lineup is not a lineup that plays the
way Mark's first team here did. You can't do five
out you don't have a you know, Amari Williams and
some of those other pieces that they had. So Jalen
Lowe is a key piece to being able to find
your efficiency at the other.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
End, right, There's no question. And you saw it in
the second half of that game. I mean, Kentucky went
from a team in the first half that had trouble
scoring to a team that was scoring on a per
possession base at a pretty outlandish rate. And I don't
want to say all of that was Jalen Lowe, but
as Mark said after the game, we played basically one
(08:45):
half with him and one half without him. You saw
the difference. He just he's a real point guard. You know,
he's under control with the bonus hands at all times.
He knows how to use ball screens to you know,
create scoring opportunities for both he and his teammates. He can,
you know, get paint touches with the bounce, and that's
very important. I think sometimes you know, in a traditional
(09:08):
way of thinking about basketball, you think of paint touches
as throwing it to a big man. Well, that's one
way to do it, I guess. But just anytime the
ball gets into paint, good things can happen on the
offensive end of a basketball court for you. And Jalen
Low is the type of guy who can give him
a ball screen, he can get there, collapse the defense,
and then he's got the vision and the passing ability
to get the ball where it needs to be. And
(09:30):
so simply put, yeah, Kentucky's not going to be the
best three point shooting team in America. It doesn't look
like they have the roster to do that. But they
can still be one of the best offensive teams in
America as long as that young man stays healthy and
on the court.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So if he does stay healthy and stay on the court,
Quainton's builds on what we saw in Atlanta. What's the
best version of Kentucky capable of looking like.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Like a national champion. Now, I think there's probably seven, eight, nine,
ten teams that could win a national championship this year.
The race does seem pretty wide open. And to be clear,
I would not make Kentucky my favorite. But to answer
the question directly, what does the best version of Kentucky
look like? It looks like the best team in the
country perhaps. I mean, you clearly got the you know,
(10:17):
the talent in place. You've got the requisite, you know,
difference maker lottery pick that is usually required in Jaden
Quainton's and now it's just a matter of you know,
staying healthy and giving it time to all come together.
Will Kentucky win the SEC I don't know. Will Kentucky
go to the Final four, I'm not sure, But certainly
(10:37):
with the way they played in the second half against
Saint John's, which is quite literally the first time the
season we've seen that version of them on the court together,
that version of them against Saint John's in that second half,
that looked like a team that on any given day
could be anybody put in front of them.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Not just talking about Kentucky here, but just all of
college basketball. Any opinions that you had prior to the season,
that had have changed as we start to move into
the conference play phase.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
I think my biggest and it's the one that's got
the most attention. I am maybe the one person in
the world who had Saint John's number one in the preseason.
Now it's in fairness to me. Basically everybody had Saint
John's in the top five. Some people had him as
high as number two. But I'm the one that put
the one next to their name, and that was a
miscalculation on my part because it's pretty clear at this
(11:24):
point Saint John's has real point guard problems. They enrolled
Ian Jackson, the transfer from North Carolina, with the idea
either that he could play that position or that they
could play a more modernized style of basketball without a
point guard.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Do they go to the waiver wire now.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
They would like to? I mean, honestly, like who knows,
I mean exactly the idea of that, But like we
could hang up this phone and in thirty minutes, Saint
John's just enrolled some dude from the G League who's
a twenty four year old point guard. I mean, everything's
on the table right now. Given the way the NCAA
seems to be handling eligibility cases. Tom, there's you know,
(12:03):
you and I have been around the sport for a
long time, you longer than I and I would have
never thought that. I mean, you lived through the Nis
Canter thing like innes Cantor used to be the line
where we drew it, like, if you've done the things
he's done, you can never play college basketball again or
at all. And now that is completely out of the
(12:23):
window for people who are maybe unsure of what we're
talking about. The young man named James Nage, who was
the thirty first pick in the twenty twenty three NBA Draft,
who was a part of a Carl Anthony Towns trade,
is now enrolled at Taylor mid semester and going to
play for the Bears this season. And so that's obolously
thrown a wrench into everything with coaches wondering out loud
(12:47):
like who can I recruit and who can I not recruit?
But I bet you that this thought has run through
the Saint John's office. Is there a point guard out
there that we didn't think would be eligible for college
basketball that might be eligible now given what we just
saw happen at Baylor. I don't know that it goes anywhere.
But I bet you Steve Maiello and everybody else on
that staff has been making some phone calls to try
(13:08):
to see if there is somebody out there because they
need something.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, it would make sense. You can read Gary Parrish's
work at cbsports dot com. What's the schedule for when
and where they can find the podcast.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
We will be back to recording Friday morning the Ion
College Basketball Podcast, Me and Matt Norlander. We're going to
take the rest of this week off because frankly, there's
not much going on until the weekend. So we'll be
back live Friday morning on The Ion College Basketball Podcast.
You can find it on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
It is a great listen. Gary, thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Happy New Year time.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You're the best. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
That is Gary Parrish and this is the Leach Report.
One of our longtime partners is Shufflebean Coffee. Group of
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(14:02):
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time out. What if I passed the time of the hour?
(14:24):
Let each report coming to you from the Clark's Pumping
Shop studio, return, refresh and refuel at Clark's. We welcome
in Van Heiles. You hear him throughout the football season
on our Monday morning quarterback shows and Van, I don't
think we've talked since Kentucky made its new hire. And uh,
what was your take on landing will Stein to be
the next football coach for your alma mater?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I will say this, I am impressed and the expediency
of that hire that means we had we had this
on our brain for a while and to get a
young and a data offensive mine is a big win
for us.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
What is it in pretend I mean, you played on
the defensive side, you were a dB. What what is
it about UH an offensive oriented head coach at this
particular time that excites you.
Speaker 5 (15:17):
I said, for now, is that in a portal in recruiting,
you have to be able to score points.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
And and I have a young guy who has been
successful at Oregon and UTSA.
Speaker 5 (15:30):
I think it helps us with the with the potential
of getting some difference makers on the perimeter at the
skill position. So I think that's the positive that we
can get some guys on that on the perimeter that
can make a difference for us on Saturdays.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
With so much roster turnover. Now in this portal era,
at least for now, is it a game where it's
I assume much more challenging to build a great defense.
So that maybe makes offense, really good offense even more
important because maybe a great quarterback or a great quarterback
(16:09):
with a couple of you know, top notch receivers can
just on an individual skill make more plays than maybe
one or two great individuals could make on defense.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, I mean, especially for a program like US, until
you reach a point where where we have a history
of developing corners and defensive ends and making them a
big money in the NFL is those guys with the
big money of other programs are probably going to leave
to go elsewhere as we develop them like we have
(16:40):
in the past. So I think that's the fear on defense.
But offensively, yeah, you can almost plug and play at
receivers and running backs, and that's the key to offenses
getting a good quarterback who has good guys around him
that can help them succeed. And yes, I think there
are a lot more guys in the portal because there's
a lot of guys and I could want to play offense.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
There's a lot of skilled guys.
Speaker 5 (17:03):
In this league that we could always go out and
try to poach to to come to Kentucky if we
have already not recruited him, like I think, we will
have a better chance with will Stein as a head
coach and offensive coordinator that can we can probably get
more guys from high school than we have in the past.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
We'll continue discussing this when we come back. We're coming
up on this hard break, so only about thirty seconds left,
so I'll use that time.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Van.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
People have traditions for the New Year, and I know
you love to cook, so do you have anything, Traditionally
you fix up for heading into a new year.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
I am a big brisket guy, so if I have time,
I'm definitely gonna hit the brisket. If I don't hit
the brisket, I'm going to reverse here a good old
New York stript steak.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Oh my goodness, you may have people showing up at
your house. I always do files with us. It's at
V Style seventeen on X and we'll be right back
to continue the discussion on the Leads Report presented by
Bob Cat Enterprises. It's the Late Report presented by Bob
Cat Enterprises. We're chatting with Van Hiles and you can
(18:12):
catch him Wednesday nights, nine Eastern time on the Locker
on YouTube. You guys do that all year long, you
and Anthony White.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yes, sir, we do it all year long. Obviously on
holidays though when we have family conflicts. But yes, hopefully
forty plus times a year you'll hear us and as
an entertaining watch and list.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
And I promise you, oh well, perhaps you guys will
be talking about the college football playoff this week, since
it starts on Wednesday night. Of the final eight teams,
you see any upsets coming in these games this week.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
Oh you know what, I was very close to picking
Ole Miss until I heard about the Lacy potential injury.
So I think Oregon gets Texas Tech. But that's the
one that's kind of a clear one. But man, Texas
Tech can put up points. But I do like Oregon's defense,
so I can say those two are probably the teams
(19:10):
I can see winning. I don't think Miami beats Ohio State,
and I just don't think Bama has enough.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
To beat IU which is crazy to say.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Isn't it.
Speaker 4 (19:21):
Right God to say that they don't have enough? It's crazy?
Speaker 5 (19:25):
But yeah, I think this is what I want fans
to understand is I know Mendoza won the highest and
I know all that good height. That defense is one
of the best in the country. Those guys really play
well together and they are stingy. That's that is the
thing that I think is not talked enough about the
college football.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
It's how good Indiana defense is.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean that's a good point. That's a counter
to what I was saying earlier about building a great defense.
They certainly have been able to do it. And the
fact that you uttered that phrase that you don't think
Alabama has enough to beat Indiana. Is the phrase that
gives Kentucky football fans hope in a new era that's
about to start. So how does Kentucky start to accomplish
(20:10):
something like Indiana has accomplished.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Do we have like about two more and more Cubans
that can it.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
There's a lot of money to the program, I mean, unfortunately,
that's the name of the game. This is the part
of football, college football that got me like wow, it
has really changed is when teams are saying and fans
are saying that college football, for your program to succeed,
you have to get a GM.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
When you start getting GMS, that's means money is involved.
Speaker 5 (20:39):
So for us, so when people started saying that, that's
the hardest part is that you have to find a
way for people to invest in your program. And unfortunately
it's not the ten twenty thousand probably was when I
was playing.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Now we talk about multi medionaires that have to invest.
Speaker 5 (20:55):
I mean, dylanhan was asked for I think twenty million
dollars for Arizona State, Like that's really a true full number.
You have to invest in the program, man, And if
we can get that, like many other programs.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
It's all about the money. If you can get the money,
then you can.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
You can buy the best team you can in a country, apparently,
because that's why you did.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Yeah, it is UH, as they said a long time
and in other parts of UH society, follow the money.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
Follow the money. You're right.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
UH.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Let's talk about where a position that usually costs the
most money, which is quarterback. Do you think Cutters the
guy that they go with, and if so, what can
you see him doing in will Stein's offense.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
That's a tough one because it all depends on if
can cut A can give us a hometown discount so
we can put some better pieces around him that could
possibly work.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I would say this.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Having a guy already in a building makes the transition easier.
The problem is is when you have a new coach,
you gotta make he has to be comfortable and is
he comfortable with Cutter having the keys to the program?
Speaker 4 (22:09):
I'm gonna put that.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
I'm allowed coach Stein who to make that the decision,
because I'm not sure if he feels like Cutter is
a great fit. If he does, then let's roll with
Cutter and then invest in the offensive line because we
need a whole new offensive line and maybe one or
two a receivers. I think we definitely need that for
the for the for the team next year. If you
(22:32):
go with Cutter, I think you need two tackles and
you probably need a center or guard and one wide receiver.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
And that is a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
It's weird saying, and that's gonna take you a lot
of money to get that, which I think is better
than to try to bring a three million dollar quarterback
in here.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
And if there's a receiver out there that you think,
well you've read that's headed to the portal or already
in there, anybody that would be high on your list
to go get if you could get him.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
There is a guy from Auburn named Cam Coleman.
Speaker 5 (23:05):
Can we actually talk names now, because I know back
in the day you couldn't say names as coaches.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
If co just can, but we can.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
If we can get Cam Coleman.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
I think that guy offers a lot size, speed, explosiveness,
great hands. He's been a number one receiver. If we
can get him around the two millers, I think.
Speaker 4 (23:27):
That can be a great start for this program.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
And if you can get Cam mill I think it
has other guys in the porter look like WHOA, they
might be going all in on this. I think that
is a guy that's playing set, who knows how difficult
he is playing his conference. If we can go get him,
I think that's a guy that can make a difference
for us.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
You know, Kentucky had a couple of teams in eighteen
and in twenty one that ended up winning ten games.
Those were teams that would have been kind of like
a Vanderbilt this year in the hunt for the play off.
Didn't Bandy, didn't White get there at ten and two. Usually,
you know, you would think ten and two might might
get you in, especially I think a will of thy expand.
(24:08):
But anyway, point being is they had an NFL caliber
quarterback in Levis, and they had an NFL caliber receiver,
not with the size of Colebyn, but that ability in
one Dale Robinson. And that's and I'm saying all that
to give a little love to one Dale because he
had eleven catches for one hundred and thirteen yards for
(24:28):
the Giants on Saturday, I think it was Saturday or Sunday. Anyway,
huge game went over a thousand yards at five eight
smallest receiver to go over one thousand yards in NFL history.
So you played in that league. What's how strong is
that statement?
Speaker 4 (24:46):
That is huge? And you saw it here. He is
as what us players back in the day. He's a dog.
Speaker 5 (24:53):
There's things he did here at Kentucky that's like, dude,
if he can do it here.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
It's not going to be that. It's not for fest
to see him doing the NFL. His ability, his work
ethics seems like it's off the chart.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
His ability to play well on games, which means to
me he practices well. And in the NFL, if you
don't practice well, you're not gonna play. So I think
those two things has has shown that he would have
this potential success and it's crazy that he's done it
with a rickey quarterback.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
For the most part, he is.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
Going to be a guy because of the things he
does preparing himself week in and week out that it's
gonna allow himself to stay in the league a long time.
Because the talent is always there. Everybody in college really
has talent. I don't know if fans understand that if
you get a scholarship, you are pretty talented. But the
work ethic and the putting the work and the hone
your craft is the most important thing is to create longevity,
(25:46):
and he has shown that in college and obviously he's
doing it in New York now.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
That is Van Hiles. You hear him during the season
with us here on the Monday morning quarterback shows. Catch
him with Anthony White on the Locker on YouTube Ube
on Wednesday nights at nine Eastern time. Follow on x
at V Style seventeen. Van, thank you so much for
the time, and Happy New Year to you and your family.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Happy New Year to you and yours appreciate the time.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Quick break and when we come back, Justin Rowland's joining
the program since we will have a best of show
on Thursday for the New Year's Day holiday, we move
justed up a Tuesday this week and he'll be with
us next on The Leach Report presented by Bobcat Enterprises
for locations around Kentucky. For Bobcat Enterprises. When you need
to buy or rent heavy equipment, that's who you need
(26:34):
to go to. It is the Leach Reports. And we
are coming to you from the Clarks Pumping Shop studio. Return,
Refresh and Refuel at Clark's. Make sure you sign up
for their loyalty program as well. We're trying to reach
Justin Roland and striking out at the moment, so we're
(26:56):
going to keep working on that. In the meantime, let
me catch you up on a few other news. A
couple of Kentucky football names into the portal from the
defensive side of the ball, Nasir Addison, cornerback and Austin Ramsey,
defensive lineman. Both guys played really well in the upset
win at Auburn on November The first, Addison kind of
(27:19):
set the tone early when Auburn tested him. You remember,
he was making his first start at corner and Auburn
immediately went at him with the aforementioned Cam Coleman that
Van Hiles was talking about, and he made a one
on one tackle in space on a screen out to
the edge against Coleman and kind of set the tone
(27:41):
for what Kentucky's defense was going to do that night.
And like with the block punt of the Louisville game,
one particular play early in a game can sometimes have
a big influence, so wish here well. And then Austin
Ramsey got his chance in the second half of the
season to get into the rotation board took advantage of
it played some good football, So which both of those
(28:04):
young men well as they find their new home portals
getting ready to open up here in a couple of days,
a few days, and it'll be a lot of player movement,
and there's a short window for all of this to
play out. And there's not the second one in the
spring like there has been in the past where Kentucky
picked up Seth mcgawan, for instance last season. So a
(28:26):
very important couple of weeks coming up for new coach
Will Stein and his staff. Note from Mark's story in
the Lexington Harold Leader today, I was happy to see
this Jordan Burks down at Central Florida. I had not
been following Jordan's career, of course, started here at Kentucky,
went to Georgetown last season, now at Central Florida, and
(28:47):
he's averaging, according to Mark's column today in The Harold
Leader in Kentucky sports dot Com, about fourteen points a game.
Really nice young man, and was happy to see him
doing well down at Central Florida. And then Mark also
notes Travis Perry had a twenty one point game in
a game against NC State on December twenty first, and
(29:09):
Travis has played his way back into the starting lineup
at Ole Miss. They'll come in here next month to
rub arena. Justin Rolling joins us now from Cats Illustrated
in the on three Sports network. We're talking about the
portal there with a couple of Kentucky defensive players heading out.
This all cranks up here in just a few days.
(29:29):
Justin and anything in particular that you're hearing that is
encouraging or concerning for the Wildcats.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
No, I think right now the people who are on
staff probably think they have a decent idea of where
this whole thing is going. As far as we know,
we want to keep this guy around. This guy's very important.
But if he goes, you know, you're going to have
to make a calculation. You're going to have to make
(29:59):
a decision. I think they have in their heads probably
an idea of where they wanted to go, but the
portal is going to be unpredictable. There's going to be
different decisions made that that were a surprise, and so
now it's just got to play out. But probably probably
a little bit of nervousness, especially a couple of positions
like quarterback. But I think that they've worked their relationships
(30:20):
and probably feel like they're in a good spot.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, I was gonna start with quarterback because I think
from a fan standpoint, that's the one that everybody's focused on,
especially since it's a Kentucky guy that finished the season
as the starter. So uh, any any guests there on
how that will play out.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I've heard mixed things. I'll be honest, like there there
have been times when people have spoken to me and
said they think that he'll probably be back, and there
have been other other times when I've heard people say
they think they've heard that he might he might not
be I'll be honest, I have no idea, I really
have no I think he has a good situation at Kentucky.
Right he started a bunch of games last year. Everybody
(31:01):
knows about him. At Kentucky, you've got a great quarterbacks coach,
offensive coordinator, head coach coming in. If he were to
go into the portal, there's no guarantee he finds a
better situation. And so the question is is he gonna
be okay with with Kentucky bringing in another quarterback from
the portal? And you heard Joe Sloan say every Power
(31:22):
conference program in the country is going to bring four quarterbacks.
They're gonna have four quarterbacks on scholarship, and so, you know,
it's a very tough thing, like how do you allot
resources there if you're if you're gonna have two quarterbacks
that could be the guy. You know, it's gonna have
to get creative in how they think about it too.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, it would seem to be a hard thing to
pull off as you're trying to build a program to
invest a high at a high level in two quarterbacks
right now.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Not only that, but maybe two offensive tackles. That's going
to depend on whether you've evaluated somebody like Malachi Wood
as a starter or not. But that's just the kind
of thing that they'll know internally. So if you if
you're already going to pay two quarterbacks and two offensive tackles,
and you know you got to go out and get
a receiver one or maybe even a top couple of
(32:12):
receivers and another running back to compliment Dowbtle. Yeah, you
can see how this stuff adds up pretty quickly. And
that's why keeping Bully around is so important on one level.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, when Tim Kouch went to the Browns, I was
really optimistic because you had people from that forty nine
er that you know, built up the forty nine ers
organization that were in charge then at Cleveland, and Okay,
they'll know what he needs to be successful and build
around him. And they never did. Never got him aligned,
never got him top notch receivers, never built a great defense.
(32:46):
And so if you're gonna, you know, spend that kind
of money on a quarterback, you're wasting it if you
don't budget in the ability to help make him successful.
And I'm sure you'd probably get an aim in from
from Tim on that. So that's the challenge now is
to not only find the great quarterback, but be able
to have the budget to make it work.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
One hund And that's true. I mean, they kind of
became a caution every tale and how not to managing
a great quarterback draft pick in the process. But you see,
different schools have different strategies on this. And you know,
whereas you've got the Oregon guys coming in, Pat Biondo
coming in to run the program. You know, he's been
at Texas A and M in Oregon the last few
(33:30):
years and those are like the two biggest, big name,
big money brands in college football. If as you're just
thinking about purely, this program is going to spend a
lot of money to win, and a Kentucky it's gonna
be very different. You think about a place like Duke.
Duke is one of the programs right now that's spending
a ton of money every year to bring in a
(33:50):
big time quarterback, and it seemed to be working for them.
But that's not the only way to do it. There's
gonna be you know, just just like before Nil there
were different approaches air Raid or maybe Mark Steep's approach.
You know, you're gonna have some schools that are going
to be shopping for high dollar quarterbacks every single year
and some schools that want to develop guys, and other
(34:11):
schools that are just going to focus on other positions.
So it's interesting now Kentucky is in a quarterback mode.
For the last twelve years, the quarterback position was really
just like the cherry on top, like how do we
maybe improve the team, And now it's going to be
how they build the entire team around somebody.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Shift gears to basketball. For one last question before we
let you go, is League play starts on Saturday afternoon
down at Alabama. How much did the performances against Indiana
and Saint John's and the return of Jaden Quaintance and
the cross your fingers hope that Jayala Low gets through
(34:47):
the season. Change what you were thinking about Kentucky versus
what you were thinking on December the night of December
fifth in Nashville.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
It makes it makes a huge difference. I mean, but
they're going to play bully ball, and that's what they're doing.
I think the ceiling and the big picture is probably
a little bit lower. There's a question how Pope coach
is a team like that, because that's not it's not
the kind of team that he's coached. But that is
probably the best. The best half forward for this team
is just when those two get back, just beat teams
(35:16):
up inside, play fast, attack the offensive. Last kind of
what Charles Barkley was saying on the broadcast during a
game earlier this season. They could they could beat anybody
on any given day playing like that. But they're just
gonna have to hit more threes like they did last
time out to really reach their potential.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
That's what makes this game so interesting on Saturday, I
think to start with, because Alabama has made twenty two
threes on fifty four attempts last night, and certainly, you know,
doesn't seem to be Kentucky's game at the moment. You know,
last man. Part of why they're probably built the way
that they are is from the Alabama games last season, right.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
Right, no doubt. And and you know, just when you
think you know a team, Kentucky hits what sixteen to
three pointers or whatever it was last time out. So
so we'll they got some momentum. I'll see if they
can continue it in the early conference league, win a
couple of big games early in conference play. It feels
like an entirely different season.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Justin thank you about happy to year, Thanks a lot,
som as justin Rowland and you can read him and
his team's work at Katzillustrated dot Com on the on
three Sports Network. One Last Breakkad, We'll come back and
close out this edition of the Leech Report presented by
Bobcat Enterprises, This Day wild Cat History presented by Kentucky
(36:29):
Roadshow Sports Cards and Memorabilia. They are on Romedy Road
in Lexington at Roachhowcards dot Com. Nineteen seventy eight, number
thirteen Kentucky beat number two Indiana eighty one to seventy
six in that annual game at Freedom Hall we talked
about yesterday was and Notre Dame team that had four
longtime NBA guys on the and its roster, and it's
(36:50):
I think all of them started. It was a freshman
that had a breakout performance, Dwight the Blur. Anderson scored
seventeen and Notre Dame was playing his zone and Joe B.
Hall made an adjustment to put Anderson in the middle
of it and he ate it up about the way
Goose did Duke's zone in the NCAA Finals the previous season,
(37:14):
and Anderson just worked the middle of that zone and
Notre Dame never adjusted. And a star is born was
the line that Al McGuire uttered on NBC that day.
Happy Birthday, Eloy Vargas and also born this day another
former Kentucky basketball star, Jack tingle Well. If Cornbrad Hemp's
(37:35):
been on your radar, the New year's great time to
get your wellness routine started or upgraded. And right now,
if you're a new subscriber at cornbredemp dot com, you
could get thirty five percent off your first three months
if you put in the code new Leaf. That's in
ewl EAF. Whatever you're trying to improve, corn Brad Hemp
can help get you there. They have infused gummies and
(37:56):
seltzers for deep relaxation, the sleep gummies that can give
you a RESTful night's sleep, oils and topicals for aches
and pains. Subscribe and make it easy to stay consistent
with your routine cornbread Hemp dot com. This is the
good life and we will see you tomorrow on the
Leech Report
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