Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast of the Leech Report is presented by Boone's
Butcher Shop in Barnstown at one hundred Old Bloomfield Pike,
family owned and operated since nineteen forty six, with fresh
meat cut on site daily. Boons Butcher Shop, Gooddyn and
welcome into our first live show of the new year,
(00:21):
twenty twenty six, and happy to have you on board
to get things rolling. Coming up today, we will of
course chat with Mike de Corsi as we do on
Fridays the college basketball season, and the goose Jack Gibbons
will join us in the first half of the show.
Wild Cat News of the Day, presented by Giuseppes of Lexington.
(00:44):
Thought I'd be talking about the Cutter Bowlly story to
lead things off today, and then this happened in Baton.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Rouge possessionar of Fapers Lsu Yucky's got two timeouts. LSU's
got three eighteen and a half seconds to go. LSU
by one Boon, Morgan, key Strack and Obie the five
(01:11):
on the floor far sideline from us, across the way.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Obie will inbound it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
They'll get it to Morgan near half court and the
clock runs no shot clock thirteen seconds down to ten.
Now they go eight seconds, Morgan moving left, seven seconds,
Morgan free throw line. Three seconds, Morgan steps back, puts.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Up the winner. Got a say, got a? Kentucky wins.
Kentucky wins.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tony Morgan with the shot from the left wing.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Berries the Tigers eighty seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Great call from Jared Hendrick on the UK Sports Network
last night as Kentucky takes down number five LSU. Biggest
win of the season, certainly for the Cats by ranking.
It's the biggest win since they beat number one South
Carolina in the finals of the SEC Tournament in twenty
twenty two, but that was on a neutral court. This
was on LSU's home floor. Tony Morgan was sensational twenty
(02:16):
four points including that game winner, twelve assists and no
turnovers in a game of that magnitude. Tianni Key coming
back from an injury, seventeen points, sixteen boards, and so
congratulations to coach Kenny Brooks and his squad for opening
SEC play with a statement making road win last night.
(02:38):
Shame that it was only available on streaming Mark Story.
I just posted about that on X and he is
so right. I mean, I understand football is the biggest deal,
but surely to goodness there was some way to find
a slot to put that game on a bigger stage.
But it was a fantastic performances by the Wildcats. They
(03:01):
fell behind fourteen to two and battled back to get
in contention. Looked like it was gonna be one of
those nights where they couldn't quite get over that final
hill though they were down nine in the fourth quarter.
I had flipped over to watch a little football flip back,
and with about four minutes to play, they went to
a break and I was listening to Darren and it
(03:23):
was a six point LSU lead that Kentucky ran off
eighth straight and then they foul a three point shooter
and LSU makes all three to go ahead, setting the
stage for the heroics by Tony Morgan. So just an
incredible performance last night for Kentucky women's basketball. Number eleven
in the country, surely moving into the top ten when
(03:45):
the next poll comes out early next week. Now, the
story that until that happened, I thought would be talking
about first, and that is Cutter Bowley with the reports
coming from various sources yesterday that he is going into
the train for a portal which opens up today. Gerard
Smith Jacob Smith the two former Corbyn High School stars
(04:06):
going into the portal as well, but the biggest name
is the starting quarterback from last season for Kentucky. So
show will get bored details on how this is played
out over the coming days and weeks, but for now,
Kentucky looks to be in the market for a new
quarterback again. As a new coach, will Stein begins his
(04:27):
tenure but is still with Oregon because they won yesterday
convincingly over Texas Tech and they're now into the semi
finals against Indiana, which demolished Alabama. So will Stein will
be certainly busy through next weekend with the Ducks as
well as splitting time with the Wildcats, but he's put
his staff together so he has plenty of people that
(04:50):
he can delegate tasks too to get this done. KSR
reports that among the visitors this weekend for the start
of portaling are a couple of offensive linemen from LSU,
one from Auburn, wide receiver Mkeith Johnson from Missouri and
Arkansas linebacker Tavian Wallace, who's Trevin Wallace's younger brother and
(05:11):
was recruited hard by Kentucky out of high school ended
up going to play for the Hogs, but he redshirted
last season, so he'd had four year He would have
four years of eligibility should he choose to come to Kentucky.
Now tomorrow, we talked about the women opening SEC play
last night. The men start tomorrow. They tour on the
road against a ranked opponent, number fourteen Alabama, which has
(05:34):
lost only three times this season and they are ten
and three on the year. The losses coming to Purdue
in Tuscaloosa, Gonzaga on a neutral court in Arizona on
what they call a semi neutral cord that was in Birmingham,
and in all three of those games, one of the
common themes for Alabama in those losses was that they
(05:56):
were dominated on the glass double digit margins. Gonzaga and
Arizona in particular had a huge offensive rebound totals, So
that's an opportunity for Kentucky or stat Kentucky could have
an opportunity to maximize in this matchup tomorrow to its
advantage because the Wildcats, certainly that Saint John's game, were
(06:16):
a terror on the offensive glass, so that could be
a big plus for Kentucky, but Alabama is one of
the best shot blocking teams in the country, blocked fifteen
against Arizona, Charrell's averaging almost three a game, and nobody's
shot over forty three and a half percent against Bama
since Gonzaga did it back on the twenty fourth of November.
(06:38):
So that's the battle. There will be so much talked
about with a three points shots Kentucky sixteen to thirty
against Bellarman, Bama was twenty two to fifty four against Yale.
But I think the battle in the paint is going
to be massive.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Kentucky in its best games has only shot twenty four
percent on threes and made twenty four so they have
to avoid any kind of great disparity at the three
point line, I would think. But the battle in the
paint and around the rim may have a big say
in the outcome of this one.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Bama's won three in a row for the first time ever.
Kucky has just one win at Coleman Cottill Seam since
twenty seventeen. So we'll get into some of that with
Goose when he joins us here in just a moment.
It is the Leech Report, and we come to you
each day courtesy with his first segment of Giuseppes of Lexington,
get to Open Table, make your reservation to get to Juseppes.
(07:33):
Maybe you'd dropped the ball during the holidays, didn't get
a reservation in, you couldn't get in, Well, don't let
that happen again. Make out a new year's resolution that
you're going to get on top of that early. Get
your reservation in for a really special night out at Giuseppes.
If you're celebrating a big occasion a birthday, at anniversary, etc.
No better place to do it. So go to Open Table,
make your reservation today for Juseppes, and we'll be right
(07:54):
back to chat with Jack Gibbings a little later. Mic
de Coursi, it's the Leech Report on this second of
January twenty twenty six, presented by Bob kat Enterprises.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
He's probably the fastest player I've ever seen with the ball.
So he just say whenever you get the ball, just
run and he will find us, which he does and
not he can go score whenever you want.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's Cam Williams and he's talking about point guard Jalen
Low and they have developed a really nice chemistry and
Cam coming off a game and load didn't play last
time a Cam coming off in eight three point game
twenty six against Bellerman. But prior to that, especially, you
think about the Saint John's game when Cam played so
(08:42):
well and Jalen know did a nice job of finding
him in transition, and Cam seems to know where to run,
what spots to run to, and Low knows where to
find him as he does with the rest of his teammates.
S As we welcome in the goose Jack Gibbons to
talk Kentucky basketball and Cam Williams continuing to do I
(09:03):
don't think he's gonna hit eight threes every game, but
continuing to be a serious three point threats got to
be a big boost to this team going into league play,
doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
It makes a huge difference when you have a Kobe
Brayad type that you have to guard every time down.
It takes away a lot of double teaming on oh
Way and Jayden Clayton's will get double team attention coming up.
So if you have a guy that you really must
(09:35):
get out there and guard, it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Would love to see you know you would too.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Colin Chandler get his shooting eye back and know that
it will happen because he's just been in a little
slump the last few weeks. And then Trent Noah just
to shoot it with more confidence because I don't you
and I believe he can make him.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He needs to believe that.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
And that's where it all starts for all of these guys.
I mean, you can you can see it with Colin
Chandler right now that the confidence is is not there
as it was earlier in the season. And sometimes you
miss a few and you shoot a couple that leaves
your hand and man, you just know it's going to
go in and all of a sudden it finds way
(10:20):
to pop out. It just affects your confidence that you
start thinking a little bit too much. As we've we've
talked about with Trent Noah often it's like he's he's thinking,
I'm open, Uh, should I shoot this one? And in
Mark's offense and Mark's system, you always open. You know,
(10:43):
we'll talk about the fact that you weren't open after
you shoot it, you know. So, yeah, it's a confidence
thing with those guys and they'll get it back, just
like it is with Cam I mean, you could tell
earlier that he got to the point, uh probably five
six games ago where he didn't want to shoot it.
He tried to find places to pass the ball, and
(11:07):
now he's wanting it every time. So so that's the
way we need these other guys to get.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Cats are coming off a holiday break, played on the
twenty third, and now not playing again until the game
tomorrow down in Tuscaloosa.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
So I guess it's about twelve days.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And Goose Coach Hall, the coach for whom you played,
he had to deal with questions about something that came
to be known as the January slump. Now, I was
just looking back you guys, other than your sophomore year
when just you'd you know, it was more like the
veterans that you had lost, Like you guys start a
conference play with three straight losses, but seventy five, seventy seven,
(11:49):
seventy eight, you guys had no January slump. But that
came to be a thing in the later seventies, in
the eighties for Joe where for whatever reason, maybe it
was the schedule that they played leading into the league,
but they came out of the gate sometimes a little slow,
and it came to be known as the January slump.
What's the key to avoiding a January slump early January slump?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Well, I think the reason you don't see it quite
so much nowadays as we did is that we have
so many veterans on the team, guys who understand. You know,
when you have a lot of freshmen on the team
and they're not used to playing these long schedules, and
all of a sudden, you've played twenty two games, and
(12:32):
you know you didn't play that many your whole high
school season, and you hit twenty two and you got
ten more to go. You know, it is like a
running into a wall. I mean, you just want to
go and you want to do it. But it's just
so different nowadays with all the vets and guys who've
(12:53):
been around and been there and done that, you don't
see it quite so much. But it does happen. I
don't know that it happens with this team because we
haven't had guys together long enough to kind of figure
out who we are and to get comfortable. So I
don't look for this team to go in to a slump.
I want to get healthy. I want j Lo to
(13:17):
get more time on the floor so he can get
in top condition. I want Jade Quaintance to get more
time on the floor so he can get in top condition.
And when you're still running hard and needing to do that,
it kind of takes away some of that concern that
you're going to run into a slump.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
We're talking with a goose Jack Gibbings, and we'll continue
to visit here in just a moment, about twenty two
past the top of the hour, coming to you from
the Clark's Pumping Shop studio. Return, refresh and refuel at Clark's.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's Leech Reports and we are presented each day by
Bob Kat Enterprises. We're talking with a goose Jack Gibbings
ahead of Kentucky's sec opener tomorrow at Alabama. I guess
the goose they just need to do what the women
did last night down at Number five. L s U
went on the road.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
Well, it was fun. It was fun watching watching that
game last night, didn't I was. I heard you talking
about it, and I was a lot like you. I
just kept saying, man, they just not going to be
able to get over the hump. They Kentucky would come
down the women and they would make a couple of
shots and cut it to three, and then all of
a sudden, LSU would come back down and they'd make
(14:26):
two or three in a row and push it back
out to seven. But when Kentucky finally found and went
ahead a point or two before LSU put together another
little running went up, it just didn't seem like it.
The thing I noticed about that last shot was that
(14:47):
the LSU defense switched, so she had a big on her,
bigger than than her, She had a beg on her,
and she had to shoot that thing up high man
to get it over the d defense. She wanted to
give it up, but they LSU did a good job defensively.
But that shot, I know, Darren, I heard the call
(15:09):
was huge. Was was hugely exciting about that, excited about
calling that. But the fact is it was a tough,
tough shot. Yeah, and it didn't hit anything but the
bottom man it was. It was a gorgeous shot.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So what are some of the keys that you're looking
at for Kentucky tomorrow to do the same, get a
ranked win on the road to start league play.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
For the men.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Well, I'm want Kentucky to go in ano this game
understanding that Yeabama is a is a good team. There's
no question about it. They're a good team, but it's
a team Kentucky can can beat. I mean, Alabama obviously
shoots a bunch of threes and Kentucky's going to have
(15:53):
to get out there and defend the three point line.
But they also they also give up opportunities to score.
I think Alabama averages thirty six percent from behind the
three point line, but they give up thirty two percent,
So if Kentucky gets hot, they they can do that.
Alabama averages forty one rebounds a game, but the opposition
(16:17):
this year has averaged forty one rebounds against them, so
it's not like they're totally dominating. And Alabama average is
what ninety points a game, but they've given up big
numbers as well at times, and teams have averaged like
eighty three points against them. So you should be able
to score if you do your stuff, But you have
(16:37):
to go into that game knowing that you can beat them.
You can't be intimidated going into that. I don't expect
Kentucky to be intimidated, but you certainly can't be intimidated
going in to play them there.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
They did a really nice job on Otega last year.
That was his first game we Kentucky lost down there
in February, was the first game Otega didn't score a
double five figures, and then he struggled again in the
SEC tournament loss. So what's he needed to do against
the way Obama guards him?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
You know, it's interesting because that's one thing Alabama and
Natoats will do. They will pick one guy and they
will totally try to take that one guy out of
anything he wants to do. And it was Otaga last year.
And the thing that made it successful was that some
(17:32):
other guys who Kentucky usually got big games from didn't
have big game, big games. So I think it's a
balance of stuff that has to happen. Number one, Otaga
has and the team has to understand he doesn't have
to get twenty five for them to win. Okay, so
Otaga if he's able to get his twelve to fifteen
(17:54):
and Cam makes three or four threes and then you
get Jay doing what he does, everybody contributing, that's the
way to do it. Oh wait, may not because he
might be the man again and you might understand you
got to realize that Moe Diabat was the guy who
stopped him. So now they're playing together, so.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
That might help Ghost. Thank you much, See you soon. Okay, Tom,
it's the Late Triport. We'll be right back twenty six
away from the top of the hour. It's the Leach.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Report, presented each day by Bobcat Enterprises for locations around
the state. That's who you call when you need to
buy or rent, have the equipment, excavators, loaders, Bobcats, et cetera.
Bobcat Enterprises. Mike, of course he joins us. You read
him at Supporting News dot Com. On x it's at
TSN Mike. He's on the Big Ten network, does the
(18:46):
brackets for Fox Sports college basketball coverage. But before we
talk college hoops as we do each Friday, I'm talking
a little college football mic because of what the Indiana
Hoosiers are doing. Just demolished Alabama yesterday in the Rose Bowl,
and that you know, Kentucky has a new coach down
(19:06):
in will Stein. For teams like Kentucky that aspired to
jump up the college football ladder and other teams like that,
Indiana is the beacon of hope.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Right, yes, yes, it is it's proof that that it
isn't just your brand. That when when when Kurt Signetti
walked into Indiana, but I guess exactly two decembers ago,
so it would have been twenty five months ago. There
was Indiana's established brand was the literal worst power for
(19:44):
football program of all the worst, more red than anybody. Yes,
yes there there Now people might say, well, Vandy and
an SEC and that kind of changed too. It just
shows you that that being shrewd in the portal. A
lot of people now who are on the other side
(20:04):
of the big ten sec fence are saying, well, it's
clearly all about money. Well it's clearly not, because even
if you think that Indiana spent a lot of money,
they didn't spend you know, they didn't spend a fraction
as much as Alabama did. Alabama, Yeah, OHI of State
(20:25):
and they beat both of those in their last two
games exactly. So it shows that you have to be shrewd,
you have to be smart. Indiana is still going out
there now. I mean they did that yesterday thirty eight
to three, I think was the final with no five
star players from the original recruiting class when they were
in high school, none zero, and I think only a
(20:46):
less than less than a handful less than a full
handful of four star guys. They're almost all three star
to zero star players. So it's about being shrewd valueuating
those who have already been misevaluated getting the right coach. Clearly,
Kurt Signetti a special and one of the really cool
(21:08):
things about this Tom is that is that Kurt worked
really his entire career. He's a few years younger than
I am, like sixty two, I think he is now.
I mean, he didn't get to be a Power five,
power four head coach until he was pushing sixty, and
now he is at the very top. I mean, he's
still got to win two more games, but for now,
(21:31):
he's a two time Coach of the Year for Sporting
News and several other selectors, the Big Ten champion, the
Rose Bowl champion. And I think that's the most remarkable
element of this is that he was hiding in plain sight,
as they say, for thirty years, and nobody at that
big time level hired him to be a head coach.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
He coach.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Signetti does not lack for confidence, but what Indiana was
in here play for the basketball game. A couple of
weeks ago, I was talking to Don Fisher, who for
years through us having these two jobs and a great guy,
great broadcaster, and we were talking a little bit about
that and Signetta and he said, you know, part, he said,
part of that is because he had to build interest
(22:13):
in the program and just to give get people excited.
And you know, Indiana fans didn't have a whole lot
of reason to hope that they could do things like this.
So that's part of what the why he is the
way he is in this role.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Yeah, and it began with his press conference where he
had to sort of convince everybody that he wasn't just
some guy from you know, with that had won at
a mid major level. He was trying to say, look,
wherever I've been, we'd won. And that includes time as
a significant part of Alabama's operation when they were winning
(22:47):
national championships under under Nick Shape, and he was their
recruiting coordinator. And I don't remember exactly which position or
element of the of the game he coached, but sure
it was on the offensive side. But he was the
recruiting coordinator for several years and they were bringing in
big time players and evaluating the right big time players
because they were going on and winning games, and then
he went I talked to Don about this a couple
(23:10):
of weeks ago when I was writing the story about
Kurt being the new coach of the repeat Coach of
the Year, the first ever we've been giving our award
since nineteen sixty three. Tom Darryl Royal from Texas wanted
in sixty three, and Darryl is one of three or
four guys who've won it twice, but nobody had ever
wanted in consecutive years until Kurt Signetti. Because the Coach
(23:33):
of the Year is kind of a subjective award, you
can sort of spin that however you think is best.
And so to do it two years in a row
to the same person, that person has to leave no
other choice, and he did. He went from nowhere in
the middle of the picture and then or at the
top of the picture, but not at the top of
(23:54):
the game, and then he went from there to the
top of the picture. And that in two years is
just astonishing.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Mike of Coursey Sportingnews dot Com, it's shift gears to
college hoops now. And you also do the brackets for
Fox Sports, and I know you did one. I think
preseason is the first. One's coming up soon, isn't it that?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
We?
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Actually, we actually did our first real bracket, let's call
it the the not too early bracket, was on Tuesday,
and I had the Wildcats as a seventh seed at
that point.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So look that up at at tsaid Mike on X
and you could see that. Should have done that myself.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
That's all right. There'll be another coming today as well.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Is there will be two a week from here on.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
Out, Yes, two a week from here on out.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So how much could Kentucky improve with a win to
start league play at number fourteen Alabama tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (24:56):
I mean they could jump the whole. They could jump
the whole. It depends on what the others do, obviously,
but they could jump the whole six and five lines.
If they were to win that game, possibly it would
be that important because it would it would first of all,
it would be a huge quad one road win that
very few others could have replicated at this point. I mean,
it would the only other team I think that's got
(25:18):
a road win like that to this point the season
is Nebraska going into Illinois and winning that. Pretty much
everything else that's been accomplished on a big time level
has been neutral or the occasional road win, the occasional
excuse me, the occasional home win. I guess also, I'm sorry.
Also Arizona at Yukon, that would be the very top
(25:40):
of the heap. But we're not worried about Arizona because
they're all the way up at the top of the
of the of the bracket. They're the number one overall seed,
so they could potentially climb that far with a win tomorrow.
It would take some going through it, but that's how
that's that's how much this could mean for content, and
(26:00):
it's it's a really difficult thing for them to do
as they, you know, as they're sort of still still
at the very beginning of their evolution as this Kentucky team.
Now that they've got Jaden, now that they've settled on
what they think their point guard rotation is going to be,
I think that that would be a huge thing to ask,
(26:23):
but a huge achievement if you could get it.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
We'll talk more about the matchup when we come right back.
It's the Friday edition of the League Report. Mike de
Coursey's with us from Sportingnews dot Com and we'll be
right back.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
But he's really hard to contain. He's so great off
the bounce. And I'll tell you the thing that I
don't think he gets enough credit for. Maybe he does, but.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
He is an elite, elite, elite level playmaker off the
bounce man that Smark Pope, And he was talking about
Lebaronfylon from Alabama, who I think most everybody thought was
headed to the draft and he's back for a second
season with the Tide. Is Mike Thecursey's with us from
Sportingnews dot Com. Didn't play filon on Monday night when
(27:04):
they won over Yale, but he's been a dynamic player
for them, averaging almost twenty two a game. And you
know see a lot of guys that, especially for the
top teams, that you know, average twenty or better. But
he is scoring it at a high level. As coach
Pope said, can set up his teammates as well. Talk
to us, Mike about what Kentucky has to do against
(27:27):
him assuming he plays tomorrow, and then what are some
of the other keys.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Well, it starts with him because he not only is
averaging twenty basically twenty two a game, but also averaging
nearly six assists a game. So he is he is
the driver of the entire offense, and he has been
consistently good, consistently great, I guess would be more fair
(27:53):
and more accurate over the course of this year. Whereas
Aiden Holloway, who also drives a lot of their offense,
the very bad core heavy offense, he's been a little
bit spotty. I mean, I guess that's harsh again because
he's averaging seventeen and four. I mean, you can't complain
about that, but I mean, he played twenty one minutes
against Arizona and didn't score, so I mean he has
(28:15):
had moments where he wasn't quite great. He wasn't great
against Illinois in their first game. He didn't shoot the
ball well against Gonzagas. So the problem for Kentucky is
that you have to stop two really dynamic playmaking guards
at once. And obviously Kentucky has one high level defensive
(28:39):
player in their backcourt in Denzel Aberdeen, but when Jalen
Lowe's playing, he's not a great defender, so that's part
of the problem. Jasper when he plays, is only a
freshman of Colin is not super dynamic. So those are
the finding the ability to stop both of them at once,
(29:01):
I think is or slow both of them at once
is Kentucky's problem against Alabama. I would think that you
put Denzel on La Baron and just try to mitigate
him as much as possible. But one way might be
to put him on Aiden Holloway and try to get
one of those shut out type games against him and
(29:24):
make him struggle a lot. And even though Filon's gonna
do damage and score. I mean, as McK cronin once
told me that in blowout games, someone's going to score
the points, and this obviously isn't going to be that.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
But somebody's gonna put up.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Points for Alabama in this game. But if Filon puts
up twenty five or thirty and no one else is effective,
then you've got a shot. So maybe the best thing
is to go ahead and let him for much of
the game play and then just shut down all his
options offensively and and make it so that, Okay, he's
(30:02):
going to score twenty five thirty, but the rest of
these guys are all going to shoot forty percent from
the field and at the end of the day will
have more buckets than them. I mean that that would
be one way to approach this.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Mark Pope on Monday night on his radio show An Interesting,
He's a you know, we know he likes the analytics
and the numbers, and he was talking about that the
stat that most last season correlated to winning was rim
protection and Kentucky's figures to improve significantly with Jaden Quaintan's
(30:39):
being on the floor now for longer stretches. Pope said,
there's a Monday that they're very close to a point
where JQ doesn't have to have a minute's restriction. Oh great,
so he can block shots and alter shots, as we
saw in that Saint John's game, And I have to
think that's a big plus in a matchup like this
because Nate oates offense. It's we always hear is it's
(31:00):
either threes or at the rim and nothing in between.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
Right exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
UH.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Rim protection is so huge, and I often see UH
projections at the beginning of the year of people saying, Okay,
this team's gonna win it all. I Purdue got that
a lot this year, A lot of teams, a lot
of a lot of media selected to win it all.
And my first thought was, yeah, but a year ago,
they had nobody to block shots, and they brought in
(31:26):
a big guy who is not a shot blocker, who
makes them better because he's taller than the players they
had before. But he doesn't uh, he doesn't, you know,
I think he was a less than a one point
one block a game guy in his mid major Oscar cluff.
You if you if you're gonna win the biggest games,
you have to have rim protection. That you just can't
(31:49):
win the national championship without that guy. So it shows
you how important it can be. I'm not saying Jayden
makes Kentucky a national championship threat, but I'm saying that
that his ability to guard the lane, guard the rim
is an absolute game changer. He makes it hard to
attack your lane. He makes it hard to attack your rim.
(32:14):
He takes the other teams shooting percentage down, and sometimes
the difference between winning and losing is simply taking somebody
from shooting forty five percent from the floor to shooting
forty two, or shooting forty three to shooting forty. It
can be that subtle when games are this close, and
that's why having a player like him, who is among
(32:36):
the best in the country, especially when he's fit and healthy,
he's among the very best in the country in that department.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Was looking back at the three games Alabama loss to Produe, Gonzaga,
and Arizona, and in all three they were dominated of
the board's double digit margins for the winning team, and
they gave up, in particular to Gonzaga and Arizona a
ton of offensive rebounds. So, especially with Quaintance and now
the Abate back and being on Kentucky side, those those
(33:09):
areas that Kentucky has to maximize. It seems like in
a matchup like this where there's you know, it's not
Mark Pope's kind of team that he's typically had where
you might get in a three point shootout with Alabama.
So this is more of a contrasting styles, and so
you have to maximize what your pluses are and try
to minimize what theirs.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
Are, right well, one hundred percent. And one of the
interesting things about this is that we saw Kentucky try
to play full court, open, let's go in to end
with Louisville and it didn't work very well. And when
they have played a more controlled style, they have gotten
their better wins. Not necessarily you know, slow down, but
(33:50):
more control. I mean, Saint John's was an under eighty win,
Indiana was an under eighty win, and they played very
well in the Carolina game. At times it was under
seventy in that game. Alabama is a really hard team
to slow down in any sense. I mean that, even
the teams that have beaten them it was in the
eighties and nineties, it's hard to slow Alabama down. So
(34:14):
you're gonna have to probably be content with playing a
little bit faster than you want, but it's still an
imperative that they bring the tempo of this game down
as much as possible, because again, that's where your your
great ability with Jalen in terms of slicing and dicing
on the pick and roll. That's where it's accelerated. It's
(34:37):
where Jaden's ability to defend the rim is accelerated. It's
where your better shooters are most comfortable, you know, more
half court style. So I think if you can keep
this game in the below eighty five for the winner,
I think that that's a very important element for Kentucky
as well.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yeah, interesting you use that number.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I was doing my prep yesterday and one of the
numbers I looked up since the end of the twenty
three season. So that includes the Final four run, the
Elite eight run for Bama last season, and they in
what's that probably got to be somewhere close to eighty
or ninety games on the exact number five and eleven.
(35:21):
It's only happened sixteen times and they've lost eleven of them,
so that is a but it's clearly hard to get
them under eighty.
Speaker 6 (35:32):
Yeah, it is, it really is, There's no doubt. I mean,
Purdue beat them. They at Perdue doesn't often go to
eighty seven. They're not They're a great offensive team, but
they don't often go that high. Gonzaga went to ninety
five and Arizona went to ninety six, and none of
those teams usually plays at that level. So it does
take a little bit. But I mean we have seen
(35:54):
teams that have kept them down a little bit. It's
just really hard to keep them to a low number
because they will go fast no matter what, and they
will live with whatever, with whatever the outcome might be.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, probably under eighty five is the more realistic goal.
I would think, as you mentioned, Mike, appreciate the time.
We'll look for the brackets and all the coverage at TSN,
Mike and Sporting News dot com and we'll talk to
you next Friday.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Happy New Year, Thanks Tom, Happy New Year to you.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That is Mike de Coursey joins us on Friday's here
on the Leech Report. We'll get to a quick break,
come back and close out this edition of the show
just a moment. Final segment of The Leach Report, presented
by Bobcat Enterprises. Another great partner for a long time
for us has been Cornbread Hemp and they have some
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(36:46):
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Sign up for a subscription to get your regular wellness
(37:07):
program started here in twenty twenty six. Good time to
turn over that new leaf, so Cornbradhemp dot com. Michelle
Knesick colleague and the UK Sports that she had a
great post on X that Coach Brooks represents all of
BBN in this moment, and it's the highlight of Tony
Morgan's game winner, and down in the lower right corner
(37:29):
you can see Kenny Brooks's reaction, and she's right. I'm
sure there were fans that had the same kind of reaction.
He leaps with both arms extended into the air with
two fists thrust up into the air, down at the
p MAC and baton rouge and then he pumps his
fist there on the right arm about three or four
times as he's looking down toward the LSU side. Not
(37:51):
so much I think taunting LSU is just being excited,
and everybody else was to a what a finish this
day A wow Cat History Present about a Tentucky Roads Show,
Sports cards and Memorabilia. Two thousand and nine, Kentucky won
the Liberty Bowl over East Carolina twenty five to nineteen,
three straight ball wins for the first time in school history.
Happy Birthday, Randolph Morris irv. Thomas KIRKRISA well, see you
(38:12):
tomorrow or see you Monday on the Leach Report. Have
a great weekend, everybody
This podcast of the Leech Report is presented by Boone's
Butcher Shop in Barnstown at one hundred Old Bloomfield Pike,
family owned and operated since nineteen forty six, with fresh
meat cut on site daily. Boons Butcher Shop, Gooddyn and
welcome into our first live show of the new year,
(00:21):
twenty twenty six, and happy to have you on board
to get things rolling. Coming up today, we will of
course chat with Mike de Corsi as we do on
Fridays the college basketball season, and the goose Jack Gibbons
will join us in the first half of the show.
Wild Cat News of the Day, presented by Giuseppes of Lexington.
(00:44):
Thought I'd be talking about the Cutter Bowlly story to
lead things off today, and then this happened in Baton.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Rouge possessionar of Fapers Lsu Yucky's got two timeouts. LSU's
got three eighteen and a half seconds to go. LSU
by one Boon, Morgan, key Strack and Obie the five
(01:11):
on the floor far sideline from us, across the way.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Obie will inbound it.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
They'll get it to Morgan near half court and the
clock runs no shot clock thirteen seconds down to ten.
Now they go eight seconds, Morgan moving left, seven seconds,
Morgan free throw line. Three seconds, Morgan steps back, puts.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Up the winner. Got a say, got a? Kentucky wins.
Kentucky wins.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Tony Morgan with the shot from the left wing.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Berries the Tigers eighty seventy eight.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Great call from Jared Hendrick on the UK Sports Network
last night as Kentucky takes down number five LSU. Biggest
win of the season, certainly for the Cats by ranking.
It's the biggest win since they beat number one South
Carolina in the finals of the SEC Tournament in twenty
twenty two, but that was on a neutral court. This
was on LSU's home floor. Tony Morgan was sensational twenty
(02:16):
four points including that game winner, twelve assists and no
turnovers in a game of that magnitude. Tianni Key coming
back from an injury, seventeen points, sixteen boards, and so
congratulations to coach Kenny Brooks and his squad for opening
SEC play with a statement making road win last night.
(02:38):
Shame that it was only available on streaming Mark Story.
I just posted about that on X and he is
so right. I mean, I understand football is the biggest deal,
but surely to goodness there was some way to find
a slot to put that game on a bigger stage.
But it was a fantastic performances by the Wildcats. They
(03:01):
fell behind fourteen to two and battled back to get
in contention. Looked like it was gonna be one of
those nights where they couldn't quite get over that final
hill though they were down nine in the fourth quarter.
I had flipped over to watch a little football flip back,
and with about four minutes to play, they went to
a break and I was listening to Darren and it
(03:23):
was a six point LSU lead that Kentucky ran off
eighth straight and then they foul a three point shooter
and LSU makes all three to go ahead, setting the
stage for the heroics by Tony Morgan. So just an
incredible performance last night for Kentucky women's basketball. Number eleven
in the country, surely moving into the top ten when
(03:45):
the next poll comes out early next week. Now, the
story that until that happened, I thought would be talking
about first, and that is Cutter Bowley with the reports
coming from various sources yesterday that he is going into
the train for a portal which opens up today. Gerard
Smith Jacob Smith the two former Corbyn High School stars
(04:06):
going into the portal as well, but the biggest name
is the starting quarterback from last season for Kentucky. So
show will get bored details on how this is played
out over the coming days and weeks, but for now,
Kentucky looks to be in the market for a new
quarterback again. As a new coach, will Stein begins his
(04:27):
tenure but is still with Oregon because they won yesterday
convincingly over Texas Tech and they're now into the semi
finals against Indiana, which demolished Alabama. So will Stein will
be certainly busy through next weekend with the Ducks as
well as splitting time with the Wildcats, but he's put
his staff together so he has plenty of people that
(04:50):
he can delegate tasks too to get this done. KSR
reports that among the visitors this weekend for the start
of portaling are a couple of offensive linemen from LSU,
one from Auburn, wide receiver Mkeith Johnson from Missouri and
Arkansas linebacker Tavian Wallace, who's Trevin Wallace's younger brother and
(05:11):
was recruited hard by Kentucky out of high school ended
up going to play for the Hogs, but he redshirted
last season, so he'd had four year He would have
four years of eligibility should he choose to come to Kentucky.
Now tomorrow, we talked about the women opening SEC play
last night. The men start tomorrow. They tour on the
road against a ranked opponent, number fourteen Alabama, which has
(05:34):
lost only three times this season and they are ten
and three on the year. The losses coming to Purdue
in Tuscaloosa, Gonzaga on a neutral court in Arizona on
what they call a semi neutral cord that was in Birmingham,
and in all three of those games, one of the
common themes for Alabama in those losses was that they
(05:56):
were dominated on the glass double digit margins. Gonzaga and
Arizona in particular had a huge offensive rebound totals, So
that's an opportunity for Kentucky or stat Kentucky could have
an opportunity to maximize in this matchup tomorrow to its
advantage because the Wildcats, certainly that Saint John's game, were
(06:16):
a terror on the offensive glass, so that could be
a big plus for Kentucky, but Alabama is one of
the best shot blocking teams in the country, blocked fifteen
against Arizona, Charrell's averaging almost three a game, and nobody's
shot over forty three and a half percent against Bama
since Gonzaga did it back on the twenty fourth of November.
(06:38):
So that's the battle. There will be so much talked
about with a three points shots Kentucky sixteen to thirty
against Bellarman, Bama was twenty two to fifty four against Yale.
But I think the battle in the paint is going
to be massive.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Now.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Kentucky in its best games has only shot twenty four
percent on threes and made twenty four so they have
to avoid any kind of great disparity at the three
point line, I would think. But the battle in the
paint and around the rim may have a big say
in the outcome of this one.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Bama's won three in a row for the first time ever.
Kucky has just one win at Coleman Cottill Seam since
twenty seventeen. So we'll get into some of that with
Goose when he joins us here in just a moment.
It is the Leech Report, and we come to you
each day courtesy with his first segment of Giuseppes of Lexington,
get to Open Table, make your reservation to get to Juseppes.
(07:33):
Maybe you'd dropped the ball during the holidays, didn't get
a reservation in, you couldn't get in, Well, don't let
that happen again. Make out a new year's resolution that
you're going to get on top of that early. Get
your reservation in for a really special night out at Giuseppes.
If you're celebrating a big occasion a birthday, at anniversary, etc.
No better place to do it. So go to Open Table,
make your reservation today for Juseppes, and we'll be right
(07:54):
back to chat with Jack Gibbings a little later. Mic
de Coursi, it's the Leech Report on this second of
January twenty twenty six, presented by Bob kat Enterprises.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
He's probably the fastest player I've ever seen with the ball.
So he just say whenever you get the ball, just
run and he will find us, which he does and
not he can go score whenever you want.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
It's Cam Williams and he's talking about point guard Jalen
Low and they have developed a really nice chemistry and
Cam coming off a game and load didn't play last
time a Cam coming off in eight three point game
twenty six against Bellerman. But prior to that, especially, you
think about the Saint John's game when Cam played so
(08:42):
well and Jalen know did a nice job of finding
him in transition, and Cam seems to know where to run,
what spots to run to, and Low knows where to
find him as he does with the rest of his teammates.
S As we welcome in the goose Jack Gibbons to
talk Kentucky basketball and Cam Williams continuing to do I
(09:03):
don't think he's gonna hit eight threes every game, but
continuing to be a serious three point threats got to
be a big boost to this team going into league play,
doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
It makes a huge difference when you have a Kobe
Brayad type that you have to guard every time down.
It takes away a lot of double teaming on oh
Way and Jayden Clayton's will get double team attention coming up.
So if you have a guy that you really must
(09:35):
get out there and guard, it makes a huge difference.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Would love to see you know you would too.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Colin Chandler get his shooting eye back and know that
it will happen because he's just been in a little
slump the last few weeks. And then Trent Noah just
to shoot it with more confidence because I don't you
and I believe he can make him.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
He needs to believe that.
Speaker 5 (09:58):
And that's where it all starts for all of these guys.
I mean, you can you can see it with Colin
Chandler right now that the confidence is is not there
as it was earlier in the season. And sometimes you
miss a few and you shoot a couple that leaves
your hand and man, you just know it's going to
go in and all of a sudden it finds way
(10:20):
to pop out. It just affects your confidence that you
start thinking a little bit too much. As we've we've
talked about with Trent Noah often it's like he's he's thinking,
I'm open, Uh, should I shoot this one? And in
Mark's offense and Mark's system, you always open. You know,
(10:43):
we'll talk about the fact that you weren't open after
you shoot it, you know. So, yeah, it's a confidence
thing with those guys and they'll get it back, just
like it is with Cam I mean, you could tell
earlier that he got to the point, uh probably five
six games ago where he didn't want to shoot it.
He tried to find places to pass the ball, and
(11:07):
now he's wanting it every time. So so that's the
way we need these other guys to get.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Cats are coming off a holiday break, played on the
twenty third, and now not playing again until the game
tomorrow down in Tuscaloosa.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
So I guess it's about twelve days.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
And Goose Coach Hall, the coach for whom you played,
he had to deal with questions about something that came
to be known as the January slump. Now, I was
just looking back you guys, other than your sophomore year
when just you'd you know, it was more like the
veterans that you had lost, Like you guys start a
conference play with three straight losses, but seventy five, seventy seven,
(11:49):
seventy eight, you guys had no January slump. But that
came to be a thing in the later seventies, in
the eighties for Joe where for whatever reason, maybe it
was the schedule that they played leading into the league,
but they came out of the gate sometimes a little slow,
and it came to be known as the January slump.
What's the key to avoiding a January slump early January slump?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
Well, I think the reason you don't see it quite
so much nowadays as we did is that we have
so many veterans on the team, guys who understand. You know,
when you have a lot of freshmen on the team
and they're not used to playing these long schedules, and
all of a sudden, you've played twenty two games, and
(12:32):
you know you didn't play that many your whole high
school season, and you hit twenty two and you got
ten more to go. You know, it is like a
running into a wall. I mean, you just want to
go and you want to do it. But it's just
so different nowadays with all the vets and guys who've
(12:53):
been around and been there and done that, you don't
see it quite so much. But it does happen. I
don't know that it happens with this team because we
haven't had guys together long enough to kind of figure
out who we are and to get comfortable. So I
don't look for this team to go in to a slump.
I want to get healthy. I want j Lo to
(13:17):
get more time on the floor so he can get
in top condition. I want Jade Quaintance to get more
time on the floor so he can get in top condition.
And when you're still running hard and needing to do that,
it kind of takes away some of that concern that
you're going to run into a slump.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
We're talking with a goose Jack Gibbings, and we'll continue
to visit here in just a moment, about twenty two
past the top of the hour, coming to you from
the Clark's Pumping Shop studio. Return, refresh and refuel at Clark's.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
It's Leech Reports and we are presented each day by
Bob Kat Enterprises. We're talking with a goose Jack Gibbings
ahead of Kentucky's sec opener tomorrow at Alabama. I guess
the goose they just need to do what the women
did last night down at Number five. L s U
went on the road.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
Well, it was fun. It was fun watching watching that
game last night, didn't I was. I heard you talking
about it, and I was a lot like you. I
just kept saying, man, they just not going to be
able to get over the hump. They Kentucky would come
down the women and they would make a couple of
shots and cut it to three, and then all of
a sudden, LSU would come back down and they'd make
(14:26):
two or three in a row and push it back
out to seven. But when Kentucky finally found and went
ahead a point or two before LSU put together another
little running went up, it just didn't seem like it.
The thing I noticed about that last shot was that
(14:47):
the LSU defense switched, so she had a big on her,
bigger than than her, She had a beg on her,
and she had to shoot that thing up high man
to get it over the d defense. She wanted to
give it up, but they LSU did a good job defensively.
But that shot, I know, Darren, I heard the call
(15:09):
was huge. Was was hugely exciting about that, excited about
calling that. But the fact is it was a tough,
tough shot. Yeah, and it didn't hit anything but the
bottom man it was. It was a gorgeous shot.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So what are some of the keys that you're looking
at for Kentucky tomorrow to do the same, get a
ranked win on the road to start league play.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
For the men.
Speaker 5 (15:33):
Well, I'm want Kentucky to go in ano this game
understanding that Yeabama is a is a good team. There's
no question about it. They're a good team, but it's
a team Kentucky can can beat. I mean, Alabama obviously
shoots a bunch of threes and Kentucky's going to have
(15:53):
to get out there and defend the three point line.
But they also they also give up opportunities to score.
I think Alabama averages thirty six percent from behind the
three point line, but they give up thirty two percent,
So if Kentucky gets hot, they they can do that.
Alabama averages forty one rebounds a game, but the opposition
(16:17):
this year has averaged forty one rebounds against them, so
it's not like they're totally dominating. And Alabama average is
what ninety points a game, but they've given up big
numbers as well at times, and teams have averaged like
eighty three points against them. So you should be able
to score if you do your stuff, But you have
(16:37):
to go into that game knowing that you can beat them.
You can't be intimidated going into that. I don't expect
Kentucky to be intimidated, but you certainly can't be intimidated
going in to play them there.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
They did a really nice job on Otega last year.
That was his first game we Kentucky lost down there
in February, was the first game Otega didn't score a
double five figures, and then he struggled again in the
SEC tournament loss. So what's he needed to do against
the way Obama guards him?
Speaker 5 (17:08):
You know, it's interesting because that's one thing Alabama and
Natoats will do. They will pick one guy and they
will totally try to take that one guy out of
anything he wants to do. And it was Otaga last year.
And the thing that made it successful was that some
(17:32):
other guys who Kentucky usually got big games from didn't
have big game, big games. So I think it's a
balance of stuff that has to happen. Number one, Otaga
has and the team has to understand he doesn't have
to get twenty five for them to win. Okay, so
Otaga if he's able to get his twelve to fifteen
(17:54):
and Cam makes three or four threes and then you
get Jay doing what he does, everybody contributing, that's the
way to do it. Oh wait, may not because he
might be the man again and you might understand you
got to realize that Moe Diabat was the guy who
stopped him. So now they're playing together, so.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
That might help Ghost. Thank you much, See you soon. Okay, Tom,
it's the Late Triport. We'll be right back twenty six
away from the top of the hour. It's the Leach.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Report, presented each day by Bobcat Enterprises for locations around
the state. That's who you call when you need to
buy or rent, have the equipment, excavators, loaders, Bobcats, et cetera.
Bobcat Enterprises. Mike, of course he joins us. You read
him at Supporting News dot Com. On x it's at
TSN Mike. He's on the Big Ten network, does the
(18:46):
brackets for Fox Sports college basketball coverage. But before we
talk college hoops as we do each Friday, I'm talking
a little college football mic because of what the Indiana
Hoosiers are doing. Just demolished Alabama yesterday in the Rose Bowl,
and that you know, Kentucky has a new coach down
(19:06):
in will Stein. For teams like Kentucky that aspired to
jump up the college football ladder and other teams like that,
Indiana is the beacon of hope.
Speaker 6 (19:19):
Right, yes, yes, it is it's proof that that it
isn't just your brand. That when when when Kurt Signetti
walked into Indiana, but I guess exactly two decembers ago,
so it would have been twenty five months ago. There
was Indiana's established brand was the literal worst power for
(19:44):
football program of all the worst, more red than anybody. Yes,
yes there there Now people might say, well, Vandy and
an SEC and that kind of changed too. It just
shows you that that being shrewd in the portal. A
lot of people now who are on the other side
(20:04):
of the big ten sec fence are saying, well, it's
clearly all about money. Well it's clearly not, because even
if you think that Indiana spent a lot of money,
they didn't spend you know, they didn't spend a fraction
as much as Alabama did. Alabama, Yeah, OHI of State
(20:25):
and they beat both of those in their last two
games exactly. So it shows that you have to be shrewd,
you have to be smart. Indiana is still going out
there now. I mean they did that yesterday thirty eight
to three, I think was the final with no five
star players from the original recruiting class when they were
in high school, none zero, and I think only a
(20:46):
less than less than a handful less than a full
handful of four star guys. They're almost all three star
to zero star players. So it's about being shrewd valueuating
those who have already been misevaluated getting the right coach. Clearly,
Kurt Signetti a special and one of the really cool
(21:08):
things about this Tom is that is that Kurt worked
really his entire career. He's a few years younger than
I am, like sixty two, I think he is now.
I mean, he didn't get to be a Power five,
power four head coach until he was pushing sixty, and
now he is at the very top. I mean, he's
still got to win two more games, but for now,
(21:31):
he's a two time Coach of the Year for Sporting
News and several other selectors, the Big Ten champion, the
Rose Bowl champion. And I think that's the most remarkable
element of this is that he was hiding in plain sight,
as they say, for thirty years, and nobody at that
big time level hired him to be a head coach.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
He coach.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Signetti does not lack for confidence, but what Indiana was
in here play for the basketball game. A couple of
weeks ago, I was talking to Don Fisher, who for
years through us having these two jobs and a great guy,
great broadcaster, and we were talking a little bit about
that and Signetta and he said, you know, part, he said,
part of that is because he had to build interest
(22:13):
in the program and just to give get people excited.
And you know, Indiana fans didn't have a whole lot
of reason to hope that they could do things like this.
So that's part of what the why he is the
way he is in this role.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Yeah, and it began with his press conference where he
had to sort of convince everybody that he wasn't just
some guy from you know, with that had won at
a mid major level. He was trying to say, look,
wherever I've been, we'd won. And that includes time as
a significant part of Alabama's operation when they were winning
(22:47):
national championships under under Nick Shape, and he was their
recruiting coordinator. And I don't remember exactly which position or
element of the of the game he coached, but sure
it was on the offensive side. But he was the
recruiting coordinator for several years and they were bringing in
big time players and evaluating the right big time players
because they were going on and winning games, and then
he went I talked to Don about this a couple
(23:10):
of weeks ago when I was writing the story about
Kurt being the new coach of the repeat Coach of
the Year, the first ever we've been giving our award
since nineteen sixty three. Tom Darryl Royal from Texas wanted
in sixty three, and Darryl is one of three or
four guys who've won it twice, but nobody had ever
wanted in consecutive years until Kurt Signetti. Because the Coach
(23:33):
of the Year is kind of a subjective award, you
can sort of spin that however you think is best.
And so to do it two years in a row
to the same person, that person has to leave no
other choice, and he did. He went from nowhere in
the middle of the picture and then or at the
top of the picture, but not at the top of
(23:54):
the game, and then he went from there to the
top of the picture. And that in two years is
just astonishing.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Mike of Coursey Sportingnews dot Com, it's shift gears to
college hoops now. And you also do the brackets for
Fox Sports, and I know you did one. I think
preseason is the first. One's coming up soon, isn't it that?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Do you do?
Speaker 1 (24:18):
We?
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Actually, we actually did our first real bracket, let's call
it the the not too early bracket, was on Tuesday,
and I had the Wildcats as a seventh seed at
that point.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
So look that up at at tsaid Mike on X
and you could see that. Should have done that myself.
Speaker 6 (24:40):
That's all right. There'll be another coming today as well.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Is there will be two a week from here on.
Speaker 6 (24:44):
Out, Yes, two a week from here on out.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
So how much could Kentucky improve with a win to
start league play at number fourteen Alabama tomorrow?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Oh?
Speaker 6 (24:56):
I mean they could jump the whole. They could jump
the whole. It depends on what the others do, obviously,
but they could jump the whole six and five lines.
If they were to win that game, possibly it would
be that important because it would it would first of all,
it would be a huge quad one road win that
very few others could have replicated at this point. I mean,
it would the only other team I think that's got
(25:18):
a road win like that to this point the season
is Nebraska going into Illinois and winning that. Pretty much
everything else that's been accomplished on a big time level
has been neutral or the occasional road win, the occasional
excuse me, the occasional home win. I guess also, I'm sorry.
Also Arizona at Yukon, that would be the very top
(25:40):
of the heap. But we're not worried about Arizona because
they're all the way up at the top of the
of the of the bracket. They're the number one overall seed,
so they could potentially climb that far with a win tomorrow.
It would take some going through it, but that's how
that's that's how much this could mean for content, and
(26:00):
it's it's a really difficult thing for them to do
as they, you know, as they're sort of still still
at the very beginning of their evolution as this Kentucky team.
Now that they've got Jaden, now that they've settled on
what they think their point guard rotation is going to be,
I think that that would be a huge thing to ask,
(26:23):
but a huge achievement if you could get it.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
We'll talk more about the matchup when we come right back.
It's the Friday edition of the League Report. Mike de
Coursey's with us from Sportingnews dot Com and we'll be
right back.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
But he's really hard to contain. He's so great off
the bounce. And I'll tell you the thing that I
don't think he gets enough credit for. Maybe he does, but.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
He is an elite, elite, elite level playmaker off the
bounce man that Smark Pope, And he was talking about
Lebaronfylon from Alabama, who I think most everybody thought was
headed to the draft and he's back for a second
season with the Tide. Is Mike Thecursey's with us from
Sportingnews dot Com. Didn't play filon on Monday night when
(27:04):
they won over Yale, but he's been a dynamic player
for them, averaging almost twenty two a game. And you
know see a lot of guys that, especially for the
top teams, that you know, average twenty or better. But
he is scoring it at a high level. As coach
Pope said, can set up his teammates as well. Talk
to us, Mike about what Kentucky has to do against
(27:27):
him assuming he plays tomorrow, and then what are some
of the other keys.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
Well, it starts with him because he not only is
averaging twenty basically twenty two a game, but also averaging
nearly six assists a game. So he is he is
the driver of the entire offense, and he has been
consistently good, consistently great, I guess would be more fair
(27:53):
and more accurate over the course of this year. Whereas
Aiden Holloway, who also drives a lot of their offense,
the very bad core heavy offense, he's been a little
bit spotty. I mean, I guess that's harsh again because
he's averaging seventeen and four. I mean, you can't complain
about that, but I mean, he played twenty one minutes
against Arizona and didn't score, so I mean he has
(28:15):
had moments where he wasn't quite great. He wasn't great
against Illinois in their first game. He didn't shoot the
ball well against Gonzagas. So the problem for Kentucky is
that you have to stop two really dynamic playmaking guards
at once. And obviously Kentucky has one high level defensive
(28:39):
player in their backcourt in Denzel Aberdeen, but when Jalen
Lowe's playing, he's not a great defender, so that's part
of the problem. Jasper when he plays, is only a
freshman of Colin is not super dynamic. So those are
the finding the ability to stop both of them at once,
(29:01):
I think is or slow both of them at once
is Kentucky's problem against Alabama. I would think that you
put Denzel on La Baron and just try to mitigate
him as much as possible. But one way might be
to put him on Aiden Holloway and try to get
one of those shut out type games against him and
(29:24):
make him struggle a lot. And even though Filon's gonna
do damage and score. I mean, as McK cronin once
told me that in blowout games, someone's going to score
the points, and this obviously isn't going to be that.
Speaker 5 (29:38):
But somebody's gonna put up.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
Points for Alabama in this game. But if Filon puts
up twenty five or thirty and no one else is effective,
then you've got a shot. So maybe the best thing
is to go ahead and let him for much of
the game play and then just shut down all his
options offensively and and make it so that, Okay, he's
(30:02):
going to score twenty five thirty, but the rest of
these guys are all going to shoot forty percent from
the field and at the end of the day will
have more buckets than them. I mean that that would
be one way to approach this.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
Mark Pope on Monday night on his radio show An Interesting,
He's a you know, we know he likes the analytics
and the numbers, and he was talking about that the
stat that most last season correlated to winning was rim
protection and Kentucky's figures to improve significantly with Jaden Quaintan's
(30:39):
being on the floor now for longer stretches. Pope said,
there's a Monday that they're very close to a point
where JQ doesn't have to have a minute's restriction. Oh great,
so he can block shots and alter shots, as we
saw in that Saint John's game, And I have to
think that's a big plus in a matchup like this
because Nate oates offense. It's we always hear is it's
(31:00):
either threes or at the rim and nothing in between.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
Right exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
UH.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Rim protection is so huge, and I often see UH
projections at the beginning of the year of people saying, Okay,
this team's gonna win it all. I Purdue got that
a lot this year, A lot of teams, a lot
of a lot of media selected to win it all.
And my first thought was, yeah, but a year ago,
they had nobody to block shots, and they brought in
(31:26):
a big guy who is not a shot blocker, who
makes them better because he's taller than the players they
had before. But he doesn't uh, he doesn't, you know,
I think he was a less than a one point
one block a game guy in his mid major Oscar cluff.
You if you if you're gonna win the biggest games,
you have to have rim protection. That you just can't
(31:49):
win the national championship without that guy. So it shows
you how important it can be. I'm not saying Jayden
makes Kentucky a national championship threat, but I'm saying that
that his ability to guard the lane, guard the rim
is an absolute game changer. He makes it hard to
attack your lane. He makes it hard to attack your rim.
(32:14):
He takes the other teams shooting percentage down, and sometimes
the difference between winning and losing is simply taking somebody
from shooting forty five percent from the floor to shooting
forty two, or shooting forty three to shooting forty. It
can be that subtle when games are this close, and
that's why having a player like him, who is among
(32:36):
the best in the country, especially when he's fit and healthy,
he's among the very best in the country in that department.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Was looking back at the three games Alabama loss to Produe, Gonzaga,
and Arizona, and in all three they were dominated of
the board's double digit margins for the winning team, and
they gave up, in particular to Gonzaga and Arizona a
ton of offensive rebounds. So, especially with Quaintance and now
the Abate back and being on Kentucky side, those those
(33:09):
areas that Kentucky has to maximize. It seems like in
a matchup like this where there's you know, it's not
Mark Pope's kind of team that he's typically had where
you might get in a three point shootout with Alabama.
So this is more of a contrasting styles, and so
you have to maximize what your pluses are and try
to minimize what theirs.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
Are, right well, one hundred percent. And one of the
interesting things about this is that we saw Kentucky try
to play full court, open, let's go in to end
with Louisville and it didn't work very well. And when
they have played a more controlled style, they have gotten
their better wins. Not necessarily you know, slow down, but
(33:50):
more control. I mean, Saint John's was an under eighty win,
Indiana was an under eighty win, and they played very
well in the Carolina game. At times it was under
seventy in that game. Alabama is a really hard team
to slow down in any sense. I mean that, even
the teams that have beaten them it was in the
eighties and nineties, it's hard to slow Alabama down. So
(34:14):
you're gonna have to probably be content with playing a
little bit faster than you want, but it's still an
imperative that they bring the tempo of this game down
as much as possible, because again, that's where your your
great ability with Jalen in terms of slicing and dicing
on the pick and roll. That's where it's accelerated. It's
(34:37):
where Jaden's ability to defend the rim is accelerated. It's
where your better shooters are most comfortable, you know, more
half court style. So I think if you can keep
this game in the below eighty five for the winner,
I think that that's a very important element for Kentucky
as well.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Yeah, interesting you use that number.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I was doing my prep yesterday and one of the
numbers I looked up since the end of the twenty
three season. So that includes the Final four run, the
Elite eight run for Bama last season, and they in
what's that probably got to be somewhere close to eighty
or ninety games on the exact number five and eleven.
(35:21):
It's only happened sixteen times and they've lost eleven of them,
so that is a but it's clearly hard to get
them under eighty.
Speaker 6 (35:32):
Yeah, it is, it really is, There's no doubt. I mean,
Purdue beat them. They at Perdue doesn't often go to
eighty seven. They're not They're a great offensive team, but
they don't often go that high. Gonzaga went to ninety
five and Arizona went to ninety six, and none of
those teams usually plays at that level. So it does
take a little bit. But I mean we have seen
(35:54):
teams that have kept them down a little bit. It's
just really hard to keep them to a low number
because they will go fast no matter what, and they
will live with whatever, with whatever the outcome might be.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Yeah, probably under eighty five is the more realistic goal.
I would think, as you mentioned, Mike, appreciate the time.
We'll look for the brackets and all the coverage at TSN,
Mike and Sporting News dot com and we'll talk to
you next Friday.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
Happy New Year, Thanks Tom, Happy New Year to you.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
That is Mike de Coursey joins us on Friday's here
on the Leech Report. We'll get to a quick break,
come back and close out this edition of the show
just a moment. Final segment of The Leach Report, presented
by Bobcat Enterprises. Another great partner for a long time
for us has been Cornbread Hemp and they have some
products that they are closing out and so you can
get some great deals on those right now at cornbreadhemp
(36:46):
dot com. Making room for some of the new products
that are popular. All they're infused gummies seltzers that have
been such big hits for you guys. The sleep gummies
are fantastic. So check it all out at cornbreadhemp dot com.
Sign up for a subscription to get your regular wellness
(37:07):
program started here in twenty twenty six. Good time to
turn over that new leaf, so Cornbradhemp dot com. Michelle
Knesick colleague and the UK Sports that she had a
great post on X that Coach Brooks represents all of
BBN in this moment, and it's the highlight of Tony
Morgan's game winner, and down in the lower right corner
(37:29):
you can see Kenny Brooks's reaction, and she's right. I'm
sure there were fans that had the same kind of reaction.
He leaps with both arms extended into the air with
two fists thrust up into the air, down at the
p MAC and baton rouge and then he pumps his
fist there on the right arm about three or four
times as he's looking down toward the LSU side. Not
(37:51):
so much I think taunting LSU is just being excited,
and everybody else was to a what a finish this
day A wow Cat History Present about a Tentucky Roads Show,
Sports cards and Memorabilia. Two thousand and nine, Kentucky won
the Liberty Bowl over East Carolina twenty five to nineteen,
three straight ball wins for the first time in school history.
Happy Birthday, Randolph Morris irv. Thomas KIRKRISA well, see you
(38:12):
tomorrow or see you Monday on the Leach Report. Have
a great weekend, everybody
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