June 2, 2025 • 52 mins
In the third hour, Dick Fain chats with Gregg Bell about his Alaska trip and Seahawks OTAs, then listens to the sign-offs from the final Inside the NBA on TNT show after the Eastern Conference Final, and talks to Mike DeCourcy about the NCAA tourney future.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rolling in the five o'clock hour.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Our friend Greg Bell is back from the Great North.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
How you doing, Greg, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tell me about tell me about Alaska and visiting your
daughter there, and how close did you actually come to
those eight hundred pound Kodiak bears.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
It's incredible. I've been to. I am married to a
type of woman who we had our honeymoon backpacking into Dolly. Okay,
so right, so I've been to Alaska, but I've never
been to Kodiak Island. We went to a crab Fest,
the annual celebration they have there when we first got there.
My daughter's doing summer training in the Coast Guard at
(00:44):
the air Station Kodiak. There. It was an amazing experience.
I mean, it truly is still the last Frontier. We
went to Katmi National Park, and I don't know if
anyone's ever listening, ever ever been there. You can only
boat or fly in floatplane in there. And we chartered
a tour guide in a floatplane to fly in there.
(01:04):
Because we've been hiking all over the island and driving
all over the island. It's only like forty miles a
road of a thousand square mile island. Trying to find
bears all week and this isn't the salmon haven't started
running up the streams yet and the rivers, so they're Yeah,
so they're up in the hills. So we were even
(01:24):
hiking up mountains trying to find these guys. So my
wife said, we're doing it. I don't know if forever
get back here. Let's charter a plane and go to Katmai,
and man, are we glad we did? It was an
incredible experience. I probably got within a quick slant route
of grizzly bears about fifteen yards ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If they run after you, you're they're fast than you are.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, exactly. Had we had a guide, I was getting nervous.
My kids were there. This is far enough, but this guide.
She's been doing it for thirty years, seeing her husband.
If anyone ever goes their seat aptly named Seahawk Air
out of Kodiak flies their floatplane they own there. He
had to stay on the plane because the tides rolling
(02:09):
and out so suddenly there that you don't want your
plane sandbard and you can't get out, okay till the
tide change again. So she's stayed in the plane. Well,
she walked us, and we walked up on these two
brown bears that were actually mating when we got there,
and I said, oh, that's the wrong time to show up.
And then she says, look, we'll walk as a pack.
(02:30):
Six of us walk as one, and we will walk
in sideways. And then whenever the bears would stop and
look at us, she'd say, okay, crouch down, and it
showed the bears that we weren't threatening, and they they
would eventually gain trust and then resume doing whatever they're doing,
it eventually eating right. And then she said that she's
(02:52):
been there so many times over thirty years that those
bears know her by smell and by sight, and so
they trust her. And I said, well, you know that
doesn't help us, because we just got here exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It won't go out for you. They'll go after me.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And she said, you just keep doing what I'm saying,
and travel is one. And if they look up and
stare at us and you drop down to your knees
and show that you're not confronting them, that eventually they'd
go to trust you. And they did. And then we
started to walk and they were not even paying attention
to us. We walked within fifteen twenty yards of them, Dick,
and they didn't look at it.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That is unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Man, it was.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I would love to do that, but also I would
need an out.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I would need like some jeep to run into that
was closer to me than the bear was. But oh man,
that is fantastic. Well I'm glad you got to go
up there and see your daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's that. That is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And now it's and now it's back to work and
it's you know, but it was seventy degrees out today
for ots. Before we talk about what you saw, I
want to I want to throw this out at you.
PFF did their roster rankings and we talked about on
the show last week when you were gone, and they
had the Seahawks ranked as the number twenty two roster
(04:04):
in the NFL, and I was like, wow, I mean,
I figured, you know, we all thought this team was
going to be pretty good. Are you surprised they had
him as the twenty second best roster? And if they
are truly the twenty second best roster, is that a
bit of a condemnation on how John Schneider's built this
football team, because it's not like he's had to pay
a quarterback a lot of money in the last three
(04:26):
or four years, so he shouldn't have the twenty second
best roster.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, I'm not surprised, Dick, because first of all, we're
in southwest of Southeast Alaska, is.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right, just no Kodiak bears here, but yes, we are
still in Southeast Alas southwest Alasta.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
You're right, and as soon as you over just jettison
all your quarterbacks and start over at the most important
position with a guy that a lot of people in
the league think is just a one year wonder that
they're so skeptical on to say, well, yeah, Sam Donald
was fourteen to three last year, but look what the
Lions did him. Look at the Rams him in the playoffs,
and he just had one good year so far in
(05:03):
his career. They're not sold on the team overhauling itself
at the most important position. I agree with the skepticism.
I think they got worse at quarterback. I think that
Gino Smith now long term, they got better, especially with
the youth. The fact that they're actually going to pay
less to Sam Donald than they're gonna would have paid
(05:24):
Gino Smith at his age going on thirty five age
thirty five season, but in the present they got worse
at quarterback. I think Geno Smith overall is better in
the now than Sam Donald.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Even the system, because the system seems to tailor directly
with Donald.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Well, it became a part and parcel deal right once
Geno Smith asked for so much money that they handpicked
the replacement to be a guy that the new offensive coordinator,
Clint Kubiac system would work best better with than that
is Sam Donald. But when when you haven't won a
playoff game in so many years? They when you haven't
reached the end title game or past the second round
(06:02):
in a decade, and when you overhaul you have a
rookie head coach, and now you have an overhauled offense
with their third offensive system in three years, and a
quarterback who a lot of people around the league don't
believe in other than a one year wonder. I get
the perception of the twenty second They're not the twenty
second best roster. No, this defense was top five over
the ladder half last season after Ernest Jones arrived. This
(06:24):
defense is still the strength of the team. They can
win a lot of games with the defense they have
if they can get the damn running game going, and
regardless of how Sam Donn played now, eventually a quarterback
position will sink of swim you. But defense and running
the ball the way they want to, they can go
a long way with that. Then, I mean, I saw
(06:46):
I formation student body right sweeps.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so we were talking to you about Dalyss.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, tell me what you saw, because you threw up
the numbers for us earlier last hour.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
He said, you know, we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Going from a Ryan Grubb offense, which which did I
formation less than one percent of the time, to Kobiak,
who was almost a quarter of every play.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Was I formation, Yes, the first two plays of the
first two sessions of eleven and eleven, the first offense
ran was I formation with Brady Russell as the fullback.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Kenny Mackin touches the tabl like they were giving Kenneth
Walker the day off of the scrimmage reps. He did,
he was on the field and participating in the position reps.
But they were I formation toss right. It looked like
Charles White in the nineteen eighty USC Trojan And we
haven't seen that here, and I mean I have to
go back to Max Strong to think about the last
time that they were in I formation under Mike Congran.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And mean he didn't running a lot. Then it was
like we gotta go back to Chuck Knox.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, we gotta be we gotta be Craig tossing
at the warner for I formation right the little John Eller.
You know, maybe I don't know who was doctor Dan
lead blocking or something like that.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
It is going to be different. And Mike McDonald has
said I tried to put them down a few times,
especially after they drafted oots from fullback from Alabama, tight
end from all they're going to make a fullback and
he said, you know what we're You're going to see
a lot of two back. I'm not going to tell
you it's going to be every down, but you're going
to see a lot of two back eye formation stuff.
(08:19):
And that alone is different. It's play action, rollouts and bootlegs.
It is a lot. It is. I mean, my first
day impression is it is so much different than Ryan
Greb is so much different than even Shane Waldron's offense.
It's so much different than any offense the Seahawks I've
had here in the last two decades. We'll see how
much they do the two back step, but they're going
(08:39):
to do it a lot in training camp because to
install it and get that mentality change, and it is
going to look different. And when you turn on the
TV and watch preseason games, it's going to look different.
It's a whole new approach. But it takes a while
in this league. The league and the defensive coordinators don't
wait on you when you're starting over on offense. Just
(08:59):
like took half the season and Ernest Jones the tweaks
at middle linebacker to fix the defense last year, it's
going to take a while, well into the season for
this offense to be what they think it'll be this year.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So is it, you know, just trying to grind down
the defense, win the time of possession battle, win these games?
Fourteen thirteen, seventeen thirteen? Is that going to be the
mo for this football team this year?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Not necessarily. I mean, if you remember early in September
last year, before the Saints had all there are tons
of injuries at offensive line and wide receiver and eventually quarterback.
They were scoring forty points a game in September last
year they went in and the Clint Kubak's offense went
in and scored forty plus in Dallas and killed the Cowboys.
It's not as though they're just trying to grind it down,
(09:44):
but they are trying to establish the run first. This
is a contract year for Kenneth Walker, in a really
big one, and he's going to get ample opportunity to
get a huge new contract, whether it's here in Seattle
or somewhere else. In this new offense, it was they
didn't even try to run a certain points lest I
can think of the Packers game late. I can think
(10:04):
of the Rams home game late when the end zone intercepts.
Everyone remembers the hundred three yard return that Tino Smith threw,
but they did that in the red zone because they
just decided they could not run. Can they finally run
the ball this year? Can this offensive line it is
being remade. I mean today the first round rookie, first
round at grays Abel was the starting left guard from
the first play. It is going to be different on
(10:27):
the offensive line. Can this new offensive line run block
to me's besides all the other things, and Sam Darnold
and Cooper Cup and I'll do scantly. Can they run
the ball? And that goes to the new offensive line
and what they do up front. That's the key to
their season offense.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So did Olu primarily play center? And who do we
have a right guard?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Bradford?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah, Jensen will get some time. But alternately, again it
was Christy Haynes that right guard and the first and
Anthony Bradford later on got some reps alternating in it
right guard, but it was noticeable that Christian Yanes was
starting at right guard to begin the practice and the
Corset Lucas has had his first healthy offseason as an
NFL player. He was at right tackle on the left
(11:13):
tackle Charles Cross going in to what is now going
to be the next to last year that they picked
up the fifty year contract option, so they're set at tackle.
The guards will still being determined. They drafted Grey's Abel
in the first round to be the starter there. I'd
look at Jalon Sendell as a strong possibility of starting
at center over with Timmy. Of course, we all know
Timmy starting at the end of last year only because
(11:34):
Connor Williams just stopped them left and retired at the
age of twenty seven. In the year, but they aren't
sold on ol Timmy and it wouldn't surprise me. They
keep talking about Jalen Sindell, North Dakota State undrafted rookie
last year and how this offense fits him specifically better
than it did last year.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
At center, fifth round pick, wide receiver Tory Horton was
was back.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Is he one hundred? Is he still limited on what
he can do out there?
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Hey, you're living in me? Was returning punts, He was
doing change of direction drills in an open field tackle drill,
the kind of stuff, the drills and cuts you wouldn't
see a guy make if he wasn't full go. And
that was cleared. He missed most of last season the
color to stay with the knee injury. But yeah, all
signs all look good there. My first impression is at quarterback.
(12:18):
I just put the story out of the News Tribune
dot com. Everyone's gonna ask about that. Let me put
the caveat public. It's only June, right, and it's not
contact nopads. But Donald had a tough day and at
one point his offensive coordinator let him know about it
pretty loudly between plays while he was standing in the huddle.
He got picked off by Jordan Love cutting in front
(12:40):
of Cooper Cup in the end zone. Two plays later
a second interception in three plays Josh Job, who was
playing outside right corner, starting at right corner when they
moved Witherspoon inside, jumping out wrapped by Jackson Smith and
Jigger for a second interception. Trew Locke looked really good
and particular some throws a rolling left and throwing back
(13:02):
across his body. One was twenty five yards of Stephen Simms,
the former Baltimore Ravens veteran wide receiver, towed the sidelines
twenty five yards on a rollout left and John Schneider,
the GM had to come over and look at the
video board that along as sidelines here to make sure
that he believe what he saw, and when he saw
the replay kind of explained his approval of that throw
(13:24):
by Lock. But Lock looked really good. Touchdowns on consecutive
plays in the red zone, including Cody White and a
really nice throw over the middle Jalen Milroe. I mean again,
it's first impression, but he was as advertised, he needs
help in Accuracyana is throwing. He was overthrown two or
three He overthrew two or three guys to start the scrimmage,
(13:45):
one with three yards over the receiver in the back
of the end zone. That's a project. That's something that
Andrew johnco in, the new quarterbacks coach and Clint Kubiak
have a couple of years to develop him. I've said
I had written it, Dick, but it's really a two
year contract for Sam Darnold. The way the money structured
and how backloaded it is money wise, They've got two
(14:07):
years to find out if they want to give him
a third or even a fourths assists and another deal.
And that's two years of how long they have you
could save.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
With Milroe going.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
But Threw Locke was offto an impressive start today.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Defensively, I saw PFF named Tyresee Knight the guy they
expect to improve more than any other linebacker in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What do you think overall this defense?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, there's no like superstar in the front seven,
but it seems to be pretty solid with a little
bit of depth as well.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm really impressed by Ernest Jones and what he was
for them last year. I haven't seen a guy, a
singular player change a unit in Seattle and maybe in
a decade a singular guy to come in and make
that pick of an impression to bench into trade. You're
starting inside linebackers in the span of a week because
of how good a Ernest Jones was upon arrival. He
(15:02):
transformed them and that's why they gave him the new contract.
He's exactly what Mike McDonald wants, both in recognizing defenses,
calling and out communicating, and most of all being assertive
and getting into running lanes. I mean, guys went down
when he hit him last year and early in the
season when they had Dotson and Baker, guys would drag
(15:23):
the middle linebackers two or three or seven yards. When
Jones hits guys, they go straight down. And that's the
difference between second and one or two in second eight.
And that's what Ernest Jones brings them, and he, to
me transformed them. They now they've added Dexter Lawrence on
Marcus Lawrens on top of the defensive line that they
(15:45):
already think is very good with Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy.
Jared Reid is back and I asked him today. It
was noticeable to me that he was here for these
voluntary OTAs, and he says it's really important for me
to be here to gail with these coaches. That it's
the second year for these coaches, and the players really
think they are way ahead of they were at this
(16:05):
time last year. And the players got together and said
it's important to be here. Pretty much everybody's here, Yeah,
and I can't remember. I mean, Ernest Jones didn't practice,
but was doing conditioning. Jos before practice began. Ken and
Wosu was here, was doing some conditioning, but they didn't practice.
But they're all here. And tickets really rare, even when
(16:27):
times are great for teams to have this much I mean,
almost one hundred percent participation in the offseason OTAs.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Now, the camaraderie, the vibe seem seems very very good. Hey,
before we let you go. The Seahawks and the Bucks
are kind of using different tactics to try to keep
season ticket holders from reselling their tickets. I mean, the
Seahawks using the stick a little bit, saying they are
discouraging people from reselling their tickets, potentially impacting their renewal eligibility.
(16:54):
And the Tampa Bay Bucks are like, hey, if you
just sit in your seat, all year. We'll give you
like one hundred bucks to spend it at a spend
of the concession stands.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So you, aside from getting more wins.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
At home, is there any way that the Hawks can
ensure a higher percentage of fans actually attend their games?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Hawks fans their games?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Well, First of all, I saw that what the Buckeers
were doing. It was fifty dollars to team the credit
how much the NFL season tickets are They need more
than fifty dollars? Type people to shut up. But the
Seahawks would do it well by not increasing season tickets
on a year that they missed the playoffs a second consecutive. Yeah,
(17:35):
let's start there. And they need to not sell to
brokers who it's not just these ticket holders who are
reselling tickets behind the visiting ends up. Ticket brokers own
those and so they're already going to be marked up
from the get go because of who owns some of
those seeds. The ticket brokers are smart. They bought the
tickets behind the visiting teams benches knowing that visiting team
(17:57):
fans would want to sit in those and that they're
willing to pay a huge premium on those tickets. But
I don't blame season ticket holders who are getting price
hikes to them for a team that missed the playoffs
three of the last four years and then know that
they can recoup fifty percent of their value in one
game because some cheesehead that moved from Wisconsin wants to
see the Packers. How can you blame them for selling
(18:20):
those And so I know you said as a decided
besides the fact of winning, the way to fix this
is to win, to not go four and five at
home and make the playoffs and have home playoff games.
You do that for a year or two and you
watch how packed this is. We never had this discussion
when they went to back to back Super Bowls because
they won it hold at home all the time. Yeah,
(18:41):
it's a bad combo to not win, to miss the playoffs,
and then hike your season ticket prices again and have
the people keep paying it. I mean, it's not like
it's eighty one games like the Mariners are. Yeah, and
they're paying for eight home games plus two preseason games
that they're forced to pay for that no one wants
to go to, and at regular season prices, it ain't
(19:04):
exactly a fan friendly environment to buy season tickets at
the prices that they charge more power to fans. We
can give me coop some of the costs that they've
lost it to pay for these.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Hey, great stuff, It's great to have you back. I'm
glad you're back with two arms and two legs. I'm
assuming you still have two arms and two legs and
I've been ripped off Kodiak bear up in Alaska.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
All right, thanks man, we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
All right, Thank you. I actually hosted tomorrow morning for Bucky,
so I'll be on tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
We'll tune in from six to ten tomorrow morning. Thanks, Greg,
appreciate it. Thanks, Thanks you've met Greg Bell coming on
tomorrow morning from six to ten with Buck love It
five twenty two On ninety three point three kJ R
f M. We got a little Pope Pirie coming up.
Seahawks continuing their OTAs the thunder, the seventh biggest favorite
(19:55):
in NBA history at minus seven hundred. What kind of
chances do we give the beloved Indiana Pacers our team
for the next two weeks to knock them off. We'll
talk that about that as well. Coming up on ninety
three point three KJRFM.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Pod casting live from the R and R Foundation Specialist
Broadcast Studio. Now back to Saftie and Dig powered by
Emerald Queen Casino, the Betty and Capital of the Northwest
on Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Mike de Course, he's gonna join us in about a
half an hour, our friend that we talked to on
a weekly basis. When college basketball is hot and heavy
in February, in March, why are we having him on
in June. Well, there is a lot of smoke out there,
Jackson about expanding the NCAA tournament from sixty eight to
(20:49):
potentially seventy two or even seventy six.
Speaker 7 (20:53):
Somebody grab a fire extinguisher and put out the smoke immediately.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's interesting though, it was kind of funny. I was
looking at you know, ESPN puts bracketology out basically twelve
months out of the year, so you can like go
to ESPN bracketology right now and they'll have bracketology for
next March. Guess who's the seventy second team in bracketology
right now?
Speaker 7 (21:16):
The seventy second, Yes, Washington, the Washington Huskies. So they'd
be in a seventy two team, but they'd be out
of a sixty eight team. Frankly, listen at that point, like,
I get it, we'll have a spot in the tournament.
I don't want it if it means diluting and making
a perfect This is a perfect product. Why do we
have to because of greed? Just say, let's get rid
(21:38):
of a perfect product. It's a if the NFL had
a perfect system. We had a perfect system, and then
we changed the whole thing for some stupid reason. Like
I always say, like the NFL system was so perfect
system to be talking about this system where we had
the two teams that with buys and then the couple
wild cards. No, we have to add a third wild
card for a full We can make more games, more money,
more money, more money. If these people can just stop
(22:02):
being so damn greedy and realize we have a perfect
system the way it is and stop just being so
money hungry.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Okay, well it's just I.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Mean, it's just gonna give us more Boise State against
Oklahoma State games on Tuesday before the turn.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
That's what it says. That's what it's gonna give us.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, we will have good basketball coming up because Mike's
gonna talk to us about that. He's also gonna talk
about he's a big Pacer fan, fallows the face that
pays very closely. I'm gonna ask him, do we have
a prayer? And yes, I am saying we when I'm
talking about the Indiana Pacer all, do we have a
chance to win the NBA Finals against the thunder Thunder
the seventh biggest favorite in NBA history at minus seven hundred.
(22:46):
By the way, the ninety six Sonics, as great as
they were, and that was a great basketball team that
bat ninety six Sonics would have beaten probably six, seven,
eight champions out of every ten years. They were that good.
But they just happened to face Night six polls. They
were minus nine to fifty going that series. I knew
they were underdogs. I didn't realize they were the third
(23:08):
biggest underdogs in the history of the of the NBA
playoffs two thousand one Lakers actually the biggest favorite. Shaq
and Kobe were minus two thousand. Is that the Nets?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
That was?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That was there was a Net series, but this was
the Philadelphia SI So that was the AI series that
they were minus two thousand.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But you know, I'm kind of torn on this.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You look at the numbers Oklahoma City straight up against
the East this year, they played the East thirty one times.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
They're twenty nine and two against the Eastern Conference straight up.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
I'm so sorry, say twenty nine and two straight up,
Oklahoma City is twenty nine two against Eastern conferences.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And then this is even this is even worse against
the spread. It'd be worse than that because it's this
is way harder than going twenty nine and two straight
up against the spread, which is supposed to take in
competitive balance into consideration. So you should be even if
you're really good, you should be barely over five hundred
against the spread. Yeah, twenty three six and two against
(24:09):
the spread, meaning not only was Oklahoma City winning games
against the East, they were covering and blowing teams out
against the East. So every if you would have bet
one hundred dollars on every Oklahoma City game against the
spread against the East, it would have paid fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
So ultimately, all of this is sort of saying, Seattle,
it's time to have a conversation that we need to
get ready for this.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Probably probably now, let me shed.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
A little bit of it means my wife to share therapist,
trying to give you a little bit of all please,
I need help, all right. The Pacers are going to
be the toughest team for the Thunder to defend in
the playoffs because they have so many different weapons at
so many different positions. The teams that Oklahoma City has
played thus far are a lot more one two guys
(25:00):
oriented right Karl Anthon Towns, Anthony Edwards or Joker Jamal Murray.
You know, they're like high pick and roll and they're
just so good at defending that type of game. Indiana
is gonna want to run. They were gonna want to
play fast. They're gonna want to score one hundred and
twenty five hundred and thirty points every single game. And
it's just gonna I'm not saying that they Oklahoma City
won't be able to shut them down. It's just gonna
(25:22):
be different than what they have seen so and and
Indiana's a different team now than the time they played
Oklahoma times they played Oklahoma City before. Indiana's got the
second best record to Oklahoma City in the playoffs since January,
Like these are truly even though Indiana was a four seed,
these are truly the two best teams in basketball since
(25:44):
the calendar turned to twenty twenty five. Oklahoma City's got
the number, is the best record. Indiana's got the second
best record. So you got you got that, And I
think that that style is gonna cause some problems for OKAC.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
So what, Here's what I think.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
If I were to have to put money on this,
I would probably put money on the money line for
Indiana because it's so out of whack. I just think
they're like plus five point fifty. Now I can get
five and a half to one on my money. I
just think I just can't.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I can't put.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Minus seven hundred on a team that has never won
a championship before and a team full of players that
have never been to a championship, Right, that's just hard
for me to do. I could probably do it with
a team that'd been there two or three times and
won a couple of championships, not this one. But there
is that reasonable percentage that it's just a blowout. So
(26:34):
maybe I'd sprinkle a little money on a sweep, sprinkle
a little money on a four to one Oklahoma City win, but.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
Then putting Okay, frankly just I'll stop you there. Putting
any money on Oklahoma City at all as a Seattle
fan is a mad decision. Well, it's called it's madman behavior.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, as a mad man behavior.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
Is just called hedging your No, it's just mad man behavior.
I mean, like, you know, what's so funny is sometimes
things are just louve to lose your money in that situation,
aside the betting thing. You know, sometimes I feel like
life is ironic just because life is sometimes, you know,
it's just it plays out certain ways and the irony
is just too perfect. It does feel like this is
(27:13):
one of those cases where as a Seattle fan, and
how many times have we said it in various sports
scenarios with our city, where well how about that isn't
that ironic about? And obviously it's very situational, but like
it feels like we're setting it up for to have
just the greatest of all to say, well, how about
isn't that ironic that the year Oklahoma City wins a
(27:33):
championship is the year that we officially get an expansion franchise.
It just feels like all the cards are gonna fall
and we're gonna be saying that exact sentence, come what
and by the end of the year for sure, because
we know the Borda governors are meeting to do the
expansion thing blah blah blah in July. So it just
feels like we're gonna be coming at the end of
the year saying, well, it all worked out in the end, Yes,
(27:55):
they won one, but at least we're getting a team.
And it's just it's kind of the only thing that's
making me okay with the fact that Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Is likely gonna win the whole damn.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thing and it's gonna be very painful for the next
two weeks, but then it come October. You know, we'll
have the border governors meeting in in July, which won't
that won't sign seal and deliver it.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But it'll take us down the road some more.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And then by October, I mean that's when I think
we'll be able to pop the champagne, and we really won't.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We won't be worried about.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
The thunder too much in October if we're really celebrating that, right,
I mean, this is just gonna be a short term thing.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's funny.
Speaker 7 (28:28):
I haven't really put myself in that October mindset yet,
because I'm just focused on the mindset of these next
two weeks. Yeah, I think that's a good that's a really,
really good thing for for Sonic fans to be in
the mindset of, Let's not focus on these next two
weeks because it's probably gonna be painful. Just think about
the mindset you're gonna have in October, because the reality is, folks,
this is happening. Yeah, We've We've had Bruce Harol, We've
(28:50):
had Adam Silver, everybody's this is happening, And let's just
try to stay in the October mindset because that's gonna
be wonderful for the next two weeks.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's gonna give it's gonna suck. Just show me in
game one, Pacers.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Just show me in game one that you're gonna make
this even if you lose Game one. Show me in
game one you're a tough guard. You're deep enough to
play with this team even if you lose. Give me
like one fifteen to one eleven, where I'm like, hey, nice, Okay,
maybe it's gonna be a series. That's all I'm asking
(29:23):
for from the Pacers, Right. We got some inside the
NBA good stuff coming up. We had a fun with
audio Part two because we had too much good stuff
to do at three forty five.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
We'll do that.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Next casting live from the R and R Foundation Specialist
Broadcast Studio. Now back to Softie and Dick powered by
Emerald Queen Casino, the betting capital of the Northwest on
Sports Radio and ninety three point three kJ R FM.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, about the time that Randy Johnson was throwing the
Mariners first no hitter in nineteen ninety, something else was
going on on.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
In the sports world.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
It was the beginning of Inside the NBA on TNT,
and it came to a close. At least this iteration
came to a close over the weekend with the final
game of the Pacers and Knick series. It was great,
television was much must watch. So we thought we'd do
(30:22):
a little fun with audio part two and just give
the sign offs from Shaq, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and
finally Ernie Johnson. So let's start with with Shaq, who
made no ifs and or butts what type of show
he was going to bring to his next employer.
Speaker 6 (30:42):
I'm the youngest here. It's been a great run. It's
been an honor Chuck, I love you like the older
brother that I never had, and if you say something,
I will whoop your ass one last time on this
show right now. Ernie, you came to my house in
nineteen eighty nine, in nineteen ninety one, the big honor,
(31:03):
so honor for me to be sitting up here with you, Kenny,
the way you all embarrassed us in ninety four to
ninety five, you and m keem you taught me what
it was to be a champion. And we're a family.
I'm glad we're sticking together. And like I said, even
though the name changes, the engine is still the same.
And to that new network we're coming to we're not
(31:23):
coming to f around. And since it's the last show,
I'm gonna say it, we're not coming around. Are you
kicking ass? You taking names and were taken over?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Okay, oh god, you never know it's gonna come out
of those guys' mouth.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Let's hit. Let's move next to Kenny Smith and his
sign off.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
It's been a history that has been set by all
of the people that have laid the ground rock behind
the scenes, before the scenes, the game crew that toss
back crew, Kevin Holland who rejuvenated the name the Jet.
No one ever called me the Jet until I got
back to te You know, Craig Sager, who I shed
(32:03):
an office with, who sat down there with me one
day and said, you know, this could be a career
for you if you take this seriously. First person ever
told me I was good at it. So I miss him,
his family and you know, like I said, we're gonna
be We're going to see each other. But the faces
that you're going to miss, that you forget that they're
(32:24):
they're every day of your life. This has just been
a magnificent ride. And as Shaq said, we ain't coming
to fuck around.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
All right, dare we go to chuck? Here's Charles Barkley.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
I just want to thank every single person who's been
a turner with me the last twenty five years. Twenty
five years. Some of these people, some of these people
have had kids.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
They come see us one day.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
For the prom, they come back when they graduated college,
and now they're bringing newborns in. So if you with
people that long, they are your family. And I just
want to thank everybody turning for the last twenty five years.
It's been an honor and I'm grateful and thankful, and
also to ESPN. It's going to be an honor and
(33:19):
a privilege to work for you guys. You guys are
the number one sports network in history, and I'm excited
for it. You guys got some tremendous talents over there.
I'm looking forward to co working with those guys. And
even though we will never say T and T Sports again,
I want to thank T and T for giving me
a magnificent life.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I mean, we've gotten over forty years in a row
of Charles Barkley. He started with the Philadelphia seventy six
ers in nineteen eighty five. He was a big name
at Auburn for a couple of years before that. So
we've been watching Charles Barkley on TV Live for forty
two years because he retired twenty five years ago and
(34:05):
immediately went to Inside the NBA.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
On TNT and Dick, we're about to have Chuck versus
stephen A debates for I don't know how many years
in the future, and that is going to be must
listen to fun with audio for us for I don't
know how many years ahead. But Chuck versus stephen A
is gonna be a staple on this second.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I hope I hope Stephen I don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
From Chuck standpoint, I hope stephen A doesn't ruin it.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
He's it's gonna be great because it might. It might
just it might just break Steven It could, it could.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I mean, I don't dislike steven A at all, but
like a lot of people, I get enough of Stephen
all right, I've I have.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Grown you watch all the shows.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I have grown more and more weary, and I watch
less and less. First take now because he is he's
I'm tiring of him. Yeah, and so we'll see how
it is with inside the NBA with Steven A. But finally,
there's no more classy gentlemen in sports television than Ernie.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Ernie Johnson.
Speaker 10 (35:07):
Gratitude is the operative word for me. I'm grateful that
I've worked with you guys. I'm grateful for all of
the relationships we've built professionally and personally through the years.
You just don't realize that until you see people here
on the road and say, hey, this is probably going
to be it, and you think back to all the
(35:28):
good times you had. So I'm grateful for that, and
also grateful that we have members of our crew who
are going to go work at NBC or work at Amazon.
And you know how they got those jobs because their
resumes is NBA on TNT. So thank you. Look, the
four of us, as you've already heard, the four of
(35:48):
us are going to be together. Our production crew is
going to be together. It's going to be that same bunch.
We're still going to be shooting. That show in Atlanta
is just going to air somewhere else. And so the
crazy that you've seen, uh, the nonsense and the foolishness
and the top notch basketball analysis, all of that stuff's
going to be on. It's going to be on ESPN
(36:10):
or ABC next year, not on TMT. For that, it's, uh,
we're sad, but I'm proud to say, for the last time,
thanks for watching us. It's the NBA on TMT.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Before we go, Gross stupt, Martin George might drop from
shack at the end.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I mean, it's it's been, without question, the greatest sports
studio show.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
That there is that there has ever been. Uh, there's been.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
There were some great ones when I was growing up.
I remember those guys on CBS, Jimmy the Greek and
those guys on.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
CBS, they were they were very good.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
They were outspoken, they were they weren't afraid to, you know,
kind of they didn't always have to toe the line.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And that's what I love by about these guys.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
And and hopefully I know there's a percentage of Seattle
sports fans that have just turned the NBA off the
last eighteen years, but I mean, you've you've missed that.
So I would ask, now that we're gonna get the
Sonics back, you put that aside and watch these guys,
because I promise you you will not you will not
regret it, because it is fabulous, fabulous television. Five point
(37:16):
fifty five on ninety three point three kJ RFM, we've
got Mike de Corsi coming up right around the corner
talking about an expanded NCAA tournament and does his Indiana
Pace do his Indiana Pacers have a legit shot of
taking down the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
We're talking him about that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Next on ninety three point three KJRFF, We're gonna talk
some college basketball now as well as NBA with our
friend Mike de Coursy, big Pacers fan. We'll see if
the Pacers got a chance to win. But first some
college basketball with Mike.
Speaker 11 (37:45):
How you doing, Mike, I am doing very well.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Dick.
Speaker 11 (37:48):
It's great to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Oh, it's good to talk to you too.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And we always have a lot of fun during February
and March talking college hoops, and you know, college hoops
really never goes away. You know, we talked to John
Wilner every week talking about West Coast college football and
college basketball, and it's just it's kind of a twelve
month news cycle now, isn't it. In the in the
era of the portal and nil oh absolutely.
Speaker 12 (38:12):
A couple of years ago wrote a column about how
college basketball needs to get on board with the way
the NFL dominates the news cycle and the way the
NBA dominates their news cycle their when their free agency
happens and usually in early July. Instead of just complaining
about it all the time, just embrace it and get
(38:34):
your product out there and sort of what this is
the world, So revel in the world that we're in,
which is teams are players are changing teams, who's doing well,
who's who's not doing well, all of that. It used
to be it was just a coaching circus. The carousel
that we had every March, and then there wouldn't be
(38:56):
much to talk about until people started looking at the
high school guys in July, and even that was really
only for the people who were really, really into it.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Well, another thing going on right now is this prospect
of expanding the NCAA tournament, and it comes directly from
the NCAA President. I'll read the quote for you. I
know you know the quote already, but our listeners probably don't.
The quote is the point bund going from sixty eight
to seventy two or seventy six is basically to give
(39:25):
some of those schools that probably were among the best
teams in the country away into the tournament.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And I'm thinking, Mike, probably the same as you are.
What about any team that just misses out on the
NCAA tournament is quote, probably amongst the best in the Country's.
Speaker 11 (39:44):
I was astonished by that quote.
Speaker 12 (39:46):
I really was, because there's this thing called media training,
where you try to put the best possible spin, even
if it's on a bad situation or in this case,
a terrible idea, and he put the worst.
Speaker 11 (39:59):
Possible spin on it.
Speaker 12 (40:01):
Because I and people like Joe Lenardi and others do
these brackets every year, and so I've Joe's been doing
it much longer than I have. But I have been
at Fox Sports the bracket analysts for the last six years,
and we had five tournaments. The one year we did
not have a tournament, but five tournaments, and so I
have seen what's on the other side of the line
(40:23):
for five consecutive tournaments, and I can tell you that
we are not missing any of the best teams period.
He tried to throw Indiana State in there a year
ago to try to make it seem like it wasn't
about all Power Conference teams, which it really is. That
he tried to make it seem like that. But Indiana
State a year ago was a very good team that
(40:47):
failed its biggest tests every time, that didn't test itself
enough otherwise, and so when it was left out in
large part because the big crunch that happened when we
had all these different teams that weren't supposed to get
in that won automatic bids away from teams like Memphis
and in the entire Mountain West. When New Mexico won
(41:08):
and all these different there were five of them. We
never have five. We're lucky if we have one, I
don't think we had any this year, and so they
got in that squeeze, but they didn't warrant inclusion that
in that circumstance. And the problem that you get into
is in a year where you don't have five what
we call bid steals, then you get into teams that
(41:31):
really have no business being anywhere near the tournament being
involved if we expand, and this year we even had
a team that had no business being anywhere into the
tournament get in in the case of North Carolina. So
it's just it bothers me that they're trying to justify
this just because some leagues are worried about whether they
can get enough teams in in the current circumstance because
(41:55):
the conferences have compressed. Look, we had the SEC get
fourteen out of sixteen members into the field, So there
is no barrier to entry if you win the games. Like,
no one's saying, oh, we're stopping the SEC at ten,
we're clocking the door at twelve, we're closing the vaulted third. No,
they got fourteen teams in. It has nothing to do
(42:17):
with that. It's just leagues that think there's a way
to try to expand their influence and placate their expanded membership,
and it would damage the college basketball regular season first
and foremost.
Speaker 11 (42:32):
And then it.
Speaker 12 (42:32):
Would basically just annoy the people who love the tournament
as it is and maybe make it more complicated to
put together a bracket.
Speaker 11 (42:40):
Pull.
Speaker 12 (42:40):
I mean, how are you going to put together a
bracket when you don't have any idea who all sixty
four teams are on Thursday? If you're trying to sort
yourself down from seventy six, Well.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Let's look at the structure. Then what would be the structure?
Would it just expand the number of Tuesday and Wednesday
games before the official bracket starts.
Speaker 12 (43:00):
Well that's I think that's the only way they're ever
going to get the television networks to go along. So
what the problem that they have right now? This would
have been done a while ago, except that the televisions
were saying, why do we want to mess up the
product we're paying a billion dollars for?
Speaker 11 (43:15):
Because this is not good, this is a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We're not interested and it's not making more money. Correct,
it's not making it's not going to make more money.
Speaker 12 (43:23):
Well, what they're asking the networks to do is basically
take on more expense because if you it's a billion
one right now for the sixty eight entrance, and they
divide it up based on how far you go and
all this and that, but it's a billion one, and
what they want is they want you to take seventy
six or seventy two and fund the extra two million
(43:46):
dollars for each team. So if it's it would be
eight million dollars. I guess if we went to seventy two,
it'd be twice that. It would be I guess twelve
million if we went to seventy six. And so the
networks are like, why would we give you another check?
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah, they're not.
Speaker 11 (44:02):
Gonna many people are gonna watch these games.
Speaker 12 (44:04):
It might mess up our Thursday because again the bracket
pools the people who follow the sport. No, it really
has a big impact on the interest in Thursday and
Friday and why so many people are engaged in that.
And if it's hard to execute those because again, if
we're going when we're just going from sixty eight to
(44:24):
sixty four, we're only cutting a few teams out, but
if you have to cut out fully, I believe eight
teams to get to seventy to from seventy six to
sixty four, that's harder for you to do a bracket pool, Yes,
and I think that there were the networks rightfully are worried, Hey,
you might mess up what we've got going here that we've.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
Already contracted to pay a billion one for.
Speaker 12 (44:48):
And we're not crazy about this, And that's why it
has That's why it hasn't happened yet, because there there's
a lot of pushback on this from the people who
would have to fund it.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Mike de course Us, he's our basketball expert talking about
the potential expansion of the NCAA tournament. So bottom line,
are we looking at still sixty eight for the twenty
twenty six tournament or do we think it goes to
seventy two or seventy six right off the bat here
beginning this coming year.
Speaker 12 (45:15):
I think we've gone too far for them to get
it to twenty six because remember, you probably couldn't do
it all in Dayton.
Speaker 11 (45:23):
You'd probably have to send somebody somewhere else.
Speaker 12 (45:27):
So I don't think that they'll that they'll try to
pull it off this year with no planning in advance.
But if it does happen, it would probably be for
twenty seven. And there's a lot of people in my
business who are like just giving up and saying it'll happen.
It's over, it's gonna happen. And I'm not believing in that,
because I believe that the public voice in this, and
(45:48):
the and the money people at the networks, they're still
going to have a say.
Speaker 11 (45:52):
The public really doesn't want this.
Speaker 12 (45:55):
And the more the public says it doesn't want this,
the better chance that it doesn't happen. I'm not saying
that they that it guarantees it, but it increases the
chances that it does not happen.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Mike, let's talk a little NBA Finals. You're Indiana Pacers,
despite being sixty six to one to win the championship
at the beginning of the season, but despite being twenty
five to one to win the Eastern Conference to start
the season, or indeed Eastern Conference champions, and we are
adopting them, you know, probably indirectly. The situation with Seattle
(46:28):
and Oklahoma City. It's been a long long time, but
there hasn't been one day that Sonic fan that go
by that Sonic fans aren't rooting against the Oklahoma city thunder.
So we are all in a Pacer bandwagon, and we
want to know, as a guy that falls the Indiana
Pacers very closely, like you do, what type of shot
I mean, are we just is this a long long
(46:49):
shot for Indiana or do they have a legit shot
at pulling off the upset?
Speaker 12 (46:53):
Well, first of all, welcome board to all the people
in Seattle.
Speaker 11 (46:58):
Pacer bandwagon is big enough.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
For all of you.
Speaker 12 (47:02):
I am surprised at the overwhelming no one had, no
one's giving them a chance.
Speaker 11 (47:08):
I am surprised that, first of all, very depressed.
Speaker 12 (47:10):
I'm not a gambler, but every now and then, if
I happened through Vegas, I might put like like a
Steeler's futures bet like over and under, or back in
the day when they were.
Speaker 11 (47:20):
Really good, I bet them on the Super Bowl, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 12 (47:23):
And if I wandered through a book in Bahamas or
in Vegas or whatever and saw twenty five to one
to win the Astern Conference, I'd have made me some
money because I thought they had I thought they had
a good team and a chance. I didn't think they
were favorites or anything, but I thought they had a chance.
And what they've done through the playoffs. They took out
in Milwaukee, they didn't need seven games. They took out
(47:45):
Cleveland in five, they took out New York in six.
That's pretty good performance for a team that has no
chance in the finals. I'm not buying that they're gonna
have to play better than they have to date in
order to beat a team as terrific as Oklahoma City.
And everybody's gotten really overwhelmed by what Oklahoma City did
(48:07):
to Minneapolis, to the Timberwolves. But we're only a week
and a half, two weeks removed from them needing seven
games to take out Denver, and Deedver's got the best
player on the planet, not the MVP, but the best
player on the planet. But some really good players and
a really good team and a nice idea of how
to win and a great home court. I think the
(48:29):
Patriots have at least a chance. I was really surprised
when I was told how overwhelming the odds are against them.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And they play a style of ball that's going to
be tough for Oklahoma City to defend, and they've got
the requisite depth to be able to play that type
of game. Is are we going to want to see
one twenty plus per team in this series, because I
kind of feel like if it's close to one hundred,
then it's the Oklahoma City is going to win that
type of game.
Speaker 12 (48:58):
Yeah, the more points there are, the better it is
for the Pacers, and they have played some of those games.
They were able to win on Friday Night in Game
six without maybe being quite themselves on offense until the
fourth quarter. I think Halliburton is going to have to
be more aggressive early.
Speaker 11 (49:17):
But I'll be interested to see how does OKC defend him.
Speaker 12 (49:21):
They had at New York in Michale Bridge as a
player who was pretty much uniquely designed to defend Halliburton long,
tall mobile six foot nine to Tyrese's six foot six.
It made a difference, and it made it it was
a challenge for Tyree's to get involved in the offense
and so he was more of.
Speaker 11 (49:42):
A distributor than he always is. So I'll be curious
to see what Oklahoma City does to try to slow
him down and that may have a big part in
who does win the series.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Hey, before I let you go, Mike guy, are the
TV ratings gonna suffer because of the two small markets
in this or has their been enough pump up recently
of SGA and Haliburton to get the eyeballs. Because when
you just think about the most marketed players going into
this season, I mean SGA might not have been in
the top ten, Tyrese might not have been in the
(50:13):
top twenty to start the season.
Speaker 11 (50:16):
Well, you know, I think that I think they might
be down.
Speaker 12 (50:19):
And because like if it was New York, in LA,
you get people, you get a lot of viewership just
because people live there and want to know what's going
on in their town, and that pumps up the numbers.
And Indiana and Oklahoma City are not as big a
markets anywhere near as bigger markets as those places are,
So it'll probably be down, but it's national interest lesser.
(50:40):
I don't know that it'll be that much less. I
will tell you this, I think this is this is
a finals that is a continuation of a playoffs. There
is a continuation of season that has been the best
in NBA in recent NBA history, and I'm talking about
the last four decades because it's made everybody in the
league say, hey, we can win this thing. It's not
this Oh, let's just play or and maybe get some
(51:01):
people in and have hot dogs and champagne in the
better seats and then we'll just all sit down and
watch Larry and Magic go at it. That's not the
thing anymore now. Now New York thought they had a chance,
and we're right, Cleveland thought they had a chance.
Speaker 11 (51:15):
Indy had a chance.
Speaker 12 (51:16):
There are all these teams that did, and the same
in the West. If if only Denver, if Aaron Gordon
hadn't gotten hurt, maybe maybe they pulled that off. And
then their toe to toe with Minneapolis in the in
the in the in the Western Conference Final.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
So this is a This is.
Speaker 12 (51:30):
The most egalitarian NBA of my lifetime, and I think
it's what sports should be. It shouldn't be I got
lucky by getting Tim Duncan and David Robinson and so
I win all the all the championships for the next
ten years.
Speaker 11 (51:44):
That's not what it should be. It should be about
smart and strategic and not just rich and lucky.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Mike is always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
And when we turn the page to next college basketball season,
let's hope the next time we have you on we
were not talking about a seventy two or seventy sixteen
NCAA tournament, right, dropped.
Speaker 11 (52:04):
Your fingers, Dick, I hope.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So thanks Mike, always a pleasure of a great summer.
My friend, you too, Thank you, you bet Mike de Corsi,
the Hall of Famer, our Fox Sports bracketologist, our expert
for college basketball.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
March Madness,
Rolling in the five o'clock hour.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Our friend Greg Bell is back from the Great North.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
How you doing, Greg, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Tell me about tell me about Alaska and visiting your
daughter there, and how close did you actually come to
those eight hundred pound Kodiak bears.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
It's incredible. I've been to. I am married to a
type of woman who we had our honeymoon backpacking into Dolly. Okay,
so right, so I've been to Alaska, but I've never
been to Kodiak Island. We went to a crab Fest,
the annual celebration they have there when we first got there.
My daughter's doing summer training in the Coast Guard at
(00:44):
the air Station Kodiak. There. It was an amazing experience.
I mean, it truly is still the last Frontier. We
went to Katmi National Park, and I don't know if
anyone's ever listening, ever ever been there. You can only
boat or fly in floatplane in there. And we chartered
a tour guide in a floatplane to fly in there.
(01:04):
Because we've been hiking all over the island and driving
all over the island. It's only like forty miles a
road of a thousand square mile island. Trying to find
bears all week and this isn't the salmon haven't started
running up the streams yet and the rivers, so they're Yeah,
so they're up in the hills. So we were even
(01:24):
hiking up mountains trying to find these guys. So my
wife said, we're doing it. I don't know if forever
get back here. Let's charter a plane and go to Katmai,
and man, are we glad we did? It was an
incredible experience. I probably got within a quick slant route
of grizzly bears about fifteen yards ten weeks.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
If they run after you, you're they're fast than you are.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Yeah, exactly. Had we had a guide, I was getting nervous.
My kids were there. This is far enough, but this guide.
She's been doing it for thirty years, seeing her husband.
If anyone ever goes their seat aptly named Seahawk Air
out of Kodiak flies their floatplane they own there. He
had to stay on the plane because the tides rolling
(02:09):
and out so suddenly there that you don't want your
plane sandbard and you can't get out, okay till the
tide change again. So she's stayed in the plane. Well,
she walked us, and we walked up on these two
brown bears that were actually mating when we got there,
and I said, oh, that's the wrong time to show up.
And then she says, look, we'll walk as a pack.
(02:30):
Six of us walk as one, and we will walk
in sideways. And then whenever the bears would stop and
look at us, she'd say, okay, crouch down, and it
showed the bears that we weren't threatening, and they they
would eventually gain trust and then resume doing whatever they're doing,
it eventually eating right. And then she said that she's
(02:52):
been there so many times over thirty years that those
bears know her by smell and by sight, and so
they trust her. And I said, well, you know that
doesn't help us, because we just got here exactly.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
It won't go out for you. They'll go after me.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
And she said, you just keep doing what I'm saying,
and travel is one. And if they look up and
stare at us and you drop down to your knees
and show that you're not confronting them, that eventually they'd
go to trust you. And they did. And then we
started to walk and they were not even paying attention
to us. We walked within fifteen twenty yards of them, Dick,
and they didn't look at it.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
That is unbelievable.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Man, it was.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
I would love to do that, but also I would
need an out.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I would need like some jeep to run into that
was closer to me than the bear was. But oh man,
that is fantastic. Well I'm glad you got to go
up there and see your daughter.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
That's that. That is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And now it's and now it's back to work and
it's you know, but it was seventy degrees out today
for ots. Before we talk about what you saw, I
want to I want to throw this out at you.
PFF did their roster rankings and we talked about on
the show last week when you were gone, and they
had the Seahawks ranked as the number twenty two roster
(04:04):
in the NFL, and I was like, wow, I mean,
I figured, you know, we all thought this team was
going to be pretty good. Are you surprised they had
him as the twenty second best roster? And if they
are truly the twenty second best roster, is that a
bit of a condemnation on how John Schneider's built this
football team, because it's not like he's had to pay
a quarterback a lot of money in the last three
(04:26):
or four years, so he shouldn't have the twenty second
best roster.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Well, I'm not surprised, Dick, because first of all, we're
in southwest of Southeast Alaska, is.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
Right, just no Kodiak bears here, but yes, we are
still in Southeast Alas southwest Alasta.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
You're right, and as soon as you over just jettison
all your quarterbacks and start over at the most important
position with a guy that a lot of people in
the league think is just a one year wonder that
they're so skeptical on to say, well, yeah, Sam Donald
was fourteen to three last year, but look what the
Lions did him. Look at the Rams him in the playoffs,
and he just had one good year so far in
(05:03):
his career. They're not sold on the team overhauling itself
at the most important position. I agree with the skepticism.
I think they got worse at quarterback. I think that
Gino Smith now long term, they got better, especially with
the youth. The fact that they're actually going to pay
less to Sam Donald than they're gonna would have paid
(05:24):
Gino Smith at his age going on thirty five age
thirty five season, but in the present they got worse
at quarterback. I think Geno Smith overall is better in
the now than Sam Donald.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Even the system, because the system seems to tailor directly
with Donald.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
Well, it became a part and parcel deal right once
Geno Smith asked for so much money that they handpicked
the replacement to be a guy that the new offensive coordinator,
Clint Kubiac system would work best better with than that
is Sam Donald. But when when you haven't won a
playoff game in so many years? They when you haven't
reached the end title game or past the second round
(06:02):
in a decade, and when you overhaul you have a
rookie head coach, and now you have an overhauled offense
with their third offensive system in three years, and a
quarterback who a lot of people around the league don't
believe in other than a one year wonder. I get
the perception of the twenty second They're not the twenty
second best roster. No, this defense was top five over
the ladder half last season after Ernest Jones arrived. This
(06:24):
defense is still the strength of the team. They can
win a lot of games with the defense they have
if they can get the damn running game going, and
regardless of how Sam Donn played now, eventually a quarterback
position will sink of swim you. But defense and running
the ball the way they want to, they can go
a long way with that. Then, I mean, I saw
(06:46):
I formation student body right sweeps.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah, so we were talking to you about Dalyss.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, tell me what you saw, because you threw up
the numbers for us earlier last hour.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
He said, you know, we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Going from a Ryan Grubb offense, which which did I
formation less than one percent of the time, to Kobiak,
who was almost a quarter of every play.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
Was I formation, Yes, the first two plays of the
first two sessions of eleven and eleven, the first offense
ran was I formation with Brady Russell as the fullback.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
Kenny Mackin touches the tabl like they were giving Kenneth
Walker the day off of the scrimmage reps. He did,
he was on the field and participating in the position reps.
But they were I formation toss right. It looked like
Charles White in the nineteen eighty USC Trojan And we
haven't seen that here, and I mean I have to
go back to Max Strong to think about the last
time that they were in I formation under Mike Congran.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
And mean he didn't running a lot. Then it was
like we gotta go back to Chuck Knox.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
I mean, we gotta be we gotta be Craig tossing
at the warner for I formation right the little John Eller.
You know, maybe I don't know who was doctor Dan
lead blocking or something like that.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
It is going to be different. And Mike McDonald has
said I tried to put them down a few times,
especially after they drafted oots from fullback from Alabama, tight
end from all they're going to make a fullback and
he said, you know what we're You're going to see
a lot of two back. I'm not going to tell
you it's going to be every down, but you're going
to see a lot of two back eye formation stuff.
(08:19):
And that alone is different. It's play action, rollouts and bootlegs.
It is a lot. It is. I mean, my first
day impression is it is so much different than Ryan
Greb is so much different than even Shane Waldron's offense.
It's so much different than any offense the Seahawks I've
had here in the last two decades. We'll see how
much they do the two back step, but they're going
(08:39):
to do it a lot in training camp because to
install it and get that mentality change, and it is
going to look different. And when you turn on the
TV and watch preseason games, it's going to look different.
It's a whole new approach. But it takes a while
in this league. The league and the defensive coordinators don't
wait on you when you're starting over on offense. Just
(08:59):
like took half the season and Ernest Jones the tweaks
at middle linebacker to fix the defense last year, it's
going to take a while, well into the season for
this offense to be what they think it'll be this year.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So is it, you know, just trying to grind down
the defense, win the time of possession battle, win these games?
Fourteen thirteen, seventeen thirteen? Is that going to be the
mo for this football team this year?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Not necessarily. I mean, if you remember early in September
last year, before the Saints had all there are tons
of injuries at offensive line and wide receiver and eventually quarterback.
They were scoring forty points a game in September last
year they went in and the Clint Kubak's offense went
in and scored forty plus in Dallas and killed the Cowboys.
It's not as though they're just trying to grind it down,
(09:44):
but they are trying to establish the run first. This
is a contract year for Kenneth Walker, in a really
big one, and he's going to get ample opportunity to
get a huge new contract, whether it's here in Seattle
or somewhere else. In this new offense, it was they
didn't even try to run a certain points lest I
can think of the Packers game late. I can think
(10:04):
of the Rams home game late when the end zone intercepts.
Everyone remembers the hundred three yard return that Tino Smith threw,
but they did that in the red zone because they
just decided they could not run. Can they finally run
the ball this year? Can this offensive line it is
being remade. I mean today the first round rookie, first
round at grays Abel was the starting left guard from
the first play. It is going to be different on
(10:27):
the offensive line. Can this new offensive line run block
to me's besides all the other things, and Sam Darnold
and Cooper Cup and I'll do scantly. Can they run
the ball? And that goes to the new offensive line
and what they do up front. That's the key to
their season offense.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
So did Olu primarily play center? And who do we
have a right guard?
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Bradford?
Speaker 4 (10:50):
Yeah, Jensen will get some time. But alternately, again it
was Christy Haynes that right guard and the first and
Anthony Bradford later on got some reps alternating in it
right guard, but it was noticeable that Christian Yanes was
starting at right guard to begin the practice and the
Corset Lucas has had his first healthy offseason as an
NFL player. He was at right tackle on the left
(11:13):
tackle Charles Cross going in to what is now going
to be the next to last year that they picked
up the fifty year contract option, so they're set at tackle.
The guards will still being determined. They drafted Grey's Abel
in the first round to be the starter there. I'd
look at Jalon Sendell as a strong possibility of starting
at center over with Timmy. Of course, we all know
Timmy starting at the end of last year only because
(11:34):
Connor Williams just stopped them left and retired at the
age of twenty seven. In the year, but they aren't
sold on ol Timmy and it wouldn't surprise me. They
keep talking about Jalen Sindell, North Dakota State undrafted rookie
last year and how this offense fits him specifically better
than it did last year.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
At center, fifth round pick, wide receiver Tory Horton was
was back.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Is he one hundred? Is he still limited on what
he can do out there?
Speaker 4 (11:58):
Hey, you're living in me? Was returning punts, He was
doing change of direction drills in an open field tackle drill,
the kind of stuff, the drills and cuts you wouldn't
see a guy make if he wasn't full go. And
that was cleared. He missed most of last season the
color to stay with the knee injury. But yeah, all
signs all look good there. My first impression is at quarterback.
(12:18):
I just put the story out of the News Tribune
dot com. Everyone's gonna ask about that. Let me put
the caveat public. It's only June, right, and it's not
contact nopads. But Donald had a tough day and at
one point his offensive coordinator let him know about it
pretty loudly between plays while he was standing in the huddle.
He got picked off by Jordan Love cutting in front
(12:40):
of Cooper Cup in the end zone. Two plays later
a second interception in three plays Josh Job, who was
playing outside right corner, starting at right corner when they
moved Witherspoon inside, jumping out wrapped by Jackson Smith and
Jigger for a second interception. Trew Locke looked really good
and particular some throws a rolling left and throwing back
(13:02):
across his body. One was twenty five yards of Stephen Simms,
the former Baltimore Ravens veteran wide receiver, towed the sidelines
twenty five yards on a rollout left and John Schneider,
the GM had to come over and look at the
video board that along as sidelines here to make sure
that he believe what he saw, and when he saw
the replay kind of explained his approval of that throw
(13:24):
by Lock. But Lock looked really good. Touchdowns on consecutive
plays in the red zone, including Cody White and a
really nice throw over the middle Jalen Milroe. I mean again,
it's first impression, but he was as advertised, he needs
help in Accuracyana is throwing. He was overthrown two or
three He overthrew two or three guys to start the scrimmage,
(13:45):
one with three yards over the receiver in the back
of the end zone. That's a project. That's something that
Andrew johnco in, the new quarterbacks coach and Clint Kubiak
have a couple of years to develop him. I've said
I had written it, Dick, but it's really a two
year contract for Sam Darnold. The way the money structured
and how backloaded it is money wise, They've got two
(14:07):
years to find out if they want to give him
a third or even a fourths assists and another deal.
And that's two years of how long they have you
could save.
Speaker 6 (14:13):
With Milroe going.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
But Threw Locke was offto an impressive start today.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Defensively, I saw PFF named Tyresee Knight the guy they
expect to improve more than any other linebacker in the NFL.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
What do you think overall this defense?
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, there's no like superstar in the front seven,
but it seems to be pretty solid with a little
bit of depth as well.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
I'm really impressed by Ernest Jones and what he was
for them last year. I haven't seen a guy, a
singular player change a unit in Seattle and maybe in
a decade a singular guy to come in and make
that pick of an impression to bench into trade. You're
starting inside linebackers in the span of a week because
of how good a Ernest Jones was upon arrival. He
(15:02):
transformed them and that's why they gave him the new contract.
He's exactly what Mike McDonald wants, both in recognizing defenses,
calling and out communicating, and most of all being assertive
and getting into running lanes. I mean, guys went down
when he hit him last year and early in the
season when they had Dotson and Baker, guys would drag
(15:23):
the middle linebackers two or three or seven yards. When
Jones hits guys, they go straight down. And that's the
difference between second and one or two in second eight.
And that's what Ernest Jones brings them, and he, to
me transformed them. They now they've added Dexter Lawrence on
Marcus Lawrens on top of the defensive line that they
(15:45):
already think is very good with Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy.
Jared Reid is back and I asked him today. It
was noticeable to me that he was here for these
voluntary OTAs, and he says it's really important for me
to be here to gail with these coaches. That it's
the second year for these coaches, and the players really
think they are way ahead of they were at this
(16:05):
time last year. And the players got together and said
it's important to be here. Pretty much everybody's here, Yeah,
and I can't remember. I mean, Ernest Jones didn't practice,
but was doing conditioning. Jos before practice began. Ken and
Wosu was here, was doing some conditioning, but they didn't practice.
But they're all here. And tickets really rare, even when
(16:27):
times are great for teams to have this much I mean,
almost one hundred percent participation in the offseason OTAs.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Now, the camaraderie, the vibe seem seems very very good. Hey,
before we let you go. The Seahawks and the Bucks
are kind of using different tactics to try to keep
season ticket holders from reselling their tickets. I mean, the
Seahawks using the stick a little bit, saying they are
discouraging people from reselling their tickets, potentially impacting their renewal eligibility.
(16:54):
And the Tampa Bay Bucks are like, hey, if you
just sit in your seat, all year. We'll give you
like one hundred bucks to spend it at a spend
of the concession stands.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
So you, aside from getting more wins.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
At home, is there any way that the Hawks can
ensure a higher percentage of fans actually attend their games?
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Hawks fans their games?
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Well, First of all, I saw that what the Buckeers
were doing. It was fifty dollars to team the credit
how much the NFL season tickets are They need more
than fifty dollars? Type people to shut up. But the
Seahawks would do it well by not increasing season tickets
on a year that they missed the playoffs a second consecutive. Yeah,
(17:35):
let's start there. And they need to not sell to
brokers who it's not just these ticket holders who are
reselling tickets behind the visiting ends up. Ticket brokers own
those and so they're already going to be marked up
from the get go because of who owns some of
those seeds. The ticket brokers are smart. They bought the
tickets behind the visiting teams benches knowing that visiting team
(17:57):
fans would want to sit in those and that they're
willing to pay a huge premium on those tickets. But
I don't blame season ticket holders who are getting price
hikes to them for a team that missed the playoffs
three of the last four years and then know that
they can recoup fifty percent of their value in one
game because some cheesehead that moved from Wisconsin wants to
see the Packers. How can you blame them for selling
(18:20):
those And so I know you said as a decided
besides the fact of winning, the way to fix this
is to win, to not go four and five at
home and make the playoffs and have home playoff games.
You do that for a year or two and you
watch how packed this is. We never had this discussion
when they went to back to back Super Bowls because
they won it hold at home all the time. Yeah,
(18:41):
it's a bad combo to not win, to miss the playoffs,
and then hike your season ticket prices again and have
the people keep paying it. I mean, it's not like
it's eighty one games like the Mariners are. Yeah, and
they're paying for eight home games plus two preseason games
that they're forced to pay for that no one wants
to go to, and at regular season prices, it ain't
(19:04):
exactly a fan friendly environment to buy season tickets at
the prices that they charge more power to fans. We
can give me coop some of the costs that they've
lost it to pay for these.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Hey, great stuff, It's great to have you back. I'm
glad you're back with two arms and two legs. I'm
assuming you still have two arms and two legs and
I've been ripped off Kodiak bear up in Alaska.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
All right, thanks man, we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
All right, Thank you. I actually hosted tomorrow morning for Bucky,
so I'll be on tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
We'll tune in from six to ten tomorrow morning. Thanks, Greg,
appreciate it. Thanks, Thanks you've met Greg Bell coming on
tomorrow morning from six to ten with Buck love It
five twenty two On ninety three point three kJ R
f M. We got a little Pope Pirie coming up.
Seahawks continuing their OTAs the thunder, the seventh biggest favorite
(19:55):
in NBA history at minus seven hundred. What kind of
chances do we give the beloved Indiana Pacers our team
for the next two weeks to knock them off. We'll
talk that about that as well. Coming up on ninety
three point three KJRFM.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
Pod casting live from the R and R Foundation Specialist
Broadcast Studio. Now back to Saftie and Dig powered by
Emerald Queen Casino, the Betty and Capital of the Northwest
on Sports Radio ninety three point three kjr FM.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Mike de Course, he's gonna join us in about a
half an hour, our friend that we talked to on
a weekly basis. When college basketball is hot and heavy
in February, in March, why are we having him on
in June. Well, there is a lot of smoke out there,
Jackson about expanding the NCAA tournament from sixty eight to
(20:49):
potentially seventy two or even seventy six.
Speaker 7 (20:53):
Somebody grab a fire extinguisher and put out the smoke immediately.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
It's interesting though, it was kind of funny. I was
looking at you know, ESPN puts bracketology out basically twelve
months out of the year, so you can like go
to ESPN bracketology right now and they'll have bracketology for
next March. Guess who's the seventy second team in bracketology
right now?
Speaker 7 (21:16):
The seventy second, Yes, Washington, the Washington Huskies. So they'd
be in a seventy two team, but they'd be out
of a sixty eight team. Frankly, listen at that point, like,
I get it, we'll have a spot in the tournament.
I don't want it if it means diluting and making
a perfect This is a perfect product. Why do we
have to because of greed? Just say, let's get rid
(21:38):
of a perfect product. It's a if the NFL had
a perfect system. We had a perfect system, and then
we changed the whole thing for some stupid reason. Like
I always say, like the NFL system was so perfect
system to be talking about this system where we had
the two teams that with buys and then the couple
wild cards. No, we have to add a third wild
card for a full We can make more games, more money,
more money, more money. If these people can just stop
(22:02):
being so damn greedy and realize we have a perfect
system the way it is and stop just being so
money hungry.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Okay, well it's just I.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Mean, it's just gonna give us more Boise State against
Oklahoma State games on Tuesday before the turn.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
That's what it says. That's what it's gonna give us.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, we will have good basketball coming up because Mike's
gonna talk to us about that. He's also gonna talk
about he's a big Pacer fan, fallows the face that
pays very closely. I'm gonna ask him, do we have
a prayer? And yes, I am saying we when I'm
talking about the Indiana Pacer all, do we have a
chance to win the NBA Finals against the thunder Thunder
the seventh biggest favorite in NBA history at minus seven hundred.
(22:46):
By the way, the ninety six Sonics, as great as
they were, and that was a great basketball team that
bat ninety six Sonics would have beaten probably six, seven,
eight champions out of every ten years. They were that good.
But they just happened to face Night six polls. They
were minus nine to fifty going that series. I knew
they were underdogs. I didn't realize they were the third
(23:08):
biggest underdogs in the history of the of the NBA
playoffs two thousand one Lakers actually the biggest favorite. Shaq
and Kobe were minus two thousand. Is that the Nets?
Speaker 4 (23:18):
That was?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
That was there was a Net series, but this was
the Philadelphia SI So that was the AI series that
they were minus two thousand.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
But you know, I'm kind of torn on this.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
You look at the numbers Oklahoma City straight up against
the East this year, they played the East thirty one times.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
They're twenty nine and two against the Eastern Conference straight up.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
I'm so sorry, say twenty nine and two straight up,
Oklahoma City is twenty nine two against Eastern conferences.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
And then this is even this is even worse against
the spread. It'd be worse than that because it's this
is way harder than going twenty nine and two straight
up against the spread, which is supposed to take in
competitive balance into consideration. So you should be even if
you're really good, you should be barely over five hundred
against the spread. Yeah, twenty three six and two against
(24:09):
the spread, meaning not only was Oklahoma City winning games
against the East, they were covering and blowing teams out
against the East. So every if you would have bet
one hundred dollars on every Oklahoma City game against the
spread against the East, it would have paid fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
So ultimately, all of this is sort of saying, Seattle,
it's time to have a conversation that we need to
get ready for this.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Probably probably now, let me shed.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
A little bit of it means my wife to share therapist,
trying to give you a little bit of all please,
I need help, all right. The Pacers are going to
be the toughest team for the Thunder to defend in
the playoffs because they have so many different weapons at
so many different positions. The teams that Oklahoma City has
played thus far are a lot more one two guys
(25:00):
oriented right Karl Anthon Towns, Anthony Edwards or Joker Jamal Murray.
You know, they're like high pick and roll and they're
just so good at defending that type of game. Indiana
is gonna want to run. They were gonna want to
play fast. They're gonna want to score one hundred and
twenty five hundred and thirty points every single game. And
it's just gonna I'm not saying that they Oklahoma City
won't be able to shut them down. It's just gonna
(25:22):
be different than what they have seen so and and
Indiana's a different team now than the time they played
Oklahoma times they played Oklahoma City before. Indiana's got the
second best record to Oklahoma City in the playoffs since January,
Like these are truly even though Indiana was a four seed,
these are truly the two best teams in basketball since
(25:44):
the calendar turned to twenty twenty five. Oklahoma City's got
the number, is the best record. Indiana's got the second
best record. So you got you got that, And I
think that that style is gonna cause some problems for OKAC.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
So what, Here's what I think.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
If I were to have to put money on this,
I would probably put money on the money line for
Indiana because it's so out of whack. I just think
they're like plus five point fifty. Now I can get
five and a half to one on my money. I
just think I just can't.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I can't put.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Minus seven hundred on a team that has never won
a championship before and a team full of players that
have never been to a championship, Right, that's just hard
for me to do. I could probably do it with
a team that'd been there two or three times and
won a couple of championships, not this one. But there
is that reasonable percentage that it's just a blowout. So
(26:34):
maybe I'd sprinkle a little money on a sweep, sprinkle
a little money on a four to one Oklahoma City win, but.
Speaker 7 (26:40):
Then putting Okay, frankly just I'll stop you there. Putting
any money on Oklahoma City at all as a Seattle
fan is a mad decision. Well, it's called it's madman behavior.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Yeah, as a mad man behavior.
Speaker 7 (26:52):
Is just called hedging your No, it's just mad man behavior.
I mean, like, you know, what's so funny is sometimes
things are just louve to lose your money in that situation,
aside the betting thing. You know, sometimes I feel like
life is ironic just because life is sometimes, you know,
it's just it plays out certain ways and the irony
is just too perfect. It does feel like this is
(27:13):
one of those cases where as a Seattle fan, and
how many times have we said it in various sports
scenarios with our city, where well how about that isn't
that ironic about? And obviously it's very situational, but like
it feels like we're setting it up for to have
just the greatest of all to say, well, how about
isn't that ironic that the year Oklahoma City wins a
(27:33):
championship is the year that we officially get an expansion franchise.
It just feels like all the cards are gonna fall
and we're gonna be saying that exact sentence, come what
and by the end of the year for sure, because
we know the Borda governors are meeting to do the
expansion thing blah blah blah in July. So it just
feels like we're gonna be coming at the end of
the year saying, well, it all worked out in the end, Yes,
(27:55):
they won one, but at least we're getting a team.
And it's just it's kind of the only thing that's
making me okay with the fact that Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Is likely gonna win the whole damn.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thing and it's gonna be very painful for the next
two weeks, but then it come October. You know, we'll
have the border governors meeting in in July, which won't
that won't sign seal and deliver it.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
But it'll take us down the road some more.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
And then by October, I mean that's when I think
we'll be able to pop the champagne, and we really won't.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
We won't be worried about.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
The thunder too much in October if we're really celebrating that, right,
I mean, this is just gonna be a short term thing.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
It's funny.
Speaker 7 (28:28):
I haven't really put myself in that October mindset yet,
because I'm just focused on the mindset of these next
two weeks. Yeah, I think that's a good that's a really,
really good thing for for Sonic fans to be in
the mindset of, Let's not focus on these next two
weeks because it's probably gonna be painful. Just think about
the mindset you're gonna have in October, because the reality is, folks,
this is happening. Yeah, We've We've had Bruce Harol, We've
(28:50):
had Adam Silver, everybody's this is happening, And let's just
try to stay in the October mindset because that's gonna
be wonderful for the next two weeks.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
It's gonna give it's gonna suck. Just show me in
game one, Pacers.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Just show me in game one that you're gonna make
this even if you lose Game one. Show me in
game one you're a tough guard. You're deep enough to
play with this team even if you lose. Give me
like one fifteen to one eleven, where I'm like, hey, nice, Okay,
maybe it's gonna be a series. That's all I'm asking
(29:23):
for from the Pacers, Right. We got some inside the
NBA good stuff coming up. We had a fun with
audio Part two because we had too much good stuff
to do at three forty five.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
We'll do that.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
Next casting live from the R and R Foundation Specialist
Broadcast Studio. Now back to Softie and Dick powered by
Emerald Queen Casino, the betting capital of the Northwest on
Sports Radio and ninety three point three kJ R FM.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, about the time that Randy Johnson was throwing the
Mariners first no hitter in nineteen ninety, something else was
going on on.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
In the sports world.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
It was the beginning of Inside the NBA on TNT,
and it came to a close. At least this iteration
came to a close over the weekend with the final
game of the Pacers and Knick series. It was great,
television was much must watch. So we thought we'd do
(30:22):
a little fun with audio part two and just give
the sign offs from Shaq, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley, and
finally Ernie Johnson. So let's start with with Shaq, who
made no ifs and or butts what type of show
he was going to bring to his next employer.
Speaker 6 (30:42):
I'm the youngest here. It's been a great run. It's
been an honor Chuck, I love you like the older
brother that I never had, and if you say something,
I will whoop your ass one last time on this
show right now. Ernie, you came to my house in
nineteen eighty nine, in nineteen ninety one, the big honor,
(31:03):
so honor for me to be sitting up here with you, Kenny,
the way you all embarrassed us in ninety four to
ninety five, you and m keem you taught me what
it was to be a champion. And we're a family.
I'm glad we're sticking together. And like I said, even
though the name changes, the engine is still the same.
And to that new network we're coming to we're not
(31:23):
coming to f around. And since it's the last show,
I'm gonna say it, we're not coming around. Are you
kicking ass? You taking names and were taken over?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Okay, oh god, you never know it's gonna come out
of those guys' mouth.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Let's hit. Let's move next to Kenny Smith and his
sign off.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
It's been a history that has been set by all
of the people that have laid the ground rock behind
the scenes, before the scenes, the game crew that toss
back crew, Kevin Holland who rejuvenated the name the Jet.
No one ever called me the Jet until I got
back to te You know, Craig Sager, who I shed
(32:03):
an office with, who sat down there with me one
day and said, you know, this could be a career
for you if you take this seriously. First person ever
told me I was good at it. So I miss him,
his family and you know, like I said, we're gonna
be We're going to see each other. But the faces
that you're going to miss, that you forget that they're
(32:24):
they're every day of your life. This has just been
a magnificent ride. And as Shaq said, we ain't coming
to fuck around.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
All right, dare we go to chuck? Here's Charles Barkley.
Speaker 9 (32:39):
I just want to thank every single person who's been
a turner with me the last twenty five years. Twenty
five years. Some of these people, some of these people
have had kids.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
They come see us one day.
Speaker 9 (32:58):
For the prom, they come back when they graduated college,
and now they're bringing newborns in. So if you with
people that long, they are your family. And I just
want to thank everybody turning for the last twenty five years.
It's been an honor and I'm grateful and thankful, and
also to ESPN. It's going to be an honor and
(33:19):
a privilege to work for you guys. You guys are
the number one sports network in history, and I'm excited
for it. You guys got some tremendous talents over there.
I'm looking forward to co working with those guys. And
even though we will never say T and T Sports again,
I want to thank T and T for giving me
a magnificent life.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I mean, we've gotten over forty years in a row
of Charles Barkley. He started with the Philadelphia seventy six
ers in nineteen eighty five. He was a big name
at Auburn for a couple of years before that. So
we've been watching Charles Barkley on TV Live for forty
two years because he retired twenty five years ago and
(34:05):
immediately went to Inside the NBA.
Speaker 7 (34:08):
On TNT and Dick, we're about to have Chuck versus
stephen A debates for I don't know how many years
in the future, and that is going to be must
listen to fun with audio for us for I don't
know how many years ahead. But Chuck versus stephen A
is gonna be a staple on this second.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
I hope I hope Stephen I don't worry about it.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
From Chuck standpoint, I hope stephen A doesn't ruin it.
Speaker 7 (34:31):
He's it's gonna be great because it might. It might
just it might just break Steven It could, it could.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I mean, I don't dislike steven A at all, but
like a lot of people, I get enough of Stephen
all right, I've I have.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Grown you watch all the shows.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
I have grown more and more weary, and I watch
less and less. First take now because he is he's
I'm tiring of him. Yeah, and so we'll see how
it is with inside the NBA with Steven A. But finally,
there's no more classy gentlemen in sports television than Ernie.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Ernie Johnson.
Speaker 10 (35:07):
Gratitude is the operative word for me. I'm grateful that
I've worked with you guys. I'm grateful for all of
the relationships we've built professionally and personally through the years.
You just don't realize that until you see people here
on the road and say, hey, this is probably going
to be it, and you think back to all the
(35:28):
good times you had. So I'm grateful for that, and
also grateful that we have members of our crew who
are going to go work at NBC or work at Amazon.
And you know how they got those jobs because their
resumes is NBA on TNT. So thank you. Look, the
four of us, as you've already heard, the four of
(35:48):
us are going to be together. Our production crew is
going to be together. It's going to be that same bunch.
We're still going to be shooting. That show in Atlanta
is just going to air somewhere else. And so the
crazy that you've seen, uh, the nonsense and the foolishness
and the top notch basketball analysis, all of that stuff's
going to be on. It's going to be on ESPN
(36:10):
or ABC next year, not on TMT. For that, it's, uh,
we're sad, but I'm proud to say, for the last time,
thanks for watching us. It's the NBA on TMT.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Before we go, Gross stupt, Martin George might drop from
shack at the end.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
I mean, it's it's been, without question, the greatest sports
studio show.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
That there is that there has ever been. Uh, there's been.
Speaker 2 (36:38):
There were some great ones when I was growing up.
I remember those guys on CBS, Jimmy the Greek and
those guys on.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
CBS, they were they were very good.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
They were outspoken, they were they weren't afraid to, you know,
kind of they didn't always have to toe the line.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
And that's what I love by about these guys.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
And and hopefully I know there's a percentage of Seattle
sports fans that have just turned the NBA off the
last eighteen years, but I mean, you've you've missed that.
So I would ask, now that we're gonna get the
Sonics back, you put that aside and watch these guys,
because I promise you you will not you will not
regret it, because it is fabulous, fabulous television. Five point
(37:16):
fifty five on ninety three point three kJ RFM, we've
got Mike de Corsi coming up right around the corner
talking about an expanded NCAA tournament and does his Indiana
Pace do his Indiana Pacers have a legit shot of
taking down the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
We're talking him about that.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Next on ninety three point three KJRFF, We're gonna talk
some college basketball now as well as NBA with our
friend Mike de Coursy, big Pacers fan. We'll see if
the Pacers got a chance to win. But first some
college basketball with Mike.
Speaker 11 (37:45):
How you doing, Mike, I am doing very well.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Dick.
Speaker 11 (37:48):
It's great to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Oh, it's good to talk to you too.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
And we always have a lot of fun during February
and March talking college hoops, and you know, college hoops
really never goes away. You know, we talked to John
Wilner every week talking about West Coast college football and
college basketball, and it's just it's kind of a twelve
month news cycle now, isn't it. In the in the
era of the portal and nil oh absolutely.
Speaker 12 (38:12):
A couple of years ago wrote a column about how
college basketball needs to get on board with the way
the NFL dominates the news cycle and the way the
NBA dominates their news cycle their when their free agency
happens and usually in early July. Instead of just complaining
about it all the time, just embrace it and get
(38:34):
your product out there and sort of what this is
the world, So revel in the world that we're in,
which is teams are players are changing teams, who's doing well,
who's who's not doing well, all of that. It used
to be it was just a coaching circus. The carousel
that we had every March, and then there wouldn't be
(38:56):
much to talk about until people started looking at the
high school guys in July, and even that was really
only for the people who were really, really into it.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Well, another thing going on right now is this prospect
of expanding the NCAA tournament, and it comes directly from
the NCAA President. I'll read the quote for you. I
know you know the quote already, but our listeners probably don't.
The quote is the point bund going from sixty eight
to seventy two or seventy six is basically to give
(39:25):
some of those schools that probably were among the best
teams in the country away into the tournament.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
End quote.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And I'm thinking, Mike, probably the same as you are.
What about any team that just misses out on the
NCAA tournament is quote, probably amongst the best in the Country's.
Speaker 11 (39:44):
I was astonished by that quote.
Speaker 12 (39:46):
I really was, because there's this thing called media training,
where you try to put the best possible spin, even
if it's on a bad situation or in this case,
a terrible idea, and he put the worst.
Speaker 11 (39:59):
Possible spin on it.
Speaker 12 (40:01):
Because I and people like Joe Lenardi and others do
these brackets every year, and so I've Joe's been doing
it much longer than I have. But I have been
at Fox Sports the bracket analysts for the last six years,
and we had five tournaments. The one year we did
not have a tournament, but five tournaments, and so I
have seen what's on the other side of the line
(40:23):
for five consecutive tournaments, and I can tell you that
we are not missing any of the best teams period.
He tried to throw Indiana State in there a year
ago to try to make it seem like it wasn't
about all Power Conference teams, which it really is. That
he tried to make it seem like that. But Indiana
State a year ago was a very good team that
(40:47):
failed its biggest tests every time, that didn't test itself
enough otherwise, and so when it was left out in
large part because the big crunch that happened when we
had all these different teams that weren't supposed to get
in that won automatic bids away from teams like Memphis
and in the entire Mountain West. When New Mexico won
(41:08):
and all these different there were five of them. We
never have five. We're lucky if we have one, I
don't think we had any this year, and so they
got in that squeeze, but they didn't warrant inclusion that
in that circumstance. And the problem that you get into
is in a year where you don't have five what
we call bid steals, then you get into teams that
(41:31):
really have no business being anywhere near the tournament being
involved if we expand, and this year we even had
a team that had no business being anywhere into the
tournament get in in the case of North Carolina. So
it's just it bothers me that they're trying to justify
this just because some leagues are worried about whether they
can get enough teams in in the current circumstance because
(41:55):
the conferences have compressed. Look, we had the SEC get
fourteen out of sixteen members into the field, So there
is no barrier to entry if you win the games. Like,
no one's saying, oh, we're stopping the SEC at ten,
we're clocking the door at twelve, we're closing the vaulted third. No,
they got fourteen teams in. It has nothing to do
(42:17):
with that. It's just leagues that think there's a way
to try to expand their influence and placate their expanded membership,
and it would damage the college basketball regular season first
and foremost.
Speaker 11 (42:32):
And then it.
Speaker 12 (42:32):
Would basically just annoy the people who love the tournament
as it is and maybe make it more complicated to
put together a bracket.
Speaker 11 (42:40):
Pull.
Speaker 12 (42:40):
I mean, how are you going to put together a
bracket when you don't have any idea who all sixty
four teams are on Thursday? If you're trying to sort
yourself down from seventy six, Well.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Let's look at the structure. Then what would be the structure?
Would it just expand the number of Tuesday and Wednesday
games before the official bracket starts.
Speaker 12 (43:00):
Well that's I think that's the only way they're ever
going to get the television networks to go along. So
what the problem that they have right now? This would
have been done a while ago, except that the televisions
were saying, why do we want to mess up the
product we're paying a billion dollars for?
Speaker 11 (43:15):
Because this is not good, this is a bad idea.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
We're not interested and it's not making more money. Correct,
it's not making it's not going to make more money.
Speaker 12 (43:23):
Well, what they're asking the networks to do is basically
take on more expense because if you it's a billion
one right now for the sixty eight entrance, and they
divide it up based on how far you go and
all this and that, but it's a billion one, and
what they want is they want you to take seventy
six or seventy two and fund the extra two million
(43:46):
dollars for each team. So if it's it would be
eight million dollars. I guess if we went to seventy two,
it'd be twice that. It would be I guess twelve
million if we went to seventy six. And so the
networks are like, why would we give you another check?
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Yeah, they're not.
Speaker 11 (44:02):
Gonna many people are gonna watch these games.
Speaker 12 (44:04):
It might mess up our Thursday because again the bracket
pools the people who follow the sport. No, it really
has a big impact on the interest in Thursday and
Friday and why so many people are engaged in that.
And if it's hard to execute those because again, if
we're going when we're just going from sixty eight to
(44:24):
sixty four, we're only cutting a few teams out, but
if you have to cut out fully, I believe eight
teams to get to seventy to from seventy six to
sixty four, that's harder for you to do a bracket pool, Yes,
and I think that there were the networks rightfully are worried, Hey,
you might mess up what we've got going here that we've.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
Already contracted to pay a billion one for.
Speaker 12 (44:48):
And we're not crazy about this, And that's why it
has That's why it hasn't happened yet, because there there's
a lot of pushback on this from the people who
would have to fund it.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
Mike de course Us, he's our basketball expert talking about
the potential expansion of the NCAA tournament. So bottom line,
are we looking at still sixty eight for the twenty
twenty six tournament or do we think it goes to
seventy two or seventy six right off the bat here
beginning this coming year.
Speaker 12 (45:15):
I think we've gone too far for them to get
it to twenty six because remember, you probably couldn't do
it all in Dayton.
Speaker 11 (45:23):
You'd probably have to send somebody somewhere else.
Speaker 12 (45:27):
So I don't think that they'll that they'll try to
pull it off this year with no planning in advance.
But if it does happen, it would probably be for
twenty seven. And there's a lot of people in my
business who are like just giving up and saying it'll happen.
It's over, it's gonna happen. And I'm not believing in that,
because I believe that the public voice in this, and
(45:48):
the and the money people at the networks, they're still
going to have a say.
Speaker 11 (45:52):
The public really doesn't want this.
Speaker 12 (45:55):
And the more the public says it doesn't want this,
the better chance that it doesn't happen. I'm not saying
that they that it guarantees it, but it increases the
chances that it does not happen.
Speaker 2 (46:06):
Mike, let's talk a little NBA Finals. You're Indiana Pacers,
despite being sixty six to one to win the championship
at the beginning of the season, but despite being twenty
five to one to win the Eastern Conference to start
the season, or indeed Eastern Conference champions, and we are
adopting them, you know, probably indirectly. The situation with Seattle
(46:28):
and Oklahoma City. It's been a long long time, but
there hasn't been one day that Sonic fan that go
by that Sonic fans aren't rooting against the Oklahoma city thunder.
So we are all in a Pacer bandwagon, and we
want to know, as a guy that falls the Indiana
Pacers very closely, like you do, what type of shot
I mean, are we just is this a long long
(46:49):
shot for Indiana or do they have a legit shot
at pulling off the upset?
Speaker 12 (46:53):
Well, first of all, welcome board to all the people
in Seattle.
Speaker 11 (46:58):
Pacer bandwagon is big enough.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
For all of you.
Speaker 12 (47:02):
I am surprised at the overwhelming no one had, no
one's giving them a chance.
Speaker 11 (47:08):
I am surprised that, first of all, very depressed.
Speaker 12 (47:10):
I'm not a gambler, but every now and then, if
I happened through Vegas, I might put like like a
Steeler's futures bet like over and under, or back in
the day when they were.
Speaker 11 (47:20):
Really good, I bet them on the Super Bowl, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 12 (47:23):
And if I wandered through a book in Bahamas or
in Vegas or whatever and saw twenty five to one
to win the Astern Conference, I'd have made me some
money because I thought they had I thought they had
a good team and a chance. I didn't think they
were favorites or anything, but I thought they had a chance.
And what they've done through the playoffs. They took out
in Milwaukee, they didn't need seven games. They took out
(47:45):
Cleveland in five, they took out New York in six.
That's pretty good performance for a team that has no
chance in the finals. I'm not buying that they're gonna
have to play better than they have to date in
order to beat a team as terrific as Oklahoma City.
And everybody's gotten really overwhelmed by what Oklahoma City did
(48:07):
to Minneapolis, to the Timberwolves. But we're only a week
and a half, two weeks removed from them needing seven
games to take out Denver, and Deedver's got the best
player on the planet, not the MVP, but the best
player on the planet. But some really good players and
a really good team and a nice idea of how
to win and a great home court. I think the
(48:29):
Patriots have at least a chance. I was really surprised
when I was told how overwhelming the odds are against them.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
And they play a style of ball that's going to
be tough for Oklahoma City to defend, and they've got
the requisite depth to be able to play that type
of game. Is are we going to want to see
one twenty plus per team in this series, because I
kind of feel like if it's close to one hundred,
then it's the Oklahoma City is going to win that
type of game.
Speaker 12 (48:58):
Yeah, the more points there are, the better it is
for the Pacers, and they have played some of those games.
They were able to win on Friday Night in Game
six without maybe being quite themselves on offense until the
fourth quarter. I think Halliburton is going to have to
be more aggressive early.
Speaker 11 (49:17):
But I'll be interested to see how does OKC defend him.
Speaker 12 (49:21):
They had at New York in Michale Bridge as a
player who was pretty much uniquely designed to defend Halliburton long,
tall mobile six foot nine to Tyrese's six foot six.
It made a difference, and it made it it was
a challenge for Tyree's to get involved in the offense
and so he was more of.
Speaker 11 (49:42):
A distributor than he always is. So I'll be curious
to see what Oklahoma City does to try to slow
him down and that may have a big part in
who does win the series.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Hey, before I let you go, Mike guy, are the
TV ratings gonna suffer because of the two small markets
in this or has their been enough pump up recently
of SGA and Haliburton to get the eyeballs. Because when
you just think about the most marketed players going into
this season, I mean SGA might not have been in
the top ten, Tyrese might not have been in the
(50:13):
top twenty to start the season.
Speaker 11 (50:16):
Well, you know, I think that I think they might
be down.
Speaker 12 (50:19):
And because like if it was New York, in LA,
you get people, you get a lot of viewership just
because people live there and want to know what's going
on in their town, and that pumps up the numbers.
And Indiana and Oklahoma City are not as big a
markets anywhere near as bigger markets as those places are,
So it'll probably be down, but it's national interest lesser.
(50:40):
I don't know that it'll be that much less. I
will tell you this, I think this is this is
a finals that is a continuation of a playoffs. There
is a continuation of season that has been the best
in NBA in recent NBA history, and I'm talking about
the last four decades because it's made everybody in the
league say, hey, we can win this thing. It's not
this Oh, let's just play or and maybe get some
(51:01):
people in and have hot dogs and champagne in the
better seats and then we'll just all sit down and
watch Larry and Magic go at it. That's not the
thing anymore now. Now New York thought they had a chance,
and we're right, Cleveland thought they had a chance.
Speaker 11 (51:15):
Indy had a chance.
Speaker 12 (51:16):
There are all these teams that did, and the same
in the West. If if only Denver, if Aaron Gordon
hadn't gotten hurt, maybe maybe they pulled that off. And
then their toe to toe with Minneapolis in the in
the in the in the Western Conference Final.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
So this is a This is.
Speaker 12 (51:30):
The most egalitarian NBA of my lifetime, and I think
it's what sports should be. It shouldn't be I got
lucky by getting Tim Duncan and David Robinson and so
I win all the all the championships for the next
ten years.
Speaker 11 (51:44):
That's not what it should be. It should be about
smart and strategic and not just rich and lucky.
Speaker 1 (51:51):
Mike is always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
And when we turn the page to next college basketball season,
let's hope the next time we have you on we
were not talking about a seventy two or seventy sixteen
NCAA tournament, right, dropped.
Speaker 11 (52:04):
Your fingers, Dick, I hope.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
So thanks Mike, always a pleasure of a great summer.
My friend, you too, Thank you, you bet Mike de Corsi,
the Hall of Famer, our Fox Sports bracketologist, our expert
for college basketball.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
March Madness,
Dave 'Softy' Mahler and Dick Fain News
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