IlliniGuys Sports Spectacular (Weekend of February 22, 2025)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from Aledo to Alton, from Champagne to Chicago, and
from Robinson to Rockford. This is the Sports Spectacular powered
by a liniguys dot Com.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Another great weekend here these Sports Spectacular. Glad you with us,
Larry Smith, Brad s Jerdy, Mike Kegley once again as always, man,
we've got so much stuff to talk about, uh, things
to talk about with both basketball teams though for different reasons.
We'll get her to that boy on one side and
this just close your eyes and just pray that you
know that it's gonna go well. But listen, Illinois Duke

(00:41):
coming up Saturday. It's a special New York special Times Square.
We're in the house right here in Manhattan. We've got
Steve Wiseman, who is a Duke beat writer with the
Raleigh News Observer, joining us here in the bottom of
the hour. You want to be here for that to
talk about how this Duke team has kind of stayed
afloat at to the retirement of Mike Krzewski and what
he about this game Saturday night.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
I hear at MSG oh, we'll.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hear from Brad Underwood, Brett Beilama, also our friend Dylan
Sen is along to talk about a little a Big
ten basketball interesting now as we're getting down toward the
end of the season and looking toward March in the
conference tournament as well as the NCAA tournament as well. Fellas,
Let's start though with the Aliini women's basketball team. They

(01:24):
go out west school record eight straight Big Ten wins
despite all the injuries. They finally come up short at
third Rand to UCLA a Thursday night. But boy, what
a run and what a job Seana Green has done
to keep these ladies winning despite all their injuries and
adversity they that they've had to face.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Yeah, it's soon they're going to have to go find
people on campus to play and just pick up somebody
and say, hey, have you ever played basketball before? Because
we'll take you because you'd be like our sixth man
or six woman. So yeah, no, it's a it's a
weird situation that the all the injuries. I mean it
it's crazy. And you look at the way the men
and women have, the injuries, the illness that they've gone through.

(02:06):
It's it's stunning to me. I mean, I don't know
what's gone through UBN, but maybe that new facility is
was Bestu's in there.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
I'm just making that up, But no, you got to
wonder a little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
But Seana Green's done an amazing job of keeping her
girls focused on controlling their controllables.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
You know, there's only so much you can do.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
You can't you can't worry about being hurt because somebody's
just got to step up and play. The games are
gonna come whether you have all your players or not,
so you might as well go out there and give
your best effort.

Speaker 6 (02:33):
Yeah, it's it's really been amazing because down to you know,
five six players is just unheard of, and yet they're
having success against all odds. It's it's something that you
have to just tip your cap to them because if
there's so many preset excuses on why they could or

(02:56):
should lose, and they're ignoring them, and.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Even when they're down, even the game last week on Sunday,
the Homing game against Nebraska, they were down in that
game and in the first half, but came back got
the win to Dia McKenzie.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Was just a whirling dervish.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
I mean, twenty three points, eight rebounds, seven assists, force deeals.
The Alani gal really got it done and out here.
They are twenty one wins. They sought to play at
number six USC this weekend. They finish off, finish off
that trip before coming back home. Then in the season finale,
be there at State Farm Center, Michigan. Last chance to
see this team and the great Kendall Bostic and the

(03:36):
job she has done and the Dallion genesis Bryant Brin
shoop Hill that the four seniors done so much. Last
chance to get a chance to cheer them on at home.
And that's coming up a week from Sunday against against Michigan.
And then you get to the Big Ten tournament. Speaking
of tournaments, boy, you know, it was not long ago
that Illino was just riding high. The men's team twelve

(03:56):
and two. They had just routed Oregon one at Washington
when you know they weren't they weren't, you know, they weren't,
didn't play their best. They found a way to win,
and boy, things are just going so well. Then they
come back home and they route Penn State and then
the USC game and it just feels like it has
been just a house of horrors ever since that game

(04:17):
that weekend.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
It's really been, uh, it's been wild, you know, you
come back and you have that the the injury bump
game when they beat Penn State without kJ and then
uh they uh.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Then it's just been just downhill since then.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
And so you know, you're starting with the starting with
that USC game and I don't know, it's like that
broke Trey White too. He just went went in a
slump every I mean, it's just like everybody decided let's
all go slumping at the same time. Yeah, and they
had nothing. They beat Indiana and then since then, everything's
a grind. Even when they play well for like the
the at the end they give up a huge lead

(04:55):
to Northwestern, to Ohio State, to u c l A
games that looked like they were cruising in and next thing,
you know, it comes down to the wire. Just hasn't
they haven't looked, they haven't clicked. Haven't been clicking at
all defensively. So here's a crazy one. They've now they've
been dropping like a rock defensively. But over the last
four weeks they are ranked like one hundred in defensive efficiency.

(05:17):
They're like one hundred and thirtieth in the country or
something like that. Their defensive three point percentage, their three
point defense is like three hundred and thirty ninth or
something like that. In the let it's insane how bad
they're three point defense?

Speaker 6 (05:30):
Is yeah, I submit that this team has not been
quote right unquote since kJ hurt that left forearm, he
has not recaptured his form on a consistent basis. And
then you add the isshu chues with different players not

(05:53):
feeling well getting injured, and it has just turned into
a massive slump for a lot of people. And I
get I guess you call Mark Mark Grace and you
can help fix it.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm gonna quote a couple of movies, First Kings of Comedy.
The entertainer talking about Luther Vandross's curl and says, it
never quite, never quite curled, It never quite. Just always
bothered me, is this curl never quite curled? And that's
sort of illly basketball in the last month and never quite. Boy,
they're there, and we know this is one of those
talented rosters in the country. The boy they just can't

(06:29):
quite you know, Saturday was missing the final nineteen shots
and it was the they came up flat against USC
and and you know they go to Rutgers and you know,
they come back and they fall flat and just boy,
it just now We've got Duke coming up here this weekend,
third ranked Duke, and then the second one is.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Major League Joe bud needs rafail.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Somebody drank Joe Bu's rum and I think it was
Kylon Boswell when he burned that sage out, you know,
courtside there before the USC game. It's like it's been
it's been just a comedy of era since then. But
nobody's laughing about this brat Underwood after the lost Tuesday
night against Wisconsin ninety five seventy four, first lost to
the Badgers since twenty nineteen nine straight to wins was

(07:11):
that streak with snaps here he is talking about all
the injury and illness issues this team has suffered just recently.

Speaker 7 (07:19):
You know, at the end of the day, guys, we
don't have very many healthy bodies. Tommy didn't make the
trip with us. He drove up before the game because
he said he wanted to try to play, and Jake
Davis got sick right after pregame and said he wanted
to try to start, but he didn't even join us

(07:39):
at halftime. He was in the restroom. That's why we
didn't shake hands with them after the game. They don't
need this. But thirty eight years, I've never seen anything
like what's gone through our team with Trey will now Tommy.
Tommy's literally practiced maybe once in a month from.

Speaker 8 (07:58):
Mono and than the ancle injury and now and now this.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
So it's really difficult to play a practice when you
don't have everybody there, and practice has like become skill development,
but it takes away all your timing and all the
connectivity of your of your team. So you run a
ball screen, one guy thinks it's a poppy reads one way,
and one guy reads a role, and the past goes
to the role.

Speaker 5 (08:24):
And then it hits the other opponent in the in the hands.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
They're little things like that, and we don't really we
always we don't. We kind of take that stuff for granted.
But practice is how you connect that how they become
connected defensively is through practice. Well, if you aren't having
practice and you've got guys that aren't one hundred percent,
you're not going to be good defensively.

Speaker 5 (08:43):
And that's another thing we've seen from the squad.

Speaker 6 (08:46):
Yeah, that part of not being able to go five
on five is really hard because you've literally got guys
out there playing a game that has no real relationship
to what happens when the opening tip comes. And now
you're like an AAU program trying to figure out what
you do with seven guys or eight guys at practice
because it's not anywhere near what you're trying to simulate.

(09:09):
And that's so hard.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, it's it's just been tough.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
And then you have the Saturday game where Dray Gibbs
Lawhorn played only three minutes. He comes back because you
had to play him and leads the team in scoring
with seventeen against against Wisconsin. You got to find a
way to get him on the court, Trey Watt in
the court. And now again that you know, we've bragged
about Brad Underwood in the schedule making and how this
Duke game was just perfectly placed to get a break

(09:34):
from Big ten play, to test yourself against one of
the elite teams in the country. Well they're here and
unfortunately Illinois not playing at elite level for a number
of reasons right now, so illness goes through. He talked
about Thomas Lavavisitch had the flu plays Jake Davis he
just mentioned caught the flu bug pre game started, got
a couple of three pointers, winds about eight minutes, he's

(09:55):
in the bathroom rest the night didn't come out, they
didn't shake hands, as you probably saw that, and again
to you know. So the question then later after the
Wisconsin game was to Brad Edwood, how do you stop
the spread? What do you do to to try to
stop this madness?

Speaker 3 (10:09):
And here's his answer.

Speaker 7 (10:11):
We're obviously now washing our hands enough. We obviously have
to do a better job in our building. We're three
weeks into this now and we can't stop it. Maybe
it's their apartments. I don't know, if we need to
put them in hotels. I don't have the answer. We
we went through a stretch, we gave them all tama flu.

(10:33):
We've and and this isn't that this is a different
time because we did the fever body eight thing with
a couple guys. Now this is the you know, this
is the stomach and and the and the other end.
And you know Thomas Love lost seven pounds, so you know,

(10:53):
you can imagine he took two and a half ivs
today before he came up, just to try to hydrate.

Speaker 8 (11:02):
And so.

Speaker 7 (11:06):
We'll do everything we can possibly do with our with
our staff or people, and that again, that's why I
didn't want to shake hands with Greg and their group too.
They need to stay as far away from from this
nonsense as they can.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
Well, sacrificing a live chicken is still an option. I
think I tweeted that before the game. I think that,
you know, there is I was going with that. I
think that's maybe the way to go. You know, I
don't know how do you How do you get through it?
I don't know whether it's like maybe maybe that's what
Bosmo was going for with the sage, Maybe we need
to do it again. Maybe that's what they need to

(11:41):
do again. So I don't I don't know how you
get through. It's just one of those things you got
to battle through. Does it make you?

Speaker 3 (11:46):
You know?

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Then the question becomes does it make you tougher? Do
you are you able to then enjoy when you if
it all starts clicking here? Do they connect better? Are
they able to enjoy it more? Are they will to
fight a little harder because they feel like they've overcome something?

Speaker 6 (12:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
It's like a movie right now, you're just in that
bad plot point where everything's going downhill. Now they got
to figure out a way to get the glorious finish.

Speaker 6 (12:12):
Well. I was gonna get a bucket of chicken and
sacrifice it here tonight, but I ate it on the
way home, So we're gonna have to skip that part
to count. It's your fault. It's your fault, exactly. I
gotta be honest with you. You almost think you put
them in a hotel room. Everybody gets a room to themselves.
You have someone go clean and fumigate their apartments for

(12:33):
a few days, or you buy more of those oxygen
bariatric oxygen chambers that Tarren Shannon used to sleep in,
and you just keep them in there twenty three hours
a day. Let them come out to practice. It'd be
a little vampire like, but boy, they wouldn't get any
germs that way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, And we haven't talked about Maurice Johnson Junior, the
fractured left wrist on that incredible you know, block shots
as he ran down the guard on a fast break.
They're in the second half against Michigan State. That also
contributed to their poor shooting as well. It's just been
it's like you're afraid to ask what more can happen
because you might get an answer you don't like it,

(13:11):
So Illinois Duke, it's an eight o'clock Eastern time, seven
o'clock Central time tip off from Madison Square Garden right
there in Times Square.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
It almost did very well the past couple of years.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
You know, two years ago in December twenty twenty two,
they beat then second ranked Texas in overtime, came back
from a ten point deficit second half. We don't see
them come back very often in second half's. This year
they did it against who State Otherwise it's been kind
of tough big win then. And then last season December
twenty three, they beat then eleventh ranked Florida Atlantic ninety

(13:40):
eight eighty nine. In that one as well, that was
a Marcus Tomass game when he just went off, they
couldn't stop him. So it's a venue in which this
program has done very well. Of course, there's only one
active player who was in uniform last year against the Owls,
and that's Dray Gibbs Lawhorn, So we'll see, you know,
what they can do. So we've got a lot more
coming up on that. We'll hear more and Brad Underwood

(14:01):
later on to the second hour. Also after a break
as well. We'll hear from coach about the other thing
that happened in ILI basketball this week. This week the
Terrence Shannon Banner incident. Yeah, we'll talk about that. But boy,
what a silver lining to this cloud. We can't wait
to talk about it. That's next right here on the
Atlanta Guys Radio Network.

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Speaker 3 (16:09):
Back here in the show.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Glad you're with us no matter where you're listening, if
you're in Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Uh, Glad you're here with us, Iowa.

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Even this is the Alani Guy Sports Spectacular. You know.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Terrence Shannon, Junior Boy, one of the greatest Illani of
all time, sets a single season scoring record even though
he missed six games due to that crazy suspension. I
think we all cheered when Josh Woman announced over the summer,
the athletic director that even though he didn't fit all
the criteria to have his jersey put in the rafters
with all the other greats, that they were gonna do

(16:40):
that because again, he should have been an All American
had the interruption not happened. We're all feeling good about
it until Saturday night comes, and now people who didn't
even know Illinois had a basketball team are laughing about
this because the banner was unveiled and temporarily hung, even
though it was upside down to honor Terrence Shannon June.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
It seems almost in a way apropos.

Speaker 4 (17:03):
Yeah, but they always say the truth is stranger than fiction, right,
and so you can't make this up. And you know
what the look on his face when he you know,
I was only about fifteen twenty feet from him when
he pulled that strain, and he looks at and he's like,
and you can see him going, is it supposed to
be like that?

Speaker 5 (17:21):
When it goes up there?

Speaker 4 (17:21):
Is it gonna flip? I mean in his head because
he's thinking they can't really get it, they can't get
this that wrong and they did. Now we'll talk more
about this, but he's gonna talk about how you know,
he's really spun this. He and his mother have really
spun this into a positive and it's really a credit
to them the way they've handled it. But man, this
is a I don't know, it's really funny exactly.

Speaker 6 (17:46):
It's amazing when you see somebody react in real time
to a situation that's going sideways. And Tarreen Shannon Junior
took that as well as anybody I've ever seen in
any walk of life, in any situation, watching a comical
situation happen. It was just amazing. And you have to

(18:10):
think that the perspective that he has gained going through
what he had to go through will will make him
infinitely valuable, you know, in life. And certainly what a
classy response in the moment, let alone later on, just amazing.
Totally agree, Totally agree.

Speaker 2 (18:31):
And that's the thing that if you thought this young
man had classed well he handled all of that last
year being accused of sexual assault from the beginnings that
he was innocent, turns out again there's nothing that linked
into this. I mean, I still say he should follow
suit against somebody because this was insane, your character assassination.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
He takes this.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
Moment and on Monday comes right out and unveils that
he has a T shirt that says, you know, when
things turned upside down, turn it around whatever. But here's
a great thing. You can go on and buy the shirt.
All proceeds go to the local Boys and Girls club.
So we're going to tell you how you can do that.
But first here is Brad Underwood's comment. He had a

(19:09):
lengthy response to this after the Wisconsin game the other night,
talking about the character of Terrence Shannon Jr.

Speaker 3 (19:15):
Doing this. Let's listen and we'll talk about on the
other side.

Speaker 7 (19:18):
So I smiled today. Everybody here probably knows what happened
with Terrence Shannon. Okay, we were the laughing stock. Okay,
hung a banner for a young man who set all
kinds of records, and you know, we don't have to
tell the story. We hung it upside down, and I
can't imagine what that was like for him. A lot

(19:39):
of people at our place did a lot of things
to make it a special special day for him, and
we messed it up. And for the character of that
young man to come out and do what he did today,
made his shirt.

Speaker 8 (19:55):
If you haven't seen.

Speaker 7 (19:56):
It, you know when life throws you, you know, turns
your world upside down. The eighteen months that young man had,
the last eighteen months have been no other than trying
and difficult, and for him then to turn around and
make a shirt. And I challenge every business in Champagne.

(20:20):
I challenge every alump go buy it because it's all
going to the Boys and Girls Club. He's not out
trying to profit off of it. But man, you talk
about a happy head ball coach today. Man, I could
be any more proud of the way that young man
handled that situation, his moment, his moment, all the work

(20:41):
that went into that, his moment, and then to turn
it around and give it all to charity. So my
challenge is to all the great Aliani fans out there,
do something great and go buy that shirt. And I'm
going to buy hundreds of them. I don't it's this

(21:02):
is a game. What that kid went through with his trial,
and a moment like that speaks speaks volume see him.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
There's a I think Brad Undwood has special relationship with
Terrence Shannon obviously, and Terrence always you know, coach Brad
and they have there's They're very tight, and I think
it just goes to show you that there's more. We
always talked about wins and losses, that's what matters, but
these relationships that you create. This young man is just

(21:32):
a special, special individual. What he had to deal with
last year to battle through and what he's dealt with,
you know, even with this little thing here, it doesn't
seem like much, but the way he's handled his class
and spinning it into a positive. I just can't say
enough about the kid. And you know, this is why
we were a year ago. We were so shocked that

(21:55):
he would be a guy, you know, accused of what
he was accused of, because we known him, you know,
and knew what he was like as an individual.

Speaker 6 (22:04):
Yeah. So, I mean, if you want to support him,
go to Game day Spirit dot com and just go
to collections and then Illinois TSJ upside Down banner. It's
not hard to find on their site. Just go to
Game Dayspirit dot com. You'll find it and you can
support a good cause and you can He's found yet
another way in his life to turn lemons into lemonade.

(22:28):
I am just amazed that the GM at Minnesota doesn't
understand what they have. I think they're maybe scratching the
surface there. But you got a kid who knows how
to perform under high pressure and doesn't let things bother
him and stays positive through everything. And he oh, by
the way, he has uber athletic talent too, and he's

(22:49):
very skilled at basketball. You would think they could find
a place for him on the floor.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, they finally, finally, finally found some minutes for him
there before the All Star break, and hopefully that carries
over into the second half of the season. He's just
a very special talent. The blend of size, strength, he's
got some He's showed some good visions, some of his
passes and a lot of assists. You know again, you
you draft somebody, make you better, let him play, let

(23:13):
him make you better, you know, no question. So yeah,
Game Bay Spirit dot Com coach Underwood said he was
gonna buy one hundred of him. He makes plenty of money.
He may be by two ornde of him. He's got
and he won't miss it. But the cool thing is, again,
every dollar goes to local boys and girls club. We
cannot emphasize that enough. And a Terrance Shannon Jr. Man,
we take our hat off to you. The way you
handled the stuff last year, the way you've handled everything

(23:35):
in the off season going into the draft, that way
you've handled the beginning of your MBA career not playing
much and taking out your frustration when they send you
down to the G League and putting forty on them
every night when you go down there and then here
the jersey upside down, and instead of running from that
or whatever, you are turning that into a legacy and
making it into a positive for local kids. We can't
salute you enough, and we're buying shirts as well. Terrence

(23:58):
Shannon Jr. You're one of a kind. Hey, listen, We've
got a one of a kind game coming up Saturday night.
It's not the game we hoped for, but this is
still an Illinois team that if they can come together
and get healthy, they still have a chance to be
incredibly special in March. We'll talk more about that as
we get closer to tournament time. But up next, though,

(24:18):
it's our friend Steve Weisman, he's a dukefeat rider from
the Raleigh News Observer, talking about the Blue Devils in
this matchup Saturday night. It's Illinois versus number three Duke.
Next right, you're on the sports spectac.

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Speaker 16 (25:57):
Slash your Way. Hi.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
This is Smith, proud native of Central Illinois. It's been
an honor to have reported on the world's biggest sporting
events for the past three decades and as a lifelong
Aliini fan, it's a privilege to now be with Ilini
Guys dot com. My friends and I put this together
with one goal in mind to have the best Ilini
centric website around. Great features, podcasts, insider stuff. I know

(26:20):
a little something about telling athletes stories and these guys
know a lot about the Aliini.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
It's a perfect match.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Come over and check it out Ilini Guys dot com.

Speaker 17 (26:31):
Now back to the ALIGNI Guys Sports Spectacular.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
One of the big games this weekend and looking forward
to is Number three Duke taking on Illinois. Glad to
have with us her on the show Steve Wiseman. He's
a Duke beat writer for the Raleigh News and Observer. Steve,
Welcome to the show, and boy congrants on Duke once again.
We were talking here in the break. You know, Mike
Krzyzewski is now retired. They're the critics to John Shire.

(27:01):
Oh he's his zan Piqui. Chohn's did a great shop
with this team, and once again they just have not
missed a beat.

Speaker 5 (27:07):
Once again.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
They were gonna headed to a number one seed and
uh and they were, you know, one of the candidates
to win the national title.

Speaker 10 (27:13):
Yeah, it's it's really worked out the way they wanted
it to. When they set the succession plan up and
everything that John would you know, work under him for
a year, annoying he was gonna take over the program. Uh.
And you know they haven't made a final four yet.
So that's that's the one hurdle they need to clear.
They almost made it last year, of course, lost to
the elite, but you look at his record. They won
an a CC championship the first year. Lee last year

(27:36):
looking like you know, a number one seed like you
said this year, uh, with with a chance to win
it all. So that's that's what they set it up
to be, and you know, it's it's hard to argue
that it has not been successful. I think that it's
clearly it's clearly worked the way they wanted it to.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Yeah, you know John from the Chicago suburbs, the Illinois program, well, obviously,
I think coming out of high school, came down to
Duke or Illinois, and he chose the Blue Devils and
Blue Devil for life. What kind of pressure has this
been on him? It feels like on the outside he's
been embraced. You mentioned no final fours, that the leve

(28:11):
will change, that doesn't happen here in a couple of years.
But it feels like it's, like you said, even the
fans have embraced him, and it's it's been a good transition.

Speaker 10 (28:18):
They have mostly obviously, you know, no, there's no one
approval ratings for anybody in this world. So there are
some who noted that. You know, last year they lost
to Carolina twice, that's the rival, and then then lost
to n C State in the ACC Tournament and in
the eight So that didn't sit well in the off season.
So in this little neighborhood with our three schools, here

(28:38):
of the triangle that that gets brought up quite a bit, so,
but yes, the overall big picture, he's handled the pressure
pretty well and I've seen him over the last this
is third year, grow into the position and be more
comfortable to make bold moves. And like last off season
when you know they had to tell some people there's

(29:00):
not gonna be a place for you in next year's team,
and they brought in three transfers from outside the program,
elite Brown Mason Gillis from Purdue and see On James
from Tulane, who have helpen big parts of what they're doing.
He had to change kind of the culture of the
locker room to build it around Cooper Flag, and he
felt emboldened and able to do that. I don't think
coming into his first year he would have maybe done that.

(29:23):
He was kinds of off feeling his way. But yeah,
so he's he's grown into it and he's doing a
pretty good job.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, talk about Cooper Flag, he's an outstanding player. The
ESPN announcers give him kind of superhuman adjective sometimes, but
that's to take away that I think he's a really
fun player and someone I'm looking forward to seeing up
for you know, up close and personal on Saturday, tell
us about what from your seat, how good this young

(29:49):
man is?

Speaker 10 (29:50):
So the biggest thing is he impacts the game everywhere.
On the fourt He's leading them in every stat category, right, assists, steals, rebounds,
you know, points, obviously block shots. He don't see that
very often, especially as a team that's right number three
in the country and gonna be n everyone see this
as the Bay Tournament, like there's a guy uab doing it.
But that's you know, a little lower level basketball and

(30:12):
they're like five hundred team. So that's the one thing
that jumps out and people ask me a lot. How
does he compare to the past great duke freshman Zion
Williams and RJ. Barrett, Jason Tatum on down the line.
It's the way he impacts everywhere. I mean, Zion was
the human highlight reel and every night he did dunks
that were unbelievable. Cooper had a couple of those in

(30:33):
that pit game last month and that was the biggest thing.
But Zion did those every night. But what but Cooper
does is you know, their offense runs through him. He
can decide I don't need to score to night. For
us to win, I need to pass and rebound, and
he'll have eleven points and fourteen fifteen rebounds and seven assists.
Whatever they need defensively, he can do it. And at

(30:54):
such a young age to be able to do comfortable,
to make to see how the game's going and make
those decisions on the floor, it's pretty impressive.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, what's it been like to watch this acc You've
been around the a CEC for a long time, around
this game for a long time. Look, you can't lose
six soon to be seven coaches in a span of
three years and all the NCAA Championships, all the final
fours and not have some kind of letdown. That's taking
nothing away from the coaches there now, But Shryzewski, Beheim, Williams,

(31:28):
Josh Pastor is not one of those elites. But still
he's a guy who's a veteran of the game. The
list goes on and on. What's it been like from
your end to watch, you know, night and night out
and say, gee, a conference usually could be eight nine
bids maybe lucky to get fined this.

Speaker 10 (31:45):
Year, Yeah, I mean I think no more than four
or maybe three. Yeah, it's really we refer to it
as the brain drain. It's just you know, and again
it's the experience. I mean, just not that long ago.
There were four active Hall of Fame coaches in this
league when Patino was at Louisville and Kay and Roy
and Beyhunt, and then since then Tony Bennett won a

(32:06):
national championship at Virginia in twenty nineteen, Duke had three
and not Duke. The ACC had three number one seeds
in the NCAA tournament Duke, Virginia, and North Carolina. That's
only five six years ago. It's not ancient history. And
now we're talking about maybe getting three teams in the
tournament because all those guys are gone, and so the
next generation has yet to establish itself at that level.

(32:29):
And again, Josh Shire looks like he might be ready
to be that, but he's got to get to a
final four and win a national championship to really stamp
that down. And so, yes, there are placement guys that
have come in Red autry at Syracuse. Syracuse is not
nearly what they used to be, right. Pitt used to
be a team when they were in the Big East
that was routinely a number one and number two seed

(32:50):
the install a tournament as Jeff Cable has done a
better job building them back up, but they're still not
They're not going to make the tournament this year. That'll be
two years in a row. So that next generation really
hasn't established itself yet. And so we've seen the slippage
in the level play at the conference and it's it's
said for me, as somebody who's covered this league for
fifteen years in a row, to see that happen. But

(33:10):
it didn't happen overnight. It was a little bit here,
a little bit there, and now that we're in this situation,
so they've got a there's some programs that need to
invest in IL. Pat Kelsey at Louisville's doing a really
good job. Maybe he's going to get that program back
up to where it needs to be to make this
conference good. So he's a he's a win in that category.
But there's a lot of guys that aren't doing the job.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, Kelsey, fantastic job. The year and a year from
last year with Kitty Payne has been outstanding. Where the
Cardinals one of those teams that will be one of
those those three bids. It looks like it's pretty much guaranteed.
Talking to Steve Weisman again. Duke Beak, writer with the
Rally News and Observer, Duke Illinois. It's on Fox eight
pm Eastern tip from Madison Square Garden. Can't wait, an excited,
great atmosphere. This is an Illinois team that has had

(33:52):
some big wins this season. They knocked off a ranked
Arkansas team on a neutral court. We're competitive with that
Alabama team on a neutral court beat Missouri took the
number one Tennessee down to the wire, but they really
struggled of late with just a ton of injuries, illnesses,
and they had a you know, as you know the
other night against Wisconsin. At Wisconsin, the starting center was

(34:13):
late to the game because of the flu up all
night the night before. The kid who replaced him played
eight minutes and then went to the locker room and
he spent the rest of the night.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
In the bathroom with the flu.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
I mean, it is first off, any concerns about you
guys have an extra hand sanitizer on the bench.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Have you heard about that?

Speaker 2 (34:31):
And talk about in terms of this Illinois team, what
do you know about them and what have you seen
from them on the outside.

Speaker 10 (34:36):
Well, yeah, by the way, illnesses. You know, Mason Gillis
missed a couple of games for Duke last week with
with he was out with the illness two kind of
same situation. So he's back. But anyway, so you know,
stuff's going around, right, That's kind of the way. This
is time of here. But yes, you know, I look
forward to this game when they scheduled it, I thought
this is a great late season, little boost for both
of them to step out of conference and kind of

(34:57):
get an early peak what the tournament's going to be
like in March. So I think it's cool Illinois. Again,
I thought this would be a battle of frank teams,
and it's not because Illinois has really struggled the last
few games. And I did watch some of the game
with Wisconsin and saw them, you know, end up losing
by what twenty one points, so they're not rebatning as well.

(35:18):
One thing I know, Illinoi is really struggling on the inside.
And Duke lost the rebanding battle to Clemson when they
lost that game a couple of weeks ago, and that
was a rare thing for them, and they've really emphasized that.
And then against Virginia on Monday night, they won the
rebannding battle forty one to twenty one. It was like
fifteen to three at one point. I mean, they just
dominated the area.

Speaker 6 (35:37):
So from an.

Speaker 10 (35:38):
Illinois perspective, that's that's an area of concern that Duke
is back strong there in Illinois weak and Duke's defense
has been really good. And last night or when I
watched the Wisconsin game, Illinois turned the ball over a
lot in the first half. They had trouble get into
their offense. It looked like they were struggling with that.
And Duke's been very good at half court defense that
you know, forcing teams into bad shots mc Creighton turnovers.

(36:00):
Those are areas of concerns for Illinois going to this
game that I hope when this game was set up
months ago wouldn't be the case to be a little
more competitive. But there's some serious edges for Duke in
those in those things.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Yeah, and the rebounding, you're exactly right. I believe it's
been five straight games they failed to get to forty rebounds.

Speaker 3 (36:17):
They're two and three in those games.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
This is a team that's number two right now, they're
neck and neck with I think it's Alabama in rebounding
forty four point three rebounds a game something like that. Obviously,
again Tamasovatvisich being down, he had modeled and he had
a badly sprained ankle.

Speaker 3 (36:34):
Now the flu thing.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Maurice Johnson Junior fractures his wrist on a tremendous block
shot on the Michigan State game Saturday night. I mean
it is just one that I don't know if you're familiar,
but the guard Kylon Boswell for reasons.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
That we don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I don't know that it was almost like a you know,
Jobu moment of Major League. But he was burning sage
pregame around the around the courts before they played USC.

Speaker 3 (36:59):
It was a Saturday morning, an am local tip off.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Uh, they were supposed to win easily, ten twelve point favorites,
and they lost, and that began the tailspin. So the
joke in Champagne is find Joe Boo's wrung, like you
got to do something because since then, uh, you know,
Yaka Chonas was out with you know, a fore arm injury,
and then you know, four or five guys had you know,
the flu or and then if Esich motto and then

(37:22):
you know, it's Forerez, It's like, really, stop this, stop
the bleeding.

Speaker 10 (37:27):
The reverse effect, the opposite direction. Yeah, maybe he read
the directions backwards. I don't know what happened, but yeah,
that's not that's not good. He needed he needed an
intervention here, straighten this out, because that's that's bad luck.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Curse.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Since then there were twelve and two and again I
think lost like five and seven. Since something like that.
Tell me what concerns you about Duke henning into March
right now? Obviously, boy, they're blowing teams away every single night.
I would think that that Duke Nations looking forward to
bringing their best for a competitive March like game, even
though no matter, even though they got guys out, maybe

(38:01):
they can get healthy here the next couple of days.
What what's your concern about this Duke team as they
hit the tournament.

Speaker 10 (38:08):
Well, Number one is they had an injury come up
the other night at Virginia. They lost Malie Brown, who
was their sixth man and are really a big key
to their defense. He can guard one through five. They
switch all the time in the half court sets, which
makes it tough to run an offense against it. He
does things that that come on male. You watch the
seven foot two freshmen from Africa can't do and with

(38:30):
him out, Malik's dislocated his shoulder and he's going to
be out for for a few weeks there. They think,
you know, hopefully they'll getting back for the NCAA tournament.
That's that's the kind of the hope. But they played
without him in January and they kept winning, but you
can see the defense not quite as sharp, and so
that's a big concern now, is is that going to

(38:50):
happen and they they'll be able to get through the
acc schedule because they're not going to play anybody that's
that's going to the tournament here down the stretch. Illinois
is the one that they're going to play and then
Acency tournament. So that's a concern for me, is how
is his health going to be when he comes back.
Can they put him right back in or is he
gonna be done for the year. I mean, it's they're
still assessing. You know, a dislocated shoulder can be a

(39:11):
long recovery if it's if it's not handled correctly. So
that's a concern. They're playing much better offensively right now,
and I think that's that's a good thing. They had
a little stretch there where when they played Clemson, when
they played the close game with wake Forest, where they
were turned the ball over a little bit more. They're
normally a team that is a lot more assistant turnovers.

(39:32):
They kind of got away from that a little bit.
Now they've kind of found their groove again, so they
have to keep that up. I mean, obviously, you know,
you can have a night where you shoot four out
of twenty from three and that puts you in danger
of losing. But they're better.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
One of those nights, by the way.

Speaker 10 (39:49):
Exactly you know it happens. But so you've got to
find other sources of consistent offense, and so that's that's
what they're doing right now. They seem to be doing that.
So they have to continue to get that. But the
defense has always been there, and that's that's what they.

Speaker 5 (40:04):
Have to have.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah, Yeah, and I think that's the staple.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
And that's why, you know, if we talk about consistency
and the changeover from Srychevski to Shire, that's philosophy has
always been there. I think, like you said, why there's
still one of the elite teams.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
Yeah, Illinois.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
We joke they shoot threes as if it's oxygen. I
mean it is, just you know that they missed twelve
straight to the end of the game three pointers against
Michigan State. Well they're in the bonus. That's another conversation.
Head to New York. It's Duke Illinois. I know, Duke
gets the MSG.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
You know.

Speaker 2 (40:34):
It feels like almost every year for one reason or another,
favorite Times Square place to grab a bite to eat.

Speaker 3 (40:41):
What's your favorite?

Speaker 10 (40:42):
Oh man, man, that's Seattle. I don't go to Times Square.
I go to Little Italy.

Speaker 3 (40:48):
Oh yeah, okay, okay, yeah.

Speaker 10 (40:49):
Like there's a place called Bonitos too. That's my place
in Little Italy. I like to go there. There's another
place that's closed up. So many Italian restaurants.

Speaker 8 (40:59):
In New York City.

Speaker 10 (40:59):
But okay, yes, and you gotta get and you gotta
go to Junior's. Get a Junior's cheesecake, like you got it.
That's the Times Square. That is Time Square Cheesecake.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
And literally is a short it's a short uber ride,
short cab right.

Speaker 10 (41:11):
Yes, not far away?

Speaker 3 (41:13):
Yeah yeah, okay, far away.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
We have a lot of Aliani fans who listen to this,
and so they're going to be looking for a place,
and there we go. We're gonna say, Steve told you
to get there, So all right, Steve, listen. Great to
spend some time with you. Save travels and good luck
the rest of the way here. Hopefully we'll talk with
you again soon.

Speaker 10 (41:29):
Very good. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
All right, Thank you, sir Steve Wise. Once again he's
a Duke beat writer Raleigh News and Observer. Be sure
to give a follow on social media. It is number
three Duke against Illinois, eight pm Eastern tip on Fox
from the Great Madison Square Garden.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
We've got more to comp to stay with us right here.

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Speaker 5 (44:25):
We're back here.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
And I just gotta say, Mike, we've Women's college basketball
has become like cool. Kaitlyn Clark made it exciting, and
you know it was it was so it was like
Yukon Tennessee for a long time. And and now Kaitlyn
Clark came in exciting. But now she's gone. But this
game is still awesome. There are so many girls playing

(44:46):
now that are like at a high level. It's really
fun to watch this this game, the way it's evolved.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
Do you think it's from the fact that over the years,
you know, they have encouraged with the increase some scholarships,
et cetera. We're starting to see the payoff of ten
to twenty years of letting the sport percolate. Because, like
you said, in the old days, there was like two
three contenders every year, and now it's like that you

(45:15):
could pull fifteen teams and if they got hot, they
might win.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, I'm not sure it quite extends that far, but
I think it's growing. I think it eventually will extend
to fifteen to twenty teams. I think right now you're
probably in that, you know, eight to ten teams as
opposed to two to three teams.

Speaker 5 (45:31):
I think we're making that progress. There's just more players.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
So, you know, there's some great players in college basketball
right now, and we've talked about We've talked a ton
about before you least talked about Clark, but now now
it's you got some different ones. You've got Page Beckers,
who's kind of become you know, at Yukon, Juju Watkins
at USC, Hanna Hidalgo at Notre Dame, and the Bets

(45:55):
girl at UCLA.

Speaker 5 (45:56):
I mean, just fantastic players. I mean, so, who's your
player of the year.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
I don't know how closely we followed it, but who
do you think you're player of the year?

Speaker 6 (46:05):
Preseason, I would have said Juju Watkins, and she's had
a great year. I wonder though, across town, with Lauren
Betts in the way UCLA is playing, if that might
be the m v P this year, you know, I mean,
there's there's so many to choose from, but I i'd
have to give Bets the early one. But you've got

(46:25):
You've still got that that awards given I think on
April second, so you've still got the Big Ten tournament,
You've still got the NCAA Tournament. So I think the
if somebody wants to control the script, they can. They
can write a really neat ending for their season.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
For me, I think it's Hannah head all Go. I
think she's the one at Notre Dame. Their rank number
one now and I feel like they're she's the one.
She's been She's the straw that serves that drink there
for them. Look at number one seeds, you know, it
seemed like South Carolina was a lock, you know and everything,
and they had a seventy one game home wing streak
and then you know they Yu Kond goes in and
they didn't just beat them, they just destroyed them. Just

(47:04):
insane the way they dominated. Asy Fudd, who has not
played for seems like she's always hurt, you know, Sarah
Strong Page Becker is just a really good Yukon squad
now starting to click and getting that win at South
Carolina was huge. So number one seeds, I mean, usc U,
c l A. Notre Dame seemed to be pretty much
kind of locked in there and then we'll see who

(47:25):
comes out of maybe the sec whether it's you know,
or Yukon or whoever it is that that's able to
get over that hump.

Speaker 6 (47:32):
Yeah, there's there's there's quite a few. I think you
got to give Notre Dame the edge. But to see
South Carolina beat at home is a big deal. If
it's a one point loss, it's a big deal. They
get beat handily. I mean I wonder if you go
back in the record books, like when was the last
time they lost by a sizeable amount, you know, anywhere,

(47:53):
and that that's just a pretty impressive thing to do. Now,
can you can you duplicate it? The other thing is
is Ohio State was galvanized by being beat by Michigan
and football. Could this be the wake up call that
makes South Carolina turn into the to the big tough

(48:13):
bully on the you know that everybody thought they might
be this year. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
It's an interesting question. You know, I left out Texas.
I apologize Texas Bells will be in the mix of
that number one seed, but I you know, I think
it's uh, you know, but I don't know. I mean,
I don't know what the I look at this list
and when you see a team, when the number five
team can beat the number you know whatever. Now there's
number sixteen by thirty at their place, and you've got
LSU obviously Ohio State. You go down the list, got

(48:41):
a lot of really good basketball teams. I I I mean,
I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of
teams that have a chance to make a deep run,
you know, in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
And so this is this is gonna be fun. This
is a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
I always think that, you know, we Caitlin Clark's highest
scoring game Mike her career, this switching gears here a
little bit, was forty nine points.

Speaker 6 (49:03):
Right.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
We just had a Vandermilt freshman who scored fifty points again,
Mikayla Blake. Right, and she has now scored fifty points
twice this year. I mean that doesn't have fifty five
against the other day.

Speaker 6 (49:23):
Inainst Alabama's football defense.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
Maybe, I don't know, but it's fifty five. She originally
had fifty three over Florida and then she got fifty
five against Auburn. So, my goodness, this is pretty high
scoring by freshman in ever Atlanta Della Dona scored fifty
four for at Delaware went back in twenty ten.

Speaker 5 (49:47):
But you know, it's pretty I don't know.

Speaker 6 (49:50):
Back and back against against other SEC teams is pretty
darn impressive. Since anybody says you're you're playing a power team.

Speaker 5 (49:58):
There, Yeah, that's that's crazy.

Speaker 4 (50:01):
I mean, fifty points is a lot, yes, So I
mean that's a lot of points.

Speaker 6 (50:04):
How many times did you score fifty in a game? Brad?

Speaker 5 (50:07):
I never scored Forty five was the most points I
ever scored.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
In a single basketball game. So you know that was
it for me. I'm just I'm not you know, I'm
not worthy. So it's okay, But you know, I maybe
I should have shot.

Speaker 6 (50:18):
More exactly exactly my team.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
My teammates would not agree with that, but you know.

Speaker 6 (50:24):
That's what everybody says when they graduate from high school.
You don't I had a shot more. I might have
played college ball. No, you wouldn't have.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
No, it's no, it's it's funny. No, But I really
will say this, how do people you know? How do
you how do how? Why is there so many more
girls now that we see just coming up? And do
you feel like I think you can win with young
girls young players in the girls side more than the
boys side.

Speaker 6 (50:49):
Because women mature, quicker maybe from an emotional standpoint, compared
to men, who.

Speaker 4 (50:54):
Knows, well, definitely for emotional you don't see them like,
you know, usually punching lockers and breaking hands and things
like that. Uh, it's pretty interesting, you know when you
think about it, though. But you bring these freshmen and
they're ready to pull up more. You know, Juji Watkins
last year, Hannah and Olga last year, they were fantastic
as freshmen and you don't usually see people who are
able as freshmen to lead teams to final fours and titles.

Speaker 6 (51:17):
On the other side of Carl, It's never happened, right, Yeah, Well, I.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
Mean you could say Anthony Davis kind of, you could say,
you know, Oka four and Jones, But I mean, really
it's you know, those guys were they had older guys
that really were huge there.

Speaker 5 (51:30):
They weren't just the guy, you know.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
So but yeah, I would say maybe maybe it's Cooper
Flag this year, but it's almost has to be a
generational person to do it on the men's side.

Speaker 6 (51:40):
Yeah, totally totally agree with you.

Speaker 4 (51:42):
All Right, we background for this. We'll talk some more
sports skipping around.

Speaker 5 (51:47):
But what do we have next?

Speaker 4 (51:48):
Let's talk about some I don't know, maybe some Big
ten basketball on the other side.

Speaker 17 (51:57):
Now back with Larry Smith, Mike Cagley, and Brad Sturdy.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Our number two.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Glad you're with us, Larry Smith, Mike Kegley, Frad Sturdy.
We've got Josh Ewing do an audio force. Tony Cordero
is our producer. It's a cast of thousands divided by
two hundred that makes the show happen. But hey, who's
counting big, big weekend for basketball.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
This weekend, it is.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Illinois taking on number three Duke at Madison Square Garden
eight pm Eastern Time.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
It's on Fox.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
You know, maybe this time Gus Johnson will wear neutral colors.
Maybe Last week he wore all green to as Tom
Izzel's about to become the all time winning as coach
in the Big Ten and at halftime actually admitted it.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
You know, I mean, I've.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Done this a lot of times that you play about
you know we're a neutral color. I mean, i'd tell
you I do election election nights all the time, and
the red and blue tie stay in the closets that
they're hard to do, Brad, But you've been there the
past couple of years.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
MSG.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
What's this atmosphere like for this He's Illinois players who
most of them have not played a game at Madison
Square Garden.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yeah, because they're all new. They've played there like three
years in a row, but they put none of it
and so all different guys. So it's a strange phenomenon.
I do have to comment on one thing you said earlier.
We are the We are the doge of radio shows
with only five people. We are so efficient we're so good,
So nope, do not come and audit us.

Speaker 5 (53:19):
So we're good.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
But no, I will say this, I I the Massive
Square Garden is just there's something.

Speaker 5 (53:25):
About the energy that's there.

Speaker 4 (53:28):
It is such a fun place to play the and
it's not even filmed usually. I mean, but you know,
there's gonna be a ton of Duke fans in Madison
Square Garden on Saturday night. But but I will say
that it's it's an interesting vibe because it's a neutral
side game. It has NCAA tournament feel to it, and
it really does, and it makes it a lot of fun.

(53:49):
But there's such an energy for guys to go play.
You got the New York and MSG all those things.
It's a it's a really great event. And they played
in like the it's a different event they played the
last two years. They played Florida Atlantic, and they played
Texas the year before. But this is it's still the
same basic principle and they're playing a team that's ranked
you know, in the top three again in dude.

Speaker 6 (54:12):
Yeah, they being having to play Duke in Madisonsquare Garden
and being in the midst of some sort of bizarre
unlucky health crisis is not ideal, but as coach talked about,
you know, uh, David slew Goliath, So maybe this is

(54:32):
an opportunity to do the same.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Yeah, and maybe that's the case. I mean, look at
the same time, you know, we didn't think they could
beat Texas when they were number two in the country
when they played them two seasons ago, and they went
in and not only did they beat them, they beat
them in overtime, came from behind, totally different cast of characters.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
But it can be done. It's a reason you play
the games.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
I'm really rooting for.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Illinois, not for all the obvious reasons, but just because
I want to see them go out and have those
players is all, not just the star players, but Dre
Gibbs Lawhorn, who bleeds for this team. Right he's six
to one, you know, a couple of weeks ago, he's
starting Ohio State game. He has the big steel Tomahawk dunk.
It went viral, you know for him. You know, I

(55:14):
want to see Ben hum Rickhouse have a good game.
I want to see Colin Boswall, I want to see
Casper's Yaka Chona's come through. Who's really struggled, and you know,
comitting all kinds of turnovers the other day. You know,
come through visage healthy. I think you just get healthy
and come through show the country what you can do.
And and again, I still think this would be a
very special team.

Speaker 8 (55:33):
You know.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Brett Underwood talked about that as well, and and when
he was asked about kind of you know, it's been
a mess, you know, he said a Visa just practiced
like once in the past month because of mono and
the ankle and now the flu. And he talked about
it in terms of just you know, where he thinks
this team can be in the next few weeks.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Here's coach Underwood.

Speaker 7 (55:50):
We're gonna survive. We're gonna be fine. We're a really
good basketball team. We've proved that.

Speaker 8 (55:55):
You've seen us play a lot, but we can't. I'm sorry.

Speaker 7 (55:58):
It's terrible for Marez, you know, break his wrist on
a fall, and then just we don't know who we
have from day to day.

Speaker 8 (56:08):
I didn't know who I was starting today. So we'll
be fine.

Speaker 7 (56:12):
And eighteen year old's got to grow up and deal
with some adversity and we'll just we'll just you know,
it's David playing Goliath in the next one, and we'll
show up and we're going to fight.

Speaker 4 (56:25):
Yeah, it's a team that we The last time we
saw them whole was you know, six weeks ago. It
really was coming off their trip, you know, out out
west to Oregon and Washington and they win both those games.
Are you know, looking like a top ten team? And
I think that's the what Brad Underwood says, Hey, if
we were that team, then we get everybody healthy, we

(56:46):
can be that team again. Now there's a lot you know,
you're coming off wins at that time Missouri who looks
up looks like Missouri's really good, right, and you beat
Oregon and at Oregon and you beat win at Washington,
and you're feeling really good about the squad, and now
you're just thinking, if we can just get hole, we
have an opportunity because and I do agree with the
idea that if they go into the tournament is let's

(57:09):
say they're a seven seed. Are you a two who
wants to see them as the seven? Because you're thinking
this team can when they click, they can beat about anybody, and.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
That's got to be a concern.

Speaker 4 (57:21):
So maybe they're a team that pulls an upset this
year as supposed to a team who was kind of
favored last year.

Speaker 6 (57:27):
Yeah, they've put themselves in a tough place, and you know,
you really want to try for a better seed, but
you know, sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Now,
I think they've got to see if they can get
this team healthy, get as many guys back, and see
what they can do. And you know what your issues are.
You have to kind of recalibrate the defense, and you

(57:49):
have to stop turning the ball over, and you have
to drive to the lane so that you're not three
point dependent. These are not huge, huge hurdles, but from
a discipline standpoint, it seems like it's a test for
this team.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Yeah, stop settling for threes, right, I mean we saw
them do that against against Minnesota. They shot a season
low sixteen threes but made nine of them, and it
was just a great insight outside approach and they scored
over ninety points the first time they've done that since
they routed Indiana a month earlier. Right, So let's get
back to that and be more efficient with this. If
they can do that, they're a very very potent team.

(58:27):
We should talk about what's up after that Duke Saturday.
Very quick turnaround.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
They've got Iowa and home next week.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Then they travel to Michigan the next weekend on CBS,
and then finished Friday night regular season finale at home
against Purdue. And then so you've you've got you know,
four games left, three against ranked teams, three of them
in conference play. You know, get a couple of wins here,
you'll find that defense, get into the tournament to where
you're not gonna have a top four seed, but so

(58:54):
you're gonna play on that on that Thursday, get a
couple of wins there, get right and get into the tournament.
Like you said, if you're if there are teams out
there right now very concerned with this Illinois team that
if they're a two or a two seed or a
one seed, they have to face an Illinois team that's
finally figured things out in round two. Nobody wants that, nobody,

(59:15):
You're exactly right. Everyone knows is how good this team
is right now. So that's a Saturday night game again,
eight o'clock Eastern, seven o'clock Central Illinois on the road
in New York. Meanwhile, in football, we want to get
to play a little bit sound for you. Brett Beilama
haven't heard much from him. He's been out on the
recruiting trail. We've had Kendrick Prince from alani guys dot
com just doing fantastic work with all the recruits coming in.

(59:38):
It's just really been amazing how Bilama and his staff
have really come in and you know, use the street
cred from that ten win season, the Bowl win over
South Carolina, when you upset the team from the SEC.
Everyone thought the game Cock is gonna win, they're the SEC.
Blah blah blah, Illinois gets to win. Bilama has done
a great job stepping out in front of the microphone
and getting the media caught up on some things here

(59:59):
in the offsea and lit'sten into a part of that.

Speaker 20 (01:00:02):
We're gonna have some some construction in the stadium the spring,
so that was going to factor into it a little
bit and all it goes into it. So I'm still
kind of in the process of doing that. I'm sure
at some point we'll open up. We only get two
scrimmages during the course of the spring. And another thing
that you guys obviously know because you've been around me,
like during the spring, all of our players will practice
and participate, but if you put yourself in a position

(01:00:22):
to show me or us as a staff that you
can play winning Big ten football at a high level.
I don't practice those guys a lot in scrimmage situations.
So in the years past I've had maybe two, three,
four guys, five six at most that don't don't really scrimmage.
I think I went through our roster at has probably
as many as high at sixteen to eighteen guys that

(01:00:43):
I don't know if we'll scrimmage them during the spring,
just because they played at such a high level. When
we got back from a bowl game, I knew I
was going to take some hits, especially with my younger coaches.
I knew we had a really, really good crew of
young coaches. So the NFL has taking three of those
guys daily, hearting the ladys to announce more of the
cowboy obviously Kevin Ridgston to the Pats and.

Speaker 21 (01:01:06):
Grand Morgan to the Giants. And then I got a
call a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 20 (01:01:09):
From Jacksonville, and I love shot all that goes into it,
and I'm excited to get that phone call.

Speaker 21 (01:01:14):
But Leam Cohn, to the new head.

Speaker 20 (01:01:16):
Coach, reached out to me about Jake Kaiser, and even
though Jay was in my first know he'd been over
ten years in the NFL and kind of achieved a
staff type role, and that's kind of what he'll be doing.

Speaker 21 (01:01:26):
There were the Jaguars.

Speaker 20 (01:01:27):
Of those four guys an unbelievab opportunity Clinton and obviously
went on to Colorida State. So I'm promoting Trent Harris
from the outside linebacker room and also Alix Pantis will
be a co outside linebacker coach. Those guys really handled
the last three weeks of the season and a bowl game.
I transitioned during our second by week and moved Clinton

(01:01:48):
into the defensive line room with Jmo, and those three guys,
you know, just handled that very very well. I couldn't
be more excited about what I saw from Trent and
Alex in preparation for the bowl game, our final three
games of windows the way we did, and then in
discussion with our outside linebackers, I knew that's what I
want to do. I'm currently in the process of bringing
also one more one more coach type of administrative assistant

(01:02:12):
rule that would give us a lot of help up
front on the defense side. Would also help us universally
across the board. So in the recruiting.

Speaker 21 (01:02:19):
Positions, obviously that's some departures.

Speaker 11 (01:02:23):
With Dre and.

Speaker 20 (01:02:26):
Obviously Jay, so kind of taking that chance to kind
of just restructure and organize, I've really been working under
the kind of the guide instead of using our personnel
department in an NFL type environment. So even though most
people have just kind of caught onto it here at
Lake and see some NFL people, I've been kind of
structuring the way we've been doing it.

Speaker 21 (01:02:43):
Since i've variet here.

Speaker 20 (01:02:45):
Pat Emilton has been an absolute lifesaver and just his
overall knowledge of just the University of Illinois, I think
that in conjunction would be coming in and Jay in
particular with the NFL experience, really set.

Speaker 21 (01:02:55):
This model up to be that way.

Speaker 20 (01:02:56):
So we'll still have some of the symbol of basic
outline of a college director and a high school director,
but probably gonna have multiple vpp's, gonna have somebody that
will be overseeing basically a valuations and acquisitions, so there's
going to be some things that change title wise, but
also just the structure of it.

Speaker 21 (01:03:13):
So it's kind of an exciting time for us in
that regards. And then coach in the backyard.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
You would think it would be hard to land transfers
with the number of guys that you return.

Speaker 21 (01:03:21):
Most of the guys we talked to actually seem like
they were attracted to the high number of returns that
you have. Why do you think that was?

Speaker 20 (01:03:28):
Yeah, we have twelve twenty four new people in in
the ability in twelve high school and twelve transfers. And
I would say our transfers are very intentional, very direct,
you know, if you just kind of go case by case,
each one of those guys feels a very specific role.
You know, I tell our coaches all the time, like, listen,
we've retained our best seven players in my opinion, seven

(01:03:48):
players in my opinion that I know we're being sought.

Speaker 21 (01:03:51):
Out by other schools.

Speaker 3 (01:03:52):
You know.

Speaker 20 (01:03:52):
I sit down and talked to Gabe Acus and he
literally tells me the volume of calls he's taking from
other teams even though we've got four, which is alarming,
but I understand it and the amount of money that
that people are trying to get him to leave, and
we retained him. The same name as Xavier Scott, I
know he had several opportunities to leave us. Melvin Priestley J. C. Davis,
who called Meyer. So we retained those seven, but I

(01:04:16):
also went to acquire especially three or four high end
guys that we we do we want, right, And.

Speaker 21 (01:04:22):
I tell our staff when you retain your best players.

Speaker 6 (01:04:26):
And in my.

Speaker 21 (01:04:26):
Opinion, we went to West Virginia maybe got their best player.

Speaker 20 (01:04:29):
We went to Wisconsin and maybe, in my opinion, might
have got their best player.

Speaker 21 (01:04:32):
Like those things, those things matter, right, And and.

Speaker 20 (01:04:38):
You know, really, because I was watching Hudson Command I
saw his little brother, I'm like, well, you know, Prett
damn good player too, right, let's make it two for one, right, So,
so that one was there, and then Jabo he just
you know, I didn't I knew we played at ball State,
but I kind of focused that out.

Speaker 21 (01:04:55):
So we worried about getting Jabo.

Speaker 20 (01:04:56):
And then the first time I called my new he's like, Coach,
I'm so excited that he's joining you. And I'm like, oh,
I forgot you coached him, right, Like, because you don't
really call the other coaches where you're taking people from
because sometimes you don't get great information. So yeah, I'm
super excited about this group. I just watched those guys
work out on Wednesday. It was the first time I
was able to see them live because of Wednesday before

(01:05:17):
I was dealing with a personal situation. But like it was,
it was just really awesome to see those guys work.
If you see Knopic, a kid that we got Idaho,
that ha's just literally changed his body right in front
of us is to go out of Iowa Central. That's
from Minneapolis. He's fit really well in an inside linebacker room,
you know, Kurt neil and and Lowry I just stopple

(01:05:43):
a tight end from mos of the Wisconsin. Like it's
just the guys that we brought in that portal world.
They're the right kind of kids, and I think they
fit really well. And I would tell you their early
returns look really hot. Where do you see springball kind
of going from a schedule standpoint or whatnot?

Speaker 21 (01:05:58):
Do you do you do you see.

Speaker 20 (01:05:59):
It looking more like how fl Ota is short and
sweet or where would you like to see it? Yeah,
I think there's a lot of changes in the last
two years. You know, we had kind of treated it
because we were in the foundation of building this program
the way we needed to. But I think for OZ
this year, there will probably be a little bit of
next year because of the roster limited one O five,
I think you're going to have a lot more times

(01:06:20):
where the good players will service one another. It'll be
a little bit more NFL as like the twos might
service the ones and vice versa. And on top of that,
when you have as many good players we have returning,
you know, I think we'll probably have a lot of sharp, quick,
clean practices. I don't think you got to stand up
there and you know, do things monotonously. It's going to
be challenging, you know, Luke, there's definitely things we wanted

(01:06:41):
to improve up. But I want to see where Ethan dat.
I want to see where Carson's that. I want to
see where Trey's at. So to get a lot of
our two, our next three quarterbacks, you know, still get
work with Luke and all that goes into it. But
it's it's a little bit. I think it's not so
much what's changing in college football, but for us, it
don't know how we're changing, right and.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
All right, Bret, makeup Bilma, Sorry the other be bread
Brett Bilima. He's makes a lot, makes a lot of bread,
just like uh underwere there Larry's thinking about me again?
There you go yeah, Brad, Brett Bli, Brett Bielima, there
he is.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
What time is it? Hello? Was this thing on?

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Brett Bielima, Alana football coach talking again a few days ago,
as we're getting pretty close here to spring practice, and
of course we'll have our Matt Stevens of Alana Guys
dot Com covering that for us when that happens. As
Illinois looking forward what they think could be a very
very special year in the fall of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
All right, I'm gonna stalk talking.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
For the moment, but we'll start talking again in just
a few minutes as we continue here with more on
the Sports Spectacular powered by Atlanta Guys dot com.

Speaker 15 (01:07:45):
Slow down, they say you're getting older, Relax seriously, you're

(01:08:08):

Speaker 16 (01:08:13):
Slash your Way.

Speaker 5 (01:08:27):
We're back.

Speaker 4 (01:08:28):
Mike Cagley, Brad Sturdy, Larry's Tony Cardero is on the
UH behind the scenes, he's running the board back there.
Speak of running, Mike. We got we got a race.
We got a race coming up. We got Tyreek Hill
and Noah Lyles. They're going head to head. Lyles won
one hundred and nine point seventy nine in Hill, says

(01:08:48):
he can beat him. Tyreek Hill's really fast, but I
don't know. I don't know that football guys beat that.
But I think the cool part about this is the winner.
The win gets the winner of our race. And I'm
pretty sure that our race will be more exciting because
our race will include a buffet. Every ten yards. You

(01:09:11):
must eat a whole plate of food. That's the only
way to do this.

Speaker 6 (01:09:15):
And I'll tell you what, we will destroy either one
of those gentlemen. If that's the rules, they have no
chance because I can, I can, I can. I have
won eating contest. Somebody was like, I can eat a
piece of cake quicker than you can. I put a
whole piece of cake in my mouth and swallow, and
they're like, did you chew? And I'm like, nope, But
we're racing them, weren't we.

Speaker 5 (01:09:33):
Yeah, there's no point chewing. Chewing's overrated.

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):
It's just a waste of time exactly, the waste of energy,
waste of energy, waste of saliva.

Speaker 6 (01:09:40):
I got the full flavor of the cake without any
teethy background.

Speaker 5 (01:09:45):
So so what do you think about this race?

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
What do you think about their their side of the race,
you know, which is a little bit different than our side.

Speaker 6 (01:09:51):
I like it. I'm not certain you're going to beat
that that score no matter who you are, I mean
that time. But I think it's fun. Remember back in
the seventies when they used to have the all the
All Stars what do they call it, the All Stars?
Because I remember watching Joe Frazier almost drown in the
pool when they had the Sports Stars do it. And

(01:10:12):
then they did the Battle the Network Stars.

Speaker 5 (01:10:14):
Yeah, they had that too.

Speaker 6 (01:10:15):
People were like killing to be on Farriff Faust or
Linda Carter's team.

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
I would have been too, and I was like eight.

Speaker 4 (01:10:22):
So Battle of the Superstars hyeah, oh no, it's good stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
It was fun. Now I think it's interesting. I think
it's just fun.

Speaker 11 (01:10:32):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
I'm I'm pretty sure that Lyles is gonna win, but
I do think it's fun. It could be, uh, because
I'm there's no doubt that Tyreek Hill's really fast though.

Speaker 6 (01:10:41):
Yes, Now here's the other thing.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
If they have to run in pads, it could change everything, right,
I mean yeah, but maybe it might be different if
you have to be chased by a two hundred and
seventy five pound defensive lignment. Also different were evaded defensive linement,
you know, So I think there could be difference there.

Speaker 6 (01:10:58):
Well, you know the other thing is is are guys
like I always thought that was the key of Dion Sanders.
Dion Sanders, I swear, as God is my witness, he
ran the same speed with pads on that he did
when he didn't have pads on. I mean it was
just amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:11:12):
Yeah, I mean the other guy there, guys, you know
Bo Jackson was a sprinter, but man, that dude just
running by guys.

Speaker 6 (01:11:19):
And you know Daryl Green. Daryl Green remember when he
caught Tony dor Sat from behind.

Speaker 10 (01:11:23):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
Dorset was like, what what is that happening? How did
anybody get there? So yeah, I don't know. You know,
at least those guys when they were running, they weren't
hit with a can.

Speaker 5 (01:11:37):
You know that's bad too.

Speaker 4 (01:11:38):
So how about uh E j Or Eagles GM, Howie
Roseman getting hit with the beer can at the parade.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
What is what is going on in Philadelphia?

Speaker 6 (01:11:49):
I don't know. The last time I saw somebody get
hit with a beer can was down in Carbondale when
they still had the Halloween celebration. Some guy, somebody from
one of the bars got to put up plywood on
their sign and people were throwing loaded beer cans at it,
and a guy dressed up as Batman and a guy
dressed up as Robin climbed up the ladder to where

(01:12:10):
this this sign was and they said, fair Gothamites, don't
throw at the don't throw at this sign. And then
everybody drunk goes, hey, let's throw a Batman and Robin.

Speaker 5 (01:12:22):
Get the sign. We're throwing at the sign. It was
only at Batman and Robin.

Speaker 6 (01:12:26):
Yes, after that, so I guess they accomplished something. Although
Batman fell the last ten feet when he got hit
in the back of the head.

Speaker 5 (01:12:32):
Nick, it can happen to you, so you wonder. I
don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:12:35):
You know, they were happy. This is a happy Philadelphia crowd.
Two people got shot. What would have happened if it
was an unhappy crowd? Would like five people get shot
and the in the coach GM and you know players
also get hit with beer cans.

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):
How does that work?

Speaker 6 (01:12:51):
I don't know. I don't think any of us want
to know. Let's just let's just say in Philadelphia there's
never a thought when they lose of ever having any
type of parade or public celebration.

Speaker 4 (01:13:02):
We get the losing parade is much worse the one
they had in Kansas City.

Speaker 5 (01:13:06):
So I don't know, I don't know. Can you imagine that? Wow,
we had a had do you have our losing parade
to celebrate our season?

Speaker 6 (01:13:15):
The winning parade was just minor scarring.

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
Hey, speaking of minor scarring, how about that USA Canada
USA Canada hockey game. First of all, they bow the
US United States national anthem, and then there was three
fights in nine seconds.

Speaker 6 (01:13:32):
It was like, let's go and and and they needed
to rent out like a few boxing referees to show
up and just jump onto the ice to start refereeing
the individual events that were going on. I mean, you
hear the joke. I went to a hockey game and
a and a boxing match broke out. Well, there was
this was like the Royal Rumble or something.

Speaker 5 (01:13:51):
Yeah, what was that?

Speaker 4 (01:13:52):
They were like the it was like the Hanson brothers. Right,
we jump out and we've got that going on.

Speaker 6 (01:14:00):
Never a dull moment at a hockey game.

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
Oh yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
That's the only bad thing is when they you know,
they try and make it so it's like about passing
the puck and scoring goals and things like that.

Speaker 6 (01:14:12):
I mean, who cares about that stuff exactly?

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
Drop the gloves and go.

Speaker 6 (01:14:20):
Yeah it's I tell you what it was. It was.
It made for great theater on television, especially when the
All Star Game was relatively stodgy.

Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
It for the NBA, they had an All Star Game. Sorry,
I didn't turn it on. I watched some highlights of
Mac McClung dunking.

Speaker 6 (01:14:40):
Yeah, but that dude can dunk.

Speaker 5 (01:14:43):
He's pretty impressive. You know he can jump. You know.

Speaker 4 (01:14:46):
I still don't know how do they get the car
in there? I mean, like, how do you what do
you just randomly, Hey, we got a car back here,
let's bring car in that. I don't know something that
can happen to you? Do you practice that out on
the street?

Speaker 10 (01:14:58):
Ball? Like?

Speaker 5 (01:14:58):
Is that how you do it?

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
Like you just drive on the I mean because you don't,
like at your house, you don't have a court where
you drive your car in, right, I.

Speaker 6 (01:15:05):
Would I could do I could. I could literally do
a layup over like three hot wheels.

Speaker 5 (01:15:10):
Well I couldn't.

Speaker 6 (01:15:11):
I'd fall on one match box car.

Speaker 4 (01:15:14):
I might finish the shot, but I would still get hurt,
so nothing good could happen there. So I don't know.
It's a it's very intriguing. Yeah, so anyway, this is
obviously fights. I mean, you know, it's back to the
days of Bob Probert and Tony Twist.

Speaker 8 (01:15:27):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
It was just going to see who could who could
win the most. So so that's what hockey is. It's
starting to be exciting again. Let's do it. Let's have
these uh, let's have these hockey fights. You used to
have three fights in nine seconds all game long until
somebody wins.

Speaker 6 (01:15:42):
So that would be a very very tiring game for
those hockey players.

Speaker 5 (01:15:45):
Yeah, but very enjoyable for the rest of us.

Speaker 6 (01:15:47):
Yes, we'll be.

Speaker 5 (01:15:49):
Back right after this.

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Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Now back to the Alani Guys Fort Spectacular.

Speaker 2 (01:18:20):
Dylan sin is a good friend of the show. Fort
Wayne jermal Gasette covering Big ten basketball. UH Indiana and
Purdue want to talk both and some Big tin hoops
as well, Dylan, welcome back.

Speaker 6 (01:18:29):
Good to see you.

Speaker 23 (01:18:30):
Absolutely, Larry, thanks for having me on as always.

Speaker 5 (01:18:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Absolutely. I think last time we talked was still footballs.
We're shifting now to basketball. Let's talk a little Purdue
right now. We were discussing hearing the commercial break about
just the gauntlets that we knew these teams were going
to face. Uh, the the teams we thought were going
to be the leading contenders for Bigton title at the
beginning of the season, and that's happened right now.

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):
That lost the other night to Michigan State. Three straight losses.
But no shame in that. They're all to ranked teams.

Speaker 23 (01:18:56):
Yeah no, that, like you talked about, the gauntlet, produce
in it. Right now, they play Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State
all in a row, two of them on the road.
They lost all three of them. It's not what you
want if you're Purdue. And the bigger problem is that
despite the fact that their opponents are very, very good,
you can see some of the issues that are going
to crop up against even teams that are not as quality.

(01:19:17):
Right Wisconsin shot seventy two percent in the second half
against Purdue, Michigan, Michigan State, shot sixty eight percent in
the second half. They're just not doing a good enough
job of staying in front on the perimeter. They're not
doing a good enough job of communicating in the ball screen.
Matt Paynter talked last night about how he did not
get them ready to play in terms of defending Michigan
State's ball screen actions, and basically, Michigan State just ran

(01:19:39):
the same action over and over and over again, and
Purdue never really figured it out. And Matt Painter said,
that's on me. He needs to be better, But the
players need to be better too. And they did not
do a good enough job against Wisconsin, especially if staying
in front of their man on the perimeter, they just
kept getting in the lane. Same thing with Michigan State.
They the whole point of their game plan, as chign Stay,

(01:20:00):
was keep these guys out of the paint. In Michigan
State has forty two points in the paint. So there's
some issues that prduo needs to figure out here the
next couple of days.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
Yeah, because you've got Indiana coming up next. And listen,
they're a team right now with nothing to lose, right,
I mean, you know their coach is stepping down. They're
on the outside looking in the NCAA tournament bubble and
it's over in Bloomington. So if you don't get things
squared away, Indiana struggle. They still have a lot of talent.
This is still the Big Ten and it could still
turn out poorly for Purdue this weekend if they don't

(01:20:29):
take care of those things one hundred percent.

Speaker 23 (01:20:31):
And it's one of those things where they played in
West Lafayette and Indiana led that game with about ten
seconds left before Produce scored the last six points in
a row to win that one. So Indiana's going to
come into this game knowing that we can beat this team. Right,
we almost did it once. Now we get them at home,
and it's going to be basically, this is Indiana's super
Bowl for this season. Right like you hadn't done what
you wanted to do so far this year, as you said,

(01:20:54):
you were on the outside of the NAA tournament bubble
looking in. This is the time now, Like you let
games get a against Michigan and UCLA and Maryland and
Perdue the first time. If you are going to make
any kind of push, it needs to be now. And
so they are going to throw everything they have into
this game. It should be a really good atmosphere down
there in Bloomington. Because Mike was just stepping down. You're
not going to have maybe some of the ugliness that

(01:21:15):
you had earlier in the year with the fans being
really upset and ornery. So it's just gonna be one
of those things where it's a really really good assembly
haul atmosphere, which is what we saw last week against UCLA,
and it should be turned up even higher for this
Purdue game, which does feel like a winner go home
game for Indiana, the first of several winner go home
games for Indiana.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Quite frankly, yeah, no, we know Purdue is going to
be head of the NCAA tournament and there'll be you know,
a high seed and one of the teams expected to
get to the second weekend and beyond again this year
for Indiana.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
From your perspective, what went wrong this year?

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
I mean, this is a team that I get, a
program that was one of the top spenders in NIL.
I mean reports of you know, six seven million dollars
potentially if they spent this year, and yet this never
came together. They just you know, I go back to
the they were blown out I think it was Louisville,
which turned out to be a pretty good team. Yeah,
call them out of one of the holiday tournament games somewhere,
and it's felt like this the season with downill from there.

Speaker 23 (01:22:08):
Yeah, it was one of those things where it was
in the Bahamas was where that tournament was, and they
lost that game by thirty and they were never competitive
in it. And Louisville was a brand new team too.
It's like, well, Louisville has all these transfers, why are
they so far ahead of you? And what it is
for Indiana. I think that if you want to point
to one thing, it's that the guards never really came together.
Like they tried to flip over the guard rotation from

(01:22:30):
last year because that was what helped them back last year.
They didn't really have a ball handling point guard who
could really set the offense and guys who could create
off the dribble. They went out and thought they got
two of those guys, Canaan Carlisle and Miles Rice, guys
who were really highly ranked the transfer portal, guys who
they probably had to had to sholl out some pretty
good nil for. And neither of those guys has been
a consistent difference maker for the Hooters this year. Miles

(01:22:50):
Rice has had his moments where he's been really really good,
but he's also had some time where he's really struggled,
turned the ball over, just hasn't had it can in
Carlisle just his jump rist it just is and he
is a very very good player, athletic long really plays hard,
good on defense, who is just unplayable at certain times
because he can't shoot from outside of twelve feet with

(01:23:12):
any consistent rhythm. So it's been a problem that he's
shooting I think thirty five percent from the follow a lot.
So it's one of those things where they thought they
had two difference makers at guard that were really going
to make everything else work, and those guys have not
been the difference makers they thought, and so they're basically
kind of running things back, but essentially with Umar Ballo

(01:23:32):
at center instead of khalil Ware. And I like Umar
Ballo a lot, but he is not khalil Ware. So
basically you've just kind of taken a step back from
even where you were last season, which is frustrating because
you really thought you were changing things up. Luke Goodie
has been good, but outside of that, it's been tough
for Indiana.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
Yeah, I've been fun to watch Luke Goody and this
his following year and what he's done for that team.
He's just got such a nice stroke. You know, the
hometown will if you will, from right here in Fort Wayne.
I believe coming home. You know, is this part of
all to a video game mentality that I think for fans,
for coaches so much that you lose a big name,
like like where you know there's a big sweepstakes to get.

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):
Bollow you get him.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Oh we're gonna We're gonna this, We're going to that,
And you don't understand that if things don't come together,
that just doesn't matter.

Speaker 14 (01:24:16):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
We just talked with one of the Duke beat writers
earlier here in the show, and he was talking about
how Duke went out and got just three in iol guys.
And I think now it's in this era where it's
still fairly new, coaches are trying to figure out how
do they manage this.

Speaker 3 (01:24:31):
You need to keep some guys to have.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
A culture, to continue your culture, but you got to
bring in different makers too and try to find a
way to melt them.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
And that's that's kind of the new challenge.

Speaker 23 (01:24:40):
Yeah, I absolutely think that that's part of it. And
I think that Indiana thought they had done that obviously
with Rice and Carlisle and Bowa. Those are guys you
think you can build a team around. But the thing
with Indiana was that they didn't turn over the roster entirely.
They brought back some pretty significant pieces. Trey Galloway, Mackenzie
and Bacco and Malik were Now these are guys who
were good for them last year who they brought back

(01:25:01):
probably gave them some pretty significant anil to come back
and you think, Okay, these guys can take a leap.
Mackenzie Mbacco has not taken a leap. He's basically the
same player he was last year. Trey Galloway is the
same player he was last year. No, that's to be expected.
He's a fifth year senior. Malik Renew I think is
a better player than he was last year. But he
was hurt during the middle of the season there, especially
when they played Illinois. I don't believe he played. It

(01:25:23):
was one of those things where those guys, in addition
to Rice and Carlisle not working out the way they hoped,
it was the guys that came back that didn't really
take a significant step forward, especially the younger guys and
Renew and Mbaco, who he thought, Okay, they were good
last year, can they be all big ten really up
there in the conference this year? And no one really
took that huge I'm at Indiana superstar leading this team leap,

(01:25:47):
not any of the returning guys and not any of
the new guys. And I think that's been the problem
is that there's no one who's really grabbed the reins
and said, on my back, boys, we're going to win
this one. And they don't really have that guy. I
think they thought could be that guy. I think they
thought Renew could be that guy. I think they thought
Ballo or Rice or Carlisle could be that guy at
certain times, and none of them has really stepped up

(01:26:08):
in that way.

Speaker 3 (01:26:08):
That's fair.

Speaker 2 (01:26:09):
So Indiana making the change at head coach what he
decided to step down a lot of buzz all around
the country. Obviously, this is a program that would be
a very attractive job for anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:26:21):
Who are you hearing that are some of the top candidates.

Speaker 23 (01:26:24):
Yeah, I mean it's it's one of those things where
you're hearing the same list of candidates from basically everyone. Obviously,
the top of the list was Brad Stevens. He seems
to indicate that he is not interested in that job.
As reported by Field of sixty eight, that was the
kind of the home run Hail Mary, maybe maybe maybe
kind of thing. No one really thought it was going
to happen, but you know it, dare to drink right.

(01:26:46):
The more realistic home run I think that people kind
of zeroed in on is Dusty May at Michigan. I
don't know how much more realistic it is because he
is in his first season at Michigan, but and he
is reportedly working on a new contract that he has
not signed yet to be clear. But he is Indiana alumnus,
was a student manager under Bob Knight in the late nineties,

(01:27:07):
Indiana native. His mother lives in Bloomington. I believe all
of those things. So is one of those things where
he is the guy that you want if you're Indiana.
If he says yes, I think you probably signed him immediately.
He's just a question of whether he would leave a
conference rival after one year, especially a conference rivalry he
has in first place all alone in the Big Ten

(01:27:27):
right now. I mean, he seems happy at Michigan. He
has a darn good team there. What would happen? Does
he feel like that's something that he can do? Maybe
not right? So then I think the question is on
everyone's mind, is okay if Brad says no, if Dusty
says no, then where do you go next? And that's
the question that no one really knows. There's been fifteen
twenty names that you can find out there, but it

(01:27:48):
really is one of those things where no one really
knows what's since Scott Dolson's mind.

Speaker 8 (01:27:51):
Right now.

Speaker 23 (01:27:52):
They want, we know, they want to proven winner from
a power for conference more than likely who is not
going to need a whole lot of run up to
get comfortable in this job. But that means you're looking
at one of the better coaches in the country. And
it's going to be tough to pry any one of
those guys away from their current job. It's going to
take a buyout of their contract, it's going to take

(01:28:12):
a significant probably pay raise, it's gonna take nil commitments.
Everything needs to come together for this. Now only takes
one guy to say yes, but there's gonna be a
lot of guys who probably say no. Because you're looking
at that pool of some of the best coaches in
the country who are likely comfortable where they are.

Speaker 2 (01:28:27):
Dylan, I threw a name out of a week or
two ago that I think you have to make this
phone call and you have to put a treasure chest
of gold in front of him and make him say no.

Speaker 3 (01:28:36):
And that's Rick Patino. And he's a New York guy.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
He's got Saint John's, you know, not what he wants
him to be, but boy a quick turnaround, as he
always does. Next to Bruce Pearl, I mean, Bruce Pearl's
another guy. Bruce brings some baggage, but he's not leaving
Auburn neither. But he just wins. Patino just wins, and
he's won in every conference. Acc he's one of the

(01:29:01):
here's a shot in the Big ten. I think Patino
in the Big ten would be amazing.

Speaker 23 (01:29:07):
Yes, I don't think that that is outside of the
realm of possibility either. I think that they probably will
at least give him a call. He is He absolutely
is a winner. He's won like he turned Iona around
it in one year. He's turned Saint John's around and
basically a year and a half. And I think Saint
John's is a place where, for as much tradition as

(01:29:28):
they have up there in the Big East, Indiana probably
could offer him a package interesting enough to him that
he would probably think about it. Now, the question is,
are you going to break the bank for a guy
who's probably only going to be the coach for four
or five years? Right, because he is I think seventy
two years old. For he seems to be like he's
not slower now, that much is clear, but how long

(01:29:48):
can he keep that up for?

Speaker 3 (01:29:49):
Right?

Speaker 23 (01:29:49):
So are you going to really break the bank for
a guy who is not going to be a long
term solution?

Speaker 14 (01:29:54):
Now?

Speaker 23 (01:29:54):
I've heard some interesting ideas where it's like, well, you
bring in his son who is currently doing very well
at New Mexico and his big ten head coaching experience
in Minnesota, bring him in his kind of a coaching
waiting situation if that's what it takes to get him
that no solid reporting there. It's more just like kind
of an idea, But I would be intrigued by that. Now,
the question is does he have too much baggage? If

(01:30:16):
you're a re patino right India Scott Dolson has talked
repeatedly about wanting to unite the fan base with this hire, right,
is that someone who would be a little bit divisive?
I don't know. I think a lot of the fan
base would just be like, well, he's a winner and
we'll figure out the rest later. But is it someone
where you would want a safer pick in terms of
just a guy who is going to be around for

(01:30:37):
a little bit longer, who has a little bit of
a cleaner slate. I don't know, but that's a guy
I think what would probably listen quite frankly, and he
put it like Jeff Goodman from Field of sixty eight
put him on a list of home run HighRes for Indiana.
That's usually one of those things where a guy's agent
is putting the name out there for a reason. You
know he's not on that list if the agent hasn't said, hey,

(01:30:58):
put him on there. You know that kind of thing.
So I think he would listen. Just a question of
whether Indiana makes them call.

Speaker 2 (01:31:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean winning cure's everything, so like winning right,
So exactly, I want to talk a couple of questions
to really let you go. We've talked about Illinois and
the struggles over there. What do you guys see from
the Hoosier State looking west in this Alani program right now,
really struggling injuries and Ildest's have really taken a toll.
Bread Underwood said of the night, in his thirty eight years,

(01:31:26):
he's never seen anything like this in terms of the
sickness running through his locker room.

Speaker 23 (01:31:30):
Yeah, it is one of those things where I mean,
I was ready to play Illinois in the Final Four
when they played in Bloomington in January. They were up
by thirty in the first half of that game, and
I was like, this is a juggernaut. Like India didn't
play well that night, To be clear, it was it
was really really poor from Indiana, but that that looked
like a juggernaut of an Illinois team. The freshman point
guard whose name I can never pronounce, I will not

(01:31:50):
try on this show. He is a stunt. He is really, really,
really good, and I think might end up being a
first round NBA draft pick at some point. He's awesome.
I've been really impress with the way they were able
to flip over the roster with from losing so much
from that Elie eight team last year. But it's really
kind of fallen apart here for them the last couple
of weeks. Obviously part of that is the sickness, and

(01:32:12):
that's kind of going around right now. It's been a
tough blue season for a lot of people, I think,
but it is one of those things where you need
you're going to need to figure something out here, and
maybe they end up getting an eight or nine seed
in the NCAA Tournament and they scare a one seed,
but it's not where you thought they would be with
as much talent as they have on this team. And
at a certain point, it's like, why, kind of like Indiana,

(01:32:32):
why has this not come together in the way that
it looked like it could, especially because they played so
well early in the season. Not like Indiana, where this
thing kind of went like we talked about with Louisville
kind of went off the rails pretty early. Illinois won
some big games early in the year, and they played
against Tennessee and we're right in that game right to
the end. There was every indication this is a very
very good team. In these last couple of weeks, it's like,

(01:32:53):
what is going on here? And so you have to
kind of ask those questions as we get into late February.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
Yeah, no question. You've got Duke on Saturday, and so
maybe they pull off a miracle. We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:33:01):
But Maurice Johnson Junior just a beast at power forward rebounding.
They miss him right now again, the rebounding has gone down.
We'll see how they finished out. Like you said, they're
going to be in the tournament. I mean, it's almost
unless they lose out. I don't see that happening. But yeah,
so we'll see what happens here in March. Got about
thirty seconds left here. You've seen them all right now.
Best team right now in the Big Ten in your mind?

Speaker 23 (01:33:21):
Yeah, I think Actually it's kind of a counterintuitive answer.
I think it's Wisconsin. I think Wisconsin is a very
very good team. John Tonjay their guard has scored thirty
and back to back games against Purdue and against Illinois.
They're beating everyone right now. I think they're a better
team than Michigan is. I know Michigan is the top
of the conference right now. Give me Wisconsin to probably
win the league down the stretch here with a little

(01:33:43):
bit of easier schedule and make a deep run in March.
I love the Badgers this year and what they've done.

Speaker 2 (01:33:47):
Yeah, boy, they're old and they're good, right. I mean,
you know, age makes a difference here when you're trying
to get to especially this time of year. Hey, Dylan,
we'll let you go out of time here. Really appreciate
your time as always. Enjoy the games. We'll hopefully see
you here at the Big Ten tournament and down the
line as well.

Speaker 23 (01:34:01):
Absolutely, thanks for having me on as always, looking forward
to it.

Speaker 3 (01:34:04):
All right, appreciate you, buddy.

Speaker 2 (01:34:05):
All right, Dylan sin once again, he's with the Fort
Wayne Journal Gazette to talking a lot of big tin
hoops right now. Fordue trying to turn things around against
Indiana CBS game this weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
All right, Mortica right here, stay with us.

Speaker 15 (01:34:15):
Slow down. They say you're getting older, Relax seriously, you're
you possible. Whoever you are, wherever you're going, whatever your

(01:34:38):

Speaker 16 (01:34:44):
Slash your way.

Speaker 2 (01:34:45):
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(01:35:06):
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Speaker 14 (01:35:14):
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Speaker 11 (01:35:30):
Eight seven seven nine two seven three three eight oh
eight seven seven nine two seven three three eight Oh
that's eight seven seven nine two seven thirty three eighty.

Speaker 16 (01:35:57):
See.

Speaker 2 (01:35:57):
You know it's funny. It seems like we picked football.
We were so much better.

Speaker 6 (01:36:02):
Speak to you.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
Well, yeah, except except for Mike. He's bad all the time.
We we was.

Speaker 5 (01:36:11):
To finish third. Somebody to finished third, that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:36:14):
And and Mike's there, He's there to help us out.
So then set the barlow.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
Last week was bad in our picks, guys, we were
we were, I mean Ilinois Michigan was one. I really
thought Illinois would. They were gonna come together. Everyone's healthy now,
and then you you don't play two guys who's.

Speaker 3 (01:36:29):
To start for you?

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
And then you can't hit shots in the final eight
minutes at all, and not even for the free the
one free throw they had, they missed that one too.
So Brad you mentioned that they were actually minus two
in the final eight minutes because the one basket they
made in the timeout, they decided it wasn't a goaltend
and they yeah, they took.

Speaker 4 (01:36:46):
It off the board with a goaltender review. It's like, okay,
never mind, just kidding. Now you have negative how many
points you scored the last eight minutes? Negative too?

Speaker 6 (01:36:55):
Yeah, there's really not much you can say about that
because it was just I it was the closest I've
come to feeling like the thirty to zero that happened
against Yukon, and you really shouldn't feel close to that.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
Yeah, you know, I wrote about that on a lot
of guys dot com. Was not going to mention it here,
but yeah, it really was. It just was, you know,
you kept looking for I want to be Apollo Creed's manager.
Throw the towel, throw the damn towel, and nobody would
throw the towel in it just kept going and kept going,
kept going.

Speaker 5 (01:37:24):
I was trying. I tried throw a water bottle.

Speaker 4 (01:37:26):
Some of it slipped, so I missed TV. I was
trying to fit in, so I threw a water bottle
and missed from Of course.

Speaker 3 (01:37:36):
My wife walked through. It's as well, how we do it?
I said, you don't want to know.

Speaker 2 (01:37:39):
Just just just go back to reading your book whenever
you were doing so's you don't want to talk to
me right now? Uh okay, So those were the picks
last week. Brad got the win. Congrats to you, mister thirty.
He's back to Brad the Greek once again. All right,
uh this week some great games. Now that we get
down to the end of the month and we're getting
into March, really fun matchups. Let's start in the Big

(01:38:01):
twelve right now. Iowa state number two in the country
at one point, but everyone's kind of taking a back
seat to Houston just playing some outstanding basketball. Kelvin Samson
say what you want, loves his cell phones, loves his cougars,
knows how to coach in basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
It's Iowa State and Houston in the Big twelve.

Speaker 4 (01:38:17):
Who do you got Houston's coming in winning five straight.
These are two teams both ranked and analytics. You know,
his top ten teams. Iowa States when four and a row,
they're getting healthy. They got back Mom Silovich, you know,
and that's really helped them because he's a you know,
a guy can really shoot it from deep. But I
just think Houston is going to take this one. I

(01:38:39):
think Houston at home is a really good team, and
I think they find a way to get the win
over Iowa State.

Speaker 6 (01:38:44):
Two good defensive teams, and I will take the Houston
defense over just about anybody if you're talking on an
individual night. So I'm gonna go with Houston as well.

Speaker 3 (01:38:53):
Yeah, same here.

Speaker 2 (01:38:54):
I think that TJ is a great coach for the Cyclones,
and I think Iowa State could be a dangerous team
in But Houston's just playing too well right now. That
was an epic game when they got to win over Arizona.
I'm gonna take the Cougars in this one. Too great matchup.
This is a toss up in the SEC. Tennessee and
Texas A and M.

Speaker 4 (01:39:15):
Well, these are probably I think Tennessee is the number
one defense of the country and A and M is
the number five defense in the country.

Speaker 5 (01:39:22):
So this is gonna be one.

Speaker 4 (01:39:23):
Of those what do they call them, a slobber knocker.
It's gonna be in the sixties. Teams are gonna have
a hard time scoring. It's at Texas A and M.
And I really think, you know, the Texas A and
M was really on a roll until they lost to
get drilled by at Mississippi State. They had won five
in a row. But I just think Tennessee is the
team that's gonna win this one.

Speaker 5 (01:39:43):
On the road.

Speaker 6 (01:39:45):
Yeah, I'm gonna go with Texas A and M. At home.
I think they can pull this off. This is a big,
big matchup, and Tennessee will have power outages in terms
of their offense. Occasionally they do.

Speaker 2 (01:39:59):
There's no question they've had some Knights that have really
been head scratchers. I think both of these coaches, Buzz
and Rick, have done just outstanding job. Of these two
the Aggies have come out of Really we didn't know
what this you know, SEC was gonna look like. And
you hear about you know, Tennessee and Auburn and Alabama,
and you thought Arkansas was going to be there instead,

(01:40:19):
it's the It's A and M has been up there
and found themselves in the top ten. Despite that, I'm
gonna go with the Valls in this one, though I
may regret it because they have had their lapses, but
we'll see if they can get healthy and get it.
Went on the road New York again. We talked about
earlier Illinois and third ranked Duke. The Blue Devils thought
they're gonna get a really good test outside the ACC.

(01:40:40):
They might still, but right now in paper, this looks
a little upsided.

Speaker 5 (01:40:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:40:46):
The weird part about this, this is one of their
I think this is still one of their toughest tests.

Speaker 5 (01:40:51):
Yeah, you know, when you look at their.

Speaker 4 (01:40:53):
Schedule, Illinois is just you know, going by their net,
you know, only like eighteenth and net. I think that's
the toughest of post it they've played since Auburn, so
back on December fourth, and the third, third or fourth
toughest game of the season for them overall. So it's
still a tough game for Duke. But I just think
the Blue Devils are are two right now. A healthy

(01:41:14):
Illinois team. I might have a different viewpoint, but I
think the Blue Devils get this win.

Speaker 5 (01:41:18):
I think they're just too much for the Alina.

Speaker 6 (01:41:21):
Yeah, I think the Blue Devils are going to win this.
And of course when I pick games, it's really more
like calling it falling with style.

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
Well, let's see Keckley picks Duke. So Hey, Illinois.

Speaker 6 (01:41:34):
Fans, they should be pumped right there.

Speaker 2 (01:41:39):
They're listening, going, hey, hey, guys, listen, we got shot.
We got a shot at this exactly, so I'm gonna
take Duke. I would I would lean closer to the
Illinois colleague what what Brad said if I knew the
health status. But we just don't know what the flu
bug going through the entire team. Who's being able to
suit up for forty minutes in this We just don't
And with Maree Johnson out the fractured risk, it's it's

(01:42:02):
really hard Illinois right now, as you mentioned earlier in
the show, five straight games they failed to get forty
rebounds and the number two rebounding team in the country
barely behind Alabama right now.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
Hard to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:42:13):
If I visich is is less than hundred percent and
morez is out, that's tough to do. Hoping I hope
Illinois can can pull off the upset, but I'm going
with Duke as well. Finally, Purdue losers of three in
a row at Indiana.

Speaker 4 (01:42:28):
Yeah, this is a this This Purdue team is not
what you'd expect right now. They've kind of gotten on
the struggle bus, but I still think Indiana's also had
a little struggle here. But it is at Indiana, but
I'm gonna go with Purdue. I think Purdue gets to
win over Indiana. I just don't think the Hoosiers have
the shooting to win consistently.

Speaker 6 (01:42:47):
This isn't the Zach Eady Purdue team, but it's still
a Purdue team that's that's good enough to be the
big brother of Indiana. And they are going and Purdue
is going to win.

Speaker 2 (01:42:59):
Yeah, Purdue restraight losses, but all three to ranks teams.
I think Indiana will be spirited there if they've played
a little better basketball since Mike Woodson said he was
gonna step down.

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
I think produced too much in this one and they
get the victory. So we'll see how we do.

Speaker 2 (01:43:13):
Hey, listen, it's been great for all as always, Thanks
to all of our guests who stopped buying.

Speaker 3 (01:43:18):
Thanks to you for coming by as well.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
Enjoy the games, enjoy the weekend, and we'll see you
right back here next time.

Speaker 6 (01:43:24):
I L L all right.

Speaker 17 (01:43:26):
This has been a presentation of l NBC Sports LLC
and Revision Sound. Catch us next week on the ALIGNI
Guys Radio network. Don't forget to visit aligni guys dot
com for more sports news and insight.

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