2026-03-23- KSR - Hour 1

I'm Daniel Alarcon, and this is my friend who's much more famous than I am. I wouldn't go that far, but I'm John Green, co-host of the podcast The Away End with my old friend Daniel. On our podcast The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. Together, we'll find out why, of all the unimportant things, football, soccer is the most important. Listen to The Away End with Daniel Alarcon and John Green on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I am Greg Rosenthal. I know that, Greg. We're teaming up on 40s and free agents, the podcast that owns the NFL offseason. This is where teams are built. Free agency, combine, pro days, trades. Every move matters. From my draft boards and mock drafts. To my vaunted top 101 free agents and how rosters come together. Quarterback movement. Surprise signings. We'll tell you what it means and who really wins. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search 40s and free agents, and listen now. 14 years in prison for killing a young woman. A 15-year sentence for a crash that caused three deaths. 12 and a half years for killing a child and critically injuring her mother. All true stories, all caused by marijuana-impaired drivers. No matter what you tell yourself, if you feel different, you drive different. So, if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. multi-part series on digestive function. So listen to our newest series, which runs January 20th through February 17th with new episodes every Tuesday from the exactly right network. Listen to this podcast will kill you on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from YouTube and social media comedy off Broadway in Lexington welcomes Josh Wolf, March 19th through the 21st. Then from late night TV and the Bob and Tom show, catch Nick Griffin, March 26th through the 28th. And don't miss New York comedy superstar and podcaster Mark Normand. April 2nd through the 4th. For tickets to all Comedy Off-Broadway shows, call 859-271-JOKE or visit ComedyOffBroadway.com. Comedy Off-Broadway. This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Now, here's Matt Jones. Welcome, everyone. This is Kentucky Sports Radio. I am Matt Jones. It is Monday, March the 23rd. That's right. March kind of runs together. Although, unfortunately for Kentucky fans, it's now going to slow down. And the Clark's Puppet Shop phone line is 859-280-2287. We'll be taking your calls today to see kind of your thoughts on where things are. A-Vision Auto Glass, text machine 772-774-5254. And this edition is sponsored by the TJ Smith Law Office. You call TJ on Make Em Pay. Ryan and Mario rolled into Lexington a little after midnight last night, listening to basketball all the way back on Westwood one and heard Florida get beat by what, which was kind of exciting. Um, and then other games that were, we got to hear the Johnnies, Rick Pitino go, but still sad about Kentucky's kind of miserable defeat at the hands of Iowa state. We spent a lot of time. we stopped in Mount Vernon, Illinois at the Buffalo Wild Wings and did the show. I, this morning, got to hear how loud that screaming baby was behind me. That baby was much louder over the air than I even realized, but then got home. And, you know, now we're going to start the next phase, which is talking about what's next for the UK basketball program and the UK women play today at 5 o'clock against West Virginia. That's right. So we will talk a little bit about that. Drew is here. Drew didn't get to go on the trip because he selfishly is having a baby. That's my bad guess. So we haven't gotten to talk to him a lot about what's happened. Let's just talk about yesterday, Drew. What were your thoughts about what went down? Like everyone else, extremely disappointed in how it ended. I never really saw Kentucky getting out of that weekend leading into the tournament. But after always magic in round one and Iowa State having that major injury, I talked myself into a little bit of a run. You know, we saw, I didn't really want to play Iowa State at all because of that ball pressure. We saw what a nightmare that was. But I genuinely thought going in that game, Kentucky had a big chance when I didn't believe that before because of the opportunity that opened. And then to go up 12 and then to lose by 19, like everyone listening, just dumbfounded by how you could do that on that stage. You go back, we were up 12 with eight minutes to go. Is that right? No, we were up 12 with 12 minutes to go. It was like 11 and change, I think. Yeah, so 12 minutes to go, we're up 12. With eight minutes to go, we were down 23. It's crazy. So that means in a course of 24 minutes, we lost by 35 points, which is kind of unbelievable. I mean, but we've done that before in games, usually at the beginning, not in the middle. But a 35-point swing in 24 minutes is, I don't want to say it's unprecedented because it has happened with us before. To a team without their best player. Without their best player. And it was, they made one, we made a couple substitutions and they made one adjustment and it was over. And it kind of felt like in some ways a fitting way, Ryan, for the season end. All year we've talked about substitution patterns, adjustments and giving up big runs, and all those things showed themselves in this game. Yeah, that adjustment Iowa State made by going to trapping pressure as soon as we bring it across the mid-court line, we could not handle it and did not handle it well at all. And they pushed us. Our offense was starting way out close to the center court line. We had no answer for it. The play that sort of symbolized that was that play, I think, right at the end of the first half when Colin Chandler just crossed half court, picked up the ball, and got double-teamed. And it was like, they have decided that we cannot handle this. And I think I said after the game, they were right. The only person who kind of could handle it a little bit was Aberdeen. But pretty much everyone else, the moment the trap came, They just panicked. And it was chaos. It was like when little kids get the basketball and go, give me the ball, give me the ball. And then they're, take it, take it, take it away. That's kind of how it was. Well, I wasn't going to use that analogy, but when I was watching it, I remembered when I played junior pro, I was on a Madisonville traveling team. And we went to, I believe it was either Hopkinsville or Evansville. We played up a level. I could not bring the ball up the court. And that's when I knew basketball wasn't for me. Just a little double team and I had nothing to do. I felt like I was watching my little junior pro team out there that couldn't even cross half court. You do sometimes get that moment in sports where you're like, oh, that's what good is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Millsboro, I remember I got pretty good at tennis, and then they made me play Seth Houser at Corbin. Oh, the Corbin guy. Seth Houser. Yeah. And the first time he served, I was like, yeah, well, that's never getting it. Because I could hit a lot. I could hit people that were better than me, and I'd kind of dink it back and then out think them. And then with Seth Houser, I was like, no, I don't even have a chance to think. It gets here too quickly. And I was like, well, there's the end of me being really good at tennis. I think that's – Iowa State's pressure made it seem like, okay, there's the end of us being able to run an offense. Because before they started to do the pressure, our offense looked surprisingly really good. But we couldn't even get into it. They made it to where we couldn't even get into anything. And we all wanted Chandler to hit threes. Right away, bangs two. And that was the last of the scoring for the game. And then Aberdeen hits two. And you go – we get a couple lucky bounces where we get like the ball falls in our hands and we get a layup. And we're playing great. I thought we played great defense the entire first half. Like even though we were behind at halftime, I thought our defense was excellent throughout. But the offense just collapsed. So then we lose. And the question I think going forward is less about this loss and like how do we feel going forward. We were driving, and so I didn't see a lot of the post-game online reaction, but I can just kind of guess that it was probably not the most positive thing in the world. It wasn't pretty. Yeah, well, why don't you – you would know more about it. Well, as we moderate a message board, I had to delete a lot. I mean, Twitter's nasty, especially those accounts that don't have a face on them. You know, they can say whatever they want. It was just ugly. I thought a lot of – as disappointed as I was, I thought there was a lot of over-the-top stuff on there too. It was good to see that the Arkansas fans found my video again. I like that every time that video is going to continue to exist. Arkansas fans now are in my mentions as much as Kentucky fans. It was funny. While we were in St. Louis, Mario gets a message, Shannon, from DraftKings. And DraftKings says, hey, we're going live in Arkansas on Friday. Would you like to make a video encouraging your fans in Arkansas to go on DraftKings? And I'm like, I don't think you want me to do that. You don't understand. I don't think that's going to... It'll get a reaction. I mean, it'll get a reaction. People will be angry. I think you will lose subscriptions. I was in that group chat. It's kind of like, what are we doing? Mario, you can handle that one. Yeah, it's like, Matt, send a message welcoming all the Arkansas people to DraftKings. I'm like, no! Any of the other states. Not that one. The KSR website team was live on YouTube for the rapid reaction last night, and you can donate a super chat, donate money an arkansas fan donated a little bit of money and said like enjoy your trip home or something like that i mean they're even giving money to troll there's a way for people to donate money to yeah like if you want your question bumped you can give 10 bucks some of them you know get a lot of money but it rarely happens but arkansas fans were doing it ryan's eyes go wait a minute why aren't we doing that ryan was doing that with the youtube guy who was that's right you did it with the youtube stream i want to see my name on the bottom of the screen that's how You and Ryan, shout out. Thanks, buddy. We got to start investing in just getting $5 to say people's names. Well, all right, so now what? I guess Mark Pope said he wanted to have 24 hours to mourn. He was asked after the game by Tom Leach, what about the future? And he was like, we're not going to think about that tonight. We're going to mourn for 24 hours. So I guess that means by 5 o'clock we're going to think about the future. But we're not going to be on at 5 o'clock. He will. He's got his show tonight. yeah get one more coaching show tonight he probably would have loved the gap between sunday and monday interviewing brandon stockton like what is the hope not no offense to brandon stockton but you i mean so if i were in charge of media relations for uk which i'm not and if i had the authority i think some of those folks at uk don't have like they're not allowed to do things they want to do i i would say mark the best thing you could do is an hour of a real conversation right no beautifuls no specials this is the state of kentucky here's what went right here's what went wrong it can't just be we didn't get our full deck of playing cards you got outcoached you need to acknowledge that you need to like okay where do we go from here we need some encouragement i hope that's what he does i'm doubtful that's what he'll do but i hope that well wait a minute do we have the show because the women's team's playing i was gonna ask are they gonna run it they're putting it against the women's game yeah i checked with billy when i got here more more pr greatness let's put the final coaches show up against the women's ncaa tournament game let's let's dilute both of them that's great all right well regardless i think that's probably what he should do the first question i guess is what does the roster look like which means what players are back. Season's over now, so we can give honest opinions. We're going to quickly go through percentage chance they're playing for Kentucky next year. The Max Duffy game. Let's start with Colin Chandler. Percentage chance. I will say 85. Yeah, 85. Shannon? 70. 80 for me. Alright, let's go Malachi Moreno. I'll run it back at 85 I like that spot for those two 50 he's been negative about it all year he's been negative about it all year I've seen this in him all year I'm going to go 75 because I just can't see them letting that local talent get away but Ryan makes me worried because he knows all these people he probably played grade school basketball with the laundry guy. Great crossing. Shannon. I'll go 80. Okay. Cam Williams. 75. 65. Shannon. 70. I was going to go 75. So Ryan's the lowest on all these people. Just for the right. Ryan doesn't think anybody's coming by. Ryan thinks we're going to have no players next year. Okay. Do you buy a day I feel pretty good about him too i put him uh i say 75 for him i go 45 65 i go 50 i not as confident because i heard no buzz about him returning so it's hard for me to um brandon garrison oh boy this is a wild card yeah it is because i know Pope still loves him, but a lot of the fans have added on him. I'll say 40 on Garrison. Yeah, 45. Let's hope it's like 10, because he's the guy I don't want back personally. Oh, man, he had BG time. He had BG time. AD had a BG time. I can't... I'm going to put the number at 25% just because of things I've heard. But I would be fine with him being back. It was BG time. but now i understand he needs what are you talking it was bg time yeah what one game out of how many hey we lose that game wait it was twice in a week and a half in the postseason bg time right yeah okay learn the words enjoy your bg time jaylen low i have no idea what they're gonna do with that spot i'll say 20 yeah 25 30 30 i'm gonna say 20 because I think there's just been some chatter that he, Jalen Lowe, might be looking into. His comments to the media aren't great. Yeah. Trent Noah. I can see him being a Travis Perry type situation to where he ends up somewhere else. I want to go 20. I'll say 70. 40. 70. I just think if it's up to Trent, he would stay. What's Kentucky's role going to be for him? Yeah, I'm going to go 25. 40. Okay. Who am I missing here? Jasper. Jasper. Ryan? One. One? Okay. I'll also say one. I don't want to be too negative. I guess I'll be the optimistic one and go 10. Three. Wow. It just didn't go well. I tripled the chance of these two. Yeah, he did. there's three times as much of a chance for me shannon is i gave it 10 as much um he just needs a fresh start somewhere i think you know and then is there anyone else i think that's it i mean i guess yellowish yellowish oh yeah yellowish hawthorne by the way i assume 100 if he like i don't see any reason why he would yeah why is he why was he here if he did but yes uh yellowish oh man he seems to really like it and honestly he was he's one of the favorite people to hear from in interviews he's brutally honest i loved when he was like no fatigue's not an excuse or when he called out his teammates for being selfish yeah uh i'm i'm rooting for him to come back i i'll say 50 but that could who knows with him i don't know what pope thinks of him i go 40 kind of close to 50 50 but i think it's the other way i'll go 40 i'll go 30 35 somewhere around i'll go 25 i haven't heard any buzz that would suggest to me that he would be back so i'm clearly leaning on a lot of returns yeah tyron stokes the bill self situation with the understanding that bill self kind of hinted it maybe retirement i'll still say 15 yeah 25 jannon 25 i'm gonna go 50 but i think what's going to happen is there's going to be a massive amount of pressure on pope to really go for this i think we're gonna if i think there's a chance we get him we vastly overpay but we do it because we feel like we have to that's my they got to get somebody just for the perception but it's also interesting like a couple of these like all right guys that committed to kansas guys that committed to north carolina there's a top 10 player committed to north carolina like i wonder if one if they sort of scramble uh-huh you know that guy decommits yeah i don't know i mean i have no idea that world is not really my my world anymore but all right 859-280-2287 those are your predictions according to ryan we will have no players next year yeah uh and according to uh drew we'll have all the players we'll see which one which one ends up being correct we'll take a break be right back this is ksr i'm john green you may know me as the author of the fault in our stars and now I guess also as the co-host of The Away End, a brand new world soccer podcast. I'm Daniel Alarcon, a writer and journalist, and John and I have known each other since we were kids. My first World Cup was Mexico 86. I was nine years old. I watched every game and I fell in love. On our new podcast, The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. For us, soccer, football, is a story we've shared for over 30 years, since Daniel was the star player on our high school soccer team. Very debatable. And I was their most loyal and sometimes only fan. I love this game. I love its history, its hope, its heartbreak, and above all, its beauty. Together, we'll find out why, of all the unimportant things, football, soccer, is the most important. Listen to The Away End with Daniel Alarcón and John Green on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Daniel Jeremiah. And I'm Greg Rosenthal. And this is 40s and Free Agents. The games may be over, but the NFL never stops. 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Listen to This Podcast Will Kill You as part of the Exactly Right Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Wah, wah, wah, wah. Welcome back to Kentucky Sports Radio. All right, let me run through a few things that happen postgame that I think are kind of interesting. What do you think about the Iowa State players saying that they knew, Ryan, And that if they went on a run, Kentucky would quit. Not a good look when an opposing player says that about your team. But I guess they probably looked at the Gonzaga game, maybe the Vanderbilt game, and saw when they got down they did just kind of quit in those games. There were games this year where we came back. Yes. So, I mean, it was not consistent. But he said, and you rarely hear players be this open, we thought they would quit. And in this case, I don't think they quit exactly, but certainly their effort went down for a period. Yeah, that guy was kind of a villain. I watched this whole interview. He also said, we weren't really sure if we wanted Santa Clara or Kentucky. We were good with either. And then he said, it was fun watching Kentucky fans leave early. That was a nice bonus. So he chose violence in his comments. But I do think they probably cherry-picked games to watch because Kentucky did not quit Tennessee, LSU. I mean, we know all the big comebacks. So I didn't completely agree with this point. One person writes, Matt, I was at the game. Part of what made me sad is we didn't have the usual Kentucky turnout. out true but it wasn't bad i actually think the kentucky iowa state contingents were relatively the same the difference was there were a lot of purdue people yes so that the the stadium was a little more empty during our game because the purdue people had kind of left you know i would say kentucky and iowa state had about the same amount of people maybe a little bit more iowa state it was definitely not the big blue swarm right on tv on tv it sounded like it was all Iowa State fans. Well, that was because they were making all the shots and win worms. Maybe so. But there were a lot of them there. Despite all that happened, you've still got a chance to go into halftime up like six or seven points. Yeah, that was a huge we talk about that on the postgame show. That little play where, well, first of all, I mean, we're going to talk about the game. The stat of the game is Denzel Aberdeen, 37 minutes played. With him in the game, minus five. with him out of the game, minus 14. In 37 minutes, we're minus 5 with Denzel Everdeen. In 3 minutes without him, we're minus 14. That's one of the craziest stats I ever remember in basketball. It really is. And then the moment they make that sub, everyone's like, well, they're probably going to go on a run and then not overrun. And same thing in the second half. I mean, we were already down big when they took him out in the second half, but then we went down even more. I mean, that was huge. And then the stretch we talked about where the ball falls in Malachi's hands, he drops it, trips, guy catches it, shoots a corner three, We should have been up six to eight at halftime and we're down one. You called it too. You said they're going to hit a shot and go up by one at halftime. You can just feel it. As far as the crowd, I'm going to say this to take up for the BBM. Yes, it was less. And you know, it was less at the SEC tournament. But the university has to look itself in the face for this. This is slowly becoming a culmination of, I think, a few years, really going back to COVID of fan neglect by the administration. I don't blame Pope. I really don't. I think he tries. I did have some blame at the end of Cal for fan stuff. But really, I think it's core to the administration. They've raised prices. They've also kind of gone away from the mission of giving fans what they want to protecting their ownership of things. we'll talk probably more later about Eli Capilouto's video but all he said was if you watch his video about let's talk about the future of UK athletics we have to earn more revenue and cut expenses way to get people excited Eli woohoo earn more revenue cut more expenses woo woo go cats cuts cuts cuts I mean, that's, you know, come on. So there is a point then that you have this game and fans don't really believe we're necessarily going to win. And so I get it. When Kentucky fans are valued, Kentucky fans show up. Go look at Mark Pope's press conference, right? Just go look at anything. When Kentucky fans feel valued, they will show up like anybody else. But if you take them for granted, as I think this university has done for a number of years. And now the university needs fans more than ever for financial reasons. And there's a part of me going, you reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. And so, different conversation, but that's kind of why. No, we didn't have our usual showing, but actually, Ryan, don't blame fans. I get it. I get it also. I think it goes way back to even what they did to the UK football fans like 10 years ago. That was like in 2012. I think it all started right then. That's when it started. Part of the reason St. Louis was hurt too, and I talked to a lot of fans in Nashville, three days off work in Nashville playing Wednesday at noon, Thursday at noon, Friday at noon. They're like, I was invested as I could be. I can't make the trip to St. Louis. And then we play Friday at noon. After already doing the week before Yeah no there a little bit of that And we treat the SEC tournament very seriously I think if we gone to Chicago if we won we would have had a bajillion people there Everybody gets excited again about it So I do think there's part of that as well. The other thing is, it's weird, Shannon, when I put a KSR kind of inside joke out there, and then the world that doesn't understand KSR gets involved. Right. because I tweeted that everyone knows I almost leave the game. Yeah. Or do leave the game. Almost. Usually. I usually leave. And then, of course, people know about the referee incident. Yeah. So I thought it would be funny because I did come close to wanting to yell at that referee. And I just thought it would be funny. I decided I had to leave the game because we were going to lose. So I was like, oh, I almost got so mad at the referee I left. You know, I mean, I really was, I mean, I wasn't going to get kicked off a press row yelling at the referee. I just needed to leave the building because I was getting nervous. And I tweeted that out. And then I became a symbol of what's wrong with the media. Like all these dudes, all these dudes who work for like longhorn in your face, 37, are like, this is what's wrong with our profession. I want to be like, listen, you little snot. I was doing this when you were a baby. Shut up. You know the reason Longhorn in your face 27 gets credentialed? It's because people like us fought for it. Which, of course, makes me sound old. You walked so they could run. I walked. I got denied so you could get. But, you know, that's what happens. All these people. I became like the symbol for fan journalist. You know, one of our entities is still working. And some of these others aren't. But that's what happens. I hate when the media tries to police other people. I don't know you. I don't work for you. I don't work with you. Yeah, we're not friends. Never even met you. Why do you care what I'm wearing? Well, I mean, you look good. No, the UK stuff. They complain about that. We'll take a break. Take your calls right after this. TJ Smith, personal injury attorney. Call TJ. He'll make them pay. Now, more of Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Here's Matt Jones. Welcome back. Kentucky Sports Radio, 859-280-2287. Text machine 772-774-5254. One person writes, Matt, would Drew leave a restaurant if his baby was as cranky as the one on the postgame show oh yeah that was wild you all when you first made the comment i thought oh matt's probably being a little harsh on a baby being there and then i heard that first scream and it actually i had pretty good laugh listen to it and it just continued the whole show so it sounded like you were giving your headset to the baby to scream to the listeners and it was the the baby was just it was a lot but it was fitting you were trying to have this big picture talk about pope and you're in your serious tone And then Mario eating all the food also laughed at that. Yeah, Mario, just wait until we start the show, eat all our food. You were doing a radio show. I know, so he was like, now's my time to eat all the food. One person writes, Matt, do you agree with what Cal's been saying recently about coaches win games, administration win championships? Do Kentucky fans owe him an apology? No, on the second thing. I do agree with him on coaches win games, administrations win championships, But Cal has a revisionist history about UK. He thinks he didn't win championships because of Mitch. I'm not saying Mitch gave the best support or not. Those two hated each other. They blame me. Their relationship, all bad relationships are a two-way street. KSR's bad relationship with Cal, we deserve some of the blame. I would argue he deserves more of it. But you know what? Whatever. But it's not, no one is innocent in those scenarios. But the team that lost to Oakland had everyone you could want. He had an elite college transfer. He had the number three pick in the draft, the number eight pick in the draft, a dude who went in the second round but played big minutes for the 76ers. He had the best recruiting. Like, come on, man. What else did you need on that team? Mitch Barnhart ain't to blame for the fact that you couldn't stop a dude who plays at the YMCA from going off on you. That's not Mitch Barnhart's. That game am I right about that? That ain't his fault. It's got nothing to do with the AD or the administration. Come on. Now in general I agree with that but I think he's used. He's taken this chance to take little jabs especially at Mitch and I get it. That's him. That's who he is. He loves doing that. And that's fine and that's between my name's Paul and that's between y'all but you didn't lose to Oakland because Mitch didn't get you in IL and part of the reason you didn't get in IL was you sir a lot of the people didn't want to give you money anymore so Jack go ahead Jack morning fellas not an observation I found this is relevant to Indiana and Kentucky I found an old magazine about two months ago on Sports Illustrated, and there's a picture of an Indiana player and a Kentucky player going up for a rebound on the cover. The Kentucky player is Charles Hurd. There's an insert of Bobby Knight and Joe Hall, and the headline is College of Basketball's Biggest War. Those two programs are totally irrelevant now. Yeah, you guys got to stop comparing us to Indiana. It's not totally irrelevant. Indiana doesn't even go to the tournament. we are not irrelevant. All right. We're close. No, we're not. I mean, no, we're not. Why do you think that game was in CBS in a time slot with nothing else playing? Is it because we're irrelevant? Is it because you think everybody wanted to tune in to see Iowa state play? Now, are we winning? Are we winning? What? They tuned in to watch Kentucky. Exactly. So we're not irrelevant. well i think i mean you just answered your own question they tuned in to watch us we are not irrelevant now are we good enough no are we are we on the path that's towards downgrade yes but you can't say we're irrelevant when you agree with me that people tuned in to watch us i think we're trying to i'll clean this up we're trying to pick nat crap out of pepper here we're trying to find something positive and i'll move on to this uh i'll ask this to all of you if something is absolutely inevitable in life in your lives it's absolutely inevitable i know college collegiate sports deals strictly with contractual obligations why can't you cut ties well but you because you're making an assumption and i'm not saying you're wrong but you're making to a conclusion because you're making an assumption not everyone would agree with. Your assumption is it's inevitable Mark Pope's going to fail. That's your assumption. Maybe you'll be right, but that's an assumption. That's not a conclusion. You don't know that. So that's why saying, if I knew for certain, and I appreciate the call, if I felt like I felt for certain Mark Stoops was not going to bring it back. So it's time to make a change. I'm not there yet with Mark Pope. Maybe you are and that's fine if you are. I'm not even saying you're wrong. But in order to say cut ties, you have to think it's inevitable he'll fail and I'm just not there yet. And I don't have a lot of optimism in Mark Pope, but just for the school, as we're making cuts, we can't just keep paying buyout after buyout. You're paying stoops. I know Pope's buyout isn't huge, but we already got the Mitch thing. I mean, they're talking about being efficient. Yeah, they're talking about being efficient. You can't just keep firing people and paying them lots of money. Now, if it doesn't work out, and he should have never been hired, and that sits on someone else's shoulders who won't be working here anymore, but you can't just keep firing people over and over when it's not working. Not after two years, at least. I don't find it inevitable he's going to fail. Do you, Shannon? No. This third year, though, is going to be make or break, though. If he comes back next year, then it's inevitable. He's going to get one more year regardless of what we think, so he deserves one more year at least. I'm curious to see what we say two months from now, After he's got his roster pretty much built for next season, how will we feel going into year three? Well, I hope we all talk ourselves into it, because if we don't, then that's really a bad sign. We talk to ourselves into Zach Calzada in Kentucky football last year. I'm not talking myself into a guy with Billy Gillespie that's posing with roses in eighth grade. Michael Avery. I'm not doing that. Or if we're beating Ball State for a player. Here's one of the things that's kind of interesting that we watched this weekend. Mark did a good job scouting players. We just didn't get them. Oh, the top five he went after would have been the best team. Donovan Dent, by the end of the year, was playing well for UCLA. The dude, Shannon, that hit the game-winning shot against Florida, we thought was coming here. Yeah. What's his name? Figuarez from Robin Morris. That looked like a lock. But we thought we were getting him. He hit the big shot. I mean, Scoop over here had us ready for Yaxel. Yaxel's first team All-American. Wilkerson at Indiana. They looked at the right guys. We just didn't get any of them. We know who the good players are. We just can't get them to come play here. That's right. That's the problem, though. That goes to the point of close. You can find them. You can get them on the phone, but you've got to get them here. And the question is, why don't they get here? Which gets to the whole, is it UK, JMI, is it Pope? We don't really know. But I kind of feel like we'll know in two months. I do, too. And we'll find out. Mike, go ahead, Mike. So we're going to give him a third year, But how do you justify the poor evaluation of the talent they have and the amount of money that they spent on this team? How can you just give up that much money again? Well, but that's what Jack Givens says that worries me. So I think the most worrisome thing that happened yesterday, maybe the most worrisome thing of the day, was what Jack Givens said on the postgame show. And it got little attention. but Jack just kind of threw in offhand I don't know if they're going to have the NIL to get players next year like we did this year. They're going to have to make what they get work. When I heard that we were in the car and I went He wouldn't have said that if he wasn't concerned about it. That was an interesting comment for a guy well connected to the program on the official post game show to say. and you combine Jack Givens saying, I don't know if they're going to have the money, with Eli Capilouto saying, C-U-T-S, cuts, cuts, cuts, with Mark Pope saying, we got to start getting guys who want to play for the front of the jersey, maybe not just the biggest. You start to think, are they not planning on spending money? So I appreciate the call. I am concerned about that. I do wonder, like, you know, none of those people said they're going to do whatever it takes Jack saying that is important I think and I think he wouldn't say it if he didn't believe it but Ryan that was maybe the thing when he said that I was like oh I've taken it as an assumption they'll go get whoever they need to get maybe they're trying to set us up for they're not going to be able to go get these guys are we running this back Kentucky fans have always been expecting we're Kentucky we'll pay whatever we need to to get these players just what you just laid out right there doesn't sound like that's going to be in the plan sounds like i always hear yankees fans complain and red socks fans that they were used to go getting whoever they want and now they are all like you know trying to balance a budget uh-huh kind of what it sounds like that's kind of what it sounded like well we just did that percentage exercise and i was optimistic on returns i wouldn't have said that five days ago jack's comment in the back of my head and pope even said straight up, we have a lot of good young players. We've got to start with retention. And I kind of thought, well, we're running this back. It's going to be hard to get people excited with that. I mean, we'll see. But I did find that to be very – Even if they do that, they still may need to make a big splash with somebody. They've got to go get somebody. Well, we talked about – C-U-T-S. We talked about not having much star power. I mean, they won't have anything close to an O-way if they're just returning. No, I mean, you're going to lose – If you debated O-way – By the way, we're losing our two best players. Right. Our two best players are gone. Stop overpaying for sunglasses. If you're tired of buying expensive sunglasses only to lose or break them, you need Shady Rays, an independent American-owned company started right here in Kentucky. Premium polarized shades for every activity, running, fishing, biking, golfing, you name it. Every member of your family can find their perfect pair. 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Listen to This Podcast Will Kill You as part of the Exactly Right Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Esports Radio. 859-280-2287. Text machine 772-774-5254. What do you think about Oscar Combs tweets? well I mean when you lose Oscar you know part of it Oscar really really loves Mark Pope because they have a long relationship so I think part of where Oscar comes from is Oscar is going to take up for Mark and so he's going I think to blame the administration more than Mark at the same time I'll never dismiss anything he says because he's seen more than any of us have. And he went middle fingers up to the administration yesterday. Yes, he did. So when people are like, oh, those KSR and Matt, they're always negative. Go look at Oscar. I mean, you think we're negative? Go look at Oscar. I get it, though. I mean, his complaint is clearly a Barnhart complaint and a president complaint. He's mad about the contract. He's mad about the 10 lifetime tickets. I'm shocked how many people are mad about the 10 lifetime tickets. I'm in that crowd. Those are expensive tickets. Yeah, and you could argue how many people you need. And if you would sell those, you're saying let's be more efficient. Why are you giving away 10 lower-level tickets that come with huge K-Fund donations and everything else? So would you be cool giving him two? Yes, that's fine. And also, it says if he passes away, the family still gets him through his wife. How long do you need 10 tickets? 10's a lot though like nobody knows 10 people Shannon you know yeah like I'm not taking you know how hard it would be to organize 10 tickets to a game every game yeah I mean we get it for the SEC tournament but that's once a year I know but to say like you get 10 for the rest of your life yeah you don't have that many pay for those yeah not paying for those and he's not paying for them I mean I get it those are expensive seats that could be sold to someone yeah but we're on a budget cut that's right so we need to give this guy who's leaving two million more dollars be efficient because that way we can be efficient it's very important in this new age to create new sources of revenue the first one is to give mitch two million dollars that will be very creative in revenue and generating but if you work for uk athletics don't you dare ask for a raise in the next year yes because efficiency by the way let's just make it 20 tickets i get it bren go ahead bren Hey Matt You really got me worried about the NIL I think last night I was listening to you on the post game And that was the most worrisome thing What you said about Jack Givens When will we know If NIL is okay Going forward We don't know Because and this goes to one of my worries When we sort of sold the athletic department To a private company Basically is that this stuff is not released. You know, now the UK has claimed, and I will take them at their word, that they will release everything the same way they would if it was under the public scrutiny rules. We will know that come those releases, which will start to come this summer about budgets, etc. But we don't really know. And when questions are asked, we're told it's garbage and shut up. And that only two or three people are mad. Yeah. I mean, so we don't know is the answer. I mean, so far we've asked just on the question of why did Mitch get the extra $2 million? Because. And other schools have done it. So, like, we don't know. So to answer your question, I'm not sure we will for sure know what the JMI commitment is. But the proof will have to be in the pudding. We'll just see what players we get come mid-May. so then my next question is um if like next year um Nate Nate Nate Oates's contract drops down to an eight million dollar buyout do you think if then he came in and saw that the JMI deal was bad can we go to court or try to get JMI to get us out of that I mean that I have no idea because I don't know whether or not i mean i know the university feels like the deal is good right so i think it's very unlikely the university wants to end it so i i i i think for i think jmi is not going anywhere so then the question of is it good is it bad is something we'll learn more about we we there are there's and i appreciate the call there's evidence that there's there's some really good parts of it. I think there's evidence that I'm not sure how it works for our basketball program, but the proof's in the pudding. Like, look, if they go into portal season and they come out with a great roster, then no one's going to worry about it. If they don't, you know, the thing is, this is part of what worries me. I mean, I got to be honest. It's so hard to know what to say in these scenarios Because no matter what is said, there are people that get angry. So the only thing I can do is be honest. Everyone behind the scenes is pointing their fingers at each other. Right? They won't explicitly say it, but they're very much like, these problems are happening, not our fault, go look over there. And then you go over there and they go, not our fault, go look over there. And the only thing they can agree on is they can all go, But really the fault is you people, the media. Well, yeah, but when the cameras aren't on, you guys tell us privately it's other people's fault. So I don't know. I think it's a mess. I think the whole thing is a mess. I think there needs to be a rearrangement. I think it's salvageable, but there needs to be a rearrangement. They need to use this time with Mitch leaving to completely change how everything's done, to quit having a centralized power structure of four people that make all the decisions and get into the modern age. Am I wrong? No, and I think you made the argument for the people that think they need to hire somebody from the outside for that position. I think there needs to be somebody. You need to do what companies do when they're failing, which is you bring in somebody that has no connection to anybody and say, look at this and tell us what we're doing, right? Yep. because here's the problem. I've been doing this 20 years. The same people are in charge that were in charge 20 years ago. The same people in like every position. Now, it seems like natural attrition is going to start changing a lot of these things. They need somebody to come in that doesn't know who any of us are and come in and go, all right, this house is dysfunctional. How do we put it back in track? And here's the thing. Privately, everyone that doesn't have a platform all agrees with me. Talk to the rank and file member of the athletics department, the basketball staff, the presidential office. Not the big voices, but the secondary voices will all say, Matt, you're exactly right. We need somebody to come in and restart this. but nobody can say it publicly because the loud voices just go, nothing's wrong. And media are bad and fans are unrealistic, but go talk to the people that work in it. They don't tell you that. Am I wrong? No. We're just knuckleheads. We'll take a break. Come back. Our number two is KSR. I'm Daniel Alarcon. And this is my friend is much more famous than I am. I wouldn't go that far, But I'm John Green, co-host of the podcast The Away End with my old friend Daniel. On our podcast The Away End, we'll share with you the magic of international football, all leading up to the 2026 World Cup. 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