transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:01] This is Interrupted by Matt Jones on News Radio 840 Whas. Now, here's Matt Jones. All right, welcome everybody. Interrupted by Matt Jones, Episode 36, and now joined by the man with the fluorescent hat from 247Sports. He's been around Kentucky Basketball forever, and now does National College Basketball. I don't know if I ever actually interviewed you before. This is Kyle Tucker, formerly the Career Journal, the Athletic. I don't think I have.
Speaker 2:
[00:40] That's a good question. I know I hosted your show a couple of times when you were out. I can't remember if we actually did an interview. Anyway, maybe this is-
Speaker 1:
[00:50] Well, I'm glad. I'm glad to finally get to do it. It feels like a perfect time to do it because this is probably as newsy a time that we've had with Kentucky Basketball since, certainly since Cal left. I guess I would just start here. If you were to describe to people who hadn't been part of the Internet drama of the last few weeks of the portal, where is Kentucky Basketball right now in your mind? What would you say?
Speaker 2:
[01:23] Where is Kentucky Basketball? I think squarely in the crosshairs of what is going on with Kentucky, but also I think there's a larger narrative. It was something I touched on even before knowing what Kentucky would do in the portal. It was the second weekend of the tournament. I was at the East Regional as you were in DC, and you had these luminaries there. You had Rick Pitino, you had Tom Izzo, and then the next generation in Dan Hurley, and who else did we have there?
Speaker 1:
[02:00] Brian Underwood.
Speaker 2:
[02:01] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[02:02] Or no. He wasn't at the East Regional, but yes, you're right.
Speaker 2:
[02:05] Who was the fourth? I just completely drew a blank.
Speaker 1:
[02:09] Izzo, Hurley, Shire.
Speaker 2:
[02:12] Shire, yeah. So you had Shire, Izzo, Pitino, and Dan Hurley. So I asked all those guys that before those games started, what is the value of a blue blood right now? Pitino basically said blue bloods are dead, for all intents and purposes. Now there are still inherent advantages. There are some things in Shire I thought was pretty eloquent. I asked him, and he even said, it doesn't mean as much to recruit, doesn't mean as much to players anymore, like the blue blood reputation and all that comes with it. So I said, so what is still, what can you still sell about a blue blood? And his thing was, well, we're on like, we are still, and this holds true in the ratings, we're still the most watched, right? These brands are the most watched on television. So we're going to get invited to these premier events and our games are going to be the national game. And we're going to have 3 million people watching our games. And these, that still matters. And obviously there's still some cache, but the portal era and the NIL era have changed. The, you know, what you can sell to differentiate yourself. I think it has certainly brought some more parody into the sport and you're seeing it now. I mean, the big 10 hadn't won a national championship in 20 years and 25 years, 26 years, and Michigan just did it. And we're seeing like Illinois can compete at the highest level. And some of these other programs have closed the gap. And so there's a larger conversation about that that I think was already.
Speaker 1:
[03:44] I mean, isn't that still though like, it depends on what your definition of blue blood is. I mean, if you just leave it to Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina and Kansas, yeah, it wasn't the greatest year for blue bloods outside of Duke. But if you extend it out just a little bit, I mean, you just said you were at a regional with Duke, Pitino, Izzo, and Illinois who granted probably not on that status usually, but they've had their successes. I mean, I guess I still look at the final four and go, it was still Duke, UConn, Arizona, and Illinois. It wasn't like Providence made.
Speaker 2:
[04:18] Michigan, UConn. Yeah, Michigan, UConn.
Speaker 1:
[04:20] Yeah, Michigan.
Speaker 2:
[04:21] I think there's still a line of demarcation. It's still haves and have nots, but it's more like you've got to be in a power conference. You've got to be in the Big Ten. You've got to be in the SEC. The Big East has some advantages in basketball because they don't have to spend their money on football to pay their rosters. They also don't get football money, so that's a limitation. But you still have to be one of the bigger brands, but I think the separation, because also you can really look at it. It's not just this year. In the last four years, Kentucky, Kansas, and Carolina have not been.
Speaker 1:
[05:01] No, they haven't.
Speaker 2:
[05:01] There's one total Sweet 16. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[05:04] Total.
Speaker 2:
[05:05] I mean, and Bill Self, you know, has sort of thrived through eras of college basketball, and he's finding some challenges, because I don't, frankly, I don't think that he nailed, he's nailed the portal really in any year. Like, there are guys that he could have taken that he didn't take. I'm, like, completely drawing a blank, but one of the, Cam, I just forgot his last name, one of the key pieces for UConn's last title team was a guy that could have been at Kansas, and self took another kid, who ended up getting kicked off the team. There's a whole, there's a whole new world to sort of navigate. And some of the Blue Bloods just haven't done it yet, but partly because they, it's not just, hey, I want to go play for this name brand. It's like, somebody else has given me $4 million. You know?
Speaker 1:
[05:52] Yeah, so your coach now has to be really good, and has to be a good manager, which gets me back to, I mean, on paper, Mark Pope should be able to do this. I mean, he's smart. He's not stubborn in the old school, like I'm not changing my ways. He played an offense of style that seems modern. And yet, and actually from a coaching standpoint, they've done all right, but it doesn't seem like he's been able to navigate this getting players stuff as well as I would have thought he did. Do you agree and why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:
[06:28] Yeah, and I think it's really like an issue universally with the teams that you think should be good that haven't. It's not just like recruiting, it's more, I would say more broadly now, roster and payroll management, right? Because there's been this huge conversation about general managers. And I've been banging that drum for about four years, like that it was coming, that it was gonna be important. If you look now at all the top programs, whether you call them a GM or not, they have a functional GM. And those can serve different purposes based on the strength of your head coach. But your staff in general has to be covering, we're on the portal before the portal opens. Like the good programs, they're not waiting to see who shows up on the database on the day the portal opens. They're scouting college basketball going, this kid was a five-star recruit, he picked a wrong school. We know that he did, because we understand, like he, for whatever circumstance, he chose the wrong place, he chose the wrong coach, he chose the wrong system. We know he's not thriving there, but we think he will for us. I mean, Dusty May nailed that at Michigan, right? He got Mara, who was buried on Mick Cronin's bench, but he believed he was in the wrong fit, in the wrong place, playing for the wrong coach, and for me, he's gonna thrive, and he did. And you can go across, Elliott Cudeau, he went to the wrong place at Carolina, playing in the wrong system. What we want with the way we're gonna build our roster is a pass first point guard who does not care about scoring. Cudeau will do that for us. We're gonna help him. We believe he's a better shooter than he showed. The good staffs are evaluating that stuff during the season. They're building a list of guys that they want before those guys are available.
Speaker 1:
[08:17] Do you think Kentucky is doing that? Part of what's been difficult for me and I think it probably for you too, is it's sometimes hard to know what Kentucky is doing at all because they're so buttoned up. What do you think and what do people say?
Speaker 2:
[08:33] I can't say for sure. I'm sure they would say that they are. They probably are to some extent, but I would say the proof is in the pudding because the programs that are just like, the portal opens and all of a sudden, it's like X, Y, and Z two weeks in, they've got the guys. We needed a shooter and a big and a point guard, and we got a shooter, a big, and a point guard and they're exactly what we wanted. Kentucky, it's hard to know what is the approach. They've signed basically two point guards, neither of whom can shoot. There's no way that that was like, if you were building your dream roster, that's exactly how you're going to do it. You're not going to get all the way down the road with Bonnie Freeman and pass on a kid you could have had if you've done all the homework that you needed to do on the front end. I don't think. I just think, we can't say for sure what they were doing on the front end, but the back end results indicate that they're not doing that. I mean, and I would say, I would even argue that, look at the roster they just built last year, when they had a blank check. The $22 million number that has hung over their heads, regardless of that number, we know they spent a bunch, and we know that they put a lot of ill-fitting pieces together. They're pieces that, if you were going to say to Mark Pope, what's the perfect set of players that fit the way you play? That wasn't it. It wasn't it. It just, to me, that roster felt like we have all this money to spend, we're just going to go get what we can get, whoever we need.
Speaker 1:
[10:03] So, you're now more kind of, not just the Kentucky beat, you're doing all of college basketball. What are the people in college basketball saying about the Kentucky situation? I think Kentucky fans have this belief that we're being mocked across the sport. Do you think that's true? They are.
Speaker 2:
[10:21] I mean, yeah. I think in some certain circles, yeah. I mean, I talked to some coaches that, like, there are jokes being made. I mean, there are-
Speaker 1:
[10:29] Like what? Like what do you mean? What's the-
Speaker 2:
[10:31] I've talked to a couple GMs. I still have a Lexington phone number. I've talked to a couple GMs. And when they answer the phone, they go, I thought Mark Pope was finally calling to see, realizing he needed a GM. And I was going to have to go to my boss and ask for more money. You know, I mean, like there, I think there's a lot of, it's like, maybe not even not, it's not just like straight up making fun, but it's more like I don't, you know, guys saying like, I'm not sure what they're doing. I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish. You know, it doesn't look from the outside side, like there's like a clear vision and plan. You know, and so that part, I think, I just don't, I guess I just don't really, I don't really understand it. I think a lot of people in college basketball don't really understand, like, what are they trying to achieve? And it doesn't feel like they have this, like, clear, and maybe it's because they're not communicating with the outside world. It could be that.
Speaker 1:
[11:33] So why do you think they're doing, okay, so I've talked a lot about that. And, you know, at various points of the time that Cal was here, and we'll talk about him later, you know, he would communicate with me and then wouldn't. I think he did the same with you for a while. And then, but in general speaking, I think most coaches around the country have media members they talk to. Would you agree with that at most programs?
Speaker 2:
[11:57] Yes, and I would also say that, like covering National College Basketball, it's not like football. Like football almost universally is the most, like, paranoid, like, locked up, yeah, off to anybody. It's ridiculous. It's honestly pretty ridiculous. It's a little self-indulgent, in my, in my opinion. College basketball is not that way. Like, you know, a lot of these guys don't know me. You know, they know me a little bit. I'm not like, like lifelong contacts with a lot of these guys. And I show up and, you know, at a certain point in the season and go like, Hey, I'm really interested in writing something about you guys. And they're like, come on in. I mean, it's like, Yeah, it is interesting to me.
Speaker 1:
[12:38] Even at the East Regional, even at the East Regional, I'm just there watching and like people on staffs are talking to me and they have no reason to talk to me. And I'm like, I'm used to the people in the school I cover being nervous. It's just, why do you think he's like that? It didn't look like he was going to be.
Speaker 2:
[12:56] Well, one thing I will say, and I think this is really true of Cal too. I think Kentucky is a really different animal. And I think it even turns open coaches into closed coaches because it's too much. Like you get there and it's like, there are people everywhere, everybody might be a reporter or a blogger or a tweeter or whatever, and they clamp down. And I actually wrote about this years ago. It was so wild to talk to people who covered Cal Perry before he got to Kentucky. Like if you talk to Dan Wetzel who covered Cal in the early days at UMass, and then you talk to Dan Wolkin who covered him at Memphis, and you talk to Gary Parrish who covered him at Memphis. They used to go to practice, Cal's every practice would be open, and then they would literally stand, like Gary Parrish tells this story about he would stand on the other side of the shower curtain in the coach's locker room, because Cal didn't have time, he was going recruiting but he wanted to talk to Gary. And Gary would stand there with a tape recorder while Cal took a shower after practice.
Speaker 1:
[14:03] I've never heard that. Yeah. That's wild.
Speaker 2:
[14:08] So Cal was very open and you get to Kentucky and he was not very, I mean, he was very, very closed off. You obviously had a relationship with him, I had probably as good a relationship with him at one point as anybody could, and I still very rarely ever talked to him one-on-one.
Speaker 1:
[14:28] Yeah, exactly right.
Speaker 2:
[14:30] Very rarely. And like, I mean, I will tell it now, like I had Cal's cell number that was given to me by someone else, and so I never wanted to like abuse it. And I was like, I will wait until an opportune time. And I mean, I had covered him for like four years at this point, I think. And he had one of his hip replacement surgeries, and I was like, this is a good time to, like I sent a text to, and I said, Hey, Cal, this is Kyle, hope you get well soon. Hope you feel better soon. I've had like my elbow like completely rebuilt. It's no fun. Rehab sucks. Like good luck, get well soon. I'm not going to blow you up on this number. I just wanted to tell you, get well. And like immediately my phone buzzed. I was like, oh, he wrote back. And it just said wrong number. And I was like, okay. And so then I send this number to like someone who definitely had his number and they're like, no, that is his number.
Speaker 1:
[15:27] That's hilarious.
Speaker 2:
[15:28] So like a year or two later, I was like writing a story about like the family. And I showed it to Erin, I think. And I was like, this is your dad, right? And she's like, yes. She's like, can I curse on this? Yes.
Speaker 1:
[15:42] Well, no, but yes.
Speaker 2:
[15:46] She said like, when somebody calls it, he doesn't want to talk to you. He calls it the eat button.
Speaker 1:
[15:51] And like, he just like, you know, it's funny you say that because in the years that I talked to him, I would say the most I would talk to him would be like, once every two or three weeks or whatever, he would want to check in. He really, back then he was really obsessed with what the media was saying about him on a national level. He kind of considered me his local warrior to fight against it. He never would talk. I never had a conversation with him one time ever. I'm like you, I had his phone number, but not from him and I didn't use it. Every single time I talked to him, someone called me and then called him. We never talked about it. It was clear that in his mind, he always wanted to have the third person on the phone. Even when we got along extremely well, that was just the way we did it. That's just how he was.
Speaker 2:
[16:47] Yeah. But that wasn't who he was historically. So I guess to my point is, I do think the Kentucky job changes who you are in that way. Even for a guy like Cal, Cal was far more socially, publicly, public speaking comfort level ready for the job than Mark Pope. He closed off even. So a guy like Pope, I think thought he knew. I even talked to him about this early in this past season, when he was saying a lot of the weird stuff and I interviewed him about, I want to curl up in bed and kill myself. It's like, whoa, where did that come from? When Pope was saying some of the weird stuff, you'd think a guy who played here at the height of the madness, on the 96 team where everything was bigger than life, would understand it, but it was also pre-social media, it was pre-all that stuff.
Speaker 1:
[17:46] It was.
Speaker 2:
[17:47] It's also a very different animal to be the coach and not one of the players. I don't know that Mark Pope was ever under the magnifying glass.
Speaker 1:
[17:56] Not at all, no.
Speaker 2:
[17:57] Captain, but not even remotely the star of the 96 team. I don't think even the most scrutinized player feels the heat the way that the head coach at Kentucky does when you're not doing well. And so I just think that the job has changed them a little bit, probably. And it's one of those things, when you feel like you're under fire, you turtle up. You go into your bunker and it's like, okay, it's us against them. And Pope has been saying a lot of these things in the last few months about you can't believe what you read and 5% of stuff is true and like...
Speaker 1:
[18:35] Okay, so what do you make of all that? Let's go on that for a second because I had somebody very close to him, probably the only person that I've been able to get to know who is close to him say that Mark is not on social media, but he is aware of Facebook specifically, that like he gets his idea of what is being said by Facebook. And not just like AI generated pictures, but like when news stories end up on Facebook. And that in his mind that this person said, he almost equates all the news stories with those AI generated, Colin Chandler donated his salary to Turning Point USA. And that he knows, like he just gets it all in his, it's not that he doesn't know what's what, but he's like, this is what everybody's reading. And it like skews how he looks at it. And when I heard that, things he started to say, Kyle kind of made sense at that point. Because if he says 5% of stuff's true, that might actually be true on Facebook. It's not true in the rest of the world, but it might be true on Facebook.
Speaker 2:
[19:47] Yeah, and I guess if he's like, if he's saying this is how, and there is a reality, a very sad reality, that people get their news, not from directly from any news source, but from TikTok and from Twitter and from Facebook. I mean, all of those places are where people sort of like curate their like newsfeed. I think that, which is, it is dangerous because half the crap on all of those places is sort of either made up, twisted, or intentionally targeted towards eliciting a certain response. I mean, I get what he's saying there. I think it, putting it out the way he puts it out is almost like only 5% of what people write that are covering this team is true. Yeah, that is not true.
Speaker 1:
[20:35] That's not true, that's not true. But when he says that, if you think if what my person who talked to me said is correct, and he thinks everyone's getting their news from Facebook, maybe that's why he says it.
Speaker 2:
[20:50] Yeah, I mean, I think too, I found it really interesting that they never at any point refuted the $22 million roster number.
Speaker 1:
[21:04] Why do you think that is? Because you said that in a tweet the other day. They were fine to let that number stick around.
Speaker 2:
[21:11] One, because I believe it's true. Ben Roberts reported it first, I think, for the Herald Leader, and Ben is a very good reporter, and I don't think he would have reported it if he didn't have it pretty well nailed down. And I also think it's, because if it wasn't true, if it was just unequivocally not true, they would have come out and been like, well, that's absurd, you know? We didn't. So one, I think, I don't think Ben got it wrong, because I think Ben's good at his job. I think two, they didn't even, and not publicly or privately refute the number. And then I think they kind of let it hang out there because it made them look like the big dog. I mean, until you see that the results are bad, you're like, yeah, we got the biggest budget. It makes you look good. Like, we can afford anybody. And then it's like, well, you could afford anybody, and this is what you put out there? And they're like, wow, I don't believe everything you read. You know, like, these numbers are crazy. Like, I'm sorry, like, refuting it, like on the final weekend of the season, is silly. Or even silly, I don't know that they like directly refuted it, but it was just kind of...
Speaker 1:
[22:19] Yeah, they only refuted the Yaxle, the Yaxle thing. I don't even think they refuted the total number. Or I think it was the Yaxle thing. So you do think that that roster cost, whether it's 22 million or not, was it the most expensive roster in college basketball?
Speaker 2:
[22:37] I think, yeah. I mean, and just some anecdotal evidence is like talking to some of the schools of the players that they took from other places that are like, we thought we had this guy locked up, and he came to us and said, this is like Kentucky doubled it.
Speaker 1:
[22:55] So what about as a coach slash communicator? I mean, there's this big question, can Mark relate to guys? And a lot of that, I think, is just conjecture because people don't really know one way or the other. But you probably would know better than most. I mean, are there, I mean, it felt like to me he was never completely connected with that team last year, but maybe that's just a random thing. Do you think Mark Pope can connect with the modern college basketball player?
Speaker 2:
[23:24] I think that is a very connect at the closing table, connect on the recruiting visit. Yeah, like I think that's a very valid question. Like without being in those recruiting pitches, without being in those meeting rooms, I can't definitively say that he can't, but I would circle back to what I said earlier. Like to me the suggested reality would be in the results. And we are in his third recruiting cycle. And if he does not get Tyron Stokes, which I don't think he will, then he will be 0 for 3 recruiting classes, getting like a legitimately elite high school prospect. And I think, and I would-
Speaker 1:
[24:09] I mean, Natsper was McDonald's All American, but he was-
Speaker 2:
[24:13] Yes, yes. And again, in state, you know-
Speaker 1:
[24:16] In state, he was in state, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[24:19] And kind of one you had to get, and probably again, also probably dramatically overpaid for, for anybody coming out of high school. But like, the context there is we, we just came out of like the greatest freshman class in college basketball in the, in the post one and done era, like maybe ever. We're looking at probably the top 10, the top 10 draft picks in this next NBA draft are going to all be freshmen.
Speaker 1:
[24:53] And no better top five ever. In terms of just, I mean, you've got like ridiculous. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[24:59] Well, we just watched the NBA absolutely destroy its product, fighting like scrambling to get one of these picks, right?
Speaker 1:
[25:07] Like the banking is, I mean, Jerry Sankoff is going to go fifth and he's awesome. Yes.
Speaker 2:
[25:12] I mean, like you could have a franchise point guard, like five, six, seven picks into the draft. I mean, and none of those players were at Kentucky. And to me, that says everything. I mean, those guys are all over the place. Like they didn't all concentrate one place. They didn't all go to Cal. Cal got one of them because he's always going to get one of them. But like, and he got the fifth best one. But there are like, those guys were all over the place. They were amazing. You didn't get one. You didn't get one in the first class, and you're not going to get one in this class. And like, I don't think...
Speaker 1:
[25:51] And to your point about Blue Bloods, all the Blue Bloods got one. Whether it worked in the team or not, the other Blue Bloods did get one, and you did not.
Speaker 2:
[26:00] Darren Peterson at Kansas, Caleb Wilson at Carolina, and then, you know, obviously Boozer and the whole class of them at Duke. And of course Duke is loading up again. They're bringing a bunch. They are retaining a bunch. They got five stars and they're coming back for sophomore and junior seasons. They're signing three more five stars. They, you know, can't like we're talking about Kansas. Kansas is probably going to win the Stokes sweepstakes. So they're still getting those dudes. You've got to be able to get players like that when you're a brand like Kentucky and you're the coach at Kentucky. And why do you think he doesn't?
Speaker 1:
[26:36] Like if you were, if Kyle, we don't know, but I've given my opinion on and off for a year straight. You don't have the burden of having to do it every day. So now why does Kyle Tucker think they haven't gotten the players?
Speaker 2:
[26:50] I think it's not money, right? We know, we know, we know they're working with a huge budget. So it's not money. It's not your brand name, your Kentucky. You've put all these guys in the NBA. It's not your fan base. I mean, like, do I think-
Speaker 1:
[27:03] Do you know what it could be? Is it fans?
Speaker 2:
[27:05] I mean, people- I think there's a fair discussion to be had about like, yes, sometimes the negative, and I will say, I do think it's a very small piece of a large fan base. But like, when your fan base is as big as Kentucky's, even the small percentage of is a pretty big number, and it's a very loud and nasty group, that small number. I think it- I don't think it helps. I do think there are programs that use sort of the nastier aspects of the social media element of the fan base against Kentucky and recruiting. I'm sure that there are teams that are printing out some of the vitriol, you know, spewed at players. But you're going to find that everywhere. Frankly, like, if you wanted to use that against every program in America, you could print out a bunch of- a stack of mean tweets, right? Like, there's a reason there's like multiple people make content out of, like, people reading their own mean tweets, because people are just mean. Like, I don't matter at all, and people are mean as snakes to me sometimes, and that's fine. Like, I mostly laugh at it. Um, but I do- I think there's an element of that. I don't think that's the big piece of it, like, in any way. I think it is largely- there's something about the way that Pope comes to the closing table, like, whether it- whether it comes off as desperation, whether it is a, like- I think we could all just, like, objectively agree Pope is kind of, like, dorky, right? Like, I don't know, I guess that's, like, the way-
Speaker 1:
[28:38] Yeah, I mean, that's- I'm dorky, so I feel comfortable saying it, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[28:43] But, like, you know, he's kind of dorky. I don't know that he's, like, super cool. And I don't think you have to necessarily- I don't know that Dusty May is super cool. Like, Dusty May comes off a little bit like a, like, a nerdy guy, too. I just think you got to say the right things, and it seems- it feels like he must- he can't possibly be saying the right things, because I think there's money available. Like, there's a brand available. There's, like, there's, like, national television exposure available. It's like, you're in the best league in the world, available. All the other ingredients are- exist. So, like, what is the pitch? Are you not, when you get these guys, are you not showing them a clear vision of how you're going to use them? Or when you sit down with them, are you awkward in, sort of, like, the, like, how you pitch, like, how desperate you are to get them? I don't know. Like, like, I know one thing I do know about the way Cal approached people is it was, like, an effortless, cool. Yeah, no, I agree. You could talk to a million of his former players. Like, Anthony Davis is a perfect example. Like, he lived in a neighborhood where a lot of coaches didn't want to even show up. And Cal, like, rented, like, an Escalade or some ridiculous thing on the trip. And he and Kenny Payne just, like, rolled in there like they owned the place. And, like, he sat out on the stoop. He wasn't, like, running to get in the house, you know. Like, you know, Cal had just sort of an effortless cool. And he could say things to players that, like, a lot of coaches couldn't say to him. Like, I'm going to, like, you're not going to come here and do this. I'm going to...
Speaker 1:
[30:19] Well, Bomanie Jones used to say about Cal, Cal was comfortable around black people. He was like, that's the answer. He was like, the thing that people don't understand about Cal, Bomanie used to always say, most coaches are not comfortable around black people. And he was like, they can tell. And he said Cal was 100% comfortable around black people. And he thought that was the key to Cal's success. Let me ask you a couple of questions about Cal for a second. Cause, you know, we both dealt with Cal a lot. How, what did you think of the end of it? Like how that ended? Do you think he tried to come back at the end?
Speaker 2:
[31:00] I mean, that's, there's been some of that, that talk out there. I don't know how, like, how realistic that was. Even if he did, I do genuinely believe for him, like take Kentucky out of the equation. I think he needed to go somewhere else. Because, just because, like, I mean, at a certain point, it's just like a toxic relationship where you, like, both ways, you know, like, he was, he will, Cal will never acknowledge, like, when he's like, even at, like, his height, when everything he said was, like, Kentucky fans would, like, stand up and cheer, like, he would take clear shots at Duke and things like that, or another coach, but he would always, like, act like, well, that's not what I was doing, but it was what he was doing. And he, by the end, he was doing that with his own fan base. Like, he was saying things definitely just to kind of piss them off, or maybe not to piss them off, but like, I'm gonna say this because I know you don't like it.
Speaker 1:
[32:06] No, definitely did that. And you wrote in a story, I mean, I thought you had the best story anyone wrote about the end of Cal. I think you wrote it a year before he left, where you kind of talked to people about what was going on. And you in that story, I think, wrote something about how he always would say, I don't hear it, I don't read it, I don't know. But he heard and read everything, right?
Speaker 2:
[32:29] Yeah. And I mean, he was at war with everybody by the time he left. And I think, to me, where it died, I mean, this is, I think, relevant now as Mitch Barnhart and his retirement and his golden parachute and his new position come under major scrutiny. No longer just by the knuckleheads, but by the governor of the state. It was over with Cal to me without a doubt, the day that Mitch Barnhart decided to sit down next to Mark Stoops at a press conference while Cal was in the Bahamas and essentially pick a side. And tell Cal-
Speaker 1:
[33:13] The football basketball school thing.
Speaker 2:
[33:14] Yeah, it says sit down and shut up. And from that point on, I don't think there was any fixing it. Short of Cal going on a crazy run and getting back to the Final Four where Mitch had no choice to be like, we love each other, we love this. And they tried to do that right before he left with that awkward sit down interview. It could not have been more of a hostage video for both of them. And in the end, I would say if you're Kentucky, in the end, Cal, in some ways, did them a favor on the way out the door. They didn't have to make them make that awkward decision that was going to be very expensive to pay him to go away. They didn't have to fire a coach that had won them a national championship. And so I think, and I would also say, even with what's happened with Pope, and even if it continues to go wrong and you end up having to fire Pope, I still think it was the right thing for both sides, for Cal to move on. He needed a fresh start. It was going to be more of the same in Lexington. I think he needed, and I think he could help himself more if he would, it's still true that he needs fewer yes men around him. He still got all the same dudes around him at Arkansas, but I do think it's like he is personally more energized. And at the end of the day, what the magic of Cal has never been his staff. It's always been Cal. Cal is his own great recruiter. He doesn't need to hire a guy to be a closer, Cal's that guy. If he's energized and he's willing to go 100 miles an hour himself, he's going to do well. He could still use some basketball strategy on his staff.
Speaker 1:
[34:59] Do you agree with the narrative that Kenny Payne, Dwayne Peevee, John Robich, losing those three guys really hurt him in terms of his ability and success at Kentucky?
Speaker 2:
[35:13] Absolutely. That was a big part of what I wrote a year before he left was like, in losing Dwayne, you lose your conduit, you lose your go between that manage the relationship with Mitch. Because I don't think there was ever any point where Mitch really wanted to hire Cal in the first place. He passed on him once, he was made to hire him the second time. I don't know that he was ever really comfortable with anything about Cal.
Speaker 1:
[35:42] And they never got along, really.
Speaker 2:
[35:44] But Dwayne was like, okay, Dwayne will manage that relationship. And when Cal would get, Mitch, I'm going to go bang on his door right now and tell him we need this. Dwayne would be the guy to say, hold on, how are we going to package it? How are we going to present it?
Speaker 1:
[36:04] Let me do it. He was big on that.
Speaker 2:
[36:07] And then he lost that. And Kenny was sort of the good guy to Cal's bad guy. He's Uncle Kenny to all those players. So Cal could MF those guys up and down and push them to their limit. And then Kenny would be the guy to build them back up. In addition to being a major connector, Kenny would connect Cal through his connections, obviously Worldwide West and many others. I mean, he's one of the most connected people in basketball to the talent. You get Cal connected to the right people and put them in front of the right people, Cal is closing that deal. That's the thing. What is Mark Pope like at the closing table? I can't say for sure. I know what Cal is, an absolute stone cold closer at the end of the day. And then Robich was the guy who did all the grownup stuff. That is the best way I could say it. Robich did the grownup actual basketball, the scouting, the planning, the making sure everybody's where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there. And to lose all three of those in pretty short order, and the Robich thing was tough because there was a lot of stuff there. It's not as bad as Cal just shoved his friend out the door.
Speaker 1:
[37:23] No, it wasn't. I don't blame Cal for that.
Speaker 2:
[37:27] It kind of went wrong at the end.
Speaker 1:
[37:29] It just kind of happened.
Speaker 2:
[37:30] Not having the best of John Robich hurt big time, and not having Kenny as that go between hurt, and not having Dwayne may have been the ultimate killer. Because when you go to war with your athletic director, and an athletic director who has the complete backing of your president, as evidenced by what's happened here in the last few months, like you're done, it's over. And then also, the fourth head of this hydra is when you get sideways with the one booster who can change the game for you. I mean, there are many people who give to Kentucky Athletics, but we all know who makes it go. And, you know, Cal got sideways with those people, too. And so, like, that's all, like, at that point, you got to make a change. And they did.
Speaker 1:
[38:25] I don't think people realize how he did get sideways with everybody. I mean, well, you wrote about getting sideways with us and me, specifically, how, you know, in his early days, I would watch him have these little things he would obsess over. So it used to be, I joke about this on the air, he would read the basketball times and get very upset about what was in the basketball times. And he would say to me, can you believe this was in the basketball times? And I was like, Cal, no one reads the basketball times but you. But he would be obsessive about it. And then it was Jeff Goodman and then it was Pat Fordy, and then it was Dane O'Neill, and then sometimes it was Pitino, and sometimes it was Kevin Stallings. And then at the end, it felt like it became me a little bit at the end. And that drove, but you knew that, that was so odd.
Speaker 2:
[39:19] Yeah, I knew it because he would like say it. I mean, like, I mean, at one point, I think he wanted me to like, he wanted me to like, be the counterbalance to that. And I was like, look, I'm not, you can't like pull my strings. Like, I'm not like, I'm not gonna like go to, I'm not gonna go to war against somebody else as your like, you know, messenger. But like, this is true of all of us, like of all human beings. Whatever is our strength when it's, when it like veers down the wrong path is also our weakness.
Speaker 1:
[39:54] That's true.
Speaker 2:
[39:55] And Cal, like Cal's strength is whole life. I mean, I'm like, we go to his childhood is like the chip on the shoulder and an enemy that has to be vanquished. And so like, as growing up, it was like, he's the son of a cafeteria worker and a baggage handler and the grandson of a coal miner and immigrant. Like, and who am I? Like, I'm this Italian kid from, you know, Moon Township and like, I'm going to, I'm going to show people I'm going to be something. And then literally day one, job one as assistant coach, he pays pick and fights. And like, you know, Luke Carneseca is like, you know, that, you know, that crazy rumor that that story is crazy.
Speaker 1:
[40:41] That's the thing.
Speaker 2:
[40:43] I think that's kind of been refuted by all sides. Yeah, like just the fact that like that would be out there tells you how much Cal was getting under people's skin. And then you got like first head coaching job, you got John Cheney screaming in a room full of media. I'm going to kill you. Yeah, like he's always needed an enemy or a foil. Yes, somebody like somebody like I'm going to show. I'm going to prove you wrong. And like I think he was when he ran out of real ones, he started to invent them. And like, and I think too, when he was like when it was when he started losing traction and he was spinning his wheels, it was like it's somebody else's fault. Like it's the people who are saying negative things about me. Like we need people to be with us, you know, to be saying like to help us by be saying positive things. Like I want you to ignore what you're seeing right now. I've always said like it's like it is kind of funny that even though they are very politically opposite, like Cal and Donald Trump are not too dissimilar from each other.
Speaker 1:
[41:55] I don't disagree with you there in some ways.
Speaker 2:
[41:57] Yeah, we're not in like they're in there, like in the way that they like there's always got to be an enemy. Ignore what you're seeing, like just here, just believe what I'm saying. And like, you know, all high achieving people have some level of being like able to spin a yarn and just like make reality out of what they say it is. And it is a gift, like to be used in whatever way you end up using it. But it is a gift to be able to do that. But for most people, it also ends up being a curse. I think for Cal, he just became at the end sort of obsessed with like all the people who were against him. And he stopped focusing on the things that like he could do to change the circumstances.
Speaker 1:
[42:45] I think that's actually a really good analysis. You know, for a while it was Rick Pitino. I always think this is kind of funny. I'm not sure if he used to. So I said like, when I would hear from him, it would always be somebody else's name would pop up and I go, oh, that's Cal, right? Like you just knew that. But the couple of times where the call would come to Interrupt with no other name was that he would an hour and a half after he beat Rick Pitino in those games would call just to gloat. He just was beating Rick Pitino, especially when that rivalry was like, that seemed to make him as happy as any except draft day. He loved it so much. And I actually think they were good for each other because they both kind of pushed each other because they were such mutual dislike for a while.
Speaker 2:
[43:36] Yeah, I don't know if it was good for Rick Pitino because I think-
Speaker 1:
[43:39] Well, Rick won a title during that time. I mean, I mean-
Speaker 2:
[43:42] Yeah, that's true. I think the latter from thereafter, it seemed to get under Rick's skin in a way that may be allowed-
Speaker 1:
[43:50] Oh, the 2014 game killed Rick, killed. I mean, that, because we shouldn't have won that game, the one up in Indianapolis. You were here for that, right? You were here then.
Speaker 2:
[43:59] Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:
[44:01] Yeah. All right, so let me switch gears with this and then we'll get you done. Do you, when Pope was hired, I've kind of gone through what I thought happened to get to him. What do you think happened, how Mark Pope ended up the coach here? But after they didn't get Hurley and Drew, it was a very short period of time and then all of a sudden, Mark Pope was the coach. What do you think happened?
Speaker 2:
[44:26] Scott Drew said no. I mean, I think Mitch thought for the entire last, I don't know, three, four years of Cal that the next coach of Kentucky would be Scott Drew.
Speaker 1:
[44:39] Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:
[44:40] Mitch was the chairman of the committee in 2021, the bubble year, the year Baylor won the national championship.
Speaker 1:
[44:50] Oh, I didn't realize, you know what, I didn't realize that, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:
[44:53] He and Scott Drew got to know each other very well during that time. When you're in this, like, quarantine bubble and you, you know, there's only, you can only talk to the people that are in there, that are, that are cleared and healthy. I think he came to develop a huge respect for Scott Drew during that time. And likewise, I, like, I said for a long time leading up to it, I thought that, like, first call would be Scott Drew. And, you know, Cal leaves and Scott Drew's family's on a plane to Lexington. I think his wife and daughter came here to, like, check it out. I don't know exactly what sort of, what scared Scott Drew off from pulling that trigger. But I really believe that Mitch thought when the time came, he'd make that phone call and what coach would turn down the chance to come to Kentucky. And they had a great connection. You know, they're both very, obviously very spiritual people. And that was, like, a thing they bonded on. I think they just, like, I think Scott Drew felt to Mitch, like, he could get most of what he had with Cal without, like, some of the, like, bravado and, you know, and they would connect on sort of all the, like, religion. I mean, if you, that's a whole other thing. Like, if you look at, like, everybody that, like, works under Mitch, like, a huge percentage of them, like, go to church with them or go, like, or are involved in religious activities in one way or another, I think that he values that. And Scott Drew is, like, his dream coach in that way, because he's a guy who sort of wears his faith on his sleeve. I just think that, like, all those things, in Mitch's mind, and he could recruit, like, he's still going to get five-star talent. I mean, like, I think at the time, VJ Edgecombe was committed to Baylor. You know, you think, oh, we get him, we just plug and play, we keep it rolling, and Edgecombe's killing it with Tyrese Maxey right now, with the 76ers. That's what I think happened. I think he had plan A, and there, to me, probably wasn't a lot of plan B. And I think plan B is who's gonna, how many guys are gonna turn down Kentucky, right? And Kyle's the highest, you know, highest or second highest paid coach at college basketball. Who's gonna turn down the chance to coach Kentucky for $9 million a year? Well, it turns out a lot of people, because look at what Carolina just went through. Yeah, it's North Carolina, like as every bit as much of a brand, maybe even like in some circles, a cooler brand because it's Michael Jordan School and it's Jordan brand. And it's like the baby blue and like, you know, all of all that stuff. And they like they got to like probably there. I don't know. What is what was Michael Malone? Yeah. You know, Dusty May, we're at the final four a couple of weeks ago, and Tommy Lloyd turns it down at the podium before the game. And then Dusty May says, I'm not taking it. Like, like you got two guys in the final four at programs that are good, but nowhere near the level of like historical significance of Carolina who turn it down. And they clearly have a bunch of money they're going to throw at this guy, like ten, you know, ten million dollars a year, whatever it is. That circles back to the beginning of this conversation. Like, what is the, what, how do the guys who are the top coaches in the game even currently view the value of being out of blue blood? Is it worth the headache of all the like fishbowl that comes with it?
Speaker 1:
[48:20] Yeah, that seems to me.
Speaker 2:
[48:21] I think that surprised Mitch. Like when Drew turned it down and then it was like, well, let's just go, let's put a phone call in to Dan Hurley. And it's like, no, I'm leaving for the NBA or nothing. And now you're like, I can't, we can't be the, we can't be the blue blood that gets to like call number nine or ten on the list. Like they went and got a guy that they was one of their own that they knew would say yes. And I think too, I do think that they, Mitch put a lot of like emphasis on like the opposite of Cal.
Speaker 1:
[48:54] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[48:54] And there was the initial backlash of why are we hiring this guy? And then there was that insane, I will never see, no one will ever see an introductory press conference like Mark Popes ever again. Like it turned into this sort of cathartic big tent revival where it was like, okay, we were mad about this, but we were also really pissed by the end that Cal didn't seem to value, like all of our traditions and all of our things. So you bring back this nostalgic player from this nostalgic team, and he hits every note in the introduction of pulling at the heartstrings, and name on the front of the jersey. By the way, Cal, I wrote about him coming out of winning the SEC Tournament, and the first thing he says at the podium is like, it's about the name on the back of the jersey.
Speaker 1:
[49:39] Yeah, he's not going to stop that. That's his thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[49:43] And also the line that he keeps repeating, like, administrations win championships. A direct shot at Mitch. So it was a fascinating experiment, because it's like, okay, who will say yes to Kentucky when that time comes? And then we kind of found out, like, the top coaches said no.
Speaker 1:
[50:02] Last question, if I'm Kyle Tucker, and I'm predicting the future, can Mark Pope thrive, I don't want to say turn it around, because it's not been a disaster, but like, can Mark Pope reach the success you have to reach to be the coach at Kentucky for a long time?
Speaker 2:
[50:21] We will know in the next two weeks, or whatever, whatever the...
Speaker 1:
[50:26] Really, you think it's that, like, that month?
Speaker 2:
[50:29] Or the next month. Like, he either gets one or two of these elite, game-changing players, like one of these transfers that currently is weighing the NBA draft, and if you could pay him $5 million, you may pull him out, and or get Stokes. Short of that, like, if he gets neither of those things, like, I do not see a way that he saves it. Because, like, next season is not going to be what Kentucky fans expect, and that'll be three years in a row of, like, year one was, like, a little better than people thought. You get to a Sweet 16, that's good. That's still not the level you expect. Year two, you lose in the second round after a pretty abysmal, regular season. If year three is just, like, an okay year, and you make the tournament, and lose in the first weekend, I do not see how you go forward with that. And I don't see how you do better than that if you don't get Stokes, or you don't get Momchilovic, or you don't get, like, one of these dudes who's an NBA-level player, and pull them out because you pitch them on, hey, come, basically come save us. I think Kyle, our guy, caught my longtime friend, I know you know him well, too, Kyle Mann, who is one, a longtime Kentucky guy, but also, like, knows basketball better than just about anybody I know, knows NBA, knows sort of all the ingredients. I think he referred to Stokes as, like, Pope's Jamal Mashburn. And, like, I think that's where we are right now, with Mark Pope. He needs Jamal Mashburn.
Speaker 1:
[52:01] And they still think they can get him. They still, like, they don't.
Speaker 2:
[52:07] That's why I'm not writing him off today, because, like, it still exists as a possibility. And maybe you just think they can get him.
Speaker 1:
[52:13] I'm with you. They got to get one. They got to get. You mentioned the two names. I think they got to find a way to either have Stokes or the Iowa State. I can't say his name, but Milovic or what?
Speaker 2:
[52:23] Yes, Monchilovic, I think.
Speaker 1:
[52:24] Monchilovic. They got to have one of those two guys. Or I don't, even if the team were to end up decent, fans are just going to be so miserable all summer. Like, I don't know. I don't know, man. I hate it. But it's like-
Speaker 2:
[52:39] I mean, it will be so negative. It will be so negative if you don't get one of those guys. And like, you may cobble something together and like have a competitive, a nice competitive team. But like, if you don't get one of those guys, you're starting the season unranked and you're going to be playing. I mean, and the other thing is like, Louisville is currently signing the number one transfer class. Tennessee has the best class, best transfer class in the SEC and Rick Barnes may have his like most complete team that he's had there. Coming off three straight lead eights, you know, and I know Kentucky fans-
Speaker 1:
[53:12] Well, but that's still great.
Speaker 2:
[53:14] Or like, that's fine, but you'd trade what Rick Barnes has done at Tennessee over the last 10 years in a heartbeat for what Kentucky has done over the last 10 years. Like, period. Like, there's not a Kentucky fan that wouldn't swap the last decade.
Speaker 1:
[53:31] Florida's gonna be number one.
Speaker 2:
[53:33] Florida brought back their entire team from an SEC champion and the number one seed. They got upset, fine. They're gonna be awesome. Like, they somehow retained their entire roster from last year. They're gonna be amazing, so that's in your league. Indiana's got the number two recruiting class, you know, one of your historic sort of rivals. Like, I don't know that that matters a ton to Kentucky people. But like, everybody you're competing against is getting better. And then all these other programs that were not the brand names, Michigan and Illinois and all these others, like, they're lapping you. And, you know, Duke is still out there. Yes, it's easy again to clown Shire for not like finishing the job yet. But again, three straight lead eights, like, all the talent in the world. And also, the tournament matters the most. But like, being able to, when was the last time Kentucky was able to enjoy a regular season?
Speaker 1:
[54:28] Just to be able to see. I think that's the part people skip over, is that the tournament is a huge part of it. Kentucky fans want to be really good all year.
Speaker 2:
[54:38] They want to have fun when they get it.
Speaker 1:
[54:39] And they want to have fun. And last year, you know, they only went one round fewer than the year before. But they just got the kicked out of them. Over and over. They didn't just lose. They got destroyed in these games. That's the stuff that fans, I think. And then, you know, you look at next year, you play Louisville, you go to Indiana, right? You play North Carolina. You're going to play Tyron Stokes to open the year if he goes to Kansas.
Speaker 2:
[55:08] Like, oh, and by the way, before we finish, we have to point out the worst thing that could possibly have ever happened to Mark Pope aside from all this recruiting struggle, is Billy Donovan is now available. Like, to have that hanging over you is a nightmare. Like if Billy doesn't immediately take an NBA job and he's sitting at home when the season starts, it will be a nightmare for Pope because people want that, people want it, they want that to happen. And if you think you can have Billy Donovan and you're sitting here with Pope and he can't close recruits, like the noise will be deafening for him.
Speaker 1:
[55:45] That's a great point. Kyle, thank you very much. Enjoyed it. He's head college basketball rider for 247Sports and living in Nashville, right? Is that where you are? Well, good. Well, good to see you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:
[55:58] Good to see you, man.