World Cup Crazy

[00:00:00] I love it, I take projection Welcome everybody to Takin' On Sports, I'm TD That is Greg, back from an impromptu vacation of sorts What are you feeling good and refreshed? You have a good time? We have a good time I would recommend though, if you can, don't take your dogs But it's so much cheaper to travel with your dog But it's so much more

[00:00:29] So much more you gotta do to worry about when you have dogs traveling But that's going down Other than that, it was a great time You know, Kelsey's family And good times Yeah, it's always a nice impromptu family trip too Absolutely I know you love getting back to Alabama too for as much as you can Yeah But it's also funny, man Yeah, traveling with dogs

[00:00:58] It's either they love to car ride and they are fine Or like mine, my poor girl She hates it, man Just like it's panty And like I got her medicine for it Yeah You know, you try all kinds of different pillows and blankets to get her to She's gotten better as she's gotten older She'll at least like Eventually she'll accept it and like curl up And we got her one of those hammock things for the backseat You know, so She doesn't like fall off in a full board But Yeah Yeah, but yeah And then when you get there

[00:01:26] Because you got to make sure you got somewhere that's pet friendly And then you got to worry about walking them in a new area And so, you know, they get like You know Yeah, so it's always nice if you have someone Like we usually Got one of the You know, one of our parents can still keep her usually That's a plus Yeah, that's always a plus Yeah It was like last year Well, last year we boarded our dog Man, that thing ended up being over a thousand dollars

[00:01:57] Man, boarding is expensive And that's another thing Like some dogs It's like traumatizing for them, man Like I don't think our dog would She's never been boarded She'd probably hate it She hates kennels, man I remember that from training her Ooh, that dog destroyed kennels Yeah, but But other than that, man It was a great trip You know Came out of nowhere We actually weren't going to go to the family reunion this year But then it got to Wednesday, Thursday And plus, we do a lot with the planning of it So we knew it was probably going to run

[00:02:26] It was smooth You know what? And getting this stuff Like all the meat and everything we needed For the barbecue And so, yeah, we're like We better go down Because the dogs are going to be calling us About stuff anyway, so Right You can either run it And be there to enjoy it Or run it from Nebraska, right? Yeah But yeah, no So we loaded up Plenty to talk about

[00:02:55] It's been a great summer of sports As we talked about a couple weeks ago The schedule looked great And it's delivered And of course I guess we start with the World Cup, man Of course Group stage is over Round of 32 First ever round of 32 Starts today Yeah, yeah Canada Late, late winter Stoppage time winter Over South Africa Not bad for us So Yeah

[00:03:26] Yeah Good You know One of the hosts One of the three hosts They get their first win That's good You always want to get at least one knockout win You know, get them to knockout And get one win Especially They should have beat South Africa Although a good South Africa team But yeah, man A really fun group stage A lot of surprises I think overall The expanded tournament Has been a success Because it's, you know It's given us some new teams Or teams that You know, haven't been here a lot And, you know

[00:03:56] We got seven Or eight African teams In the round of 32 That's a lot That's I mean, this is awesome Yeah It is It's awesome for, you know A continent And a football federation That doesn't always have great success When it comes to the World Cup Yeah So a lot of, you know And like Cape Verde Everyone's darling Of this tournament Little tiny island nation Off the western coast of Africa Yeah They draw With Spain They get a win

[00:04:25] They advance to the next round Granted, they get their reward As Argentina So Or is that Congo? No I think it's It's them But I think You know I think Congo Yeah, it's Cape Verde You know Congo play England Or is that No, yeah You're right Congo play England Yes That's Cape Verde And Argentina So tough Tough draw for them Argentina looks great Right now

[00:04:54] The defending champs They do Messi looks Ageless They were looking to part But Hey, but I mean You know When we thought They were gonna get blasted By Spain And they That was the shocker Of that first round That's true That's absolutely true Absolute Shocker Just a draw Yeah Amazing But overall Yeah, really fun You know Of course So 48 team World Cup This year So all the first And second place Teams still went

[00:05:24] But this time They took the eight Best Third place teams Yeah Which added Another bit of Excitement As You know Teams You know Even though they knew They might finish third They were trying to Score goals Get the goal differential Up Was it Was it Senegal Last night That just Turned it on And started Yeah Putting goals in So they could advance Yeah The goal differential Is important It is Yeah Poor

[00:05:53] Poor Iran Man Absolute nightmare Torner for them Of course All the bullshit With the US government How they're treating Of not letting them Stay in the country Not letting them Stay in the US Yeah They go from L.A. And then having to Go back to Mexico And it's like Dude Come on Yeah What are we doing Absolutely ridiculous And then they get Their hearts broken Two goals In two games Called back By just the Slimest of margins On all sides Yeah Thought they had it Thought they were Advanced

[00:06:23] Had the winner The other night Too And late Big celebrations And then yeah If the guy Had a one shoe Size smaller He's on side So Which I've seen some people Which of course Reignites the old Discussion of VAR is stupid Everyone hates VAR And I've shouted Many times And I've posted it But VAR is not The problem folks It's to me It's the offside Rule itself Like If If that is what Takes away a goal A tone Like what are we doing Like that's not The spirit of the rule No

[00:06:52] The spirit of the rule Is Obvious I mean If it's Clear advantage Clear anything But if it's that Come on What are we doing Yeah Yeah Exactly It's supposed to Prevent people from You know We used to call it Cherry picking Yeah You know When we would play Like hockey or soccer You know In the summers Or something like that You know Like you know Guys that would Because you're not Calling it all sides When you're playing Each other But guys that would Just stand back By the other goal It's like Come on No cherry picking Like you'd call that Before the game Right

[00:07:22] And so it's meant To prevent that So you know You don't have to So you always keep Like a defender way Down there So you know But Like what advantage Did he have there Having one toenail No Exactly Yeah He didn't change anything Yeah Yeah And there's been Cases like that Of course Watch Premier League There's one that Comes to mind Of course I'm an Arsenal fan So I remember Those more But we were Playing Chelsea And one of our guys Was just wide Open in space

[00:07:52] And you know They looked at it And he was You know He was leaning Forward So he was Offsides Technically But you Looked at the Replay And he's I mean He's got He's in between Two defenders But they're At least each Like 10 yards To the left And right of them So it's like He is taking advantage The defense is turned off And they get bailed out Because his shoulder Is you know Leaning ahead of them And like to me I'm like That's not the spirit Of the rule That's against the spirit Of the beautiful game We want to see goals

[00:08:21] And that That defense Should be punished For leaving And he was You know One of the It was I want to say It was Gabriel Martinelli One of the better Goal scorers On the team You leave that guy That wide open That close to the box He turns on scores And then they're like Nope Yeah I mean That should happen To you Yeah And same thing With this Iran You know We looked at them This guy's got a toenail But he was right there In the spot To get the rebound There was no defender Marking him You know They're either Ball watching Or out of position

[00:08:51] And so you know Yeah They get bailed out Because his He's got a size 10 And not a size 9 That's frustrating So frustrating Yeah Especially when you Go through your Whole celebration Oh man Yeah Got the little Glasses out The pictures The whole team I've been there Time and then I don't know That's all Deflating Heartbreaking Heartbreaking But um Yeah but there's Plenty of good Stories too And that's You know Hey someone's Heart's gotta get Broken

[00:09:20] That's how These tournaments Going on But plenty of Storylines going Through you know Like France Looking just Absolutely monstrous I mean right now If you had to bet You know it's It's a rematch Of the last finals France and Argentina I think they are by far The two best looking teams Right Uh you got Um I mean the fact That we could possibly Have a France Was it France Germany And uh Around the 16 Is crazy Yeah Huh Yeah Yeah we'll go through Matchups here in a minute

[00:09:50] And possibilities Cause yeah We got like a lot Of good looking stuff Going on Um But yeah You had Germany, Spain, Portugal, England That thought to be You know kind of Favorites in this too Inconsistent looking Over the You know in the group stage Um Yeah Um I guess Portugal's gotta Survive in events And find a way Exactly Yeah right now You know We got Portugal's Got a Ronaldo problem

[00:10:19] You know he either looks like You know Ronaldo Or he looks Yeah Or like he's Doesn't care Yeah Um Spain just kind of Looked unimpressive For the most part You know they did get One big win But Nothing special there England looks really Inconsistent with their Attack Like at times They just Couldn't break down Like A team like Ghana Yeah Mmhmm Yeah exactly This one's been like that Forever You never know What you're gonna get With them Yeah

[00:10:49] And of course We got our Americans Who absolutely Two great First two matchups And then A really fun one Against Turkey Yeah And um That was That was A tough way to lose So Oh man Yeah The final kick My goodness Yeah absolutely rough A little sloppy Defensively in that one You know we didn't Play the A team You know we rested Everybody who was on the yellow Which I think was smart Yeah

[00:11:17] But I mean still It was disappointing To You know go out like that You know considering Turkey hadn't won But Same time You know I guess If You know if you're Think of it From American sports terms It's like a team Rest in their starters Uh week 17 in NFL season You know against A bad team Cause they're saving People for the playoffs So In a way It's

[00:11:47] You know You know definitely Don't take away Too much I mean obviously Everybody's gonna play Against Bosnia On the first But Yeah exactly It was uh You know you never Want to lose it And you'd like You would always love To go undefeated In the group stage Exactly And you want your You know your depth To look a little better Than they did But they also You know they went For it in second half You know when Pulisic Came on Yeah It was good to see him See him get minutes And yeah

[00:12:17] We were going for it Just couldn't put that Ball in the net To you know Put it away Or get ourselves In the lead Um They did a good job To controlling the I mean It seemed like It was on their side Of the Side of the field Most of the Most of the damn match Yeah Um But But uh Yeah so We got Bosnia And Hezegovina Wednesday Should win that one Uh Are heavy favorites In that Um

[00:12:47] Hope so Yeah hope so You know again It's the world cup Never know But should win that one Hopefully the A team Comes out Looks solid And then a possible Match up A rematch with Belgium In the round of 16 Of course lost to them In 2014 In that Uh Historic Tim Howard game Where he set the record For most season World cup game Yeah But uh We got a tough We got a tough road Though Yeah after that And then after that It's when it gets Really I mean Belgium's

[00:13:17] Tough obviously Or Senegal Even if Senegal Upsets Belgium Yeah Either way We got tough But you know Say if we get by them Belgium's another team That's kind of been Inconsistent at times And you know They're kind of Nearing the end Of their golden era Without You know That didn't have any gold But um Yeah after that It would be Look like it would be Spain Possibly Portugal And then if And if you somehow Get through that If they were to advance To the Semifinals

[00:13:46] It would likely be France Or Germany Or maybe the Netherlands Who knows Either way Not a lot of fun Yeah Yeah Not a lot of fun But hey man Uh Obviously you want to get The first win And then you would love To see us get To the quarter finals To match our You know Best uh Finish of the modern era Yeah of course And in a way But in a way You might consider it The best ever Considering that We'd have Cause Really the Knockout round this year Doesn't seem

[00:14:15] As You know With the additional teams It doesn't seem as Exclusive You know The 16 Seem much more exclusive Compared to the 32 So I mean If we win that And then we win the 16 I mean If we make it to the 8 I mean That's I mean That's Yeah Yeah You want to look tough You make it to the 8 And you hope either You know Pull an upset Or you look You look amazing You know You give them everything You look amazing

[00:14:45] And then just a tough Tough loss To you know I would assume to be Yeah I would assume to be Spain at this point It is a really good Little Quadrant there You got Spain They play Austria And then Portugal Plays Croatia Which will be a really good one But You never know What team You know Hell You never know I mean Portugal They're a very talented team They're one of the favorites Coming in They might turn it on All of a sudden And Same thing with Spain They were kind of The co-favorites Of France A lot But yeah Let's

[00:15:16] Run through some Match Real quick So we got Germany and Paraguay Germany should win that one Pretty easily But good matchup Nonetheless France and Sweden Could be fun for a little while But France Probably touch Firepower Yeah So then you Talked about that You mentioned that Possible France and Germany Round of 16 That was a crazy matchup For the 16th Yeah Absolutely great Yeah Canada won Today as we talked about They will play the winner

[00:15:45] Of Netherlands and Morocco Should be a really Should be a fun one Yeah Yeah Morocco's a win Tough matchup For the Canadians there Yeah Yeah Semi-finalists last time out In Qatar Qatar We mentioned that Quadrant of Portugal Versus Croatia Spain versus Austria Of course we talked about It is Talked about ours US versus Bosnia Hezergaven Belgium Senegal Do not count out Senegal No At all Yeah You got Brazil And Japan

[00:16:15] Another could be sneaky one It is fine Because Brazil Is not as They're still Of course A power But they're not You know It's evened out A lot more Brazil doesn't run through As easy as they used to Yeah Brazil does not Really have a Elite striker Right now Yeah A lot of talented teams You know Neymar's Is he even playing Or is he just No He's been injured But You know They got Guys

[00:16:44] You know A guy like Gabriel Jesus Kind of on the tail end Of his career So he's not He's never been An elite There's no dominant But yeah Then you got They will That winner of that Will play the winner of Talk about a Cultural clash there Winner of Ivory Coast Versus Norway That one should be a fun one too Ivory Coast finally makes it To the knockout A team that's always Had a lot of talent A lot of Absolute like Legends of the game

[00:17:14] Didier Drogba Yaya Torre Guys Absolute legends That they could never Quite I've had bad luck Live up to their talent Yeah And they get in a Fun matchup with Norway With Erland Highland Martin Odegaard Interesting That they didn't start Either of those guys That was Oh Tough loss for your Yanks Here on Sunday night Yeah They've had a rough weekend Against the The Reds Have they Yes

[00:17:46] But Yeah Interesting They rested those Against France And they could have Had a chance to Dude I was kind of Disappointed They were just Happy to have already Moved Because that could have Been an epic Yeah I feel like They just didn't care They were like Well we're there And yeah And say they did Pull that upset Then all of a sudden We get Norway Versus Sweden Oh man Hey That'd be awesome Yeah Two neighbors Going at it But yeah That's a fun little Sneaky fun quadrant

[00:18:15] You know Don't count out Japan versus Brazil They're a technically Gifted team Play hard Yeah And you know Like we said Brazil hasn't quite Come in the You know Final form yet So of course If they do You know Obviously Watch out Always talented We got One of the co-hosts Mexico versus Ecuador That should be a fun one As well Yeah Mexico's look pretty good So far Yeah Pretty dominant You know That's That sets up Some interesting Yeah Possibilities down there Too That

[00:18:45] Their possible Round of 16 Opponent England Yeah Starts with Democratic Republic Of Congo That's Either Either way Right there Yeah Either Either of those Matchups Would be Fun Yeah Mexico England I mean that Congo England That's gonna be An interesting one As well It is It is If England Isn't consistent You know If they play to their Talent level They shouldn't Blow them out You know But Yeah Mexico

[00:19:15] England Round of 16 Would be fun We mentioned Cape Verde Awesome story Great Everyone's darling Sorry you get Rewarded with Argentina And Messi Who is just In absolute Great form Yeah And then They're paired up With Australia And Egypt Very interesting That's a Interesting one As well Yeah Clash Australia Has looked A little better Than maybe People thought Egypt At times Has looked good

[00:19:46] You know Of course Egypt A very talented Team Capable Of making A run Of course You know Just Either of these Guys Going up Against Argentina In the next Round That would be Unfortunate For them Near last Little quadrant Here you got Switzerland Algeria And Colombia And Ghana To another I mean just A lot of Great matches That's a good One too A lot of Yeah Interesting ones That like You just never See before Like a Colombia Ghana Switzerland Algeria There's a lot Of games

[00:20:16] That could go Either way And wouldn't Be shocking Either way It goes So yeah You're looking Here if you Look at like I mean Semifinals You could Possibly have Like Argentina Versus England Or Brazil Or even You know The host Mexico On one end And we talked About you know Could the US Upset Spank And you know Is it going to Be like a Spain France Heavyweight Right there Yeah Great Yeah We'll find out We start

[00:20:46] Three games A day Starting tomorrow So we got Tomorrow We got Brazil Japan Germany Paraguay Netherlands Morocco Tuesday You got Ivory Coast Norway France Sweden Mexico Ecuador Wednesday You got England Congo Belgium Senegal And then the US And Bosnia Herzegovina Yep Yeah The primetime One there From Santa Clara Thursday Spain Austria Portugal Croatia Switzerland Algeria

[00:21:16] Friday Australia Egypt Argentina Cape Verde And then Colombia And Ghana And that would Finish it off And the round of 16 Starts next Saturday Good stuff But yeah Absolutely fun Anything else In World Cup You want to touch on? No I think We did a pretty good Pretty good run down there You know It's just been a Great Great group stage I think we talked about Last time But I would say Watching on Telemundo

[00:21:46] So much more fun No Yeah It's so great man And the broadcast Just generally A lot of people Have touched on it But that The call of the When Austria Tied Drew Leveld With Algeria Last night The call Was just not as Up to the moment As it could have been And just Overall the presentation Of course everybody's Going to talk about The commercial breaks During the hydration break You don't see that on Telemundo Yeah I love that

[00:22:15] I love that the fans Are booing these Hydration breaks too Fun But yeah Of course Another big thing Earlier this week Last week I guess But NBA draft And Subsequently The offseason Have started Man A lot of trades A lot of big ones Yeah the big one The big one Before the draft Was Giannis Is now officially On the Miami Heat Man They sold everybody They did It's like Who's left

[00:22:45] It's Giannis And Bam And then who Yeah No Tyler Harrow So interesting To see how the rest Of their offseason goes Right But yeah Tyler Harrow Some other guys And then just An absolute Boatload of picks I'm trying to Pull it back up here That was a lot I was like Man I get it But Man It's not like Giannis is 25 anymore No Yeah

[00:23:15] It's a lot to pay For you A 30 31 year old I mean still I mean still But I mean He's just coming out With that injury And a lot of sitting Yeah A big guy Yeah So yeah Tyler Harrow Kella L. Ware Jamie Jacquez Jr. Kasperis Chacunas A 2026 First round pick So that happened already Number 13 I do forget Who they picked With that A 2031 First round pick 2033 First round pick

[00:23:45] A 2030 pick swap And a 2033 Second round pick Off Riannis And Bobby Portis Also went the other way So yeah Great load For Milwaukee there And So now End of an era Kind of a reset There for them

[00:24:33] Yeah Injuries And I don't know Culture changes And yeah Things just never Got back to where They needed it to be Yeah They made them On the roster moves And yeah They just couldn't Never get quite Back to that year Yeah Some tough luck But Yeah And then The other big one Of the week Happened And there's been A bunch The other big

[00:25:03] Big one LaMelo Ball Kind of surprisingly Traded from Charlotte Is getting rid of A lot of I mean They got rid of Him Yeah They got rid of Got rid of Bridges today I'm just like What are they Like Man Obviously Brandon Miller's team Now for sure Yeah But Golly That's moving A lot of Talent Quickly Yeah And Yeah So LaMelo

[00:25:32] To Minnesota Is a two An absolutely Yeah Dynamic You know Backcourt Pairing With Anthony Edwards Man That's a Yeah Wow That's a dynamic Duo For real Let's see how I don't know I mean It could be Great at times But I feel like They might get on it And they might get Into it At times too Yeah That's It's interesting there And then They trade away Fan favorite

[00:26:02] Great guy Nas Reed So A needed forward Coming into Charlotte And then They also get A ton of picks too You know They get A 2033 Unprotected First Which they got Another one of those In the Bridges trade To Phoenix They got Yeah They They got They got Grayson Allen In the trade Yeah Grayson Allen Coming back To North Carolina Where he Of course He played at Duke And

[00:26:32] Royce O'Neal And then That 2033 Unprotected So You know For Miles Bridges And then They send A 2029 First round Pick But it's Like the Least Favorable Four teams And then A second round Pick from Somewhere But yeah So Things going On Minnesota Maybe Some rumblings They might Try for Jalen Brown I don't know What they got You know If they got Requiring Some picks For that It would have To be

[00:27:02] Yeah You would hope That it wouldn't Be Brandon Miller Because what's You know Why would you Trade a young Budgeting Your leading Score from Last year Yeah For an Aging star And then On top of That I mean I doubt Jalen Brown Would want to Go to that Situation Either Yeah Exactly At that point You're pretty much Rebuilding Or he's Had in his Career He moves He definitely Wants to go To a contender He don't want to Leave Boston To go to

[00:27:34] But um Yeah Let's see Where else Julius Randall Is now In Brooklyn I guess We can say The next one That train Huh Yeah Right For sure Dude Cause Like he was Good in New York I mean He's been okay In Minnesota But Not the same At all Right when he was In New York Yeah It was a weird System to pin him With you know

[00:28:04] Yeah Rudy Gobert Anyway It was With Ant But So we'll see What he does There in Brooklyn Brooklyn has some Interesting pieces Now Yeah They Ton of guards Randall can become Like a Your kind of Frontline scorer Might see Anthony Davis For about 20 games Yeah Right Right But I mean On paper That's interesting Wait Anthony Davis I thought he's in Wait No I'm sorry He's in Washington

[00:28:34] Yeah He's in Washington I was like Wait a minute Did I miss something No I don't know We have to ask But no They definitely Have some interesting Pieces there So we See what they do With it And of course We had the trade Or the trade The draft This week No huge surprises I don't think Our first four Is AJ Devansa To Washington Darren Peterson To Utah Cam Boozer To Memphis Caleb Wilson

[00:29:03] To Chicago That kind of Went about As people expected Yeah I mean Personally I would have Taken the guy I don't know I can't think of His name right now From Arkansas Oh Not A man A cuff Yeah Darius A cuff I have Man I have To me He was my favorite In the whole draft Like just The way he can score I know he has Maybe not the Best defensively But

[00:29:32] I don't know I just think He's gonna have An excellent NBA career And the Kings Getting him at 7 I thought man That's a hell of a Get at 7 It is That was a good Pick by them I thought But I mean Like we said He couldn't really Go wrong I mean People are gonna Have opinions About you Could have Did this or that But I mean In the top 10 I mean Could you really Go wrong Probably not I mean Obviously Things may not Work out But on paper

[00:30:02] All those guys Clearly All very talented All young You know That freshman run Was crazy To think all The dudes Would win 18-19 Yeah right Man Yeah our boy LeBaron Dropped all the Way to 22 I was kind of Shocking I didn't Think he was Gonna drop That for No yeah I heard a Bunch of Things I heard There was A couple Things I read That he

[00:30:32] That it would Be a surprise But not a Huge one If he snuck Into the top 10 Things That he could Be the one To drop Just because After that First Top Whatever few Guards There might Be a run Of teams That don't Necessarily Need a guard But there's A lot Memphis Memphis OKC Charlotte

[00:31:02] They all Took guards At 15 16 17 Yeah I was thinking I thought He was gonna Go to Charlotte For a second Yeah I thought That might be They might Pull the trigger On that But hey Man That's not A bad Situation To end up There in Philly You can learn From Paul George And obviously Yeah I mean Obviously They've had Their issues In the playoffs But I mean On paper Talent A lot of

[00:31:32] Talent there Yeah he'll Obviously be Back up to Tyrese Maxey And Edgecombe To start But that's An interesting Good rotation Piece That is That's That's another That's an intriguing Small ball line up there If you go Those three At some point Maybe Paul George And then Joel Yeah There's a lot Of talent Yeah But yeah It's about Saving healthy But not a bad Situation End up in They can be

[00:32:01] Yeah I mean You'll learn You'll learn From a bunch Of You know Good Experienced guys So that's An excellent Way to start Yeah Yeah Your Maz Were Kind of Talking the Town too Because New coach Dusty May From Michigan Ran a national Champion coach Got an offer He couldn't Refuse Some rumblings Online that Michigan's about To get hit With some Tampering Violations

[00:32:30] We'll see if That happens Yeah But yeah And then of Course Dallas took A Michigan Guy Morris Johnson Junior The forward Some people Thought it might Be Mara Or even Lindelberg But they Go with Johnson What you think Of the pick And then The coaching Hire Well You know I I mean The coaching Hire was Kind of Shocking Because I Thought it Was going to Be The Duke Coach I know

[00:33:00] The shire Was kind Of their Front run But obviously He must have Told him No I mean The only thing That's tough Is if you Look at the Recent history Of college Coaches Have gone Pro It hasn't Been good As of late But he Has a good Situation I mean If Kyrie Comes back And of course It's Cooper Flag And there's A lot of Talent Now there's A lot of Talk about I don't know How true it Is but They're

[00:33:29] Trying to Make a run At Kawhi Which is I did see Those rumors Today I was going To ask You about This But I Mean Obviously You know Kawhi Is a Quick A piece For the Now Because you Never know With Kawhi How he's Feeling If he's Healthy Or wanting To play Ball But you Know When he's On He's Still a Spectacular Player So I Mean For a Quick run If they Lead you To a Deep Playoff In Our

[00:33:59] Finals It's Worth It You know Obviously Toronto Got their Title Off Of it Yeah It's Like you Said If He's Healthy And the Price Isn't Too Much You know The One Thing I Saw Was Unloading Klay Thompson And Something Back So if You do That You're Young You got Cooper Flag You got Johnson Now It could Be an Interesting Piece Right Just Yeah

[00:34:29] You just Don't Want to I mean Obviously If Clay Goes I mean He's Been Okay Maybe Not as Good As Maybe We had Hoped That Wouldn't Be the Worst Part We'll See And I'm Sure There'll Be a lot Of People Pushing For That As Well So I don't Know People Have More Lucrative Deals Than What We Can Off them But You Know I Think That Best He Made Was It Is An Interesting Hire We'll

[00:34:58] See How It How It Plays Out But You Know He Has Doesn't Come Into A Bad Situation Like A Lot Of It Seems Like A Lot Of College Coaches Come Into Tough Situations But He's In A Better One As Far As Possibilities And Roster Wires Yeah And You Know And The Advantage Of Hiring A College Guy When You're Not Necessarily Full Rebuild But You're Building Around A Young Star Like Flag

[00:35:29] You Know He's Used To That Kind Of Roster Change And Coaching Younger Guys So That's Something Good And Of course Always Nice To Familiarity With Your First Round Pick This Year But Yeah To Me I Think That Was The Best I I Didn't Know If I Really Wanted A Michigan Player But I Think

[00:36:04] If I More Size So I Mean It Makes Sense For The Pick There Obviously He Does He Knows This Guy So You Know Familiarity Always Helps But It Be So Interesting Because Really I Mean You Know I Always Like Jason Kidd I Been A Youth Fan Ever Since He Got

[00:36:34] Drafted By The Mavs So It Was Kind Of Tough Seen Him Go You Know There Is A Lot Of People That Thought He Had More To Do With The Trade Than He Ever Let On With Luca That Has Been The Big Rumor He Had More To Do With It And You Know They Always Point To Oh They Never Talk When They Played When They Played Each Other So I Don't Know How True But A lot Of People Are Like Well He Was The Final Piece To Get Rid Of With The Whole Luca Situation I Don't Know How True All That Is But

[00:37:07] Yeah I Mean Well I'm Sure One Day There'll Be A Book A Netflix Series I Think Interesting Thing But You Know It's A New New Era So It'll Be Interesting What What Comes Of Yeah On My Side Of Things The Pelicans Did Not Do Anything Dumb Did Not Jump Into A Top Ten Pick Like Was A Heavily

[00:37:37] Rumored That They're Going To Trade Guys Like Murray Trey Murray Or Herb Jones Trey Murphy And Or DeJounte Murray That's What I'm Thinking Sorry But Yeah Did Not Do That Even Some Other Things Came Out They Were Saying That The Price People Have Inquired About Trey Murphy And Herb Jones And The Pelos Have Told Them They Will Take Multiple First Round Picks Which Good Okay Sweet I Don't Want To Trade Either

[00:38:07] Of Those Guys I Think There's Something To Build There You You Just Got To Get It Right They Stay Healthy Yeah Stay Healthy That's The First Thing Everyone Talks About Oh This Core Doesn't Work We Just Never Know Any Of These Cores They Don't Have Time To Play Any Of Them Built Around Zion I Mean Hell That's Been That Thing Of The That's A History With The Pelicans Even You Know After They Got Boogie That's What Got Me Back Into The NBA Got Me To Become A Pels Fan They Traded For Boogie You Know

[00:38:37] You Know My Wife Got Front You Know Front Row Floor Seats From Work For One Time We Went Watched The Game It Was Awesome Yeah That Drew Holliday AD Boogie Cousins That Was Pretty Solid Squad He Had Not Blown His Achilles Out They You Know They Swept Portland That Year In The Playoffs Yeah They Ran Into Golden State That Was The Only Thing I Remember But They Would Have Gone Beyond That

[00:39:07] You Know The Next Year They Could Have Been Back They Could Have Built a Better Roster Around Them No That

[00:39:37] Everybody Has Been Hurt Last Couple Years So Is It Is Bad Luck Or Do You Think Medical Sound Need To Get Looked At So There's A Little Bit Medical So It Used To Be The Story There Cause You Know The Benson Zone And Gail Benson Owns Just

[00:40:07] The Specialty Training And Recovery And All That Kind Of Stuff For Basketball Players Is Not Great So Yeah There Still Need To Be Major Improvements But They Do Not Use The Saints Players Anymore They

[00:40:37] Will Always Be New Orleans Is Football Town Saints Number One Always Have Been Always Will Be Same Thing Alabama Football Number One Always Have Been Always If You Put A Product Out There Exactly If You Put It Doesn't Have To Be Winner It Just Has To Be Fun Something I Mean Obviously You Want To Win But It Has To Be Something Worth Watching There's Got To Be Some Excitement Something To Feel About It You Know We Saw That For Years With Bama Baseball It Wasn't Just The Losing As The Product Was Stale And We Didn't There Was No

[00:41:07] Effort It Seema Now That There's Effort And Yeah They're Getting To The World Series And All That But Like You Know The Improvements To Thomas Sewell Field The Pelicans Need The Same Thing They Need An In In In All That Yeah I Them If You Know We Never

[00:41:37] Had To Leave New Orleans You Know If COVID Hadn't Happened We'd Still Be There We Wouldn't Have Moved And Probably Just Would Have Kept Them Because I Love Going To Games I've Snatched Them Up I Think That's A Good Higher

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[00:44:38] Of Philly So Exactly Yeah I Mentioned Alabama And Going to The College World Series And All That Of Course Did Not End Well For Us No Bad Start Against Oklahoma The Eventual Champs Sooners What Third Title In

[00:45:18] Yeah I I mean... Yeah, man.

[00:45:46] Those Georgia bats were screaming in that series versus Mississippi State and then all of a sudden... Silence. I mean, of course, Georgia beat Texas twice but yeah, they couldn't beat Oklahoma to save their lives. Yeah. But, and then, man, at the end of game three, I mean, they slaughtered North Carolina. I was like, my goodness.

[00:46:14] Yeah, just, yeah, left no doubt. Yeah. So, yeah, congrats to the Sooners. Another SEC title that's like eight of the last nine or seven of the last eight or eight of the last nine. Yeah, something absolutely ridiculous. Of course, when you have, you know, 16 teams in it, that's, you know... Right. Yeah, adding Texas and Oklahoma baseball was a little unfair. Everyone talked about the addition of football. I was like, no, man,

[00:46:43] and then the addition of baseball is... Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, on baseball. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. And we mentioned disappointing end for the Bama boys, the bad loss against Oklahoma. It was even worse against Texas the next day. And that's... It's not crazy. Unfortunately, that's baseball. You know, your bats are hot and your arms are dealing one weekend and then you get a little break, you lose momentum,

[00:47:12] then it just... It doesn't... You know that... Yeah. That's happened to so many teams, but, I mean, that's something that happens in Omaha every year to somebody. Yeah, look, there's going to be two teams that lose their first two games and are out. It sucks that you're one of them, but it happens. And that's... I mean, you really can't be upset, though, considering the drought that we overcame. Mm-hmm. Exactly. If you're... It's one thing to be upset

[00:47:42] about the way it ended. It's disappointing. You can be upset and disappointed. Yeah. It's another thing to linger on, and if you're focused on that as opposed to, like, stepping back and be like, hey, man, our baseball program is back. We were in the College World Series this year. You know, we threw our first no-hitter since the 40s earlier. I mean, we were both 500 in SEC play. I mean... Yeah. We got... You know, we had some big sweeps of some big teams. I mean, swept Auburn again. Continued, you know... Yeah. I mean...

[00:48:11] And did not lose a single game in them. Or wait, did we? No. No, we didn't lose on the St. John's. No. But yeah, you were going to put out a first-round pick, possibly a top-ten pick. Absolutely. And Justin LeBron. And then we got a good young core. We should return a lot of production. And we've had a solid transfer portal. Exactly. Yeah. We got Rob Vaughn's the right guy to have in there right now. You know, we've made improvements

[00:48:41] at Thomas Sewell. Yeah, you got to look at all the progress and this is just... The beginning. You would think. Yeah, this is just the beginning, man. This is like, you know, it's kind of, you know, it feels to me like a little of the Brandon Miller year in basketball. Get the number one overall seed. A lot of high hopes. Disappointing loss to it. But you had to step back and be like, holy shit, like we were the number one overall seed. We got a guy who's arguably the number one pick in the draft where he ended up going third that year.

[00:49:11] And then, lo and behold, next year, make the final four for the first time in program history. Definitely in the right direction. We just, you know, got to keep it up. You know, now it's a matter of we know what the expectation is. Now we just have to build on that expectation. And really, there's no point that we shouldn't be every year a Super Regional team and every couple years

[00:49:40] in the World Series. Exactly. You would say, we talked about this with like the women's program and the basketball, the women's basketball and men's basketball programs, like how baseline expectations. Like men, we've gotten to the point where our baseline is we should make the second weekend. Women is we should be in the tournament. Of course, new coaches here, we'll see. But we should be in the tournament. We talked about taking that next step. Now we got into baseball where you think we should be able

[00:50:10] to put our baseline as not just make the tournament but host a regional. Right. It shouldn't be out of the realm for us to get a, be one of the top 16 teams. Yeah. You mentioned the Super Regionals. Yeah, we should be hosting them every once, every other, every couple years. You know, a few years. We should be in one every year. Yeah. We should be in one every year. Yeah, we should be making one more years than not. Exactly. Yeah. Obviously, you know, things go wrong sometimes. You can't make them every year. Yeah, but we should be making them more years than not. And then,

[00:50:40] like you said, getting in the World Series every, you know, few seasons, Ken, and hopefully string a couple back-to-back appearances. Right. That'd be awesome. You know, but obviously, if we win one, you can say, well, we have to win one, but you gotta look in, think how many times Florida State wins has been Omaha's never won. I mean, in this North Carolina team, I mean, they've been outside Florida State the second most times Omaha ever without winning.

[00:51:11] I mean, you have a Texas team that went, they've been there so many times and last time they won was 0-5. You have an Arkansas team that has had goes all the time and has the most heartbreaking way to lose. So, I mean, obviously, it'd be great to win a Cardinals but I mean, it's just the reality of it is it's so hard to do. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:51:41] You just, yeah. If you have a team to catch fire, I mean, obviously, it could catch fire and just run, you know, like all you did, you know, Ole Miss a couple years ago, you know, teams just randomly catch fire and they're like, holy shit, where did this come from? I like where we're headed and what we're doing and just got to make it a priority and keep the excitement going. Yeah, exactly.

[00:52:11] We talked about it a little bit last time we did an episode but you, it's okay to be a little disappointed that we make, you know, have five chances at a national title and don't get any but it's, you got to have perspective and know how hard it is to win. A title. Only once he wins every year. Yeah, exactly. And, to be in the spot to, you know, in contention for five, you know, the football you made, you know, you came down, came back from 17 down on the

[00:52:41] road in a playoff game. Yeah, the Rose Bowl is a shitty way to end the season but Indiana's doing that to everybody, man. That's crazy though, we lost to three national champions in the, because we lost, I mean, Indiana, Michigan, again, Oklahoma. It was crazy. Exactly. That was the whole thing I used to get, you know, playing sports growing up that the old heads used to tell me was once you lose, always root for the team that beat you. That way you can say like, I mean, exactly, yeah,

[00:53:11] sometimes I can't do it, yeah. I get that saying the same time I F them, I want to see them lose too. Yeah, there are certain teams I'm like, nah, fuck them, I don't want them to win, but there are certain times that, yeah, we get losing and, you know, like this Oklahoma team, like, I mean, they were fun. I had no animosity against them. Yeah. I mean, Indiana, I really didn't have any animosity. Michigan, I kind of do just because I just don't like Michigan. Yeah, but, yeah,

[00:53:41] yeah, Indiana, it's funny, you know, a bunch of people getting torched by them and being online, a bunch of people like, ah, that insane stuff, are you just mad? I'm like, I'm really not, like, yeah, we got our ass, whatever, like, I think this is a great story. You guys could have Signetti. No, we couldn't. He was here like one year, like he was there. And the people that say, where did you know, dude, like, no, I mean, no one could have known. It's a, like I said, like his story is amazing, but at the same time,

[00:54:12] he didn't get his first D1 coaching job until he's almost 60 years old and it was Indiana. So, I mean, obviously, it's a certain type, certain situations and he's worked it perfectly, but obviously it had to be the right situation for him completely. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so, you know, did that basketball, what, sweet 16 loss to the eventual national champion. Women's basketball, what were they, round of 32? 32,

[00:54:42] should have, could, probably should have made the sweet 16 tough loss, one point loss to Louisville. That's right, yeah. I think the more disappointing thing is, you know, that we lost our coach to South Florida right after and maybe it's, in the long term, maybe it's not a bad thing considering that, that, you know, maybe she reached her height as far as where she could take the program, but just the fact that they could outbid us or that she would be interested in going to

[00:55:12] a non-power where it's going to be hard to make the tournament every year. I'm like, oh, you know, where are we at as far as, you know, the interest, you know, obviously, you know, it's a thing where we want to win, but man, the women can't get any love, like, their crowds are terrible still. Yeah, Greg Byrne has to do something, yeah. Because even when great teams come to town,

[00:55:42] you know, like, even, you know, you look at, men's basketball, like, even when Alabama has been down in time, you know, you get a Kentucky to come to town, no matter what your season's looking at, you're packing out. Yeah, well, Auburn came to town, it was packed out, you know, a lot of times when state came. And I get like, women's basketball is never going to be their priority in Tuscaloosa for anybody, but it's, man, the fact that you get, like, 2,000 people

[00:56:12] when South Carolina comes to town, is sad. Or LSU comes to town, or Texas, like, nobody cares. Tennessee, yeah. Like, nobody cares. I'm like, even if it were to just see the other team, because they're an excellent team, you would hope you could get 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 people in there. Yeah, exactly. You know, we talk about building the new arena all the time for Nate Oates and what men's doing.

[00:56:41] The biggest beneficiary of a new arena might actually be the women's team, because you would get that new arena excitement, and people would come in. it's kind of disappointing, though, because, I mean, the last couple years, I mean, we've had put together some of the better teams that anybody can remember, and, man, just still no excitement overall. exactly. Just some apathy. It's like, what would

[00:57:10] they have to do to get like a, like, just, you know, some excitement? Because it's dead in there even when they're playing, like, even when they beat LSU two years ago, it didn't even seem that height. Yeah, you gotta, yeah, Greg Burns says that's gotta be at the top of his list or, you know, up there is find a way to get excitement. No coach should want that's not on the way out. I mean, she wasn't gonna get fired, of course. She'll never want to leave an SEC school for

[00:57:40] South Florida. I'm sorry, it should never happen. Yeah, it'd be one thing, the only thing that could make me, if she was, like, went there or from there, and it was kind of like, hey, I want this to be the last stop of my career. But yeah, it's one thing for a coach to plateau out, you know, and kind of like you said, kind of hit the point and they can't really advance anymore, but you would hope they'd go to a different power school, you know, if she had taken a job in the Big 12, yeah, or retire

[00:58:10] or something, yeah, but. Go to South Florida, it's like, you took a step down. And it's like, damn, are they, are they paying better? Are they getting, like, what are the, is their NIL better than Alabama's? Like, that's tough. Right. We gotta reevaluate. But, I like the energy of the new coach, I think, you know, and she had a lot to do with Oklahoma,

[00:58:40] right? Yeah. But I mean, she had been in Tuscaloosa that one season and had a lot to do with bringing, I can't think of her name, she was a freshman this past year to Alabama. Oh, Ace Austin? Yes, she had a lot to do with her recruiting, so that's important, you know, to make sure Ace Austin stayed in Tuscaloosa. So, she, you know, had her moments of greatness at times.

[00:59:10] Yeah, but it's someone, it's a piece you want to help, you know, build around and stuff like that. But I like, I like Coach's energy, I mean, she's on this, and I probably, well, she's a lot younger, of course, in Curry, so a lot more modern as far, you know, she's on, I see her posts on Instagram and stuff all the time, so, you know, I'm sure that's, you know, something you really got to do in today's world because, I mean, social media is everything for college kids. Yeah,

[00:59:40] right? Yeah, figure out how to, because I think she's only like 38, so, I mean, obviously younger, you know, probably more connected as far as what young folks are thinking or like, and maybe Pauline Love is her name, by the way. Yeah. I was dying for it, could not think, so I had to look it up. Yeah. I think,

[01:00:09] I think it could go well, but you, it's one of those things you just never know just because it's hard to win in tough schools with women's basketball. It's a tough, it's a tough sale, but, you know, hopefully she keeps it going and maybe cracks the thing and we can make the second, second weekend sometime soon. Yeah, right. And then, you know, yeah, we talked about, you know, obviously disappointing for softball to lose

[01:00:39] the way they did, number one overall. You thought you had a great chance with the same thing. They get a lot of production back next year too. I'm excited. Yeah. And so, we mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but this is an absolutely outstanding year for Alabama athletics. Absolutely. And fans should be ecstatic about the direction of the whole program. Absolutely. Not everything's perfect. You know, you want to see improvements in a lot of areas. You want to see a ring, but you should be excited about where things

[01:01:09] are in the athletics program. Yeah. Yeah. We mentioned all those successes of, you know, college women and women's college world series, a sweet 16 CFP appearance, you know, women's round of 32. A lot of the Olympic sports did really well too, as usual. Um, and just, you know, it's awesome. Be grateful. Great job. Burn. And, uh, Obofemi, uh, Alabama now has a king of the ring. He's a king of the ring.

[01:01:39] Exactly. That's, that's hilarious. You said that because I literally just put on the, the replay of, uh, night of champions, uh, after, after the Yanks and Sox. So, uh, yeah. Yeah. Obofemi, former Alabama athlete, king of the ring. Uh, so, um, Chris Richards, uh, star for the U.S. men's team in the world cup from Alabama, not didn't go from state. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, absolutely

[01:02:09] great. We just build the arena, uh, and quit let Tennessee fans play in Brighton Denny. Um, absolutely. And let's see. Yeah. And, uh, and then, um, on the football side, everybody's chill out. Like everybody's oh my gosh, we're 50th and recruiting right now. Chill out, man. People are like, why are we going after three stars? I'm like, sometimes we went after three stars under Saban. People are acting like this

[01:02:39] didn't happen. Thank you for mentioning this because I didn't have it in my notes, but I wanted to, uh, this happened all the time in a Nick Saban. People go, oh my God, we're 40th and recruiting right now. We're like toward it. And it's like, right. It's, it's July, man. And then next thing you know, we'd sign a bunch of stars. It happened last year too. And then we ended up with a top class, but also remember in today's world is way different.

[01:03:10] now, the other thing too is you have to make sure you're recruiting the right guys and you're not paying, you know, you're not using your whole money on one guy. Can we know the freshmen are getting paid? I mean, that's part of the thing in today's world. So you have to be smart about it. You have to not only get a guy that's talented, but a guy that wants to be there and not necessarily wanting more so than just to get paid.

[01:03:40] So it's a lot of factors, a lot of things have really changed the recruiting aspect. And unfortunately, yeah, I mean, Alabama may not have the most money, but it's important and the staff seems to do a good job of getting the right people in the door. That's, you know, the most important thing is you're getting the right fits for your program that you feel are going to work best for your program. And you have as good a chance as hopefully to have them two, three years in Tuscaloosa

[01:04:10] because it could change quickly. knows. Yeah, as we were talking about in a little group text the other day or last week or whatever and as our good buddy Nate Barfield said, he literally said, I'll read verbatim, he said, he hasn't talked about DeBoer, he hasn't had a stinker

[01:04:40] of a class yet, so I'm inclined to trust him. Yeah, I mean, he's had two epic classes so far. He's got really good classes, yeah. Like, people just want to run him off so bad. I'm just like, he really hasn't given us a reason to run him off. No, exactly, yeah. Yes, we've had some stuff that you're like, like the

[01:05:09] OU game his first year, yes, everybody was pissed off about it, rightfully so. But, you know, we saw aspects of great things, you know, he's beaten Georgia twice in the regular season, so obviously he knows what he's doing. You know, he won the playoff game this year, you know, he would have loved to have beaten Oklahoma, you know. So sometimes some things that you want to clean up, but at the same time, it's like,

[01:05:40] man, who do you want? And like, who would you rather have be here than him right now? Yeah. You know, it has to be realistic too, because a lot of people are happy where they're at too. It has to be a match. you can have a dream list, and if they don't want to come to Tuscaloosa because they're happy where they're at, well then, we should be happy with where we're at. Because at the

[01:06:10] end of the day, there's a lot worse situations to be in than what we're in right now under their football program. Yes, we were spoiled. Yes, we had the craziest run ever. That's never going to happen again. With the way the NIL works now, transfer portal, everything, and we'll never see probably that again. I mean, and you look at, I tell people all the time, you know, when they talk about, oh, this and this,

[01:06:40] and I'm like, you know, I say, we're not Auburn, man. We don't fire a coach after two years. You can't keep to look at these programs, and that's just taking a shot, little brother, but plenty of programs you watch around the country. Two or three years already. After two years, the next guy comes in, can't fix it, he's fired after two or three years. And you're paying $50 million to people that no longer work for you, so that's working against you as well. Instead of having money to go to your NIL

[01:07:09] or wherever you needed to go, you're paying people that are no longer even part of this program. Exactly, and you gotta give a guy time to make it work. And you know, yeah, there's a balance in that between giving them too much time. We're only on year three. We're on year three and it got better. People are so mad that we look so bad in

[01:07:39] the Rose Bowl, but rightfully so. There's no reason, but I mean obviously Indiana, I mean it's not like, because people need to stop thinking about Indiana and pass Indiana 10s right now. Exactly. With Kirk and Eddie, they're going to be a contender. Yes, we definitely shouldn't have lost 38-3. We should have been more competitive. Could we

[01:08:09] have won the game? I don't know. Mid-October Alabama could have had a, yeah, maybe, but that, you know, with the injuries, they were, they were, we were at It wasn't going to happen. It would have been a perfect game. And honestly, man, Ty Simpson wasn't healthy after mid-November. He was not. Yeah, it was, yeah, obvious looking back on it now. And yeah, there, you can certainly ask the questions

[01:08:39] on why then didn't we make a full-time switch to Austin Mack or Keelon Russell. Why would you? Do you want to put them in that situation? With that offensive line? But yeah, year three is when I start to really, truly judge a coaching regime. I would say this, I want to see the biggest improvement from Ryan Grubb this year. Exactly, yeah. I think, because everybody always points to

[01:09:08] how bad, oh, the defense was terrible. The defense saved their ass so many times over the first two years. Yeah, man. I don't know why the star of the show. I don't understand the hatred for the defense that I've seen from fans. I get it at times, there's been blown things, but that's just the way of the world. But the defense over the first two years has been the most consistent thing. And you know, we thought, you know, getting Ryan

[01:09:38] Grubb, the offense was going to fly. should know what the hell's about to be called. Yeah, unpredictability, better rhythm with your playing, Colin, and let's see how you've developed now. Whoever young quarterback wins the starting job. And I mean, it's going to be a challenge because we are going to have a whole new offensive line, new offensive

[01:10:08] line coach. So I've heard good things, but we'll see. Obviously, I think by the end of the season, that unit's going to be really good. But the main thing is, yeah, it's just, you know, I would like to see him be the guy that we saw when he was in Washington. Yeah. Of course, we got plenty of time before the season. We'll definitely talk about that.

[01:10:38] Of course, we'll do our Alabama preview every year like we do. But yeah, overall, we were just talking about a great season for a great year. Yeah, great year for Alabama athletics. Even throw in the bonus that we absolutely in the big sports dominated our tribal Auburn this year, I think. And the big sports, the only loss was that kind of really shocking Alabama women's basketball loss to and Tuscaloosa at that Auburn team.

[01:11:08] But other than that, yeah, great to dominate your rival like that. Great to go far and you got to build on it. Let's build on it. Absolutely. Like, let's build an arena on it. We'd love to see it. Yeah. Elsewhere in world of sports, MLB is rolling along, starting to announce all-stars and all that. I don't really want to talk much about it because my Braves look like ass lately. They've forgotten how to score right. Yeah, my Yankees had a bad weekend

[01:11:38] against the Sox. Man, I think we're 3-7 in our last 10 and not in first place right now. Tampa will regain the East for now, but it's still a long season. Most impressive thing that I'd like to say, shout out to the White Sox being first in the Central. So terrible in the last couple years. For them to be almost an all-star

[01:12:07] break above 500 in the first place since they're doing something. That's impressive. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, the Braves also 3-7 in their last 10. Their lead has dwindled down to three games over Philly who started terribly but have been red hot since changing managers. Yeah, it's kind of where you're at right now. Like you said, long season, plenty of time for the Braves bats to turn it back around and hopefully get some pitching

[01:12:37] help via trade and guys getting healthy because that's a big thing. The arms again are just falling apart. Spencer Strider out again. Yeah, the health is every and of course that's the biggest thing in baseball is the health in the second half of

[01:13:21] other thing to talk about real quick just because it was kind of shocking is the whole Terry Arnold situation. Oh, yeah, yeah, weird report there. Arrested for kidnapping and being involved or something. But, I mean, it just doesn't seem like that. That's his personality at all. I mean, I don't know him like that. I can't say we're best friends, but you know what you see from him and whether he was in Alabama and you know how

[01:13:51] his best friend is Miss Terry. It just doesn't seem like any of this fits him at all. It's like goodness. So, hopefully it works out for him. It's crazy to see him involved in any of that. It just doesn't seem his personality. I was shocked by that name when I saw the initial report and all that. If everything's true, it's bad.

[01:14:21] If there really were FaceTimes and text and all that, let's hope that's not true. It's hard to judge. I was more shocked if any of our former players would be the one that has stuff going on. I think in one of my texts when somebody sent me that, I was like, oh man, Mr. Terry's going to be mad. Are you right? What are you doing?

[01:14:53] Yeah, that's what else are there that? Let's see, I'm trying to think, yeah, Mets fired Carlos Mendoza. I guess looking ahead, you know, it's like we said, the start of the knockouts of the World Cup, kind of start of trade season in Major League Baseball, kind of, you know, start watching the heat up. NBA off seasons starting to go now, so we'll see what else. I'm sure there's more trades to be had there. And of course,

[01:15:23] all-star game coming up in baseball. Yeah, night of champions was this weekend. Sammy Zane. Sammy Zane. WWE champ. Wow. I think that was kind of shot by that. I'd be interested to see what did they do with Sammy? Is he just, I mean, is he just holding him until SummerSlam and then what's what Opal Femmy does? Does he want to go after that? Or does you know, you would think he goes with Roman just because that's

[01:15:51] the story. It seems like the money match there. But yeah. Then there's people that were talking about, well, what about the Brock Lesnar situation and then does Brock beat Sammy for the title somehow before and then over beats him for the title at SummerSlam to end Brock's career? You know, people start talking about that. So I don't know if that's a possibility or not. Yeah, it is interesting where they go there.

[01:16:22] Yeah. Because you would, you know, you assume it's, you know, the most, sometimes the most obvious thing is exactly what's going to happen. That's a third. Brock and Oba match. So you got to imagine SummerSlam and Brock's home. Maybe that's where he actually retires. Or maybe he comes back and they do something dumb and give him the win over Oba and instantly kill Oba. I've seen it before. Yeah. I would hope

[01:16:51] they don't go that wrong. you know, sometimes they've done some, yeah. Yeah. Uh, but we mentioned the Obafemi, uh, night of champions is this weekend. Uh, Sammy, Obafemi, uh, the king, um, was it Eoskai? Was she, uh, Eoskai? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She won. Yeah. She's queen of the ring.

[01:17:21] And then the women's and the condone champion, again, what's the name? Retain should be Jade. Uh, Tiffany Stratton. Yeah. B.J. Um, Seth B. Braun Breaker in that cage match. Dude, Braun Breaker, I thought he's had a, I don't know, I felt like, damn it. He was such a hot name and he keeps losing.

[01:17:51] I don't know. Yeah. I don't let him beat Seth for any reason. Yeah. Let's see, the trick retained against, uh, yeah, he did. Yeah, trick retained against, uh, Ricky Saints, yeah. Um, so yeah, and then, uh, AEW, big forbidden door, forbidden door, uh, is going on. Right now. Right now. Yeah. I'm still seeing my decent card.

[01:18:20] Uh, yeah, let's see, uh, so far, Cajun Cope retained their tag team championship. Thekla retained her women's championship. Uh, Shota Umino retained his, uh, IWGP global heavyweight championship against POC. Jon Moxley retained his continental championship against Bandito. Kenny Omega defeated Zack Sabre Jr. The Young Bucks defeated, uh, they won their triple threat match. Sky Team and Unbound.

[01:18:51] let's see, Divine Dominion retained their women's tag team championship. Uh, Micah defeated Sky Blue in a survival of fittest qualifying match. And Drilla Maloney defeated Daniel Garcia. Still waiting on, uh, let's see, Maya World versus Mercedes Monet, the Owen Cup women's final, the Owen Swerve Strickland Will Ospreay should be a banger

[01:19:21] in that men's own cup final. And then the big steel cage match, team Briscoe, team MJF. It's crazy. It's just a regular match, a regular, uh, cage match. Yeah. Um, but yeah, uh, you mentioned SummerSlam on the horizon as is, uh, all in. Uh, but yeah, uh, yeah, we're in a good spot.

[01:19:52] A lot of real world cup baseball's coming around the important part of the season. Um, still a lot of probably NBA action. Um, if you're a WNBA fan season's going, um, so I mean, it's a lot, a lot of good stuff still. Yeah. gonna have football previews starting to come out now, I think. Yep. We've already started to see them on shelves. Yeah, I'm seeing a few. Yeah, of course, we'll, I'll sit down

[01:20:21] and look at our schedule here soon and we'll do our usual previews. Uh, at some point here. I think it's gonna be an interesting season because a lot of, a lot of teams in a lot of new situations. Now, new coaches, a lot of new quarterbacks and, oh, yeah, Texas Tech did, uh, say no to Soresby. Yeah, oh, yeah, that's what we haven't talked about. I was like,

[01:20:51] I felt like there was something, yeah, Brendan Soresby, uh, finally, basically, he basically, I don't even think Texas Tech, they were fighting for him, uh, uh, he can just kind of said, you know what, I'm going to the too much. Yeah. And then they don't even have the supplemental draft. I was like, damn, that's tough. Yeah, but say, then the NFL, he, you know, announced he was gonna go to the supplemental draft and the NFL, I don't know if you read that letter, but their lawyers sent his lawyers, but it was pretty scathed and basically being like,

[01:21:21] man, do you think that like, we would invite you into this league with all of that gambling history? Like, no, you were not ready yet, you know, and, you know, maybe one day, but, uh, and then even the CFL has said because of their laws, like his gambling violations, he will not be allowed there. So, you know, you feel for the kid in one sense, uh, but, you know, that consequences to your actions and you hope that he rehabs, he gets, you know, he's done gambling and that eventually he can find a way.

[01:21:51] Now, if he rehabs and, I mean, if by next NFL draft someone takes him, cool, I'm fine with that, but, if he can't send me and drafted, we'll see. He might have to work from the bottom. Yeah, there's one thing that's pretty sacrosanct in all of sports and it's all agreed upon, it's that you just don't gamble on your team, you don't fix games, you don't, you know,

[01:22:21] because of it's supposed to be a game, you know, like, yeah, so, you do hope that there is maybe some way for him because you feel for the kid, you know, he's still a young guy, but also like, hey, that's part of the learning process. Yeah, hopefully, but, you know, you don't, hopefully he still gets another opportunity, obviously, he's a talented guy, so, we'll see what happens

[01:22:51] with him. You wouldn't be surprised if like, something like the UFL, you know, of course, you know, they're already done their season now, but, you know, I mean, if that's his path, you know, for a couple years, they'll get, that puts eyes on their league that maybe gives him a chance to show, like, hey, look, I'm done with the mistakes on my past, yeah, and at the very least, you need to hope that eventually, maybe one day he can at least get back once. He wants to be a coach, or maybe, you know,

[01:23:21] but yeah, hopefully he'll have the opportunity to play here, because obviously he's immensely talented, and be interesting too what Texas Tech does, because obviously they kind of left in a tough situation, because I'm sure that they put a lot of eggs in that basket, so, we shall see what they do. Obviously they have put a, a lot of money into the

[01:23:51] program, and there's a new, definite excitement in Lubbock, so, you know, they made the playoff last year, so it'll be interesting to see what they do this year, but it definitely changes the aspect of losing, not even getting a game out the guy that you brought in from Cincinnati. Well, I, yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens there once we, when we do our big trail preview, maybe we'll know more

[01:24:20] by then. But yeah, I think that's it, definitely went longer than I thought. Lots to talk about, a lot to catch up on, and a lot to look forward to still. Like we said, it's a great summer of sports. And the World Cup definitely adds a lot to the summer, because we kind of baseball by itself, but, you know, like I said, so far, I've been a fan of the expanded format, the, given a lot more fun stories,

[01:24:50] a lot more fun teams to watch. The one, I will say, I guess the one, if I had to pick a negative of it, is the way, I don't like that the knockout is 32 teams, because that means you only, the group stage only gets rid of 16, so a quarter of your teams when it used to be, you know, you cut the field in half. So, you know, and it leaves this weird thing of how you figure out the top eight place teams, and I could not

[01:25:20] figure out like how they decided who would match up where, because, you know, it used to be as simple as like group A winner faces group B runner up, group B winner faces group A runner up, and then so forth. But yeah, when you started looking at our possibilities, it was like whatever group D is like U.S., you know, as the group D winner will face third place from either E, I, C, D, or J. You know, it's like wait, what? Yeah, well how do we figure out which one? Yeah, you know,

[01:25:49] but I do understand it would be tough if you cut the field in half and had a 24 team knockout, then you have to give eight teams a buy. Well, then how do you figure out that? There's always something, but. There's always something, but yeah, yeah. But yeah, overall I like it just because it gave a lot of the more teams opportunities that they normally wouldn't have ever had. We've seen new teams in the World Cup that we've never seen before. you know, we've had teams advance that, like I said,

[01:26:20] you know, Canada had never even scored a point in the World Cup until their first draw and now they're in the knockouts. I mean, that's, you know, cool to see and then, you know, of course excitement to see what the U.S. can do, you know, can we make our run? Obviously, probably one of our more talented top-to-bottom teams is American, they all put it together and gave us what we saw the first two games. If so, man, we might be in for something fun. Absolutely, yeah.

[01:26:50] Well, all right, let's get out of here, buddy. I will see you next week. All right, bud. Thank you once again for listening, folks. As always, subscribe, rate, like us, do whatever your chosen podcast platform asks you to do. Tell your friends about us, tell your rich friends about us, especially if any of them feel like sponsoring a podcast. You can check out all of the family of Alabama Take Podcast at thealabamatake.com. You can also find a bunch of wonderful writings there from our lovely,

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