2026-03-09- KSR - Hour 1

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Speaker 1: From Netflix and Hulu, Comedy Off Broadway and Lexington welcomes Ashley Gavin February twenty seventh and twenty eighth, then from TV and the Movies. He's one of the Kings of Comedy. Catch d L. Hugley March sixth through the eighth and from the Nate Land Podcast and the Grand Old Lopry. Don't miss Aaron Weber March twelfth through the fourteenth. Four tickets to all Comedy Off Broadway shows called a five nine two seven to one joke or visit Comedy Off Broadway dot Com off Brodway.

00:00:31
Speaker 2: This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage.

00:00:35
Speaker 3: Now here's Matt Jones.

00:00:37
Speaker 4: Welcome everyone. It is Kentucky Sports Radio, Monday, March the ninth on a massive show of SEC Tournament week here in Lexington, Kentucky. You can give us a shout, although I'm not sure we're gonna take calls for a while. Eight five nine two eight oh twenty two eighty seven. A Vision Auto glass tex machine is seven seven two seven seventy four five two five four in This sponsored by the T J. Smith Office. If you call TJ, he'll make them pay. Let me give you a little roadmap of the show. First of all, you got to have your mic on. Is it on? It is not on, So Billy will come and try to get Ryan to where he can. He can have be on the air. That will help until then we'll talk to Drew. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna start with the basketball game from ten to ten thirty, maybe ten forty. Then we're gonna switch over to Knucklehead Sports Radio for just a few minutes, okay, and then we are going there he is you there, check one baby, and then at eleven o'clock we have Will Stein coming on nice and we'll do the thing Shannon where we do two segments in a row, right that you know how we did. And then at eleven thirty we'll put up the phones and people can talk about what they want to talk about. How's that for a plan.

00:01:53
Speaker 5: That's a Monday crack down, beat down.

00:01:58
Speaker 4: I don't know what that means. I'm not gonna beat down on or crack down anyone. We're gonna talk about the world of UK sports because it's SEC Tournament week, one of my favorite weeks of the year, and it will get started quicker than it's ever gotten stuted before.

00:02:11
Speaker 6: I don't love the situation, but I'll admit I woke up smiling knowing it's SEC tournament week. I'd rather not play Wednesday.

00:02:17
Speaker 4: But this is my favorite week of the year, and I'll be there. I love it. And you know what, if we're the first team eliminated, I'll still be in Nashville, just with a lot less to do.

00:02:28
Speaker 3: Shit, possibly a really short party. But you know what, you know what if.

00:02:32
Speaker 4: They lose in the first round, then Nashville is just gonna get four days the cowboy hat. I'll tell you what, if they lose in the first round, my party might be triple what. It would have been a wilder week.

00:02:44
Speaker 5: You'll be anxious, we'll be distressed.

00:02:46
Speaker 4: No, I have nothing to do. You'll do the show will be done at noon, and then it's just me with the cowboy hat and riding mechanical bulls the whole time.

00:02:53
Speaker 3: I got to make that happen. Have you ever been on one of those?

00:02:56
Speaker 4: No?

00:02:56
Speaker 3: No, okay, this.

00:02:58
Speaker 4: Is I think I would break it hip. I can't do that. So but you know, Mario and I are staying down there and Drew anyway, So it could just be me, Mario and Drew take on the City.

00:03:10
Speaker 6: I book Wednesday to Saturday. That money is gone. I'm not getting it back, so I'll be there whatever happens. And if I need to stay till Sunday, I'll figure that out. But I'm at least through Saturday.

00:03:18
Speaker 4: All right, Well, so let's talk about Let's go back to Saturday against Florida. It was over before I even got to watch the game, right, So when they start on ESPN News, I don't. I just don't know ESPN News. I think I have it, but I don't ever turn it on there. So I'm sitting there watching and who played before US Vandy and Tennessee.

00:03:43
Speaker 5: Who was before US Arkansas?

00:03:46
Speaker 4: No? Arkansas? Missouri was at noon? Who was at two? I was at rough, so I would Hooper was the game would not end, and I just kept looking in the corner and seeing numbers at UPP. It was like oh two to oh, four oh seven oh. And I was like fine because I went to all the pregame and let me say, Rupp was hype.

00:04:11
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:04:11
Speaker 4: I left right before. Actually it was four oh when I got home. I left right before it started.

00:04:16
Speaker 5: Everybody said the environment pregame was outstanding.

00:04:18
Speaker 4: Outstanding, and people there early. I mean that was one of those dree I think everybody a half hour the place was full. Yeah, well you get a couple of those a year where it's Repperina's best.

00:04:29
Speaker 6: I mean the little light things. That was a nice you got, Marlena van hus As you said. The crowd was downtown in the arena early. That was one of Rough's best crowds.

00:04:38
Speaker 4: They had the thing where like at the Taylor Swift concert, I say, this was what people told me. I haven't been to. I've bought Taylor Swift Gods, good crief, but I didn't go. But you put the thing on and it blinks lights. Do you know what? You're looking at me like, I'm crasty. You know what I'm talking about.

00:04:58
Speaker 5: I've not seen it.

00:04:58
Speaker 4: They got these things and you wear money and then it'll like it lights it up so it'll be blue and white. And then during the that Star single band it was red, white and blue.

00:05:06
Speaker 5: Did it work?

00:05:07
Speaker 4: Yeah? Look cool? Like it?

00:05:09
Speaker 5: Like it?

00:05:09
Speaker 4: I think it executed well.

00:05:11
Speaker 3: And theos for WrestleMania that year, you and I wet.

00:05:13
Speaker 4: We did have theresia. That's right, because they turned the lights off and you just see the It's a very it's a cool little feature they did that senior day was very nice. It was actually you know, it still makes your heart, what is it palpitate during the during the mild Kentucky home? Are you supposed to take your hat off from my old Kentucky home? I was.

00:05:36
Speaker 6: I had a moment where I looked around it because I started to and no one else did.

00:05:40
Speaker 4: The time was because you take it off for the national anthem. But why don't we take it off from my old Kentucky home. Is there a reason it.

00:05:47
Speaker 5: Is the state song for the Kentucky.

00:05:49
Speaker 4: Or is it like why first of all, why do we take our hat off? I saw Trump didn't take his hat off. That used to be a respectful thing back in the day. Now I don't know that we did.

00:05:58
Speaker 3: Much like you wouldn't get at a dinner table with that hat on. Back in the day. You had to take the hat off.

00:06:01
Speaker 4: But I feel like it takes it off for the national anthem. This, oh, we still do that, but other things in life. I am of the opinion we should take our hat off for my old Kentucky home. And as avowed, hat wear. I still think you you should do it. Nevertheless, it was very pretty Marlene van Huss that was great, and I'm thinking, Okay, here we go eleven nothing, then we fight back. Yes, it's twenty to nineteen.

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Speaker 5: I think it's a ballgame.

00:06:31
Speaker 4: It's on like Donkey Kong thirteen oh run in two minutes, yeah, very fast, two minutes thirty three nineteen and then's over all game is over. Kind of like the game down there in the sense of we fought pretty well with them from the vast majority of the game, but a run just it was over.

00:06:53
Speaker 6: The beginning killed you. Kentucky won like the last thirty eight minutes of this game, but when you went down eleven zero and just never.

00:06:58
Speaker 4: Had the lead, never took the lead, that was the key. They never took the lead.

00:07:02
Speaker 6: I know Florida's awesome and all that, and Kentucky's not there, but Home Senior Day, at least lead at some point with that kind of crowd and that energy and what's at stake.

00:07:12
Speaker 4: Eighty minutes against Florida this year haven't led one second. That's bad.

00:07:17
Speaker 5: Their dudes are better than our dude, so their.

00:07:19
Speaker 4: Dudes are great. There's no shame in losing to Florida. I do think there's a shame in being blown out. I know the final score was seven, and we actually ended up covering the opening line, which is one of the craziest backdoor covers of all time. I don't think we were within seven much, not at all, and then we finished within seven.

00:07:38
Speaker 5: This is twenty two because everything else prior to the game kind of set up for us. You know, Arkansas beat Missouri.

00:07:44
Speaker 4: If we had won that game, we'd be the four seed. That's crazy, and everything's set up. We'd be a for seat, we'd have a double by, we'd be dancing. Instead, we play the first game against I would argue the best of the bad teams LSU. I think LSU. I don't think we could have come out worse. Like even if we'd been the ten seed, we would at least been on the other side of the bracket from FOM.

00:08:07
Speaker 2: We were down eighteen to that team in the game they played in the regular season.

00:08:10
Speaker 4: Yes, we're we were down eighteen to the sixteen. We were down teams to the sixteen seed. So yeah, it couldn't set up worse. And you know, I give Mark Pope credit. He said we're going down there to win. But so now we're nineteen and twelve on the year. I said after the game, I give the season like a C minus or a D plus. I'm kind of still there. I can't give it an F because we're gonna make the tournament and we have some really good wins. We won at Arkansas, beat Tennessee twice, beat Vandy, beat Saint John's, who's gonna be a probably a two seed in the tournament, beat Indiana. So I can't give it an ALF. I can't give it though, higher than like a C minus because of the losses to all If you want to know what was the problem with our season, go look at the fact that all these teams tied with the same record and we were last in the tiebreaker. Why is that? Because we lost to mediocre teams all year. We lost to George at home, we lost to Missouri at home, We lost to A and M when we should have won. That's the problem. The problem with this year was not Saturday, even though we should never lose by that amount. The problem was everything else that leads to us playing at one o'clock on Wednesday? Do you agree, completely agree?

00:09:49
Speaker 6: I know the SEC is better, and I mean I still say, well, Florida has figured it out. I don't like that excuse, but it's not so good that Georgia should be ahead of you and Missouri should be ahead of you, and these teams that have been at the bottom forever. You've lost your grip that much that you're now in the bottom half of the standing.

00:10:05
Speaker 4: He lost those teams at home. Yes, you got those games at home. That's that. The Missouri loss, which was the second game of the SEC, and then the Georgia loss, which was two weeks ago, that's those are the ones that ultimately killed us.

00:10:21
Speaker 5: I know you read Aaron Fleener's tweet on the Postgame Show, but that's it.

00:10:24
Speaker 4: Well, Aaron Fleeiner hit it. You know, he's caddies on the PGA tour and then he makes good points. He's great. He said, watching Florida is what we used to be. I miss that.

00:10:34
Speaker 5: I miss that.

00:10:36
Speaker 4: That's it. That's a fair point, and you can put everything else aside. That summarizes the point. Florida has done it. There was a guy that called the Postgame Show and he was like college basketball is different now, and he was kind of using that to excuse it, and I said sort of in the moment, and I agree. So Dukes figured it out right, Florida's figured it out, Yukon's figured it out, Houston's figured it out. Those teams are good every year every year, and in the last couple of years, Michigan's figured it out right. Alabama, why can't Kentucky Kansas? So that's really not an excuse. The SEC is better. But look at a team like Houston. Houston's good every year, every year, and the Big Twelve is this year the best conference and they're good every year and it's Houston, So why can't we be And they don't even spend money like we do. Why can't we do it?

00:11:53
Speaker 6: There's no doubt the sport's completely different and the SEC teams are better, But we can't just be like, well, everybody's better, let's go home. I guess we can't compete now because it's changed. No figure it out and continue to dominate. Maybe you won't be winning every single year in the SEC like you were because teams are better, but ninth. You can't just say it's changed, Well we're ninth, everyone's better. That's the loser mentality.

00:12:15
Speaker 4: So if you like college basketball history like I do, you can look at college basketball as there are the seismic shifts over history in the structure of the sport. So you start when college basketball first starts, Kentucky starts to take it seriously before everybody else, and that's why we're so good in the forties and fifties. We take the business of college basketball seriously before anybody else, and we dominate early. Then integration is the next big change, and Kentucky is slow on it, and UCLA specifically jumps in and says and they treat recruiting as big business. And then UCLA has a period of dominance. Then you get to the late seventies and early eighties and recruiting becomes national and kind of dirty, right, and some teams jump on it Indiana, Georgetown, Kentucky, North Carolina, and they then become the cream of the crop. And then it switches and all the games end up on national television, and it becomes a sport based on brands. And in the nineties, if you're a brand, you matter, Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina, there's your nineties. Then it kind of switches again to the one and done world and we are at the forefront again. Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, North Carolina kind of holds back on that and they slip. Well, now we're in the next seismic change, which is inile and portal, really post COVID, and for the first time maybe in history, since integration, we were slow to integrate and it hurt us. For ten years, we've been slow on this. We were at the forefront when college basketball started the nationalization of college basketball, the sort of blue blood era of every game being on television and the one and done era, Kentucky was at the forefront. We were not at integration and it hurt us. So four eras we did it, one we did not. And now this is era number six and we've not been at the forefront. And because of it, we're watching these their teams leap to the top. And we're now doing what in history programs have done when they haven't adapted. We're finding ourselves in the middle, and we got to change it quick. You know.

00:15:14
Speaker 5: Hearing you go through all that just makes me scratch my head because this cooking staff when they came in, I thought they were going to be way ahead of the curve. Proactive they're smart, they know all about modern basketball, analytics, algorithms, everything, and yet where it's going to happen hasn't happened.

00:15:27
Speaker 4: So that's what worries me. There's a seismic shift and you have to do it early or you get left behind. It's early and we're getting left behind. We'll take a break. Very back, KSR, welcome back. Take you Sports Radio five nine twenty two eighty seven. One person rides to MAD. I agree with your point that we should be more consistent, but you com was an eight last year and lost in the second round, but they were coming off back to back titles. I mean, you're not You're not even be good every year, but you got to be.

00:15:58
Speaker 5: Good some year, and they're back good again this year.

00:16:01
Speaker 4: There are six years since COVID. We've had one really good regular season in six years, and we lost to Saint Peter's in the tournament that year, so we've been to the second weekend once. That was last year. But it's subjectively. If you were to list post COVID would have been the best programs and you were to just blind resume it and not have the names on it, I think we would struggle to be in the top twenty. We would probably be somewhere between seventeen and twenty if you're talking about consistent over those years. You know, in the SEC during those years we would be behind Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, and Holior. We would be probably be fifth in those years.

00:16:52
Speaker 5: I don't think there's any debate about that.

00:16:55
Speaker 4: So you know that is what it is and why it is is. I think a variety of things downfall of cow and sort of how his years went, Kentucky being slow on in IL and then Kentucky being once they got the innisle where they needed to do, with Pope being poor in its distribution. On this year's team, I think last year's team pretty good all things consider.

00:17:24
Speaker 6: Yeah, And with the way things move now, for one and your big picture thoughts, you can get left behind faster than you would ten years ago. Teams can catch up in just a couple of months in an offseason now. Where he used to take a slo Hey Lucas at Miami and one year he turns that around, Yeah that's impossible ten years ago. Yeah, But the same like when you hire a new coach and you have that excitement, you need to capitalize on it. Those bucks that came in, you know.

00:17:48
Speaker 4: They might not keep going. You need to perform and keep that energy going.

00:17:51
Speaker 6: And if it dips, that's where you start to get left behind a little bit.

00:17:55
Speaker 4: Yeah, you or when you're having to hire, that's the time to make your your move. It's like when you when you meet a new significant a new woman, or a new made If it's not sexy and hot at the beginning, it ain't gonna get better. Like if after the first eight dates you are still like, Eh, that ain't gonna get better over time. Right now, it might continue, but you gotta like, there's gotta be sparks moment, maybe not one, but by moment date ten or they're probably not coming out of the woodwork.

00:18:33
Speaker 6: And if you nail the high in this area, look at like a Michigan. I mean there's several young and new coaches that are watch Michigan. I think to myself, Man, they have it like you can just and they're gonna be good. They're gonna be good every year. I mean they just run.

00:18:49
Speaker 4: God. You know, we talk about Yaxel, but there are other dudes on that team that just like that. You just watch it in the coach, they call time out watching Michigan Michigan State, you say, I watch it whole game after every time out is Oh, because is O. He doesn't have the talent that Michigan does. But he's really smart, sure he is. And you watch those two and they're exit up, like if you call time out, you knew that play was cut will work coming out of the timeout on both teams. You just knew it was Michigan State's problem is they just got the same lumbering dudes they've had for twenty five years. There after the game said, I ain't Nobody's little brother. Yeah, because they were chatting little brother at him. I don't know if that works. So Shannon, they're gonna go chant it at him. Moore, Oh yeah yeah.

00:19:37
Speaker 3: When you let somebody know that that gets.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was like Nobody's little brother. Yeah, they're just gonna do it more. But but I but you know, and I thought Mark would do that and and he can at moments, but he just hasn't gotten it done with this group.

00:19:53
Speaker 5: So you're right. We did have is sexy and hot at the beginning. Why is it faded then? As the deal was not good?

00:20:01
Speaker 6: But though it was good. So what hot. What Michigan did in year one is hot. I mean we had a good first year. I'm not downplaying that. It was there two for him, but still, I mean we haven't reached hot with Pope. We had a good first year, but I mean they went straight.

00:20:12
Speaker 4: Up, yeah, I mean they you know, after every loss you get, you get this group of people online who are like, you know, Matt Jones and ks R ran off a Hall of fame coach. Put that to the side. That's an absurd argument. And the hall of Fame coach wasn't gonna work here anymore. But everyone listening knows that this isn't right. Yes, everybody knows that. I mean at the game Saturday, it was interesting. It wasn't anger. It was like sadness. Did you get that sense? I should have taken a picture. I couldn't believe how many people were leaving at the seven and a half mark. Now, the ones that stayed got into it and had some belief there when they're trying to come back. But Mario, you're there at seven and a half time out.

00:20:59
Speaker 6: You could look up and the upper level steps had a lot of people on their way out.

00:21:03
Speaker 4: On scene to blame them. I mean, like, I don't blame the fans because we have had so many games this year where we've just been losing the whole game, so I said on the postgame show, and I have not checked this, so I'm gonna assume the person is correct, but they could be wrong. But I said, I wish somebody would add up the amount of minutes we've been losing and we've been winning this year. Now we're nineteen and twelve, and this includes games against bad teams, or presumably we were winning almost the.

00:21:36
Speaker 5: Entire game, but weren't.

00:21:39
Speaker 4: Not always, but most of the time we were, we were winning most of those games. We've still been losing more minutes, oh yeah, than which we have a winning record. So that does say we come back. But in Power Conference play, sixty percent of the minutes we have played in the Power Conference play, we've been losing sixty of the minutes, which means fans have been watching us just lose a lot and a lot.

00:22:08
Speaker 6: You know something, they came back, but a lot of us looking up at the scoreboard is in Rupperina and you're losing to logos where you never see them winning in Rupperena. Like bn Ozero and two against Georgia, Pope. That's insane. Georgia has been a joke of the SEC for as long as I can remember.

00:22:23
Speaker 5: It wasn't that long ago. Ten lost Tubby. They were rady to run him out of town. And if I'm not mistaking, Billy Gillespie's two year record is not much different than.

00:22:30
Speaker 4: The Glassbie's two year record is two games worse than this, two games worse.

00:22:36
Speaker 5: We ran those two guys, are RADI to run him out of town.

00:22:38
Speaker 4: I do think Billy would have been back if not for the off court stuff. I think he would given him a year, but he made it to where they couldn't. Now, with all that said, we do have to talk about the other part of this, which is Knucklehead Sports Radio. That's next TJ Smith, personal injury attorney called TJ.

00:22:59
Speaker 3: He'll make them back.

00:23:00
Speaker 2: Now more of Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage.

00:23:04
Speaker 3: Here's Matt Jones, Welcome.

00:23:05
Speaker 4: Back Tekey Sports Radio A five nine two eight h twenty two eighty seven, text machine seven seven two seven four five two five four one person rights, Matt, you say that cow wasn't gonna work here and we're supposed to take it as fact that your opinion. I'm sure it was gonna work out with Cal. Look at self at KU. I was ready to say that until we lost to Oakland and Saint Peter's two out of three years. Yep. I mean, And I'll remind you Self did have a lot of bad losses in the tournament in the early part of his career, and there was some pressure on him, like people were ready to run him off. The difference was it was the early part of his career. This was the late part of Cal's career, by the way. But if you want to say it would have worked here, that's fine. I will remind you that Arkansas last year was the non seed in the SEC tournament. And by the way, if you want to have confidence going into the tournament, just say what look at Arkansas last year. They were the nine seed, early lost that first game, should have lost. South Carolina was ahead and had a chance to win, and then Arkansas came back. They won. They didn't lost their next game, but then they made a run to the sweet sixteen in the tournament. So you could say, well that could that beat Kentucky, could we beat LSU lose to Missouri, go to the tournament and win two games.

00:24:24
Speaker 5: Yeah we could, Absolutely we could.

00:24:26
Speaker 4: And that's so that's the confidence part. But you can't sit there and look to me, look at me, and go should have kept col If you're so mad about this year, that's the year he had last year. They started the conference one in six last year, so you know, the disappointment in this program starts for me at COVID, which spans two coaches. Yeah, right now, let's talk about Mitch Barnard for a second. So Mitch Bartinard has his going away press conference, which we were not able to, uh to go to. I heard it was a nice affair. There was a lot going on. It was a lot. It's a big celebration, big celebration. A bunch of people talked, right.

00:25:10
Speaker 6: Yeah, well why in president you lost in a video? And then Mitch talked for a long time. I'm not gonna I may have had something to do.

00:25:19
Speaker 4: I'm kind of surprised the president's not there, Like you guys have been partners for a decade and you send a video. I mean, you know, I would understand if like the presidents send a video. But like he said, he was quote President of the United States, the president University. You would think would be there, but he was not. What did he say.

00:25:37
Speaker 5: They said he was out of town.

00:25:39
Speaker 4: I think he's in Alabama. Okay, well, but out of town. They got plans. So it's actually a fine affair. And in classic mixed bart and heart, he can't quite get through it without expressing grievances. And here is what he had to say.

00:26:01
Speaker 3: All I've ever done in my life is work.

00:26:03
Speaker 7: So this notion that this golden parachute is falling from the ceiling and I'm gonna sit in the rocking chair and eat hey is ridiculous garbage. And that notion that's started by some couple two or three knuckleheads needs to end. I'm excited about working. I'm not done.

00:26:20
Speaker 4: That's why I have many comments about this. Like literally, I could take almost every word. Okay, is it a golden parachute?

00:26:32
Speaker 5: Yes, of course it is.

00:26:33
Speaker 4: Of course it is. Even if he does everything that the executive for the Commissioner of the Initiative of Sports and Workforce done, it's still a golden parachute. Would they hire someone off the street and pay them nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that job to do the job.

00:26:50
Speaker 5: It does absolutely not say and when they.

00:26:51
Speaker 4: Hire someone for nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars to be a career placement officer.

00:26:56
Speaker 3: Not unless your name is Mitch Barnhardt.

00:26:57
Speaker 4: No, I don't know what the career place officers that you can't make, But it ain't nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars. What is it? You think eighty hundred? Maybe?

00:27:09
Speaker 7: So?

00:27:09
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a golden parachute. Period. Now, some people may deserve golden parachutes, maybe Mitch Barnhart does, but don't insult me and say it's not a golden parachute it is. Then he says, gonna sit in a rocking chair and eat Hay. First of all, I don't even think you eat hay.

00:27:31
Speaker 3: Who eats horses?

00:27:33
Speaker 4: Just chew on it? Did I ever any points suggest he was going to eat Hey? I don't think anybody did. I. I will go on record and say I do not believe Mitch Barnhart's gonna eat Hay. Rocking chair maybe noir a rocking chair. I like a good rocking chair. Some people's problem with my problem with this is that not that I don't think he's going to work. Sure, I'll give you he's work. He's gonna work, Shannon, I'll give you works forty hours a week.

00:28:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, on paper right.

00:28:05
Speaker 5: Entering emails.

00:28:06
Speaker 4: I don't think this is a job that is worth nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. It's allegedly in the academic department, but being paid by athletics. Why why. I think it was originally gonna be paid by academics and the school. And Linda Blackford wrote her article and people are like, ooh, that's a bad look. If we're sending out emails that says we're doing budget and staff cuts and we're now paying this guy to come and place people at Kodak, you know.

00:28:40
Speaker 6: On the same day, on the same day, Kodak Kodak, they're coming back.

00:28:46
Speaker 4: So they were like, well, wait a minute, we'll put it back in athletics. What is this The UK athletic people's problem is not that you're going to do nothing. Here's a secret, mitche people are gonna be worried you're gonna do something. They're worried you're gonna shout out a new ad. Stick your nose to what people are worried about. When people get mad at criticisms and then respond to the criticism that people are not making, it shows that they don't really have an answer for the criticism they are making. You cannot tell me he will have no role in athletics and then pay him from athletics. If you want to pay from academics and say he's over there, that's fine, but then you have to deal with the people who say, should we be paying this guy a million dollars from academics? But if you're going to be painting from athletics, then people are going to say, well, now I'm worried he's going to be this.

00:29:38
Speaker 3: The word sports is in his title.

00:29:43
Speaker 4: Sports, so I don't I'm not saying he's going to like put his nose into whoever the new idea is. But you can understand why people would say that, especial if it's somebody that has worked underneath him. Let's then go to the nickels. Next sentence started by two or three.

00:30:02
Speaker 5: Okay, hello knucklehead number one.

00:30:07
Speaker 4: Just because I have a legitimate concern about this contract that so far, no one from the university has publicly made a statement about or taken one question that doesn't make you a knucklehead. If it does, then I'll wear a T shirt that says a hoodie that says knucklehead. Is Linda Blackford a knucklehead?

00:30:34
Speaker 5: She's probably knucklehead? Number two is Drew is Ryan?

00:30:37
Speaker 4: Okay? How about the amount of fans who have a question? Are they all knuckleheads?

00:30:42
Speaker 6: One of their biggest donors use the golden parachute word. He called him a knuckle.

00:30:46
Speaker 4: Censor's probably given the second or third most money to UK athletics in the last twenty years. Is he a knucklehead? There's a lot of people that have these questions, and what happens with these leaders at the end is they just decide I am king and the mere fact you're asking me a question makes you a knucklehead. I don't care if you've got every maga hat in the world. So you know that's what Trump does? You know it, Cal did it, Mitch does it. Every question is like I give credit, Pope doesn't do this. Every question is like you are questioning my authority.

00:31:34
Speaker 5: Great video.

00:31:35
Speaker 4: You are allowed to ask questions and it doesn't make you a knucklehead. If we get to the point in society that it is not good to ask a question of your leader. We become something completely different. This is a public university, man. You get to ask questions.

00:31:56
Speaker 5: You need to ask questions.

00:31:57
Speaker 4: Now maybe there's a good answer, but answer it. Don't say that the question is somehow a knucklehead, right, And then finally he ends it by going needs to stop. Why why? Why should we listen to you and ask no question? Who made you king? You are an official paid for by the people in this state. You get to ask questions, and it doesn't get to stop just because you say so. It doesn't. Mitch Barnhardt is a great man. He is. He does a million things for this community. He's done a million things for UK athletics. But he is not above questioning. And neither is President Capaluto, Eric Monday, Andy Basher, Donald Trump, anybody. That's what we're supposed to do. You ask questions, and what you should do is answer it, not yell at people for asking the question. That's what I'm tired of. And in all that celebration Mitch, which he deserves, he deserves all of it, you gotta end it by out the door, going pay me a million dollars a year. And shut up, shut up. And by the way, yeah, on my way out, they gave me one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year raise for four years. That's six hundred thousand dollars. They gave me a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars bonus, that's eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And they added another year to my contract, which is nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which means on the way out the door, they added one point eight million dollars in salary that the school was not required to pay me, and they just did it and don't ask one question about it. If that makes me a knucklehead, then I'm glad to be the head knuckle We'll be right back, Welcome back, take you sports radio. A lot of people have strong opinions about my rent.

00:34:29
Speaker 5: That's a good little rant you did right there.

00:34:31
Speaker 4: I'm not I'm I think I sounded angry. I'm not angry, but I also am a big believer in when you work for a public institution or a government job, they're like, we have to put trust in you to do that right. I don't think the general public should get to end like at make every decision. Everything doesn't go up to popular vote. But that also means it's imperative. If we're going to as citizens, as UK fans put trust in you, you have to expec to us what you're doing, right right. I think that is completely fair. I think it's fair for coaches, for everybody.

00:35:08
Speaker 5: Like That's why journalists are so important. They need to ask me. They're to ask these questions.

00:35:12
Speaker 4: And fans have these questions too. It's easy just to dismiss it, Drew as it's a handful of people. This radio show is listened to by more people than any radio show for a local sports team in America. If they thought I was out of control and not positive in all this, they wouldn't listen. People don't want to listen to somebody just rail on the team. We want them to win. And if I got too negative, the fans would show me by tuning out. But they don't because they feel the same way. Not all of them, but most of them.

00:35:53
Speaker 6: Would you agree with this, especially on this one? I said recently, we can't agree on anything as a fan base. We fight over if Poe should have called a timeout or who should have taken a shot. But it seems like on this we might be all one hundred percent on all right, what's going on?

00:36:09
Speaker 4: You may think he deserves this. I think I go back and forth. But the one point eight million dollars of extra money that we didn't owe him, that we just all of a sudden gave him that sketch it is. We didn't even owe him that. We just gave it to him. Why And those ten lifetime tickets aren't cheap, that's book expect to one point eight million. Some of this stuff we owed him in his previous contract, but we did not owe him this one point. They just added it and the board of trustees did not approve it. Now they don't have to under the bylaws, but they only one person approved it the present, and he didn't show up to the press conference. One person approved this deal and he didn't even show up. Hello, does nobody think that's weird?

00:37:16
Speaker 5: Read between the lines?

00:37:17
Speaker 4: Maybe?

00:37:18
Speaker 6: And I mentioned this during the break, Mitch went, I'll take a few questions, a few questions, and if I don't like him. It was like, my god, you're always telling on yourself. That's exactly right, you're telling on yourself. He played off as joking. But I've seen a lot of Mitch Barnart press conferences. This is what they are. I hated the one when he set by Stoops. He called us in on a Saturday to basically just yell at us about the Stoops cow thing earlier or last fall, whenever it was. I think it was John Hale's like, hey, is the an Ale thing good enough? It's like, my goodness, every time you talk, we're getting yelled.

00:37:50
Speaker 4: At one time I had a conversation with Mitch that was a positive conversation. Okay, it was not like a nag. This was a few years back, and in it he kind of started braiding me a little bit. Not in a bad way. He was not like it was we were and he said and at one point I said to him, I say this respectfully, Mitch, I don't work for you. Okay, we are talking because I want this to be a good relationship, because I want you k to win, But I don't work for you. I think he thinks everyone the media works for him, and I think he thinks in some ways the fans if not work for him, like and I think that's a mistake. And I I'm now switching a little bit. I'm not so mad. Like if somebody said to me, Shannon, here's two million dollars extra, do you want it?

00:38:43
Speaker 5: You're gonna take it.

00:38:43
Speaker 3: You're gonna take it, of course you are. Anybody would.

00:38:46
Speaker 4: But why did they give it to him? And how come the people that gave it to him are not speaking?

00:38:53
Speaker 5: Yeah? Why I'm all for giving a guy a retirement a watch, yeah, or or like Drew said, even just the country club memberships. Maybe the some tickets.

00:39:03
Speaker 4: I'm fine with that. Tickets don't bother a lot of people the game brought up to me the tickets. The tickets seem to get at people. It tends a lot oddly. That doesn't bother me. But there are a lot of people that have brought up the tickets. That doesn't bother me as much. But I'd be okay with it.

00:39:19
Speaker 5: Tickets, country club memberships a lot.

00:39:22
Speaker 6: And those ain't cheap, and that's for life. Those could be sold. Yeah, what about what you have a.

00:39:30
Speaker 5: You know they gave like we brought up, they brought bought to see him a house in the Bahamas?

00:39:34
Speaker 4: Was that controversial at the time. That feels like that would have been caught I'm gonna buy you a house in the Bahamas.

00:39:39
Speaker 5: Of course, you know this before social media, so it didn't get as much run as it probably would have. But that's not that's not as excessive, I think as this is.

00:39:47
Speaker 6: No this was more Yeah, sure, what I hate is this is money game now, even if he doesn't say a word in the new Athletic Director. The new athletic Director has nine hundred and fifty thousand on the books every year when fans go to donate money, we're gonna have to get over that hump before start paying a shooting guard like this is owed to him through athletics, and they're going to be asking people to help with their budget when no one wants to pay that.

00:40:06
Speaker 4: And Andy Staples, who's a national college football reporter, he wrote, I don't think you're gonna get an AD that does not have a connection to Mitch Barnhart, because no AD is going to want to come and have Mitch Barnhart in the building.

00:40:20
Speaker 5: Fair point looking over your shoulder the whole time.

00:40:24
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know ads, so it's hard for me to know that. But I think you know, if you were doing betting nods, the chances you get a person with no connection to the to the staff, I think goes down mm hm.

00:40:35
Speaker 6: You know, also, whose job was it to place people in sports already? Because they just got their under the bus.

00:40:40
Speaker 4: Bombs and then not only did they get bump shit and they were like, look, you've done such a bad job. We are quintupling the salary that we pay for this.

00:40:50
Speaker 3: The whole situation just does not.

00:40:54
Speaker 4: And by the way, there might be I want to be clear about this, there might be a reasonable explanation for all of this. Okay, there might be, and maybe one will show itself. But that's why you ask the question. That's why the question is important. Right, you can have an answer, but that's why the question is important. And you know, I I don't want to be down this path. It puts me in a weird spot. It puts the people that I get along with in UK in a weird spot. It puts my employer in a weird spot. But you know what, it'd be a lot easier for me just to move on. But you know, some things have to be brought up. Somebody's got to say it because the fans think it at least a lot of So that's where we are now. I do want to completely switch gears because I am excited about football and I am excited about talking to will Stein. We haven't talked to him since he got hired. He's going to join us. Spring practice starts tomorrow, yes, and he's going to join us. Cross your fingers on the technology because there's a lot happening here. During the break, we'll be right back to Kiazark