2026-03-24- KSR - Hour 1

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Speaker 1: From YouTube and social media. Comedy Off Broadway in Lexington welcomes Josh Wolf March nineteen through the twenty first. Then from Late Night TV and The Bob and Tom Show, catch Nick Griffin March twenty six through the twenty eight, and don't miss New York comedy superstar and podcaster Mark Norman.

00:00:18
Speaker 2: April second through the fourth.

00:00:19
Speaker 1: Pour tickets to all comedy Off Broadway shows Calle five, nine, two, seven, one joke or visit comedy off Broadway, dot com com off Broway.

00:00:31
Speaker 3: This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage. Now here's Matt Jones.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Well, welcome everyone. It is Kentucky Sports Radio here Tuesday, March twenty fourth, on what might be one of the busier days in KSR recent history. I think about this, there are probably four things that we could talk about that would lead and drive entire shows, And if you just look at Mark Pope's comments, there were probably four or five different things than that that could have lived. I mean, there's probably seven or eight things that could have led a show here today, but we can't do it. We will do them all, but we can't do them as long. But you can give us down on the Clarks pomp of shop on line eight five to nine two eight twenty two eighty seven, Avishnauto Glass text machine seven seven two seven seven four five two five four and this edition sponsored by the T J. Smith Office called TJ He'll make them pay. There are I would say four main things, Like I said, you could drive a show. One is Pope's press conference. Chances are that'll be the focus of a lot of what we say. His well, I say, press conference is more than he did a radio show right and said a ton of stuff. I mean, I think I tweeted for an hour straight just on the stuff he said. Uh. The UK women while that was going on, won an insane game against West Virginia which they really dominated throughout and then nearly lost at the end. And Kenny Brooks, who I love Kenny Brooks like the best dude, and I think a great coach, had maybe the worst second of basketball I've ever seen a coach. We escaped it, we did, but we got to talk about these time management in that last second. But they won, and now they're going to Sweet sixteen for the first time since twenty sixteen. I had not realized it had been ten years since the women have gone to the Sweet sixteen.

00:02:16
Speaker 4: I didn't realize it's been that long either. That's a long drive.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: That's a long time. I you know, good, that's awesome because I did not realize it had been that long. It doesn't feel that long.

00:02:24
Speaker 5: Yeah, they said it on the broadcast. As soon as the game ended, and I went to type a tweet and I stopped. I was like, did I hear him correctly? I had line to be sure.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: That was amazing. Then prominent UK donor Brett Setzer both did an interview and ended up in a Herald Leader article with Linda Blackford and our own Drew Franklin scooped the letter that he sent to UK demanding the reversal of the Mitch Barnhardt nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year contract. Drew doing some investigatives, investigatory you me, You and Linda Blackford. Really, you and Linda Blackford more than anybody. You two knuckleheads, just really going after this story.

00:03:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, I had a knucklehead phone call today. Us knuckleheads got to stick together from time to time. Yeah, look at this, we got like a real journalist here.

00:03:16
Speaker 2: And then DeMarcus Cousins goes on TV yesterday and it breaks my heart on television taking a shot at me out of nowhere. Yeah, what was that all about on television? Yeah, I don't know. That bummed me out. I mean, I guess we'll just start with that real quick. That bummed me out. I know, you don't you have to take that. I don't. I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to get into DeMarcus. If you're saying to me, Matt Jones, who are like your three favorite players of all time at UK? I mean there's a lot, but if you're just talking about on the court, I put John and DeMarcus together, the John Wall DeMarcus Cousins. For me, it's like Tayshawn Prince, John wal De, Marcus Cousins and I don't know, Jamal mcglure yeah, and probably Jamal mcglure. So it was that was a bummer. He goes on TV and says, you know, we got to stop listening to to Matt Jones talk about basketball. I mean, he's not wrong. I don't know anything but that. That's stunk And it made me sad.

00:04:23
Speaker 5: I was confused because his other comments seemed to be.

00:04:28
Speaker 2: Said, is what I've said. He said, you know, we've got to start realizing these players don't know what the jersey means come to Kentucky. Though. He literally it was almost if he heard the postgame show and then said exactly what I said. You know, I mean, DeMarcus is very close to Cal, Cal's and Cal of a great relationship. Cal was great to him. DeMarcus was mad when Cal left at me, uh, and and that stinks. But I haven't talked to him since then. You know, we were uh when he was here. You know, he was the he was the best, and we had a really good relationship. But I always had it after that. I mean, you went out to Sacramento at him, So I mean, I mean, this is mister president, this is DeMarcus cousin. So I'm not gonna lie and not say it. It made me sad, like it did you know? When I saw that I was with, I had a friend in town who's been who hasn't been here in like six months. I was excited to uh to see her and we were eating lunch and I just was like, oh man, that stinks. But you know, I think people were like, go to me trying to say, are you going to say something? I'm not. I love that dude. Like he's earned his right. Guys who played here, they've earned the right they can say whatever. Uh, next time I see him, I'm sure i'll run into him sometime. I hope he'll he'll put me in a headlock and it'll be like conversation. I hope he does, because I'm not. I'm not. I'll tell you one thing I'm not gonna do. I'm not fighting with DeMarcus because whether physically or metaphoric, because I I love that dude, and and so you know.

00:05:56
Speaker 4: But I first saw it what you just said, I felt like he was just sharing the narrative he got from Coach cal Well.

00:06:02
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't want to say that because that that makes it sound like he can't come up with his own opinions, which I which he can't. But he's very loyal to Coach cass Is. I mean, we'll do it. We'll use it like this. Right, So if I, let's say, me and you, somebody out there was being really critical of you, and even if I liked that person, so like if Dan Orlovsky was like Ryan limmon Is terrible as a as a radio host. I could see me going, we got to stop listening to dan Orlovsky about radio, right, because for you, my loyalty is going to be more to you than to dan Orlovsky. Even though I like dan Orlovsky. That's how I look at it. So I mean, his loyalties more to Cow and it should be like he's he's had a great life and Cows big part of that. So I get it.

00:06:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he is maybe one of the closest to cal from that hil aera, Cow him on the right track and helping him with his.

00:06:58
Speaker 2: Maybe the closes is that by me. I'm not, but but you know what, we we move on. Everybody who really knows me, like was checking him. Hey dude, all right? Even my mom from Wheaton College was she called like three times. I was like, okay, che Michelle Beadle. She knows how what Michelle Beadle was about. I heard her like laughing in the background. I don't even know Michelle Beatle. How does Michelle Beadle even know who I am? I don't know. We need the longer clip. Probably does, I don't know, probably just laughing along. Ha ha.

00:07:26
Speaker 3: You know, like when somebody says.

00:07:27
Speaker 2: Something I don't know, want the long I saw the longer clip. Literally it was as random as it looked. He just kind of out of now.

00:07:33
Speaker 5: I love the clue. He's got the Cal connection. But he still says I'm Kentucky. That was important. He did say I love Cal, but Kentucky is my place. I was glad to hear him say that. That's what we want to hear these guys, yes say right. So all right, so now that was one of the things.

00:07:48
Speaker 2: I think. The more important thing is the Pope uh press conference so uh, you know, Pope does this this calling show, And I would say for most of the year the Pope Collin show has been really un helpful and boring. I thought last night was Pope at his most open and honest about how he actually feels. I actually think Mark Pope was Mark Pope last night. We've seen this other thing. I think a lot of the year this was Mark Pope, and I thought there were a lot of interesting things. Before we say anything, I want to be clear, I'm glad he talked like that last night. Do more of that, right, Just be who you are, be proud of who you self, as Ryan Lemon used to say, Shannon, like, be who you are, and he did that for better or worse. And he said a lot of things, And I want to go over a couple of things he said and just get people's reaction to them. I think the most important one will be the one that I say last. So Pope said a lot. He made a big deal about the fact that they haven't gotten to play with the full roster. He said, fifty six Power five games. We've only played in two years with our full roster in five games. That was very important to him to say. I understand that that is correct. It also, though, is a weird thing to say when we just played Iowa State, who's best player got hurt right before the game. It's really working against his argument right now, like that game is not a great argument because they lost their best player moments before, like a day before the game, and destroy this. But I also understand he's not wrong about that. He then said, and I found this interesting. I'm gonna say odd, but still very interesting. He said that they created their entire offense around having a left handed point guard, Jalen Lowe, and that when he got hurt, they then had to change the entire way they played. He went so far as to say, you might say, why does a left handed point guard matter well? With a bunch of things. One, it actually suits a right handed extremely well. Because point guards and bigs. If you have a point guard that comes off the ball screen to his left, you get the big man throwing to the rice. It's way more effective than you have when you have a right handed point guard and a left handed big.

00:10:09
Speaker 4: It works.

00:10:10
Speaker 2: But a right handed point guard and a right handed big can be awkward. Now that may very well be true. I've never heard that before in my life. I also don't know how many times have we seen left handed bigs. Like I was sitting there thinking most point guards are right handed right, So he's saying they play better with a left handed big. Who's the last left handed big you can remember that played in the post Amari? Yeah, Terrence Jones. But I that you know Montgomery, there ain't any of them, you know. Do you buy the idea that when you have a left handed point guard and then he gets hurt, everything has to change and it screws the team up. No?

00:10:59
Speaker 5: I mean I buy that you can run an offense around the left head handed point guard, and I think that's you know, what he was saying is true from a basketball standpoint, but that doesn't just derail your whole season.

00:11:09
Speaker 2: And I don't think I would. I don't even know that I would have said that.

00:11:12
Speaker 5: Out loud if I don't think I'm sure in the game plan he's thinking, oh, we have this advantage with the left hand, and Portgard will play that way, but that injury happened in the Blue White game in October.

00:11:20
Speaker 2: I mean, and shouldn't they be able to go both ways? Yeah?

00:11:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're a right you could still feed with your left hand, even if you're right handed.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got to be able to go both ways, right.

00:11:31
Speaker 5: I just we can't be a team that relies on one dominant the one player's dominant hand, like the whole season. Can't ride on one players backup that was left handed, and we lost him to Villanova. A Cayden Lewis was left handed. He brought that up a few times, and Travis Perry got brought.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: Up a lot. Yeah, but I mean, okay, fair enough, A Kayden Lewis and Travis Perry left. But like that's on you, and that's just the world. You it's ultimately it's your responsibility to get these players to come.

00:12:00
Speaker 5: That's college Basketball's the way it is. You continue.

00:12:03
Speaker 2: You could sit there and cry over spilled milk all day. Guys, there's gonna be guys leave this team that you probably would like to keep. But you know, that's that's what it is, right.

00:12:11
Speaker 4: In this dan age of college basketball. Man their left hand, right hand. They're so good of both hands. I don't think it matters anymore.

00:12:20
Speaker 2: What seemed to matter at least in what he said the way to do it. But the big thing he said, and I think this is the thing that that everyone is focused on the most. The big thing he said is he compared his two years to Cow's last four years. And he did. I posted the clip. It is four minutes long. He did four minutes with numbers that Shannon, he didn't just get off the top of his head.

00:12:45
Speaker 3: Oh no, he did some show.

00:12:46
Speaker 2: He did show prep, he did some Ryan Lemon's never done one time. He did show prep. He had the numbers. He was like, when in Col's last four years he did this, We did this. This was the schedule. Now this is the schedule. These are the top forty teams we beat. That's the top forty teams they beat. This is how many times they won in the SEC tournament. This is how many times we won. And the overall theme was our last two years were better than Col's last four. And it was four minutes long. And I posted that clip and it's god megaviral. I posted. Actually, another UK account posted big Blue Bud and then I put it on mind So I want to give him credit for putting it up there. But what'd you think of that?

00:13:37
Speaker 5: I was writing on the board Real talents happening. I was like, I am shocked that he has compared himself to calcause too. I mean, maybe I wouldn't directly call it a jab, but it's not not a jeb. I mean he's saying I'm doing better, better than Cal.

00:13:49
Speaker 2: Better than Cow. He's right, Okay, So let me be clear. I don't think he's wrong. His facts are not optional, they are correct. And if you've listened to show you and Andrew have made this these same facts. Yes, but Ryan, it was odd to hear him do it. Yeah, because it's the first time I've ever heard him compare himself to Cal in a way that downgrades Col. And it also is I think selective fact choice. Okay, is he wrong? No? His last two years objectively are probably better than Col's last four. But two major major caveats. One, COVID's doing a lot of work. Take that COVID team out. Those numbers aren't the same. But more importantly, is the right comparison him versus cow's last four years or him versus cow's first two years? Depends on who you ask, true right, depends on who you ask. So once you get into the compare me to Col game, be careful. You gotta be careful. And I'll say one more thing, the Cow Kentucky breakup. Col's taking some shots at Mitch, but he really hasn't taken a ton of shots in Kentucky. That will change. Oh yeah, cow will respond to this. Cow's been pretty gracious. No, no, Cow's been pretty great. He's responding to this. Now will he respond to it in a good way, bad way? I don't know, But he's not gonna let that go. I'm surprised he did it. I'm not. And I looked at the responses online. They were wildly varied. There are fans that are like, yes, Mark, take up for yourself and I get that. I'm actually I don't mind a guy taking up for himself. But then there's people going, dude, we wanted cow gone because that wasn't acceptable. Yes, and now you're saying it's a little better than that was.

00:15:54
Speaker 3: Why would you choose to compare yourself to the four years that basically had fans wanting Caliperi.

00:16:00
Speaker 2: On and it's on and he said it's better, And I think Coach Pope's words were barely better. Barely.

00:16:07
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a weird barely better, but we all agree he was unacceptable those last four years of col.

00:16:12
Speaker 2: But he was like, it's barely better and we're moving in the right.

00:16:15
Speaker 3: Direct, so that's progress in his mind.

00:16:17
Speaker 2: He said it was. It's exactly what he said. He said, it's progress barely.

00:16:20
Speaker 5: But if you're on the cow in you could be like you played in the first game of the SEC tournament.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: Well, okay, so I am on in general, I'm on Pope's side of the argument, but you know, I'm a I'm a door when it comes to law, and like, well you say this, but you know how many times have you heard me be a contrarian here? When he mentions the SEC tournament, and he goes, well, we've won three games and he only won one. Yeah, but that's because we were playing in the Wednesday games. Col never played in the Winnsday against the Thursday. Our three wins have been in games col never played in because he always got to Friday. Right. Yeah, So you know, it all depends on how you look at it, right, And I'm just surprised that he voluntarily got into the col versus.

00:17:11
Speaker 4: Me and had all that show prep on the docum. The name.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: It wasn't random. He came in saying I'm gonna do this.

00:17:21
Speaker 3: Though.

00:17:22
Speaker 2: Here's what I would say. Remember how I've talked about how this should be a well oiled machine for Kentucky to roll. We need coaches, media boosters, fans, administration on the same team. When you got stuff going and when you got everybody on the same team, you don't make that argument. You're pope. You let other people make it for you, right, You let me and Drew make it for you, or you let Kyle Tucker make it for you, or you let Mitch Barnhart make it for you. When you make it for yourself, I'm not sure that's the greatest look.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: I don't either, So maybe I just came hearing a lot of yeah butts, yeah butts.

00:18:08
Speaker 2: And he ended by saying, this is not an excuse.

00:18:10
Speaker 4: Fast, what do you call what he's trying to do?

00:18:13
Speaker 2: Then, but Shannon, you could see how some people would look at it as an excuse.

00:18:17
Speaker 3: Sounds like a whole lot of excuses to me. Well, we had injuries, but we're comparing it to the last four years of cow but this, but this, there's too many butts and the left.

00:18:25
Speaker 4: Handed point guard.

00:18:27
Speaker 2: There's too many butts. I mean, I mean, Shannon is the Shannon only is a fan of butts.

00:18:34
Speaker 5: If I could say one thing that I did like about Pope's show, even though I didn't some of the you.

00:18:39
Speaker 2: Laughing at that, Shane and these dudes just staring at me when I said that, But I'm glad at least you laughed.

00:18:43
Speaker 5: Go ahead, some of the stats that rolled my eyes with. But I turned that show on expecting to get sad MOPy depressed.

00:18:50
Speaker 2: It was much better. I loved his energy.

00:18:52
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe every point he made I didn't completely love, but I liked that it wasn't oh poor me, because we've heard a lot that this year he at least with some confidence totally. If I didn't agree with everything you said, I.

00:19:02
Speaker 2: Did love the tone much more than I have the rest of the more that we're going to open up the phones in a few minutes because I actually we got a lot of positive feedback that they like the let's just hear from people. We're going to talk in a second about the other thing that's sort of come the point and fingers and I want to be able to allow fans to just have some time to so it's not just Matt, Ryan, Drew and Shannon like, how does the actual fan base feel. We'll do that a little bit in the second hour, but we'll take a break. We'll talk some more about it. We need to talk about Brett Setzer's letter that he wrote, and we need to talk about the women's team going to Sweet sixteen to play Texas. That's next here on KSR, Welcome back, Take you Sports Radio. We're sitting here trying to think on the left handed great left handed big men. I came up with David Robbins.

00:19:50
Speaker 4: That's a good one.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: He's a great land to have left handed big man. What else is on that list? You have to mostly guards, not many Big Bosh, Chris Bosh, okay, call yeah.

00:20:01
Speaker 5: Yeah, Bill Russell, how about that one Bill Russell was left handed?

00:20:05
Speaker 2: Into this list? I didn't know he was left handed. He was pretty good. I don't think I've ever seen one video of Bill Russell playing basketball, have you? Well, yeah, where like the old school and you watch a lot of fifties basketball.

00:20:18
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I love it.

00:20:19
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't honestly don't think i've seen one clip. I'm sure, I know they exist, I'm sure, but I don't think i've ever seen it.

00:20:25
Speaker 4: I don't realized he was left handed.

00:20:26
Speaker 1: Uh.

00:20:27
Speaker 2: One person on Text Machine Rights, Matt, what you call an excuse could also be a reason. Have you ever thought of that? Yeah, because how you look at it, excuses can be reasons. Yeah, I get it. It's interesting. The reaction to people of that clip was very different. There are people who really think that that was the way to do it, And I'm trying to think if I was in mark situation, I might want to do that too, And then there's people who think the opposite. It had varied reactions. Just go look at my clip of it, and look at the comments, and look at the quote tweets and you'll see very widely different reactions to it, which is just kind of interesting to me when person rights man, I have to tell you, I'm not saying he's wrong, but I've never in my life heard a coach talk about left handed point guard changing the way they have to.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: Plot ever, never ever have I heard that.

00:21:16
Speaker 2: I haven't either, but I don't, you know, but I'm not a coach. I don't know, but i'd never heard that.

00:21:23
Speaker 5: I mean, if he said it in November as the season was starting, like we've got to just that's one thing. But I mean that injury was a long time ago. It was in October, and that's.

00:21:32
Speaker 2: Part of being oust Johnson left handed, Jasper's left handed.

00:21:35
Speaker 4: Then he our backup point guard.

00:21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I haven't. I haven't really heard. Now. He also ended that by saying doing the thing he did at the press conference before, well, a couple things. First of all, actually let me do that next segment he said, he answered the question said they did not offer Yaxel Landenberg seven to nine million dollars. Wish he had just said that the first time he was as she had just said that but I'm glad to hear him say that, because I don't think they did. I think the Axle was either exaggerating or on how you want to look at it line, I do not think Kentucky offered him seven million to nine million dollars. And Mark was very explicit and said, let me be clear, we did not offer seven to nine million. I like that stand. Yeah, that's one that I don't think is an excuse.

00:22:21
Speaker 5: That's correcting the record, and I think we all believed that at the time. But having Pope actually say it, I mean, just in itself, seven to nine million is not an offer. An offer that's a range, that's a nine million dollars off seven to nine million dollars.

00:22:35
Speaker 2: I'm going to buy this house. I will offer you four hundred to seven hundred thousand dollars. Well, you know what, I'll take seven hundred. So he did do that, all right, So we went long the first segment. So let's take this break and then we'll talk about some of the other stuff he'said. Right after it's TJ. Smith, personal injury attorney, called TJ He'll make them pay.

00:22:53
Speaker 3: Now more of Kentucky Sports Radio present it by Stockton mortgage.

00:22:57
Speaker 2: Here's Matt Jones. Shannon's so good because this isn't even the name of this song, right.

00:23:02
Speaker 4: This is how did you talk about donk A DONC How did.

00:23:05
Speaker 2: You remember that? It started left left left, right left? That was a perfect But how did you remember that?

00:23:10
Speaker 5: Well?

00:23:10
Speaker 3: The music video was a good way to remember that. If you've seen the music video for this song.

00:23:16
Speaker 2: I don't think i've seen it now. I'm gonna have to look it up. There's something that goes left left, left, right.

00:23:20
Speaker 4: I imagine.

00:23:21
Speaker 2: Yes, Okay, I mean that is really like I don't think you get You don't get nearly enough credit for how well and especially with the podcast now and people not hearing the music, the podcast listeners don't realize how well you time that together. That's a that's a live listener gets that. Yeah, but I appreciate it well.

00:23:40
Speaker 3: I wish you could tell that to our bosses so they would appreciate it.

00:23:43
Speaker 2: And I will also say, ESPN, you have an impact on ESPN. I've watched this on ESPN now. So we started on ESPN. Bringing it all starts with Tony Korneiser, who used to do this. Yes, then I brought the concept of the music connects to a word or phrase we said before Shannon started doing it, and we've like met, our minds have melted. I brought that to ESPN, and over the last few years, they've started doing it on my show, and now they started doing it on the other Showy and one of the producers on one of their shows says, I kind of took this from my days working on your show. So like literally that progression has kind of made When you listen to ESPN and you hear them do this, I think it kind of it really started with Courthyserd many years ago, but I kind of stole it from him and then went on from that.

00:24:36
Speaker 4: So it is kind of an underappreciated thing that Shannon does for this show. Really adds a lot to it.

00:24:40
Speaker 2: I agree, all right. So some other things Pope said. Pope said in recruiting this year, they're looking for creators. He was like, we didn't have enough creators the last two years, where basically he means guys who can just go get their own shot. I was sitting in my house and I went, Hallelujah, Praise the Lord. I've been saying that for two years. We haven't had those guys, and I think you gotta have at least like three of them, and this year we had one, maybe two, depending on what you think of Aberdeen. He says, we need to get a team full of creators. Drew, I love that good stuff. That was my favorite part of the show. They really lack that.

00:25:17
Speaker 5: I mean, how many times do we see them get jammed up in the half court? And even ol Way, who can get to the rim and finish, he can if there's not spacing. You need a guy that can just go out there when all else fells, he can go get you a bucket.

00:25:28
Speaker 2: And jaylen Lowe was that. That was part of why I thought losing him was so big. He was the only guy we had that I really felt like was really good at that.

00:25:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, you gotta say it, and they gotta go and do it. You gotta go out and get.

00:25:37
Speaker 2: Somebody out and get him. But I'm glad he says that they canna get him. Then he said that we have I think he was addressing Jack Gibbons's comments after the game. He said, we have all the resources we need to now. He did say to get the players we want, which that's quite a caveat because that could mean there are players he wants that just doesn't cost a lot, so we'll see. But nevertheless, he didn't act like resources would be an issue.

00:26:03
Speaker 5: And that's what we want to hear. And he even said I forgot the exact word, but he insinuated and be patient. There's some good news on the way of recruiting, and he felt good where they are. Yeah, so that's better than the alternative where when you look at a sheet of paper and there's zero recruits. He's at least trying to inject some inject some hope in the fan base.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: He then went off kind of again on the Facebook memes and all that I don't know what it is about that. Well, actually I have a theory, which I'll say in a second. But then he ended this by going, here's the thing. We can get confused. Sometimes there's a super super vocal like one percent, zero point one percent very vocal, trying to get hits and listeners. And then there's the ninety nine percent of BBN that is true believers, cheering their guts out everywhere I go, and everyone we meet a lot of people around town. Everybody says they love PBN and they're praying for us to be successful, and they're cheering us on. That's different when I talk to people and they're just trying to put out something negative. I don't understand why he needs to do this, you know, I don't know who he's talking about. Could be us, could be whatever. I don't know why he needs to do this the moment. You know. This is the same guy who I met with two years ago who looked at me and said, when I deserve criticizing, I want you to blast me. If you don't do that, then that's not what BBN is. I guess that's easy to say when you think you're gonna win every game. But I love Mark Pope, I'm cheering you on. We are not like we want, we want you to win. I don't even he may not even talking about us. He may have been talking about somebody else. I don't know. I talked to somebody who knows Mark really well. Yes, there aren't a lot of those people here, but I know one, and they said to me, look, here's the thing you have to understand about Mark. When he goes online, he only goes to two places. It's a little scoop. He goes to ESPN and he's on Facebook, and he was like, you need to understand that Mark's coverage of UK athletics what he sees is Facebook. Oh no, that's the worst place to go. I had never heard this before and I was like, oh, okay, but then that makes sense. That's why he's talking about these memes about his wife in an airplane and Colin Chandler giving all the money to homeless. It's like, that's what he sees, right, So if you think about it, for the I don't go on Facebook really at all, but many of you listeners do. Think about the coverage of UK sports you see on Facebook, That's what Mark is seeing, which is interesting. So that also made me think maybe he wasn't talking about us because we're not really I'm not even on Facebook. But that means he's seeing KSR the website. But that also means he's seen like these fan sites that write stuff like.

00:29:01
Speaker 4: You have like Pope's cats.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: In your face or like you know, come get some blue in Mark Pope's world. He sees that as the media, which I think is really interesting to know. Remember how we used to talk about the only people Mitch Barnhart talked to were via email, yes, and so it was like, what kind of person emails Well, that's who Mitch Barnhart's listening to. Now I kind of know, at least according to this person, that the media Mark Pope is consuming is what pops up on his Facebook. So I want you to think about your fan sites on Facebook. It's not people really in the media, right, So now those comments make sense to me when he gets up there and goes you know what is really media nowadays? Is it a guy in his basement? Is it's because he's seen in these fan groups on Facebook. So where you and I that are online, or if you're on Twitter and you see writers and you see headlines and he's seen Pope's fans in your ears pose and Shannon, Now it makes sense to me.

00:30:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a ton of fake headlines. I saw givin yesterday that said that Jaden Quainton's was about to work out for the Knicks today at full strength, and people lost their minds in the comment section because they believe it to be true.

00:30:29
Speaker 2: But it's not true. So that's what he's seen.

00:30:32
Speaker 4: You know, half of his week is spent with local media.

00:30:36
Speaker 2: But I don't think he sees it, He sees I don't know what are the biggest Facebook fan groups. I don't look at them. I don't get on face, but like i'd be interesting those people that are now we know that, And so my when I when I heard that, I was like, Okay, somebody needs to tell him that's not really the media.

00:30:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, the people you meet with two or three times a week, that's the media.

00:31:00
Speaker 2: So it also made me sort of interestingly think. You know, yesterday continued the tradition that happens a little bit where there's a group of people got Jo ruining you athletics and you ran John cal Perry out and Tan you going room. Well Cal didn't even get on the internet, and Pope is on the internet on Facebook aside, I don't even use So who are those people? The funny thing is we don't even know who those people are. I don't have faces or names. They don't even have faces or names. So are those the people that are powerful? Are those the people that Mark is thinking of when he thinks of media. If so, a little note to all the fan sites out there, those of you that are in whatever the group is, you're kind of like you guys, actually have some power now over these things. Maybe we should be careful. Maybe it's all fun and games when you all post these memes, but maybe they're actually having an effect. That was the most fascinating thing to me, because I have sat there and wondered, what is Mark talking about when he says all this stuff. Now, imagine you're a fan that only sees Facebook. That's what he's talking about.

00:32:25
Speaker 5: Well, watching the uh wasn't there, but I was watching the live stream in Saint Louis. When he mentioned the lean thing. I thought he just referenced one of those random AI Facebook things.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: Surely that's crazy.

00:32:38
Speaker 3: It's hard to understand a smart guy who can't figure it out.

00:32:41
Speaker 2: Well, I'm not saying he's falling for those I don't think that's true. But I think he thinks that is what media is. Now. He thinks, yes, all of our fans are reading that and thinking it's true.

00:32:54
Speaker 5: Most of our fans are rolling their eyes at that and saying, Grandma, stop reading that and reposting it and calming on it.

00:33:00
Speaker 2: Grandma is reading it. Sounds like Shannon is what Mark is reading.

00:33:05
Speaker 3: That's that's social media. That's not the actual media. And you can't believe anything is THEE on Facebook.

00:33:09
Speaker 2: So now it might. But the one thing is, now it makes sense. Now I know why he's saying all that. And now we do have to think about when these groups post this stuff, Pope's reading it.

00:33:29
Speaker 5: Some of them are so crazy. I don't know how anyone.

00:33:33
Speaker 2: I just I do now. I just do worry that, like, you know, this is part of like getting our media relations and stuff up to date, you know, one of the just someone tell Mark that like people are rolling their eyes. Colin Taylor donated his whole innil to Turning Point USA. Does he think we all believe that? I hope not.

00:34:03
Speaker 5: It's very clear he doesn't believe it, because he said, every day I see something that's fake. But I hope he doesn't think that just the whole fan base is walking around talking about stuff like that. I worry that he does think most of them laugh it off.

00:34:14
Speaker 2: And let me just say when he says, everyone that comes up to me says something nice, well, of course, I mean everyone that comes up to me says something nice. I don't have one hundred percent of writing. People are not if people don't come up to you and just say you suck. I don't think it would because it wouldn't happen to you.

00:34:35
Speaker 4: It would happen to me in martial media.

00:34:38
Speaker 2: But they do it on social media. But like he's like, well, nobody comes up to me and says they're not don't think I'm going to Jake. Well, no one's gonna do that. Of course, no one's gonna come.

00:34:46
Speaker 5: Up to the coach and go, you're not doing a good job. I don't think he has the Twitter app. If he thinks he's ninety nine percent.

00:34:52
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm gonna have to I guess I'm gonna have to get on Facebook and see what people say because you're going to join I'm not any of those. I did try to join one of those groups. It was called like Pope's Boys or Pope's Dogs.

00:35:06
Speaker 5: So that's the there's one Pope's something that's the craziest and join it and they refuse to let me in and they were like no, and I was like, it was like, and I think you're right, that's a big one. It's like Pope's Pope's Paps. I'm not even gonna say the other team, but there was one on there. It had an AI image. It was like Team Ex's starting player died on the court. Yes, and I'm like, what do you post? Who posts that? But I guess now apparently Pope's pops. That one is the one that our coach reads. It's time to score big this month with Don Franklin. Is that am I supposed to do? Don Franklin, Yeah, well I'm doing it now.

00:35:43
Speaker 2: Choose from over six thousand new and certified prem vehicles. Go the distance with powertrain protection, get slam dunk deals all month long at Don Franklinado. Ten years unlimited miles. You finished strong coverage on certified pre owned makes and models at Don Franklinado. It's Don Franklinauto driven by Family. This morning I got up. By the way, three of the top fifteen episodes of sports podcasts in America were KSR episodes. Our one Hour two and the Postgame Show were three of the top fifteen, and the other were all Barstool or Bill Simmons or like. So obviously, one thing that people say is, well, we can't have apathy, and BBM, we don't have apathy at least not in this world. We'll take a break. Be right back, KSR. Welcome back. You were saying during your break rind that your parents fall for Facebook stuff.

00:36:31
Speaker 4: That's why I think, and I don't mean to be mean, but like the older fan are the ones that kind of fall for these stories and then they retreat them, repost them. It's like get more clicks for it, That's why they keep doing it.

00:36:42
Speaker 2: One person writes Matt, A lot of people know the group that I'm talking about. I guess. I guess it's called Pope's Cats. And this person says it's the worst thing on Facebook. Lots of fake stuff on there. If you only saw that, it would be hard to know what was true about UK sports. So I always go to ks R and see if it's on there. Yeah, that's good, I can. I can. They wouldn't let me in there. How is I not able to get in? Like Pope's in there? It means one of the people in there is when burn Wright's Matts. This is kind of funny. Do you think he's on bond that Bridge and ladies of ks R, Well, we have to approve. Well I don't run bond that Bridge, but there's a few people that do. And I do see that they have to approve people to get in, So I think we would know if he was on Ladies of ks R. They have a no no men policy. Yeah, I wonder if that includes Mark Pope. You cannot get in. It's strict, very strict no no no. But they did let me in. I don't think that. I honestly don't think they like that I'm in. I'll say this though. They are the most active and loyal ks R supporters. The Ladies of KSR group is posting constantly and they are the They are the most active, and they come up when I meet him. They're like written the Ladies of KSR group. They sent a huge group mailer to my to Larry, to my dad, so like there, they're the best.

00:38:09
Speaker 5: Are The nursery at home is full of stuff that the Ladies of KSR, including handmade quilts. And they got together and they would like someone would do half of it, then they'd ship and someone else would finish it because they all had different talents. Yeah, and then they when they came to uh, Paul Miller and I mean, we had like a little Ladies of KSR shower after the show.

00:38:27
Speaker 2: They gave us so many things. Our bookshelf was full of books.

00:38:30
Speaker 5: From the ladies of KSR, how nice is very cool, very nice things on Facebook.

00:38:36
Speaker 4: You know, he does live in a house full of women that probably can't get in these groups, those groups and kind of maybe keep him posted.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: But it's the ladies of KSR not saying negative things.

00:38:45
Speaker 4: There's the most positive.

00:38:46
Speaker 2: People on One person rates Matt ninety percent of Kentucky fans on Facebook is a guy with sunglasses holding a fish in the air. Fair, very fair. I will say this when someone calls me some name that is like liberal beta, eighty five percent chance a it's a sunglasses selfie and probably thirty five percent chance there is a fish involved.

00:39:15
Speaker 3: Somewhere and they're saying about you. You can't even beat a hook like that country song.

00:39:20
Speaker 2: I can't beta hook, I can beta.

00:39:24
Speaker 4: We can't beata hook.

00:39:28
Speaker 2: So I can't. I can't. Oh God, but but there you go. So I do feel like overall, I'm glad he did that show yet last night. Let's do odds? Does Cow reference this sometime this weekend? This cow reference? Pope's Cow have a press conference tomorrow? Will he reference Pope's reference comparison to him? Well, he find a sly way to slip it in I'm gonna say seventy percent chance. Yet, if I know Cal, that's the kind of thing. Because let me tell you how Kyl gets his news. We were talking about Facebook. This is what it was here. I assume it's the same. He has them print out all the stories from the internet that they think he should read. He used to print out every KSR, Harold Leader career journal, and then he had other things he was interested in, like Basketball Times, which I don't even know if that still exists, and they would print him out and sometimes he would call me and he would read from He'd be like, do you see what Jim Jenkins said in the Basketball Times? I was like, huh, Kyle, I don't even know what that is. What is that? So? I don't know. Someone is going to print out for him a story about what Pope said? Will he reference it? Aileen?

00:40:52
Speaker 5: Yes, It'll be subtle, but it'll be in there. Someone during the show last night showed him over. Yet they said, oh, this is going to get get back to Cal. I said, no, this is already already had acted the moment it came out of.

00:41:03
Speaker 2: Someone sent it to Cat. It's already there. So do you think he will?

00:41:06
Speaker 4: I feel like he'll do it if they win the game. He'll do it in the post game when he's feeling good.

00:41:10
Speaker 2: And that's a good call. Yeah, that's a good call. If they were to beat are his own Uh huh, that's a really good before he's already farther in the tournament and just won the SEC he does it. I'm kind of with Ryan.

00:41:23
Speaker 3: If he wins, he definitely will.

00:41:24
Speaker 2: I don't know that he will yet.

00:41:25
Speaker 3: I mean, he's in the sweet sixteen trying to get to the Elite eight, so I don't know that he's gonna You're right, that's a.

00:41:30
Speaker 2: Post game, Ryan, that's a postgame press conference. Cal see what I did? See I did there? Would you like to compare wins between other schools and this? Like, that's what he'll do.

00:41:40
Speaker 4: Yeah, my first two years in Arkansas, somebody's first two years in another school?

00:41:44
Speaker 3: When do we play that team?

00:41:46
Speaker 2: Oh?

00:41:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, would we play that team? Where are they now?

00:41:50
Speaker 3: Go?

00:41:50
Speaker 2: Where his own? Please? All right, here's what I want to do. I want to hope up the phones, get your take on the season, Pope, his comments, not just me talking. We're gonna do another rimshot, not rim shotferent that today it's just dark. Yeah, like if I'm not too eight of twenty two, eighty sixth