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AZ Wildcats Podcast

POSTGAME: Caleb Love DOMINATES As Arizona Wildcats Get FIRST Big 12 Win

Become a PHNX Diehard for just $4 a month! http://gophnx.com/intro-offer-youtube Caleb Love and the Arizona Wildcats dominate the TCU Horned Frogs in McKale Center to net Tommy Lloyd and his team their first Big 12 win in program history. The win puts Arizona in second place in the conference. Can Arizona go on the road and beat the #16 Cincinnati Bearcats for their fourth win in a row? Caleb Love keep up this level of play? Do the Cats have a chance to win the Big 12 Conference? An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose your offer! Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/ Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details. Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you! Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off! When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
Duration:
1h 18m
Broadcast on:
31 Dec 2024
Audio Format:
other
America's oldest college football all-star game runs through the Lone Star State. Be a part of history in the making at the 100th East West Shrine Bowl. Thursday, January 30th, 2025 at AT&T Stadium. Visit Shrine Bowl.com for a chance to see the nation's top college football players ahead of the NFL draft. Tickets started just $20. Don't miss the historic 100th East West Shrine Bowl. Get your tickets today at Shrine Bowl.com. Today's All Stars Tomorrow's Legends. We're back. Welcome, guys, to the AZ Wildcats podcast. Your first post-game dub edition under the new, should we say, "Brain Trust" here? Between me and my guy Kevin Thomas, behind the Mac, pressing buttons, doing it all, the utility man people are calling you, Kevin. Some are calling me a multi-tool player, Damon. I don't know if that's accurate, but... Absolutely. I mean, hey, the catch showed a lot of tools tonight. I'll tell you that much right now. You got Caleb Love, of course, the highlight of the night. 33 points in a dominating performance from him. Caleb Love obviously hasn't been the best season for him thus far. And this team really needed this kind of play from him. It's so like, obviously, he's the best player on paper. He was an All-American last year. He was, of course, going to be the guy that was always going to need to carry this roster. But at the same time, it's just so shocking when you see it in real time happening, where Caleb Love is, him having a 33-point performance like that is just the engine for this team. You have Jane Bradley, who's been carrying all season, but it hasn't necessarily led to wins, right? Then you see Caleb Love finally score at the level we need him to against a solid TCU team defensively. I think that's everything you need to see tonight, Kevin. No, yeah, I totally second that and agree with you. I'm looking at his stats right now. I think the most important thing tonight, at least for me watching Caleb Love, was his shot selection. I think at times, this Arizona team can fall in love with the three-pointer. And the half-court offense can really slow down. But I think that we saw it early. We were talking, we were talking about it here, you and I. If his three wasn't falling, he was going to go get to the rim. And I think at times this season, that has been missing from this team. I think when Caleb Love, his shot isn't falling. I think he can fall into the well, so to speak, of, well, the next one's got to go in. And I think tonight, he made his luck, which I think he's been kind of waiting for the game to come to him. But that's not who Caleb Love is, right? Caleb Love is an attacker. Caleb Love is a go-get-it, a bucket-getter. I know that's like a very trendy basketball term now, but he really is a bucket-getter. His sole purpose out there is to go get a bucket and not let the buckets come to him. And so I think that was the biggest difference for me, or tonight, is as fans, we saw an aggressive Caleb Love, an intentional Caleb Love, and a locked in Caleb Love. So I think that's been the key. That's been the key for the man with the 3-1-4. Starting to turn my nose up at you, Kevin. It wasn't anything that you were saying or any takes you made, but we got Erika Day, of course, in the chat. She's going to be on with us in a little bit to talk about Tommy Lloyd's post-game thoughts, but she says that a TC reporter just spit on her happy Monday. Stop the cat. I mean, if that's true, she says she's for real to Jacob Franklin in the chat. That's absolutely unbelievable. Sorry that happens to you, Erika. Hit the like for Erika. Yeah, hit the like for Erika. If you hit the like, this woman just got spat on for you. All class, all class from TC reporters. Of course, you have Caleb Love. You know, 17 shots tonight, 33 points. I mean, it doesn't really get more efficient than that. And 11 three-point attempts, as you said, Kevin. I mean, yeah, as 11 three-pointer attempts out of 17 field goal attempts, kind of a decent-sized percentage, absolutely. But when 5 of 11 of those are falling and of course, we saw him attack the rim. We saw him get to the free throw line six times, hit all of his free throws. And just more than just from the scoring standpoint, seven rebounds and seven assists out of him tonight as well. Just a really complete performance. Definitely his best performance of the season, but three strong performances in a row now. I know that Samford, Central Michigan, those don't move the needle as much, but 23 points and 24 points respectively in those two games. We've seen three straight 20-plus point performances out of Caleb Love. The Arizona Wildcats net their first power four win of the season. They net their first big 12 win of program history. Pretty big performance, pretty big night for the Cats. I mean, big is an understatement. I think that we were talking about it heading into this. This was a must-win game for the Arizona Wildcats. If Arizona lost this game, I think fans would have been panicking, to be quite honest with you. Winning this game, I think, resets fan expectations to an extent. Winning this game in the style that they did goes a long way to proving that this year's iteration of the Arizona Wildcats squad can compete in the big 12, and I think the non-conference play left some doubt to there, and I think rightfully so, right? But I think tonight went a very long way to quelling that. Before we move on from the Caleb Love conversation, though, I think the conversation around Caleb Love often is, as Caleb goes, the team goes, right? So if Caleb's on fire, the team's on fire. Tonight was a really good example of that. With 11, 22 remaining in the first half, Caleb Love had 10 points on four for six shooting. Arizona, as an entire team, had 10 points, themselves, on four for eight shooting. So I think tonight was a huge example of not only this game being a game of runs, this game that we love a basketball. I think in that first half, there were like five 10-point runs for one of the other teams. But I think the biggest thing in the first half, like I said, it was an involved Caleb Love. Like, he brought up seven rebounds, seven assists. I think there's been some fan discourse as well about, you know, is he involved? Like, where's his head at? Like, and I think we know where Caleb Love's head's at after tonight. It's about getting buckets and winning in the big 12, and there should not be any question about that. Absolutely, and you mentioned those seven assists. Zero turnovers on top of that. I mean, the cats were turning the ball over a little bit too much in the first half, had some sloppy play there. But he was not a part of that at all, and pretty much a flawless game out of Caleb Love. You can't expect anything more. Another thing that's flawless, Kevin, is something I forgot to mention off the top. How about branded bills, huh? There are our presenting sponsor for this show. If you were at McKill tonight, I guarantee you you saw some branded bills, hats. They, of course, are partnered up with U of A. They are selling all kinds of stuff over at the big bookstore, football games, at basketball games. And we're brought to you by branded bills. Elevate your brand with branded bills. The perfect headwear and apparel. Use code PHNX for 20% off your first order. And hit that like button if you are in the chat. Shout out the whole chat today, right? I mean, look, we got the whole squad in here. We got Erica's mom, Laura. We got my guy Sean. We got Kevin's mom. We got Kevin's grandpa. Got Tom there. Got the whole squad in here, honestly. I mean, we're all chilling. Jacob Franklin, of course. Big Jake. Rick Heath as well. And V. Jacob Franklin actually low key a U of A fan. I mean, produced Mike Luke's pot for years. People are saying. Yeah, it's kind of just. People are starting to say. He's just a big, big fan of the cats there. But yeah, let's get back to the game. Obviously, you know, U of A has not played well in these types of games this season, right? Like we've seen it plenty. The Oklahoma game, the West Virginia game. I think that those are good examples of what the caliber of team that we just played, you know, it's not a. It's not like a you didn't play a Duke tonight, you know. TCU is not that level. And of course, they had big injuries as well. Frankie Collins really scored in play. So I mean, it's not it's not the end all beyond. And yeah, was it was it somewhat close for, you know, the whole game U of A controlled? But you know, it was a it was it was still a game for most for this entire game. I think I think the the rest of conference play to an extent will be like this. Yeah, I think teams will push and push. But it's going to be on Arizona to dictate the game like they did tonight. I I I didn't feel like at any point that Arizona. Well, that's not true. There was a couple points where TCU could have taken control. But I think in general, Arizona did a great job of dictating the game. Tommy Lloyd did a good job of of managing the flow of the game. TCU did go on a couple long runs. Tommy Lloyd called timeouts at the appropriate times. Arizona came out was able to slow down those runs, go on runs of their own. And so I think that if Arizona can go into conference play, dictate pace score 90 plus points entering tonight, there were 41 in one when scoring 90 plus points under Tommy Lloyd. Yeah. Mark one more in there 90 to 81. So we get there by one point 42 to one now when when Arizona scores 90 plus points. So I say all that to say if Arizona can play its game and dictate pace like they did tonight and be active on defense, everything else will follow. But I do think that we we spoke about it on Friday. This was like the perfect appetizer for the big 12, right? Yeah, like tough, gritty team. Definitely. Well coached and Arizona was able to handle that challenge. And that was a big sign for I think it should be a big sign for all of us going forward. Yeah, and I think TCU's a team that you know, it looks a lot like other lower end of the big 12 type of teams, right? Like they're they're not going to roll over. They're going to play physical basketball. They're going to make you earn it, right? Even if they're not the most talented team or they can't score what the best of them. I mean, tonight they certainly were hitting some pretty big three pointers, especially late in that second half just to kind of keep things close, throwing up prayers, everything's going in. But I mean, they're not the most talented offensive team, but they're definitely going to play you hard, play you tough. And that's I mean, that's that's exactly what we saw tonight. We're going to see that throughout this conference as we keep going and you're right. I mean, just the absolute perfect appetizer. Let's go ahead and look at the numbers here presented by our friends over at Desert Financial Credit Union. This is the by the numbers segment. Of course, Arizona outshoots TCU 56.9 to 46% in route to a 90 to 81 victory. TCU, like we mentioned right now, they actually shot pretty well from three 39%. And a lot of those came in that second half where they were hitting a lot of three pointers, 31.8%. And then this is the big one here, I think, Kevin. I mentioned it to you right before we went live. 28 assists for the Wildcats tonight, 15 for TCU almost doubled up their assists total, less turnovers in TCU, even after a shaky first half and then 10 to seven stocks. Kevin, what do you take away from those numbers? Yeah. I mean, you said it, Sean said in the chat, everyone with two eyes can see it. When Arizona is moving the ball, Arizona looks its best, right? We've been complaining all season as fans about this half court offense. It's slow. It doesn't, it's too methodical, right? Yeah. They're not in their flow. Well, tonight they were getting into their flow a lot more than they weren't. And I think that that's when you're seeing the 28 assists. We were talking in the first half, you and I about Jayden Bradley. He had five points at the time and you and I were both okay with that. Now, obviously there were a couple, you know, ill-advised turnovers, dribbling into guys doing too much. That's fine. He hasn't done that all year. But the assists, I think he had four or five assists at the time as well. So if the ball is moving, think it's okay. People, like if Arizona, like I said, is playing Arizona basketball, the rest will figure itself out. The problem is in non-conference, Arizona wasn't doing that for long enough stretches to make it successful. Yeah. And Jayden Bradley ends with 10 points in six assists only, or I guess three turnovers for him there like we were talking about. So not his best game from the turnover department, but ends up shooting 50% from the field hits for three free throws. Even though Jayden Bradley didn't have his best performance tonight, he still was a net positive on the floor. And that's kind of where we've been at all season, right? Like it's been the Jayden Bradley show, and everyone else is a net negative almost, it feels like. And tonight he had help. And even though it wasn't his best night, you didn't need him to have his best night because you got a lot of other players best nights tonight. I totally agree. And Corey says it on Michael Mantis. Y'all should tune into Michael Mantis if y'all haven't already checked it out. Corey Williams is a soft lookman as well. Yeah. Corey was on the call tonight, but Corey, Corey's been talking about it all year. Jayden Bradley and who, right? So we know Jayden Bradley's going to show up. But on any given night, it's Jayden Bradley and who is going to accompany Jayden Bradley tonight. It seemed like, I mean, Caleb Love, it was the Caleb Love show. He was driving the bus tonight. But I think that if Caleb Love can be more consistent, obviously, we don't need him to drop 33 every night. Hopefully we don't as a fan base. We don't need to see that. But if if Jayden Bradley can just keep being a steady hand, you know, every once in a while, he will have a game with, you know, 10 points. That's fine. But I think that what I want to see as a fan is a well-rounded attack on offense. I don't need this to be the Jayden Bradley show. Yeah. I don't need this to be the Caleb Love show. I just, I just need the ball moving. And if it finds Caleb Love more than it doesn't and he's hot and he gets 33 points like he did tonight, awesome. But I just want to see the ball moving. Is that too much to ask? Is that, I mean, that's what Tommy Lloyd teams play well. And I know that that's not exactly rocket science. Like every team plays good when they get 28 assists and they pass the ball efficiently. But Tommy teams especially are like, they're, they're, they're assist getting teams. They're not playing ISO ball. They're not, they're not pounding the rock, you know, for the entire shot clock. It's, it's a lot of spreading it around. A lot of guys getting their stats up, like heavy tempo. So, you know, I think this is exactly the, the type of game you wanted to see tonight. And I think we're, we're missed honestly at this point, Kevin, that we haven't mentioned him yet. Henry Visar absolutely took tonight. We got to talk about Henry Visar was probably the second best player for Arizona tonight, finished with 15 points, six of seven shooting, hit a three pointer, six rebounds, four assists through a lob, through a lob, Kevin. But love was nice too. Had a block out on the perimeter. I mean, Henry Visar looks like he's really cooking right now. It looks like he's improving every game. And you absolutely need that with, with Kreevas out for the probably the season. Yes. 1000%. Not only do you want it, you do need it. Like you said, we were saying that I think this might be the best possible way he looked or sorry, this might be his best game. The best he has looked so far into Arizona uniform. Oh, it's not. I don't even think it's a question. It shouldn't be a question. Yeah. He looked awesome tonight. Flat out. He looked aggressive inside. He looked strong inside on both ends of the court as well. And that's going to go a long way for Arizona as they enter conference play. Yeah. And he gave you fouls tonight. And I know that, you know, you don't want to see a guy with four fouls necessarily, but you need you need to foul people at times. And at least he's playing physical basketball, right? Like he's going up against some physical bigs. So he needs to show that kind of physicality. Carter Bryant, another name. I think we have to talk about here, Kevin. Carter Bryant, probably, would you say his best game against some legit competition? I would at least Carter Bryant, three of six tonight, scores seven points, hits a three pointer himself. Almost hits a couple more, but they rattle in and out on him. I really loved what I saw from Carter Bryant tonight. I tweeted it as well. Like, we need more Carter Bryant minutes. And I know that they're coming. And as we move through this season, it's going to, that's going to happen. He's going to play more and more as he starts to develop and the game slows down. But man, if he doesn't seem like he should be playing a lot of minutes, like right now, right? Because he played, he played 24 minutes tonight. That's starter minutes. He played 13 more minutes than Delorso did. But yeah, I mean, I think Carter Bryant needs to play a lot more. I agree. I've been, I've been on the slow play, Carter Bryant trained for most of non-conference play. I think people were too quick to want to rush Carter Bryant into the starting lineup. I think when you're dealing with a player as young as Brian is, and when coach Timie Lloyd is in non-conference play on support center, talking about, you know, I don't want a player who's going to be afraid of making mistakes. Well, Carter Bryant doesn't look like he's afraid of making mistakes at all anymore. He looks like he's free playing, trying to impact winning basketball, which is all you can want from a freshman, right? Someone who is looking to impact winning out there. And I think Bryant is at a place where he's doing that night and night out now. And I think he has earned extra minutes in the lineup. And I think that's going to be huge. I mean, if Carter can consistently improve at the rate that he's been improving by tournament time, by conference tournament time, he's not only going to be a starter, but he's going to be one of the team's best players. Like, I don't know if I don't know if that's crazy, but I feel like the way he can impact a game, not only offensively, we saw it with the dunks tonight, but defensively, we saw it with the SWAT as well. He could be huge for Arizona when it comes to February and March. I don't think that's crazy at all, because, I mean, when you look at like the ceiling of a Carter Bryant versus the ceiling of a lot of other players on this team, it's not particularly close. And that's no shot at a Trey Townsend or an ADO, but those guys just genuinely do not have anywhere close to Carter Bryant's ceiling. So the best version of Arizona basketball involves Carter Bryant playing these 24 minutes a game, not looking like, you know, a true freshman that's coming off the bench. Like that's, that's the type of Carter Bryant that you want to see. Saul puts it here in the chat as long as Carter can stay consistent with his man on defense and not loses man. He'll play more 100%. I mean, that's, that's, that's it with a lot of freshmen, right? Like it's, it's defense defense defense. As a coach, trust you on the defensive end of the floor, Carter has physical tools that a lot of other players on this team do not have defensively. Can he continue to, you know, kind of play that, that high octane defense? Yeah, I think I think that will be the key. If, I mean, it was one of the first takeaways I had tonight when I was talking to you, as I said, wow, Arizona has been really active defensively. Yeah. And I think that if, if Arizona, and I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record, I'm promising everyone now, but if Arizona can have active hands, pick pockets, run in transition and not let their half court offense get bogged down and let the ball just find the open man, it's going to look awesome night and night out. Now the key is finding that consistency in his Carter Bryant ready to take on that bigger role and be more consistent. I mean, we're going to literally find out between this game and the Cincinnati game, we will know where Carter Bryant is at in the general terms of the big 12. I think Carter Bryant is ready for the big 12. I think you think Carter Bryant is ready for the big 12. It's just time to see it. And I'm excited to see it quite honestly, because I don't know. It's, it's like you have a new episode of your favorite TV show every week when Carter Bryant plays. Yeah, I'm going to get a little, the story is going to develop a little bit each week. And then by the end of the season, it's going to be like, Oh, here comes the finale. Where's Carter at in the finale? You know, I'm excited. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I mean, it's we also run the risk of like, if he's too good, he goes to the draft, right? Like we almost saw that with a KJ Lewis last year where he just kept coming on towards as the season went on. And then you started seeing his name pop up and mock drafts and you're like, damn, we thought we were going to have KJ Lewis for at least a couple seasons, right? And I think you run that risk with a Carter Bryant just because six foot eight athletic wings don't grow on trees. Like those are those are the type of guys that are high NBA lottery picks. I mean, at the end of the day, that's a good problem to have for Arizona, right? Like they say you'd rather him be absolutely not good enough, right? Because it means that Arizona had a good year. It's just about what you know, you can take advantage of that or not in the tournament. We're going to talk about the rest of this game. We're going to talk about Cincinnati and who we had as our player of the game. It's going to be, I don't know, dude, I don't know who we're going to give it to today, Kevin. But we'll talk about all that and more right after this break. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you know it. I know it. We all know it. It's called cannabis and true leave, y'all. They have the key now that Maricopa locations for true leave are open. Starting January 11th, by the way, check out your local Maricopa true leave, the grand opening January 11th, but our friends at cold cannabis are now available at your local true leave with a huge variety of the top shelf flower. Good flowers hard to find these days and that's why you can find magic marker. I think it's probably cold cannabis is best strain. You can find it exclusively at true leave locations. The valley has been asking for it and magic marker is back. Visit trueleave.com to find out where your local shop is closest to you and place an order and tell him he's an extension. And yeah, like I said, cold cannabis has been dropping some heat. We talk about it all the time on this show. They come by the office, they're friends of their friends of the entire network. They drop off some product. We enjoy the product and they come back. It's a beautiful cycle, Damon. It's a wonderful cycle. I don't know how I get paid to be here, but here I am. But yeah, like I said, be sure to check out the new true leave location in Maricopa on January 11th and get over at trueleave.com to find your local store. Yeah, we love our friends over at cold cannabis. They're just great people, great folks. They come up here, easy to talk to, very genuine. Another thing that's easy to talk about, the Fiesta Bull Kevin, how could you not want to go to this game tomorrow? You got Penn State, you got Boise State, Ash and Gente, Drew Aller. You know, you got some big time NFL draft prospects for Penn State as well. I mean, it's going to be a who's who out there on the gridiron. And of course, it's the VRBO Fiesta Bull. It's it's one of the new year six bulls every year. Boise State, they don't play non electric Fiesta Bulls Kevin. Every Boise State Fiesta Bull comes down to the wire, comes down to the last play. We'll see if this one holds suit or not. So make sure you guys are heading over to the fan fest pregame party that starts at 2 30 p.m. over at State Farm Stadium. It's a block party leading into the big game with band performances, cheerleaders, fun games, food beverages and more. Be there to witness history and get your tickets now at Fiesta Bull dot org slash tickets, Viva Fiesta and join us for the first ever college football playoff quarter final at the VRBO Fiesta Bull going to be electric. Well, I mean, speaking of electric Kevin, this was, you know, one of the most, I would just say like positive experiences I've had watching Arizona athletics in a minute here. Like it's, we've had a tough go recently. We've had a real tough go, probably the most disappointing football season in the history of a program that is a pretty sad program in general. James Winston said, sorry, not to cut you off, but I'm adding here. James Winston said we need to be delivered from these pick sixes. And we as Arizona fans need to be delivered from these disappointing seasons. So maybe we can just turn this around, turn the table right around Arizona. Obviously now seven and five overall on the season in basketball. But something I mentioned to you, Kevin, second place in conference, I mean, stop the count. Maybe, maybe, maybe let's get, let's get in that first place spot and then start calling for that. But it's, you know, it's a, it's a tough conference. It's a good start. Oh, it's going to be a brutal conference. And I think obviously, like I said, winning your first game is a huge stepping stone for confidence in this, in this really tough, tough big 12, right? You have teams, Kansas Cincinnati until they lost tonight was, was I believe 16 case state that just beat Cincinnati, right? And I'm not getting even into the Iowa states of all of this, right? And so if Arizona can just beat the teams that they're supposed to beat in the big 12, that will go a long way because you're going to be competitive as an Arizona against against the Kansases and against, and against the Iowa states. And so, and a lot of these games are on the road too, Damon. A lot of these games are on the road, not in McHale, not where we as fans can, can impact to the environment. Like McHale was bumping tonight. Yeah, I'm really loud. It seemed like it needed it. I mean, great environment. So yeah, of course, McHale is always a great environment. First big 12 game, you know, everybody's going to get up for it. But with the way that just that this team has played against legit competition this year, I mean, they needed that extra boost from the fans and in unbelievable performance out of the fans tonight. Really, really just like that. That's what that's what why we love college basketball. That's why we love it. There's no Wildcats because because of just the electricity in that in that building, like you can't match that anywhere else. Should we give a tip of the hat to the McHale faithful? You know what? Let's do it, Kevin. Let's do it. I was going to give the tip of that to someone else tonight, but I think that that's fair to the McHale faithful. Let's do it. Yeah. I think they deserve it. It's it's been a long time since they've had like a huge win, you know, in the building. I think I think this is this is this is a big deal and they and Arizona fans, they came through in McHale tonight. So yeah, it's deserved for sure. Saul says it was loud. He was, of course, in the building. Saul and Erica going to help us out with our coverage here throughout the season remainder of this season as we dip deeper into basketball. Yeah. I mean, just we have we have the best fans in the West. It's not that's not that's not really a competition in the West. Yeah. Easily. Why are we just saying the West though? Oh, I mean, it's the central, the east, the north, the south, fair, all the different ones. Talk to them. North, south, all that pick a direction, a direction. Arizona's got you beat fan base wise. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. No, Michael was rocking. It did really feel like that played a part in the confidence for this team. I think that Arizona, they've been up and down. We all know it. We all know the story, but that to me, it speaks to to the ability of the teams to turn it around because Tommy Lloyd a week ago was talking about not splintering as a team. That's where they were at is like, how do we make sure that that they're not splintering as players and things like that? And so to have the crowd come out tonight and support them the way that they did. And for Arizona to give that crowd, the performance that they did is I think a huge, huge thumbs up for the, for not only the team, but for the fans and a huge sign because fans were getting restless. We were getting a little antsy. And so I think this was a huge night for not only the team, but for the fans as well. I mean, you talk about not splintering before that little Christmas vacation break that they had. I think, you know, clearly this, that break, did this team some, some good, I would say, because Caleb Love looked like a different player than what we've seen most of this season. They asked him in the post game, like, when did you know you were going to have this type of night? And what did he say Kevin? When I woke up this morning? Yeah. So you love to see that confidence from Caleb Love, you know, like we've talked about hasn't been a great season this far. A lot of, you know, good performances against teams that you don't really need it, him to have good performances against like, you know, the Samford. Yeah. The Samford's of the world. Shout out Noah. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out our guy, Noah Wohlberg who works here at PHNX on the PHNX Sun show. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just, it's, it's, it's everything you wanted to see, and hopefully that break did this team some good, especially from like a, just like a, you know, a pressure standpoint. Hey, guys, tone it down a little bit. We're fine. We just got to start putting, stacking some wins together because it's one game at a time right now. We've talked about it a little bit. What do they need to do in the big 12 in order to make the tournament given that they were only one win above 500 post conference play or non conference play. I think that this is a big step in that direction. Yeah. I totally agree. You were, you were talking about how big Caleb Love was tonight. I mean, do we want to, do we want to bestow our, our, yeah. I mean, I teased it before the break. I didn't really know who we should go with for this. It was a tough one in the game tonight. How could you pick? You know, yeah. And he was thinking about everybody, but I think we're about Emmanuel Steven. I don't know. Yeah. He has some good claps. 80 Oh Conrad, all the boys, but we're, we're going to get killed love player at the game. Kill love back the eight plus performance of the game. Caleb love 33.7 assists, seven rebounds, zero turnovers, as I already noted. Just doesn't get better than that. Unreal performance out of Caleb. This, this is exactly what you need from this guy. And man, when he's hitting, is it fun to watch? Yeah. I mean, this is the player that we all thought as fans, we were getting with Caleb Love, right? And so I feel like, I feel like if he, if he can harness this, I hate it, but I think I'm, I think I'm going to concede. I think I'm going to concede that as Caleb Love goes, the Arizona Wildcats goes. And I've been, I've been years now fighting against this, right? And I, I have disagreed. But I think it's, the rosters reached a point where they need his scoring. And I think that if he is not providing that scoring, there's just not someone to fill or take up the slack, pick up the slack, right? Like Jayden Bradley does his best to score. And he does a good job. But the top and top and potential wise, Damon, I think we both know Jayden Bradley's not dropping 33 in the big 12. No, he's not that type of score without due respect. He's just not the, yeah, the top end shot selection guy. And so I think that this team needs Caleb Love scoring in order to make it in the big 12, which I don't think I thought preseason. I think the, the thought, the predominant concept was that, hey, this, this roster is very well rounded. This roster has, you know, skills at all positions. And it's, it's, it hasn't played out that way on the court, right? There's been development at every position, as we're, you know, from Bryant to Vasear and then it's even to manual, Steven, I was joking before, but you know, I think I think as, as Arizona goes, Caleb Love goes and tonight was one of those games where Caleb Love looked awesome and the total team looked awesome too. So yeah, I mean, I, I think we're going to be fast forward, you know, into late March and Caleb Love is going to be basically winning and losing us games. Like we live and die with Caleb Love as long as he's on this team. And I think a lot of people are frustrated by that because he's such a hot and cold player at times. But in general, the reason that he's at where he's at is because he's typically having a good offensive performance. It was a bad start to the season. Don't get me wrong, but we just got to get, you know, five, six good caled games in a row in the late portions of the season. And you never know what the ceiling of this team is. Yeah, it's, it's, it's something to definitely monitor. Another thing that I've been monitoring. And I think that bears noting, we've been talking about a lot of positives, Kevin. I think we do have to get into a couple negatives from this game. We should. And that first one I'm going to get into to me at least is, is the three point defense. I, I, again, you have guys, you know, a guy in, in, in Reynolds just going ballistic, you know, seems like everything he's throwing up is going in from all angles. But, you know, I, it's, I think this, this is definitely a concern with Tommy Lloyd teams. It's, it seems like the, the other team's best scorer, we never seem to stifle them. It's always, you know, one guy putting up 30 points on us and the rest of the team, you know, is not really doing all that much, but we just can't seem to get a stop, you know, on that one player when we need to. Yeah, I feel, I feel similarly, I don't think it's as big. I don't think it's as big of a problem. The three point defense as a lot of other fans do. I think that's like a real big narrative with this team right now is that they just can't defend the three and that they just get torch from the three, which in part is true. I got like Tucker DeVries will come in and shoot the lights out against Arizona in that tournament. But well, let me, let me pull up the stats here real quick because sometimes it's just math, right? Like, and I'm not saying that this is the case in every game that we've complained about the three point defense, right? But sometimes regression to the mean is a real thing, like just coming back down to earth as a real thing in both directions to start the game. To the first media timeout, Arizona held TCU to two for eight shooting out for three from three, right? And then the third media timeout, TCU was one for eight from three. They just weren't shooting well. And so do you want, do we as fans want Tommy Lloyd to be selling out as a defense for a team that can't shoot, can't score? No, I don't want that, right? So I feel like, I feel like they finished the game. They finished the game nine for 23 shooting from three, right? Started one for eight. I think that sometimes the number is just kind of ebb and flow. And I think that's just how it works sometimes. So I don't have a huge issue with a three point defense. I think the issue that people have with it that isn't being identified, some people are identifying it. But I think three point defense adjustments are the key. You can't just defend the three uniform across the board against every team, right? Because it's going to work against a team like TCU that's not as strong shooting the ball, but then Tucker de Vries, who's a knockout shooter, he's going to knock down some three. So you're going to have to adjust to that on the fly, right? And so I think that that is kind of been a misidentified flaw of this team. They can defend. They really can defend. Yeah, I mean, we read it off. It's the adjustments. It's the adjustments. 21st and defense defensive rating before this game against TCU tonight. I'm looking, I'm just doing a quick scour here of some of the better teams that Arizona has played this season, what they shot from three against Arizona. Of course, Oklahoma was up over 40%. West Virginia was over 35%, Duke over 35%. The only really like strong competition, I would argue that that Arizona didn't held to a pretty good three point percentage defensively was UCLA who shot four of 21 from three. But I don't even really count that because name the last time Mick Cronin had a team that shot well from three. Like, I don't think that that really happens. So yeah, I mean, Arizona struggled against some of the better competition defending the three tonight, a little bit more of the same 39% as we talked about. But Kevin, you're saying you're not too concerned about that. No, and I just, I just Googled it. And now someone can fact check me if I'm wrong, you're probably going to have to do a lot of math to do this. But the national average three point percent for college basketball is around 34 and a half. You, you, you, I think you named one percent, uh, no, one game where they had over like 38 or 39 percent. Yeah. Over 39 TCU tonight, but Oklahoma was the only one over 40. Right. So, so I feel like in general, Arizona as a team defends the three point. Well, they defend. In Wisconsin, Wisconsin as well. Okay, fair. Okay. I feel by, I do feel like they defend well in general. And then in my experience watching it, I feel like it's one or one guy that gets hot. Yeah, the rest of the team shoots below average. And then what happens to the numbers? Y'all that makes it average. And so I feel like if, if a couple extra threes go in, yeah, they shoot up to 36 or 37 percent, but it's 36 and 37 percent much different than 34. I know I'm talking semantics now, but I, I'm just not that concerned. I don't think that's one of the biggest glaring issues with this team as we head into big 12 play. I just don't think so. Okay, there you have it. I mean, though that's the end all be all I think, right? Kevin Thomas says he's not concerned. So we're, we're chilling. We're putting the stamp on it, put the stamp on it, send it out into the mail, like Santa, just drop it down the chimney and open up the letter. Kevin's not worried about Arizona's three point defense. Oh, I can sleep good at night. So I'm, you know, you're welcome, folks. You're welcome. Interesting little score I got right here. Colorado only down three to Iowa state right now. Couldn't be something to monitor three minutes left in that one. Everybody in the chat, shout out you guys. We appreciate you guys dropping in. We're going to, I believe, get Eric a day in here to talk about the post game press conference, what Tommy Lloyd had to say, any players that spoke. But yeah, if you're in the chat, make sure you drop a like button, shout out OC bodybuilders. He's, he's been big supporter of us since we moved over Sean. My guy, like I talked about earlier. Yeah, I mean, it's going to be, it's going to be a little bit of a, of a adjustment here for me and Kevin, but we're going to, you know, we're going to get better and better every, every show. That's, that's a fact. And this is something that, you know, we really, you know, this is like a dream come true for us. Like this was, it was, I'll, I'll tell you this much, Kevin, when I was sitting there watching the game and I was like, man, I really, like, my job is to like sit here, watch Arizona sports and like get paid to talk about it. Like, it doesn't get any better than that. And that's not possible without you guys in the chat here. So it doesn't, and I just want to say this one quick thing while we were, while we were touching on it, I don't want to talk for too long on it. But I do want to say that, that in terms of post games and when all the, all the live shows, me and Damon's sole goal is to just give honest and formative and entertaining Wildcats coverage to anyone who wants to listen to it. We appreciate everyone in the chat, you know, and like Damon said, this is our dream, this is our dream gig, right? So Brandon came in and said this was his dream job. We got, we got a bad season, but we're telling you, I don't know. Listen, let me cook, let me cook. Let me cook. I'm saying, we're telling you, this is your, our dream job, and you're not going to have any doubts about none of that, right? Because we're actually going to be active on Twitter. We're actually going to engage the community. And you know, hopefully, hey, maybe some new recruits will like to come play for the listen to the program. You know, I don't know. We're already cooking with like Riley Wilson, Luke, why song, you know, like got your we got some throwins gave me a follow on Twitter. We got some connects for sure right now. I 100% couldn't have said it any better Kevin. But yeah, the, the Brent Brennan comparison, I mean, that's got a, that's got to open raise some eyebrows. No, if you're in this chat, you need a stark contrast. If the, or if the cream in the middle of the Oreo was gray or like a dark gray, you'd have no idea where the cream starts and the cookie begins. So you need the stark contrast. Hey, this guy took his dream job and had everyone scared for their lives. And he's, and then look at these two. Yeah, look at the passion, look at the energy, look at the flair. You know, I just, yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, hopefully we do a little bit better of a job than Brent Brennan, not for what I could try. But, you know, hey, you're too on the rise, number 18 recruiting class transfers, number three transfer class in the big 12. Maybe this is his dream job. Maybe it just delay your reaction. Brennan ball is back, baby. Oh, it never left, David. We wish it never left. We're going to, we're going to talk a little bit of football, I think, get into, you know, just just quick wrap up of this transfer class and more. Hopefully talk to Erica pretty soon here on the easy Wildcats podcast. Yes. Yes. Yes. Indeed. Y'all know what that means. The, the ad scene has arrived. All right. So we're talking branded bills, y'all. You see it above Damon's head on the little shelf right there, the beautiful block A, that's on a branded bills hat. All right. So feel free to browse their website and point out, you know, anything y'all want, if y'all want to go through their website and just screenshot some stuff on Twitter and just send it to us. Do it. They have awesome stuff. They have awesome stuff from all your different colleges, U of A. They even do some charity work with ASU. I'm not going to lie, you know, they did the deal with U of A, Damon. And then, you know, ASU was like, well, we can't just get left out and we wanted to leave them out, but they got some hats too. But elevating your brand with branded bills, the perfect head wearing apparel, whether you need snapbacks, truckers, fittings, beanies or tees, branded bills, had you covered with performance and style. Looking for some gear to make your brand stand apart from the crowd. We got you. Braided bills has covered with the best custom headwear. Start your order and their dedicated team will help you create the exact custom apparel you need. They have partnerships with all the schools. Like I just said, they're a local company from right here in Mesa, Arizona. And yeah, head to branded bills.com and use code PHNX for 20% off your first order. Yeah, Brandon Bill's most comfortable hat like I've ever worn in my entire life. We got we got some some care packages from our friends over at Brandon Bill's. Some of the best U of A hats you're going to find in the business out there. Black, white, navy, red, you name it, everything. Camo, Camo, state, state outline, Black Camo, Cactus logo. I mean, they got literally everything you could ask for. And speaking of another place that has everything you could ask for. How about circle K? Oh my God. The Mecca when it comes to, you know, goodies, snacks, gas, alcohol, cigarettes, energy drinks, anything you could possibly want. Our friends over at circle K, they got it for us. And of course, if you're not a member of the inner circle, you've lost your mind. You hate money. It's that no, genuinely you hate because I know if you're living in Arizona, not everyone lives in Arizona. They're okay. It's all worldwide. But if you're if you're in Arizona, there's circle K within a stone's throw of you within a you could pick up a rock, throw it in any direction. You're going to hit a circle. Good throw and skip that thing. Yeah, go like 15 feet. Okay. And when I hit it, but arrive at the party, don't actually throw a rock. But I just, you know, you're there's a circle next to you and the inner circle is so simple. You just give them your email, your phone number, you get three cents off per gallon. I signed up for it at the pump. It's yeah, you can do it at the pump. You put your phone number in, you go in, you pay for it there, you give them the phone number at the key at the kiosk when you check out. I mean, it's that simple. I'm a premium member. That means I get five cents off per gallon. No big deal. It's it's just it's it's the place you want to be. And of course, 25 cents off per gallon on your first five Phillips when you join the inner circle. That's right, guys, 25 cents per gallon on your first five Phillips and that adds up. Let me tell you circle K. It's just it doesn't get better than that. Inner circle premium rewards. Make sure you guys sign up now. Join up for the inner circle for free by downloading the circle K app today. Terms and conditions apply up participating locations. Visit circle K dot com for details. I'm about to hit circle K right after this show. My guess like I think it's about time to fill up my gas like came on. I genuinely been the plan. I'm gonna go get into circle K maybe get myself some chocolate covered almonds, maybe maybe a polar pop. You know how the vibes are at circle K. I mean, you can't you can't let your car get down to E like that. I mean, maybe you got like 25 miles or less like 30. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been notorious. Anyone that watches the PHNX Cardinals podcast. I told we've been doing several K ads obviously for a minute here at PHNX and in the summer, when I went to California twice, both times I went, I was bad. I was driving on E zero miles in the tank like nothing left in the middle of the of the desert Mojave desert like near Yuma. Just praying, praying. I made it to Yuma in time. Definitely taking some risks, but then like a, like a, I'm getting secondhand anxiety just listening to this story like an oasis in the desert water coming down from a waterfall like palm tree. You know, I just you just see there it is circle K. If it isn't circle K, it's, I mean, it's just it's the best. June had some charcoal covered almonds today. It's a good snack. It's the best. We got some of course in the studio here. Our guy, Max Simpson hooked us up and Tony, you're damn right. Time for Erica to put down that neutral. Yeah. Or time or time for the team to put down the neutrals like, are they? Can I believe that Erica is waiting for the post game availability to wrap up. And so maybe the team, you know, was just really breaking it down in the locker room or something. I don't know. But, uh, David, what was your biggest takeaway as we enter specifically framing it in the sense of entering conference play? What was your biggest takeaway from watching Arizona play a big 12 team at home tonight? I thought that, you know, you absolutely needed this victory. We talked about it where this was kind of a must-win game. Uh, TCU, not one of the stronger teams in this conference, and you got to start stacking wins in the conference in the hardest conference in the country and basketball. Uh, you got to stack wins and tonight was just a step in the right direction because as we've seen thus far this season, they have not been able to win any close game as they were up 10 in this game. They kept going back up 10, back up five, back up 11, back up three, like there was, there was a game of runs back and forth a little bit, right? Yeah, I tweeted that out. Yeah. Every time that TCU went on a quick 708o run, Arizona found a way to answer. And that was really encouraging because in these other games, you haven't seen that. You haven't seen when you need a stop them get a stop, right? Like West Virginia, that game in particular, your Oklahoma is the same way. Every time that you're like, they get a stop here. They get a bucket on the other end. This is anyone's game. They'd give up a bucket every single time. Uh, I think tonight you got some of the stops when you needed them, but mostly you hit shots when you needed them, right? Like you hit, you hit the shots to, to spell those, those, those little quick runs. And I think that that was everything. Today was the first I've seen of Arizona playing a game where, where they, a winning basketball game. I totally agree. And I think you spoke about the runs. I want to talk about the runs for a second because, uh, I tweeted it, uh, I think halfway about almost at the end of the first half. I said basketball is a game of runs. And this game is a exemplary, uh, usage of that phrase, because I think in the first half there were, I didn't count how many, but there must have been like five, four or five runs between the two teams. Uh, it seemed like Arizona would go on like an 11 to two run. And then, uh, TCU would follow it up with a seven to nothing run followed by an Arizona 13 to two run, uh, to get them back on top of it. But I think the key with these runs, and we talked about this while we were watching the game, Damon, the shot selection to stop the runs. I think, uh, we keep coming back to it, but Arizona can, can get locked into certain shots that aren't smart, quite frankly, at times, contested threes, uh, just early shot clock threes, keep the ball moving. Look for a simple shot to end the run, stop the bleeding. We saw one run, a 13 to two run followed by, I forget who shot it. I believe it was ADO, correct me if I'm wrong, but it was an early shot clock three miss TCU comes down, I believe bucket, right? There was another run in the game, however, where, uh, TCU goes on a run. And then what's, what follows it up, though, a J and Bradley mid range jump shot. Yep. That was a big shot range jump shot kills the run, kills TCU's momentum. Arizona is able to get back to dictating the pace. So I think, I think it comes down to mid game adjustments, knowing the team you're playing and, and being able to stop what they do best when they're actually getting it going. Yeah. We were talking about Arizona being a 15 point favorite somehow in this game pregame. But I think that, you know, if, if they were able to, to clean up actually some of the small errors, they actually cover in this game for those that care about that kind of thing. But not me. Yeah, certainly, certainly never me. I don't gamble. But yeah, I mean, to me, it was just like, I'll go back to it. Those timely buckets. Yes. I don't think we've seen, I haven't seen a timely bucket all season. I haven't. It's it. It was, we talked about the other day. The one was the Caleb love three against, um, was Oklahoma West Virginia in that tournament. Yeah. But then, and then we ended up losing the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like this was the first time where we were hitting a couple timely buckets in succession of one another when you needed them. And that was encouraging to see they showed that they could actually like put together a conducive basketball game tonight, which is massive for, for this team and massive going forward for what we need to see in big 12 play because like we talked about a little bit like Cincinnati is not a slouch. I mean, they lost tonight to Kansas state. I think Kansas state was considered to be one of the lower teams maybe in the conference coming into the season. I don't think that they were, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong there, Kevin. I don't believe Kansas state was, was expected to be, you know, one of the better teams in the conference. Always, always well coached, but I don't think that they were one of the highlights if you're talking, if your, if your buddy was like, Hey, who do I need to know about in the big 12? It's probably going to take a while for you to Kansas state, right? And so I think that's more so your point. Yeah. I mean, they're, they were picked to finish eighth behind Texas Tech in front of BYU this year. So decent teams, TCU was 10th. You know, I obviously without a couple other players tonight, but should Arizona fans have been, have been Cincinnati fans tonight and hear me out, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out, hear me out because now you're going on the road to Cincinnati. They're coming off an L to a team that they had no business losing to probably, right? Well, it's the big 12. I mean, this is the big 12 is like the, the, the like in perfect encapsulation of like any given Sunday, right? It's like how you feel if you're Cincinnati, though, like, I mean, you want to win that game, but, but my point is, well, this, right? Now you're getting an extra motivated Cincinnati and does that scare you at all? That's all I was saying. Yeah. I mean, I definitely, I understand what you're saying. There's definitely that vibe of like, well, if they're coming off a loss, and that means you're going to get their best shot in the next game. But to be honest with you, I put more stock in Arizona winning tonight than I do in Cincinnati losing. I do agree with that. Like, I feel, I feel better about RW and finally seeing just a couple big shots go through the net. Caleb Love, you know, getting, getting some momentum built. Like, I think that that's the most important thing out of, out of those, the big 12 games that happen tonight. I totally agree. And when I was talking about, well, you were talking about your biggest takeaway. I think my biggest takeaway, obviously outside of Caleb Love, that was the big headline of everything we talked about him at nauseum, right? But my biggest thing was Arizona's defense bent, but didn't break. Like we were talking about these runs. The Arizona defense was bending, but they'd never let TCU take back control of the game. I think that was the biggest thing for me. Entering this conference, that's rough. It's tough. It's big. It's physical. I wanted to know, could Arizona hang with these teams? I didn't, I didn't necessarily have huge doubts, right? But I think that you want to see it. And I think seeing it tonight, seeing the active hands with the physicality and the speed and transition, TCU was unable to slow Arizona down for any long period of time. I think that is a huge, huge benefit when we're, when we're talking about getting into conference play here. Yeah, there's a question about that. It was a big win, big win tonight. We're about to win here in a second when we get Eric a day on the show to talk about what Tommy Lloyd had to say, what the players had to say. So we'll get here in here in a second. If you're not like, if you're not subscribed to this channel already, what are you doing? If you're not here, if you're not liking this video already, what are you doing? I mean, me and Kevin, it takes one little click. Me and Kevin, it's, it's the difference between whether or not we sleep good at night. You guys, it's in your control about that. If we don't get 50 likes, I might not eat dinner. Yeah. Yeah. And that it's, it's unfortunate to move for dinner. If I don't get 50 likes, it's unfortunate, but that's just the sad reality of how things work. Like this video, subscribe to this channel. And of course, we'll talk about the post game availability, what Tommy Lloyd had to say and more right after this break. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Eric a day has almost arrived. And you all know what time that is. Oh, yes, indeed. It is neutral time. It is neutral time. This is a PSA for all of our hard seltzer lovers. Neutral is back and is never left. And it is always great. It tastes awesome. I love a good neutral. They do have them at McHale. I'm pretty sure I've enjoyed some neutrals before an Arizona basketball game, for sure. But yeah, it tastes really good. It's so good that you'll never want to drink another one of those artificially flavored seltzer ever again. Those things are nasty. Throw them away, get you a neutral, right? Neutrals can be light and refreshing and show you what a vodka seltzer can really be. They have a variety of flavors, including pineapple, watermelon, black cherry, orange, and more. And nothing goes better than college basketball tonight and a neutral damn it. I might just stop by a circle K and give me a neutral on the way home. Well, they have them. I might just do that. I might just have to do that. What's your flavor? Oh, I think honestly, the pineapple probably. Probably the pineapple. Got. Yeah. I mean, I, when I do partake in the alcohol that isn't neutral, it is usually tequila pineapple. So I think I just kind of came with that pineapple pineapple train and go ahead with that. But anyway, neutral, keep it tasty Tucson. Enjoy responsibly 2024 and has a brush neutral flavored vodka and carbonation St. Louis, Missouri. Shout out to the 314. Are you from St. Louis? Yes. You learn something new every day. Yeah, you do. Here's something that's that shouldn't be new to you. Heila River resorts and casinos. It's the number one casino in the state of Arizona. They have all of their beautiful locations, of course, but my favorite, the wild horse pass. Right there in Chandler, close to Tucson, I will say like there is there is a very easy avenue for you to get up to wild horse pass. If you're in Tucson, like, I'll tell you what, Kevin, I did the cardinal show on Sunday at Heila or on Saturday, I should say was packing up my things, leaving some guy was like, what are you doing? Like a DJ set in there? I had all my podcast equipment. I said, no, we do kind of a podcast for the Cardinals, but we got one for every beat, you know, in town. And he goes, what about U of A? That was his question. And I said, well, God damn, sir, if this I'll tell you what, I happened to host the U of A show. And that's just the type of good people you find at Heila resource casinos. I mean, some good, honest Wildcats. The people are nice. The place is clean. It's cleaner than any Vegas casino. That's a fact. It smells good. You got, of course, all the beautiful restaurants in there. A shoe was steakhouse for a nice steak dinner. You got fat burger. 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They're famous VIP stadium parking tonight. Stay at Heila River resorts and casinos Viva and more enter for free at play@heila.com/cardinals. You do you at Heila River resorts and casinos visit play@heila.com for more details. All right. I think we're going to bring Erica in here if we have her ready to go. We do have Erica. One quick second. We're going to get Erica ready to go here in a second. Absolutely. But yeah, so but yeah, so Erica's pretty much going to come in and chat with us for the most part about and take her takeaways from the media availability and all that good. Yeah. All that good jazz right there. But Damon, what do you kind of want to hear from Tommy and I mean, I just Caleb was I think who we have as well. Okay, good. I wanted to hear from Caleb love. That was that was kind of the that's the big one, right? Like everyone wants to see what Caleb has to say after the game. And and yeah, I think I want to hear Caleb just that confidence exude from Caleb, right? Like that like the confidence he showed after the pregame where you're looking at him and you're you're sitting there and you're going, this guy just he exudes confidence. He's making shots. He's kind of a microwave scorer. Like this is this was a big performance from Caleb Love tonight. And and yeah, it's just that's that's the type of stuff you want to hear from Tommy. I want to hear. I don't know. I I guess I'll I'll I'll I'll leave it up to Erica, but I don't really know what I want to hear from Tommy actually tonight. Let's bring her in here, Kevin. Let's go ahead and let's go ahead and do this real quick here. What's up, Erica and here. Yeah, what's up, Erica? Thanks for waiting. Long time no see. Um, first of all, I do have some breaking news and I guess I want you to tell me now if you want me to lead with the bad news or if you want to talk about some Caleb Love clip real quick. Well, it looks like we lost Damon here for a second. I don't know what I don't know what went down there, but we're going to bring Erica back in. Me and Erica will chat here for a second while we figure out where Damon went off to. Yeah, let's just let's just get Erica in here really, really quickly. Hello. Hello, Miss Day. There you are. Let me move my camera down for you. Yes. Perfect. Perfect. See, this is elite podcasting right here. This is how you do it, but we're going to get those clips for you in a second Erica. But yeah, well, so first of all, what were your biggest takeaways from tonight in general? What were you thinking about the cats? Me and Damon obviously already talked a lot about it, but what were your thoughts? Well, first of all, I want to I'm sure you guys have given him a huge shout, but Caleb Love just has scored the most games he scored through three points or three games in his entire career. I think that just kind of speaks to the level of what she's playing right now. He's playing out of his freaking mind. He's really turned it on for conference play. And I mean, I was just in the press conference yesterday with Tommy and Tommy was talking about how super excited he was for the big 12 and how hyped up this team was. And I'll be honest, it was a kind of a, I'll believe it when I see it. I'm like, we were hyped to play Duke. We were hyped to play West Virginia. Like, cool. Like, let's, you know, close a close out of close game. And I think we saw the hype on the team on the floor tonight from beginning to end. And you know, I was talking with our good friend, Sal Bookman before the game. And I told him the thing I was looking for the most today, well, regardless of win or loss, which obviously I think we all wanted to win. But it was a complete game beginning to end from Arizona. And I think that above all, else, we got that today. Obviously, at the beginning of the second half, I think there was a few slip ups on the defense. But really, like, we got a complete performance out of this team today. And they were able to pull out a close one, which I think, again, wouldn't have happened a week and a half ago. You know, I totally, I totally agree with that. I kind of touched on that with Damon earlier. I think that this is the first game that Arizona kind of put all of the tools together in the toolbox, right? You know, the defense was there. The transition offense was there. The half court offense was there. The shooting was there to an extent as well, thanks to Caleb Love and company. But before we get to these clips, what were some of the overarching themes? Maybe some things we're not going to see in these clips that you might want to bring up as well? Well, first of all, Tommy gave a huge shout out to his staff, giving him like the utmost belief and confidence in this school and just giving him a home. And I think that it really speaks to the team culture. And Kevin, you and I have privately shouted a lot about how the vibes on this team don't exactly seem perfect early on. And it was kind of a situation where was this person seems a little irritated. This person seems a little irritated. They're all probably frustrated to be losing. But I think when you establish the culture from the top down, and that's exactly what's been done here, you're set up for ultimate success. And so I think we're seeing that culture start to really, really be built up on this particular team. And I think that's super important in such a tough conference. You know, you know, I totally agree with everything you said in that in that bit. And I think that going into conference play, you want a performance like this, right? You need a performance like this. You need a guy like Damon Dog to be a part of the performance, right? You can't have a little friends without Damon Dog. Where you go? Did I scare you off that bad dude? Yeah, I honestly chat. I'm just not the biggest Erica fan. So we brought her on and I was like, I was like, Kevin, take me off screen. Get me out of here, please. No, Erica. I actually, I wanted to know, I mean, we obviously saw it on television. And it's not exactly a secret. Like Michael Center is a madhouse at times. What was the crowd like tonight? Like how, how nuts were the fans? Well, I was a little nervous because there's no students here. So, frankly, I was just nervous. No, no one would be sitting there. And the school did a good job, sold those tickets instead of just leaving it as a wide open student section. So luckily, it was a pretty packed house. And I will give them this. It was electric from tip till the end of the game. The fans were super engaged. And I find that's really difficult to upkeep without students in the building. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I, I have been to those, those games there with, you know, over the, when there is fans, when there isn't fans over Christmas break, like, it is definitely a big energy shift. And, you know, of course, our fans, while they're great, they do skew a little bit in the age range sometimes, especially in that lower bowl. So, you know, it can't be a little bit of a concern, but glad to hear that it was pretty electric in there. Was there, what, like, what, what did you take away from like Henry V. Sartre tonight? Like, he, I mean, he looked like probably the best he's ever looked in an Arizona uniform. I just think that he get, he's giving you something right now that you absolutely need with Kree Voss out. And what can you say about the way he's played? Well, two things. First of all, Tommy did tell us tonight that Mo is probably not returning for the entire season. He's probably done. He didn't clarify whether he was having surgery or not. He says he doesn't really know at this point. You've been so locked in on TCU. Can't say I blame him. That said, I think, um, my goodness, uh, Jess, Vassar did a great job today. And it's definitely the best we've seen of him. That said, Tommy talked about this in the postgame presser. Henry has been lacking in game confidence. He's shooting lights out in practice, shooting lights out and shoot around. But then when it comes time to play under the big lights, Henry really struggles. And today we saw Henry not struggle. And obviously, like, we don't want him to take the amount of threes he took versus UCLA in that second half. But that said, if his shots falling and he's wide open, why is he not shooting it? So it's really important for him to have shots go in on games like tonight where it's winnable and he it's he's wide open and he makes it and he gets that in game confidence that Tommy was talking about up to a point that he can upkeep for the rest of the season. For sure. Um, looks like here we have some clips ready to go, Kevin. So let's go ahead and hear from Tommy Leid on tonight's one. And, and, uh, you know, I thought he he played great today. You know, I thought he did. You know, I thought started the second half defensively. I think he went for a while to steal and things like that. We'll talk about that. But, but all in all, I mean, I think, you know, he showed that, you know, he's one of the best players in the country. But to be one of the best players in the country, you got to do it on a night in a night out basis. And hopefully that's what we're training towards. I believe that's regarding Caleb Love, right, Erica? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just, you know, nothing crazy out of Tommy there, but that's just exactly what you need. Caleb love to be. And that's one of the best players in the country. He was in all American last year for a reason. We brought him back on a, you know, I'm assuming a pretty hefty NIL package to carry this team. And you need that type of performance from Caleb Love against the big 12 teams and some of the better teams on this schedule that you have. So just great to see him back performing the way he did tonight. And let's hear actually from Caleb regarding tonight's win. We wasn't worried. You know, we were tight in our homes and, you know, kind of the message was, you know, stay poised, stay together. And we got to be the most connected team in these last, you know, I think it was last eight minutes when we said that. And, you know, that's exactly what we did. We was the most connected team we played together. Like I said, although we was taking punches, we were throwing ours too. And like I said, we just stayed poised. And I think that's the key to, you know, us winning the games. And especially tight games in a big, big 12 where it's going to be, you know, tough and, you know, cause might not go our way. We just got to stay together. We got to stay poised. Hey, Kevin, you got to mute your mics. Would you play those clips? My guy? No, I mean, we argued it. You can hear me. We can hear each other on there. Yeah. Yeah. What? Because you're behind this. This is great. Welcome to the club. I'm so excited. I was like, guys, your mics, like they can literally hear you. Yeah. And for, for reference chat, I was literally just saying the St. Louis is just oozing out of Caleb Love, like, who is St. Louis? And he, and you could hear it when he said, he said, it's some great. We wasn't worried her. You know, we wasn't worried. Lewis, it's, it's not a lot of getting hot in her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I like the way you do that right there. Anyway. But yeah, I think we, Tommy talked about it. Caleb kind of touched on it as well. I think the biggest takeaway I have from these clips I don't know about you guys is just the, they're preaching consistency. They're preaching. If we do the correct things day in day out, can complete the small tasks every day, it will result in a big victory. And I think, I think that's the, that's the biggest key. We have, we've seen an inconsistent Arizona team across the board this year, I guess outside of Jayden Bradley. But I think finding consistency, especially entering conference play is going to be, it's going to be paramount for this team. Yeah, absolutely. Just a massive, massive performance. Did Henry have anything interesting to say at all, Erica? He looked zoned out. He talked. Yeah, he honestly was kind of zoned out. So he did just talk about his in-game confidence and how important it was for him to hit that shot late in the game today. I mean, it was really important for him. I think, again, like, I watched him pre-season in practice and camp and dude is such a shooter. Like, I know you guys probably don't believe us down in Tucson, but like, I see it with my own two eyes. The dude could just lay in bucket after bucket, after bucket, after bucket. And we haven't gotten an opportunity to see it, but I really think that Henry base our game is headed our way quickly. You know, to Erica's point, I feel like if you're Tommy Lloyd, you're not letting him shoot four threes against UCLA if you're not seeing it every day. And I think sometimes shots just don't carry over into the game like they do in practice. But I think he's a guy that has never been put in a role like this ever. And so I think with a lot of players in this team, it's about finding, like whether it's Carter Bryant, whether it's Emmanuel Steven, whether it's Henry Vassar, finding their stride and finding ways they can impact winning that isn't just the ways that they know they can impact winning. Like Henry, Henry Vassar knows he can shoot because he's the one shooting in practice every day. But if the shots not translating into the game that night, how can you impact winning? And so like, that's kind of what he was talking about, right? Finding confidence in his game to know that he's doing the right things out there. Yeah. And I think especially like with Henry, I mean, he was, he was a pretty like highly touted prospect when he came over from Europe. Like people had a lot of high expectations for a Henry Vassar. And yeah, he's been pretty underwhelming this far. I mean, red shirting last year, like in his sophomore season, you know, not exactly what you'd expect, but we're finally seeing those flashes. Like it wasn't, he wasn't just that high of a, you know, touted recruit for nothing. It wasn't because he was, he wasn't good at basketball. Like, now we're finally seeing him starting to put that together a little bit. He looks bigger for sure. He's, he, I think he, he seems to be playing pretty physical defense, you know, physical rebounding. Like it's, it's all the pieces you want to see when a big man starts putting it together. And to be fair to, to these guys, like I think you do need a little bit more development, especially for big men, especially for European big men when they come over and they, you know, into the American game. Like it takes a little bit of time. And we're finally seeing Henry start to put it to fruition a little bit. Not only that, but he was expecting to play a totally different role, just like two and a half weeks ago, not even like preseason, like two and a half weeks ago, he's thinking, okay, I'm like, first big off the bench. I, I do this. I do that. Now it's a totally different started the game for him. Yeah. And that's actually was going to be my, my exact point. And if you guys have listened to Tommy talk about Caleb during a shooting spell, he uses that exact same tone when he talks about Henry. You can tell that Tommy's buy in on Henry is second to literally nobody. He really believes in Henry. And he, I believe that this coaching staff believes that Henry is a big 12th player of the year type player. And I believe we will see him continue to grow into that this year. I think it's really difficult to be a big in Tommy Lloyd system. They said it literally in the press conference tonight, he expects a lot out of you. And like you said, Kevin, Henry was not expecting to play this big of a role this quickly. And so for Henry to find this confidence this early on, this early in big 12 play, I think is huge for this team and could end up really, really putting them over in some close games later in the season. Yeah. And Damon spoke to his physicality. That was one of the easiest things to take away from tonight is how physical and in for lack of a better word, aggressive inside he was, he wasn't going to let anyone move him around down there. And he wasn't bringing the ball down constantly. You know, I, I, a lot of growth from from Henry Vase are. And then you love to see that. You need to see that. I want to highlight this comment here from Meisner. He says he's far stronger than he was freshman year. There were some bumps in the, in his game that would have sent him flying into the stands two years ago. And 100% true. Like he's definitely put on some weight. He doesn't look as like stringy as he used to be because he's always kind of had, I think his shoulders are pretty wide. Like he's got a good frame to him, but he was, he's just very like, he was wiry almost, you know, when he was first on campus. And now he looks like just a little bit more of like a grown man, which is exactly what you need to see from, you know, got big men there. It's, it's, it's expected when they stay in the program for a few years there. Anything else to anyone? Like any final thoughts from everybody on the game tonight? I mean, we've pretty much said it all, but you know, big win for the cats. First big 12 win in program history. First power for win on the season. Just final thoughts, Erica. The one thing that I want to kind of give myself a little dirt on here is that I think Anthony Doloreso is far less of a defensive liability. And I have been calling him one of those all season and truthfully, up to this point, I think you could argue that he was one. But I think tonight he displayed that he wasn't. And I think again, like just the guard, the depth on this team is so important. And when you had to have an injury like Mo as early as they did, it's going to be really important to have the depth that they do. Kevin? Yeah, I think, I mean, first of all, to speak to Erica's point, having depth is huge considering preseason. We were looking at this team like, whoa, is this the deepest team in the conference? What they have? They have guys off the bench that can look at ADO. He's coming off the bench. Like, and I think like now that we've seen the team play, I think it's like, okay, let's pump the brakes a little bit. If we if we can actually manifest some of this, this depth, that will go a long way. Yeah, I kind of I kind of agree with what Erica said there. I just I'm excited to see Arizona continue to play real teams. I think that you know, we learn nothing from from playing. I'm sure that they do. But we as fans learn nothing from them playing Samford in central Michigan, because you can't. I'm good on. And so it's just we need we need the real games. I'm ready for the real games. I think the most important thing, I think Arizona is ready for the real games. And so that's that's the key. Yeah, Tommy teams, I mean, they don't really struggle against the weaker competition like that. They know how to out physical them and just put it down to the post and the big men to just eat it up. But yeah, we've we've struggled in some of these bigger games. I guess this season not really hasn't really been a habit under Tommy teams, but like we've typically played pretty well in non-conference, but this year has been a real like turn on its head type of seasons thus far. I think for me that the biggest thing I saw tonight was just like this was the what I envisioned when I envisioned a positive version of this team this year. The roles everyone's playing, you know, Caleb's the leading scorer, like I don't expect 33 every night, obviously, but like, I think some version of like getting getting 40 combined out of Jaden and Caleb, I think is kind of the sweet spot, right? Like 35 40, I think is kind of where you need them to be at. You got that tonight, you got 43 points, I believe combined out of them. That's a good math. That's some good math. Yeah, quick maths. And then like you got what you needed to see out of like Carter Bryant tonight, right? Like a guy like Carter, he's he's been up and down. He's shown freshman moments, but he just looked good tonight. He looked like a player that needs to play a lot for this team, you know, V-SAR rounding out his role. Like this is this is the the team I envisioned this season. And I feel like we watched that tonight for maybe the first time all season. And real quick, Damon, again, to add to your point, because you guys are both made some beautiful points. I think like we were talking about after the first couple of games as fans, like, okay, can Tommy Lloyd figure this out? Like I know he can because he's one of the best coaches on the planet earth at college basketball, right? But there were fans doubting Tommy Lloyd. Definitely. And I think that not every team is going to start where they end in March. No team ever does, right? And so if you're looking at Carter Bryant, if you were calling for Carter Bryant to get more minutes, game one, I'm sorry, you were wrong. But if you're calling for this Carter Bryant from now from December, almost January, yes, he deserves more minutes. So I think that this is on the players and this is on Tommy Lloyd to continue the adjustments, continue maximizing talent, continue developing. And so I think that we're going to continue to see change over time with this team. And so far, we've seen positive changes with this team. And so I'm excited to continue to see positive changes, positive development with this team. Absolutely. I think that we pretty much said all we could on this game and shout out Erica Day for joining the program here. Erica is going to be helping us out with a lot of, you know, Tucson media availability coverage and whatnot, give or takeaways. Erica, you crushed it tonight. We we very much appreciate you. Thanks for letting me cross your show. Congrats. It's been, it's been fun and it's going to continue to be even more fun. So watch out, everybody. Go home, crack a neutral Erica. I'm headed there. See y'all. Yeah. Go naturally. Bye guys. Peace. So yeah, well, that was a big win tonight for Tommy Lloyd, Caleb Love, and there's a wildcats 90 to 81. This, of course, is the AZ Wildcats podcast. I'm your host, Damon Dogg. That is D A W G. Follow me on Twitter. Make sure you follow my boy Kevin at Kevo posts. Yes, sir. Follow Erica at Erica Lee Day. And that's L E A no H. No H as we discussed on, I believe Thursday. I added a very unnecessary H there. And and yeah, that's that's that's all we got for you guys. Make sure you guys follow the beat account at PHN X Wildcats. And we got all sorts of good memes going on over there. My boy Kevin is cooking on that account. Yeah, we're going to get some cooking with some good memes. Y'all are going to have some good laughs and good times watching basketball. This is going to be the spot for any Arizona athletics type of, you know, whatever's going on on social media, whatever people are talking about. That's where our hub is going to be at PHN X underscore Wildcats. Make sure you subscribe to the channel like this video. If you haven't already, like I said, it's going to be the difference between Kevin eating tonight and me sleeping tonight. It's that big of a deal. Kevin, anything else before we get out of here, bark, bark, Damon, because the dogs in the chat want some acknowledgement. You're puppies and your dog. You know, it's not really my thing. Like, I don't really outro it. But like if Kevin, if you want, if you want to do that, that's, that's chill. That's good with me. Yeah, yeah, you know, for sure, for sure, for sure. Thank you guys for watching this episode. Shout out to everybody in the chat. Like Damon said, leave a like, subscribe, follow us on our socials. And most importantly, if you're a one of Damon dogs, leave a bark bark in the chat. Let us hear y'all. We got to know where the dogs are at. Stick around for the broadcast to finish and then type in bark bark in the comments because the comments, I mean, they'll put it on to people's feeds, the algorithm and whatnot. Yes, yes, yes. We love that. That is that is all we got from for today. Thank y'all for joining us on this various special, our first post game together doing this. So yeah, absolutely. It was the inaugural post game show. Yes. There's gonna be many more every time that there's a basketball game. You can expect to hear from us, you know, 10 minutes after the game or so. And yeah, that's going to do it. We're going to be live tomorrow at noon on a Tuesday. You're listening to the easy Wildcats podcast. America's oldest college football all-star game runs through the Lone Star State. Be a part of history in the making at the 100th East West Shrine Bowl. Thursday, January 30th, 2025 at AT&T Stadium. Visit shrinebowl.com for a chance to see the nation's top college football players ahead of the NFL draft. 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Become a PHNX Diehard for just $4 a month! http://gophnx.com/intro-offer-youtube Caleb Love and the Arizona Wildcats dominate the TCU Horned Frogs in McKale Center to net Tommy Lloyd and his team their first Big 12 win in program history. The win puts Arizona in second place in the conference. Can Arizona go on the road and beat the #16 Cincinnati Bearcats for their fourth win in a row? Caleb Love keep up this level of play? Do the Cats have a chance to win the Big 12 Conference? An ALLCITY Network Production SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/phnx_youtube ALL THINGS PHNX: http://linktr.ee/phnxsports MERCH https://store.allcitynetwork.com/collections/phnx-locker ALLCITY Network, Inc. aka PHNX and PHNX Sports is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by the City of Phoenix PHNX Events: Get your tickets to PHNX events and takeovers here: https://gophnx.com/events/ bet365: https://www.bet365.com/olp/open-account?affiliate=365_03330244 Use the code PHNX365 to sign up, deposit $10 and choose your offer! Disclaimer: Must be 21+ and physically located in AZ. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-NEXT-STEP, text NEXTSTEP to 53342 or visit https://problemgambling.az.gov/ Empire Today: Schedule a free in-home estimate today! All listeners can receive a $350 OFF discount when they use the promo code PHNX. Restrictions apply. See https://empiretoday.com/phnx for details. Gametime: Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code PHNX for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Circle K: Join Inner Circle for free by downloading the Circle K app today! Head to https://www.circlek.com/store-locator to find Circle Ks near you! Branded Bills: Use code PHNX at https://www.brandedbills.com/ for 20% off your first order! Check out FOCO merch and collectibles and use promo code “PHNX10” for 10% off your order on all non Pre Order items. Rugged Road: Gear up for your next adventure with Rugged Road Coolers - Your ultimate outdoor companion! Head to http://ruggedroadoutdoors.pxf.io/ALLCITY and use code PHNX for 10% off! When you shop through links in the description, we may earn affiliate commissions. Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.