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Houston's "Secret Scrimmage" & Exhibition Game + Our First 2 Guests!
108 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to Ep 4 of the No Conference for Old Men Podcast! The only all-year round college basketball podcast focused on the Houston Cougars & Big 12 Conference.
We're finally beyond practice & playing someone other than ourselves, what should we be looking for before the games that count begin? Also, we have 2 guests: Houston Cougars fan Bill Walker joins to chat as we prepare to enter the 2023-24 season, & then we hear from Arizona fan Hayden Adkins to gain some insight into what to expect from our future conference mate ahead of next season.
- No Conference for Old Men is available for free via Spotify / Apple Podcasts / Pandora.
- Intro/Exit music: Ground Zero provided by FreeBeats.io
- Please follow us on Twitter/X @NoConfForOldMen https://twitter.com/NoConfForOldMen
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Transcript
Introduction to No Conference for Old Men
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome, folks, to the fourth episode of No Conference for Old Men, the podcast where a couple of old guys are talking college basketball, primarily on the Houston Cookers and the Big 12, but with a bit of national big-game coverage sprinkled in as well. We're now finally into some games, sort of, with schools starting to play their top-secret scrimmages and exhibition games this week.
00:00:26
Speaker
And today, we're going to have a more unstructured agenda, talking a bit about these preseason games. And to help us along, we're going to possibly have two guests today to provide their perspectives. First off, we'll have a friend of the show and frequent Houston Cougars hoops game companion of mine, Bill Walker, share how he sees the season ahead, highlighting how we match up with some key non-conference opponents in the early season, and how he agrees or disagrees with our predictions for the season.
00:00:55
Speaker
And then our second guest will be a friend of Tom and an Arizona super fan, Hayden Adkins, who will provide a fans perspective into our future conference rate Arizona heading into the season.
Meet the Hosts: Steve and Tom, Cougar Fans
00:01:07
Speaker
I'm Steve Chang, your co-host for this podcast, Houston grad of 82 and the big data analytics geek of the show and Tom.
00:01:15
Speaker
My name is Tom Lidiak. Like Steve, I'm a fellow U of H alum, also a huge Houston Cougar basketball fan. I'm also a big fan of Kelvin Sampson. I do a little coaching, a retired teacher. All right.
Houston's Secret Scrimmage Insights
00:01:29
Speaker
So let's get right into it. We had our first secret scrimmage with Ole Miss. That was all over Twitter. And the first report we got from the game was from Ryan Munso of Goku's.com that stated that
00:01:43
Speaker
UH shot the ball well at Oxford, but struggled to get stops. Beards transfer from Auburn. Flanagan scored around 30 points. UH didn't play great, and Ole Miss will be better than people think.
00:01:56
Speaker
Ryan then added that Damien Dunn was a bit nicked up, didn't play. We also knew that Malik Wilson didn't play since he had broken his hand. Then we found out from Joseph Duarte that the score was actually 70 to 66 for our Cougs. And then additional info leaked out from Trillie Donovan that Musa Sisay of Ole Miss didn't play either. What do you think, Tom? Anything to take away from the scrimmage at all?
00:02:21
Speaker
Steve, it's kind of hard when you, you know, you're just, we're just getting here. Say, uh, you know, the game wasn't, the scrimmage wasn't televised, obviously. So we're just getting like, you know, bits and pieces. I find it funny that somebody said we shot well, but we didn't defend. Well, it's usually the opposite. Yeah. Well, and rebound. Well, and we, and you know, we shoot a bunch of bricks, but it is 22 with, with someone from the program programs actually claiming that
00:02:51
Speaker
You know, we didn't defend well yet. We held them to 66 points. That's pretty fricking good, right? From a defensive perspective.
Analyzing Coaching and Team Evolution
00:02:58
Speaker
So yeah. Yeah, correct. Uh, also it'll give a coach Sampson a lot of ammunition at the next couple of practices. Uh, if, if it's correct that we didn't defend the greatest, you know, hopefully it's not a year long thing.
00:03:11
Speaker
But it brings me back to, I think it was our lead eight year, our first game of the season, first real game of the season. We played Hofstra. They didn't end up making the tournament, but we had to go to overtime against them. We were playing at home and we, you know, Taji Moore had to hit a three at the buzzer to get us into overtime. And, you know, that's the team that eventually made it to the elite eight. So I was doing some, I was doing some thinking the other day.
00:03:55
Speaker
A scrimmage right now, yeah, I'm sure all the coaches wanted us to play well and all that. But it's more, OK, what do we need to work on? Because up until now, all we've been doing is playing each other at practice, where we know what the offense does, we know what the defense does. So I'm sure it's good for the coaches and the players to see somebody else to go up against.
00:03:57
Speaker
on a walk and
00:04:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. It's really, I mean, it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. It's about continuous improvement throughout the season. And that's been a hallmark of Kelvin Sampson's Cougars teams, right? I don't know if you'd heard the interview, I think it was a few weeks ago.
00:04:37
Speaker
where he was looking back at this past season's team and how young it was and how it wasn't very mature and where his previous few teams kept improving all the way through March.
00:04:52
Speaker
And he felt like this one, because of perhaps that lack of maturity, didn't continue to progress, maybe at the clip that he had expected. And so it was kind of a learning experience as well, I'd say for everyone, right? It's a different name, younger than what we're used to. And I think this year, we'll have a little bit more, more experience and maturity on the team.
00:05:14
Speaker
Yeah, Steve, I actually think the team kind of regress it at some points last year as the season went on. I'll go back to that first half against Alabama where you could just see the intensity on defense, active hands, just the intensity level.
00:05:29
Speaker
And the competitiveness, I just didn't see that toward the end of the season, even though we won our fair share of games, just didn't see it. So who knows what the deal was, but usually a Kelvin Sampson team does get better as the season progresses.
Upcoming Exhibition Game vs. UNC Pembroke
00:05:44
Speaker
Like we said, he's a Hall of Fame coach. He knows all of this. We're not saying anything that him or the coaching staff doesn't know. Yeah, I was going to ask you as well just what your impressions are of these so-called secret scrimmages.
00:05:59
Speaker
we started doing these things, I think maybe a couple, two, three years ago, and they were truly secretive, right? And now it's almost become, you know, big business where they're like little tidbits that are leaked, and it's all over Twitter. And quite honestly, we knew that we were playing this so-called secret scrimmage with Ole Miss quite a while ago. Pretty soon, the live streaming, you have to pay for it. Exactly, right? Or I think one of these, I forget which two teams, they're actually,
00:06:29
Speaker
charging for it and letting people go and then the money was going to go to charity. And so that's where I think it's actually going to start going, right? Yeah. You know, from a coach's perspective, these scrimmages, you know, always prefer it be closed to the public because it's more it's more like a practice. You know, I'm sure Samson's going to, you know, in a gym where everybody can hear every word he says, you know, I'm sure he wants to he wants to
00:06:56
Speaker
go off on somebody, he doesn't want an audience, you know, that has camera, has phones and everything that's recording everything.
00:07:05
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So anyways, as you said, not a lot to take away from the secret scrimmage. Quite honestly, we didn't get a whole lot of details, but it's always great to play these things. It's another team, like you said, and we love to get the score and it's always even better when we do win. Right. And see, before we go on from the scrimmage, you remember last year when we scrimmage Duke, they came to our place. Did anybody ever find out why the scrimmage was stopped short?
00:07:32
Speaker
No, I didn't even realize it was stopped short. It was stopped short with like 8, 10, 12 minutes left. I don't know if Shire decided that.
00:07:41
Speaker
You know, our guys were a little too fast. Too physical. Yeah. And they were going to get hurt. I don't know. That wouldn't surprise me, though. Rib joint was going to a barbecue joint was about to close. And they had to get out of there. All kidding aside, I will give Duke credit, especially first year coach. I mean, they ended up being pretty good defensively last year. They did. Yeah. So I was impressed. They improved as the season went on. Yeah. Anyway, so.
00:08:08
Speaker
Let's pivot now to the upcoming exhibition. This coming Saturday with UNC Pembroke, a university whose history is intertwined with that of the Lumbee nation to preserve their unique identity and ensure access and authority over their own educational system.
00:08:24
Speaker
It is also coach Kelvin Sampson's alma mater. So a nice thing that he's doing bringing them in for an exhibition game for the experience exposure. And I'm assuming dollars as well to support the program. Their division two team actually have one kid that is six foot 11 inches tall, if you can believe it. And Drew Richardson is their head coach.
00:08:46
Speaker
So, Tom, from your perspective as a coach, what are your expectations going into the exhibition game? What do you want to see or what you're trying to get out of it? Okay, Steve, before I go on further, do you know that Pembroke also has a scrimmage against Duke? No, I did not know that. Yeah, they have one against Duke also. Glutton for punishment, holy cow. And then Pembroke, they did win their conference championship last year. Wow.
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, so, and they're a T2 program. Okay, as far as, you know, what are coaches looking to get out of it? I would say more, it's almost like a scrimmage, you know, against Ole Miss. I'd say the biggest thing is don't get into bad habits. Do what you do.
00:09:29
Speaker
In our case, it's, it's playing man-to-man and rebound and just another chance to get some kinks out before, uh, before the first real game. I think that's the most thing you're trying to get out of an exhibition is look at some stuff and see what you need to work on to just like that Ole Miss scrimmage. Assuming that everyone's going to get playing time will get a little bit.
00:09:51
Speaker
of experience, even though it's an exhibition game. I'm interested to see the kind of lineups that coach is going to play around with and see who he's trying to mix and match with. And this will give you and I our first glimpse into our predicted starting lineups or things like that.
00:10:09
Speaker
So I'm really curious. I don't know if Damien Dunn is going to be well enough to actually play. I hope he is. If not, I'm assuming we're going to get to see a lot of Terrence Arsenault's time at the three, the four, maybe a little bit of the two as well and see how he does. So I'm really curious as to how some of our kids have progressed through the summertime.
Bill Walker's Season Insights
00:10:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see, like you said, who starts, who comes first couple of guys off the bench, different combinations. If we see anything different new sets this year offensively, we'll see who we run our sets for. My guess is there's going to probably be some sets run for LJ Cryer to get him some threes. He'd probably be the one that would set up some special plays or sets for.
00:10:56
Speaker
Well, I think that's it for these secret scrimmages and exhibition games. When we get to our two guests for this episode and get a different perspective on the upcoming seasons from a Houston Cougars fan as well as an Arizona fan. So hold on as we get to our next section.
00:11:19
Speaker
We welcome Bill Walker now, our first fellow Houston Cougars fan that we're having on the show, as we said we would do when we launched this podcast. Bill, how about a quick intro? Okay, thanks, Steve. I'm a U of H grad from 89. I also attended the University of Wisconsin and for graduate school, the University of Miami. So I've got a little bit of background in terms of the other conferences, but I go to,
00:11:48
Speaker
virtually every single U of H home game. I have been to them for the past four or five years, gone to the NCAA tournament games, went to see them in the final four. And so, yeah, I've spent a lot of time around the program and know a lot of people involved with the program and I'm a huge U of H basketball fan.
00:12:09
Speaker
No, that's awesome. And for those of you that are listening, Bill and I go to games quite a bit when I'm in town. He's kind of my game's companion when my son can join me. So it's great to have you on. So why don't we just get right into it and maybe if you could share your views and expectations for the season with our Cougars and how your views are similar or different from the perspectives that we shared here on the No Conference for Old Men podcast.
00:12:35
Speaker
Sure, jotted down a few things. I've heard Calvin speak a few times. I've read some of his excerpts and one thing that he seems to bring up quite a bit is the fact that Shad Jamal needs to be better this year.
00:12:51
Speaker
And I think he's coming from a played obviously very well last year, arguably the most valuable player on the team, but may not have taken the big step that Kelvin had hoped he had taken in terms of decision making, in terms of leading the team, maybe even occasional shot selection shots that he's hitting. Hopefully he shoots better from the field. I think that's one area that will help him get to the next level for sure.
00:13:19
Speaker
You know, this is clearly Shed's team. Sasser's gone. In terms of the back court where U of H is always strong, this is Jamal's team. And so I think, you know, he takes a step forward. I think that's really going to help. We're such a, we've been such a great rebounding team.
00:13:38
Speaker
That's something that we really need in terms of continuing to thrive. We've gotten great rebounding, not only from the front court in the past, but we've had guys like Nate Hinton, we've had Gero Dejan, who's a phenomenal rebounder from the point.
00:13:54
Speaker
This year we've got two starting guards that are small and they were small last year as well. But I'm assuming that Dunn is going to be the third starter and he's really going to have to rebound for us. The other thing is we've always some depth in the front court. Last year it was Roberts, Chaney, Jarrus, and then Francis was our number four player, big man off the bench.
00:14:19
Speaker
He wasn't really a main cog in the rotation, but he played when needed. This year he's the starting center, so he's going to have to rebound. Like I said, Dunn's going to have to rebound. I think we're going to have to get as much help as possible from Arsenault, but the young guys are really going to have to step up in terms of the rebound. Tugler, McFarlane, maybe even Lath.
00:14:42
Speaker
He's more of a banger, probably not expected to score much, but as much rebounding as they can do. And Tuggler's a pretty athletic guy, even though he's 6'7". He's got real long arms, longer wingspan than Francis. So I think that he could hopefully step in and really, really help us continue to dominate the boards, both ends of the court. Clearly, there are a few guys that are going to need to really step up. Sharp and Arsenault were freshmen last year. I keep seeing that Arsenault's ranked is one of the top.
00:15:12
Speaker
30, 35 shooting guards in the nation, and I'm a little baffled by that. But I'm hoping that some of these people that are doing the rankings have seen him play during the offseason. I know he struggled shooting the ball over in Australia, but he's really got to step it up to the next level. I think Sharp was better last year.
00:15:34
Speaker
had a lot of strong moments but he's got to step it up a bit as well and then of course from the big man perspective the front court Francis is really going to have to step up and then of course the young big men as I mentioned are you know at least one or two are going to have to play a fairly significant role this year and it's certainly it looks to be Tuggler as the third big man that plays and then
00:15:56
Speaker
Hopefully we get some positive play out of McFarland. If all those things can happen, we're going to be right where we've kind of grown accustomed to being over the last couple of years, last several years.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's great insights. And actually, I think what you're saying is more similar to what we've talked about in difference. So I think we're all pretty much on the same page with high expectations coming into the year. Tom, did you want to add anything to what? That's pretty much what Bill said. I don't see anything that I disagree with. Yeah. Francis, it seemed like last year he got in foul trouble real quick or he got a quick hook.
00:16:33
Speaker
And maybe Kelvin is a little more patient with them and lets Francis make a few more mistakes because it seemed like he got the old hook pretty quick. Yeah, the front court depth, it could be a concern. At first, I didn't think McFarland would even see any playing time this year, but you look at it, he might have to baptism by fire.
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see. I'm still not convinced McFarland's going to get any minutes in. And I'm probably the outlier here that believes that Terence Arsenault will see substantial time at the fore for
Anticipating Non-conference Matchups
00:17:04
Speaker
us to succeed. I think he's going to play all over three different positions for us during the course of the year. He may not start, he may, but I'd say in the end he will play starters' minutes.
00:17:14
Speaker
and he'll play wherever he's going to be needed. So why don't we jump in and start looking ahead and we had chatted about potentially looking into some of the potential non-conference teams that we're going to be playing, specifically St. John's, Texas A&M, and Xavier. So why don't we tackle St. John's first. Now a lot has to go right here.
00:17:35
Speaker
because that's at the Charleston tournament and that would mean that both teams make it to the finals if we were to play. But it's really an exciting possibility. So I'll go to Bill, you first. What do you think about St. John's and how our Houston Cougars would potentially match up with Rick Patino's new team? I think that St. John's could be really good
00:17:57
Speaker
And then again, they might not even make it to the finals. It's the Tino basically told 11 players from last year's team. Adios. He wanted his players. I mean, this is a brand new team. He literally brought back one player that's going to see any type of.
00:18:14
Speaker
playing time and that's Joel Soriano, the 6'11 center who put up some good numbers. Patino went out and he recruited shooters. I mean, unbelievable if you look at some of these guys, they are all shooters and that was Patino's priority and they got some athleticism as well.
00:18:33
Speaker
player that he brought in from Iona. He was their second leading scorer, Danis Jenkins, good shooter. He brought in the 23 and a half point scorer from Pan, Jordan Dingell. And I know you guys mentioned these guys when you went through your top 25, but he's extremely good shooter as well. Kid that he brought in from Harvard, the forward, Ledlum, Chris Ledlum is a good player. And then he, what'll be interesting,
00:18:58
Speaker
with St. John's is they got a couple of really good freshmen. Brady Dunlap forward. He is a top 35 recruit. And as soon as Mike Bray left Notre Dame, he got out of his commitment to Notre Dame and right to Patino. And then the other one is.
00:19:14
Speaker
Simeon Wilcher, 6'4 guard, he bailed out on North Carolina as well and he's just a great all-around player, great shooter and there's a lot of talent that Patino's bringing in. The question is going to be how quickly can they play well together and you know, are guys going to take poor shots because they want the ball more, you know, there's
00:19:34
Speaker
only so many shots to go around and he's got a lot of shooters on that team. I think it's great to have shooters. I think such a skill that's underdeveloped in college basketball for the most part. So the more shooters you get, I think that's great. Now with that said, there's a lot of young players on this team, a lot of players that are coming in from
00:19:54
Speaker
other programs where they didn't play much. There's one coming in from Gonzaga, talented players, but didn't play that much. I think that it's a good matchup for us, especially early in the season with the way that we defend, the way that we typically, historically, the way that we get after the boards. If we can limit them to one shot, I think that until they really play a lot together and get things figured out, I think it's a good matchup for us. Yeah. What do you think, Tom?
00:20:24
Speaker
Same, you know, it's it might be a different story if we saw them three months later But you know, we're going to see them relatively early in the season and have all these players, you know Try to give them to mesh and then can't your rotation as the season goes on, you know Your rotation is probably going to be be shortened. So patino might be playing a lot of guys, you know the first part of the year But he's got some talent there. And if there's one coach who can take a bunch of
00:20:51
Speaker
You know, different pieces and mold them into a unit and in a quick time, you know, Rick Pitino will be one of those coaches.
Preview: Houston vs. Texas A&M
00:20:58
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm looking forward to the possibility of playing them. I mean, you're talking about two of the greatest coaches in college basketball, right? Both old school coaches, but playing very, very different styles. They both emphasize D to the hilt, but how they play offense is going to be very, very different because they're going to try to play faster than we'd like to play, and we're going to try to slow it down. So I always love watching this contrast of styles play out and who actually is able to
00:21:26
Speaker
kind of impart their will to the game. So again, I think you guys have highlighted the key is going to be whether they play together or not so early in the season. So we'll see. Yeah, Steve, one more thing about Patino before we move on. You got to respect the guy who's getting close to his mid 70s. He's still hungry. Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, he's coaching hard.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yes, he's not not, you know, resting on his laurels or whatever. You know, he's he he's still ambitious. You know, he's still a hungry coach. OK, why don't we jump to the next team? And it's another team that we had covered during our preseason top 25 preview. And that's Texas A&M. I think we're playing them at the Rockets arena basically. Toyota center. Yeah. So, Bill, what do you think about our matchup with Texas A&M?
00:22:16
Speaker
Well, I like this matchup as well. And you guys hit the nail right on the head in the previous episode when you said A&M cannot shoot. They are a terrible shooting team. With that said, their strength is their backcourt. They've got a great backcourt.
00:22:36
Speaker
They can't shoot the ball well, but they get to the line exceptionally well and they do hit their free throws. So I think this game, not to dismiss everything else, but I think in a lot of ways, this game is going to come down to the officiating if it's a tightly
00:22:54
Speaker
officiated game. I think that benefits A&M if it's a loosely officiated game. And I don't know if you may or may not have seen them play Penn State in the first round of the NCAA's last year. It was a pretty loosely officiated game and Penn State just blew them out of the gym. So if their guards can get to the line, then they've got a shot and
00:23:15
Speaker
their two best players, like I said, are their guards Wade Taylor and Harris Radford. Neither one shot even 40% from the field last year. They get to the line a ton and they brought in another guard named Jace Walker from Illinois, Chicago.
00:23:31
Speaker
Buzz Williams, who by the way I really like as a coach, I grew up going to Marquette games and saw him coach there. His players will just die for him and they'll always play hard, won't take plays off. And Buzz Williams loves his players so much that I sometimes question how highly he thinks of them. He's saying that
00:23:51
Speaker
Jace Carter, who scored about 16 points a game at Illinois, Chicago, is one of the elite shooters in the country. And I'm not so sure I see that he, he shot 30% from three last year. He's very similar to their other two guards. He defends well, he penetrates, he, you know, he gets rebounds there, their guards rebound, uh, which is something that, you know, we'll have to work at, but, but, but their team is really.
00:24:20
Speaker
guard heavy, and they can't shoot. They've got a couple of good forwards. Henry Coleman, the former Duke player, has gotten better, and he's a good inside scorer. And then they've got a guy named Julius Marble, who's also an inside scorer. They're not going to step out at all. I'll tell you, I think that if we, and this is tough because of the way that we play defense, we're an aggressive defense. We do commit a lot of fouls. The thing I like is that, and I didn't mention him with the other guys,
00:24:49
Speaker
But if there are any following going on, especially in the back court, we've also got Wilson by Lee Wilson, who's a great defensive player who can step in and help defend A&M's guards. And I look at A&M a little bit like I look at Virginia last year and Virginia had better shooters, not they don't penetrate it. Their guards don't penetrate as well, but their, their wing shooters are good, but they're deliberate offensively.
00:25:15
Speaker
You know, we played them very well at Virginia beat them. It was basically a 10 point lead throughout the double digit lead throughout the second half. I think we won by nine. I kind of see the same type of similar matchup anyway versus A&M. And, you know, I think that this also bodes well for us as long as we're rebounding their missed shots, because there are going to be a lot of missed shots when the officials hopefully are not calling fouls. But if they are, they'll be at the line. If not, I going to be a lot of.
00:25:45
Speaker
offensive rebound opportunities for A&M, and we just need to prevent that. Yeah, no, I agree. What do you think, Tom? Well, I'm looking at the size of Henry Coleman III and Julius Marble, and it's probably going to be a knockdown drag out affair down low. Coleman's like 6'8", 245. Marble's 6'9", 235. So I'm looking at that. That's going to be like hand-to-hand combat down in the post.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. The way I would put it is it's a highly anticipated game, given it's Texas A&M and kind of a style of play, but I'm willing to bet it's going to be the ugliest game that we've got on our schedule because both teams play really slow. Both of them are hard nosed defensively.
00:26:34
Speaker
neither team shoots very well. They'll hopefully will shoot a little bit better this year than in the past with Cryer. But I'm looking forward to it this game. I think Iowa State are going to be two games that are going to be extremely physical and slow. And we're going to love every minute of it.
Challenges from Xavier
00:26:50
Speaker
So looking forward to it. Steve, don't forget Texas Tech game.
00:26:55
Speaker
with Grant McCaslin. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, with Grant McCaslin now, that is true. It's going to be like watching the Iowa football offense, Brian Farness. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Forgot about that. First one to 30 is going to win that one. Yeah. OK, why don't we pivot to a quick one with Xavier as the third non-conference game to zero in on? What do you think, Bill? Well, Xavier is a little bit like St. John's. Not so much because Sean Miller
00:27:25
Speaker
told overwhelming majority of his team to leave and find a home somewhere else. But they just, due to graduation, I mean, they lost five of their top six scorers. If you saw them in the NCAA, they're a good team. They're solid at every position last year. And then they went up against a more talented team and Texas absolutely blew them out in the sweet 16. They lost virtually everyone. So Sean Miller went out and hit the portal and
00:27:52
Speaker
It looks like maybe the best guy, well, they've got one guy back who was injured last year, Zach Fremantle, and you guys mentioned him the six-night forward, and he's a very good player. Yeah, hey, excuse me, Bill. I just saw the other day, he's out for the season. Yeah. He's had foot injuries his whole career.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't realize that. Is that what happened? Were you injured the foot? It must have been. And then the other guy they had coming back, Jerome Hunter, he's out for the season. He's out for the season too. And then they had a transfer from Indiana, Logan Dunkum. He decided to get basketball up because of so many injuries and he was like 610, 250. So.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Those, the second two you mentioned I knew about, I did not know about Fremantle, but that, okay. Just came out at that long ago. And I was going to kind of conclude by saying, I don't, uh, other than the fact that we're playing at Xavier, I didn't see this even with Fremantle being one of our top non-conference challenges. I think we win this game and I don't want to say we win a blowout, but I think we win it pretty well. I mean, they're, it looks like they're,
00:29:04
Speaker
maybe their best player is going to be the transfer, grad transfer from Rice, 6-3 guard, Oliveri, Quincy Oliveri. The other guy, the one guy that I think is a good player, better than Oliveri that they're bringing in is the point guard from Western Kentucky, Davian McKnight. I think he's a good player. He tends to force shots a lot from time to time and that may have just been a byproduct of
00:29:31
Speaker
playing at Western Kentucky where he was far and away the best player and kind of felt like he had to take shots. They're another team where their strength looks like it's going to be their back court and that's U of H's strength. And I think our back court is significantly better than theirs. They've got one guy, the big guy, 6'10", 240,
00:29:55
Speaker
They're going to have some depth, but once again, it's going to take them time, just like with St. John's. I just don't think they have the talent there that St. John's has, not even close. I've looked at some of the predictions, and most have both St. John's and Xavier finishing
00:30:13
Speaker
5th and 6th in the Big East and it's Xavier that's typically 6th. And I think with Fremantle out, I think we win this game. I don't think it's nearly the challenge that the other two will be.
Arizona's Season Outlook with Hayden Atkins
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, what do you think, Tom? Yeah, I agree with Bill. I think we win this game. Shawn Miller, coach I respect a whole lot.
00:30:37
Speaker
He'll be relying on three conference USA transfers. Like Bill mentioned, the Western Kentucky one, David McKnight, the Rice transfer, Quincy, Oliveira. I don't think our basketball team is going to get beat by a Rice player. Now, football may be.
00:30:53
Speaker
Nice. Okay, so I'll weigh in here since it was I that predicted from an out of conference loss perspective that it was going to be Xavier. That was going to be the one loss that I had predicted. Now, just to be fair, I made that prediction before I realized Zach Fremantle and Jerome Hunter were likely out for the season.
00:31:16
Speaker
But really, you know, I made that prediction based on the respect I've got for Sean Miller and the fact that Xavier historically almost never loses at home. And so we'll see. I'm likely walking back that prediction at this point. I still think they're going to be better than people think they will be. The new preseason Ken Palm rankings came out and granted
00:31:39
Speaker
It's preseason and it's based on kind of historical stats, but they're still 34th. We'll see where that goes. So I think that's it for this segment. I definitely wanted to thank Bill Walker for joining us as a guest today. We welcome Hayden Atkins to the show. Hayden is a big Arizona fan.
00:32:02
Speaker
And we're going to introduce Hayden. Hayden, like myself, we've been living in Northwest Iowa for a while. And I always get the question, you know, you live in Northwest Iowa. How in the heck did you become a Houston Cougar fan? Well, Hayden, tell us about how you became an Arizona fan. All right. Well, um, I was born in Tucson, Arizona, where Arizona basketball takes place. I had family that went to the university of Arizona. So living in the area, you kind of just become the fan of that college there. So.
00:32:32
Speaker
Okay. How'd you end up in Northwest Iowa? Okay. Okay. They moved back to the, they wanted, uh, us kids to grow up in a small town, kind of like they did. So 2001, we moved back to Northwest Iowa. Okay. And then Hayden, what is your greatest memory in Arizona basketball history? Now I will say this, our podcast is called no conference for old men. Hayden is like half our age. So.
00:33:00
Speaker
He doesn't have as many memories to go back on. But anyway, Hayden, what's your greatest memory, Arizona basketball history? My greatest memory, well, I was a big Lute Olson fan when he was still there and coaching and everything. I can't remember where we were flying to or flying from, but Lute Olson and the Arizona Wildcats were actually on the same airplane we were on. So that's kind of a cool memory that we had. Other than that, you know,
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was alive for their national championship. I don't remember it because I was young. Like you said, and I don't have probably near the memories. I think it was 1997. Yeah. That had been like, I was five. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That counts. That counts. And by the way, uh, Oh, Luke, you know, he coached at Iowa, had Iowa Hawkeyes for, went to, for, went to Arizona. Yep. Yep.
00:33:53
Speaker
Now, hey, let's talk about the upcoming season for your Wildcats. What are Arizona's key losses? Um, when you look at their losses, you know, you have Azula Sibelis, you know, he was one of their top point leaders, defenders. Um, so he made the decision to declare for the draft. And so he went to the draft and got signed by the Philadelphia 76ers.
00:34:15
Speaker
So that's kind of one big key loss. There's Henderson that we lost. He was a senior, so he was going away anyways. And then Courtney Ramey transferred from Texas, came to Arizona. He was kind of a big part in their program. When you look at it from last year in the Pac-12 tournament, he's the one that hit a big go ahead three against UCLA. So he was kind of a big loss there.
00:34:40
Speaker
And then, of course, to the transfer portal, Kirk Risa went to West Virginia. He's one of those guys. What? Is that a loss? Or is that an addition by subtraction? I wouldn't say it's such a big loss. I know he's one of those players. Either you love him or hate him. But when you started watching him play in some of those big games, I'll even go back to the Princeton game in the tournament. You have him out there.
00:35:06
Speaker
He's trying to make plays, and it's just not happening. And then you put in your freshman off the bench who comes in, makes some plays, and then all of a sudden Arizona has a swing. They're playing well. So then you put Creesa back in, and then it goes back towards Princeton's way. So I mean, it's OK that he's no longer at Arizona. I mean, I wish him nothing but the best over at West Virginia, but I'm OK with the loss. Yeah, we'll get to see him this year, the Houston Cougars will. How about what are the key components Arizona has coming back?
00:35:35
Speaker
Some of those key components when they got Tommy Lloyd as the basketball coach over there Umar Balo followed him from Gonzaga his first year there, you know watching him play you're like, man, I don't know Gonzaga is always up there at the top for Basketball and so you have this guy and you know some of his mechanics were so so they were okay But he was always playing behind drew Timmy and another big guy from up there but then that second year with
00:36:03
Speaker
And with Tommy Lloyd at Arizona, he was actually one of the most improved basketball players for the Pac-12 tournament and for the Pac-12 himself. So I'm excited to see where he goes this year with that. Another key return is Pelo Larson. He started off the year as a starter, but then Tommy Lloyd being Tommy Lloyd figured it out that.
00:36:25
Speaker
is better coming off of the bench. And so he started coming off the bench kind of being that sixth man. And so I'm excited to see him play again. And then that freshman I was talking about earlier, Killian Boswell, I think he's going to be a great point guard. He's very athletic on the offensive side, making plays, and he does very well defensively. I mean, he's not one that doesn't try to give up a lot of big plays there. So those would be the big three that I think of.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, I heard somewhere. I don't, I don't know where, but Tommy Lloyd said he thinks they're going to be, have more length this year and be better defensively. Now, how about, what are they adding Hayden? Well, as you know, and you and I have talked before, Tom, you call Arizona Gonzaga South just because of getting the international players. So, I mean, they've signed a couple of international players coming. I think some of their big recruits that they got was through the
Arizona's Final Pac-12 Season
00:37:16
Speaker
transfer portal. You got Caleb Love coming from North Carolina.
00:37:19
Speaker
So he brings a lot to the table with his diversity of both offensive and defense. And then you got Kashad Johnson coming from SDSU. He was part of that final 14 last year. So they're adding some key players through that transfer portal. And I think they're all going to mesh well, watching highlights from their exhibition game against, who was it? Lewis Clark State? Yeah, Lewis Clark State. Again, you don't want to read into it because of who they played.
00:37:48
Speaker
Seeing some of that stuff that it looked good. They they look good. Yes. All they scored 110 points then you have Bradley right from Bama coming into yep, and Brad. Yep. I forgot about him. He's coming in as well Yeah, it'll be interesting to see who they start right start Do they start the two transfers from the portal or do they start the the guard that back to creasal last year? Yeah, I don't know I know in that exhibition game Boswell got to play Bradley was playing so I don't know what it's going to look like and
00:38:18
Speaker
There are some big sign-ins that came in as well. Hey, the next thing we're looking at is key non-conference games. Holy cow. Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin, Purdue, Alabama, FAU. That's one, two, three, four, five. That's six really, really quality opponents in those non-conference games. What do you think about that slate?
00:38:43
Speaker
Uh, I'm excited for it. I think it really gives Arizona the chance. You know, you want to talk about elite programs and all of that stuff. You want to have those tough non-conference games. I mean, they're going to be exciting. It's going to be electric. Um, I think they play Duke at, at Duke, but then you look at Michigan state, Purdue, Alabama, FAU. Um, those are at a neutral court. So it's not, there's really not a home court advantage there. Um, and then Wisconsin's at home. So I think that's going to be a good one when Sean Miller is still there.
00:39:13
Speaker
You had those two years in the elite eight where they fell short to make it to the final four against Wisconsin. So there's kind of a little bit of a rivalry there. So it should be a good game either way, but yeah.
00:39:24
Speaker
I give Tommy Lloyd a lot of credit for going out there and not run away from competition because there's going to be some really, really tough Pac-12 games also. A lot of times, some coaches have just loaded up on a bunch of cupcakes because they don't want to lose a whole bunch of games in non-conference. Hey, how do you see Arizona in their last Pac-12 season?
00:39:47
Speaker
You know, they're probably going to be towards the top. I would say I'm going through pack 12 conference right now. Arizona's, I think is the only ranked team in that conference, but knowing the conference and how they play, you know, Washington normally has a pretty good ball club. Oregon has a pretty good ball club. Um, and then UCLA, I know they lost some key players last year.
00:40:10
Speaker
but they're still gonna be probably a tough team to play against. There's that rivalry there again between UCLA and Arizona. And then of course, Arizona State, Arizona, that's always a big rivalry. I mean, it goes back and forth there. Say hey, next year we'll find some common ground when you're in the Big 12 because we can all hate on Bobby Hurley. Yes, we can. Yeah, Bobby Hurley.
00:40:36
Speaker
Also a couple more teams. USC should be really good. Yep. USC. I'm not sure what Washington state's going to look like this year so much. Colorado, again, kind of one of those teams that wants to gun for stuff. When you have a program like Arizona or any
00:40:51
Speaker
a good program, you know, whether you're ranked or not, you always have that bullseye on your back just from where they've gone in the past and how that they've done. So everybody kind of wants to go after them and do the play their best ball. Yep. Steven, I know the feeling, uh, you know, when, uh, U of H is in the American athletic, uh, you know, we were top dog and we took everybody's best shot every night. John Rothstein was really high on Colorado. I think he had Colorado and his top 45 somewhere around.
00:41:19
Speaker
something like that. So, you know, he thinks he thinks they're going to be really good. Now, let's let's do some hypotheticals here. Let's say 31 regular season games, a couple of Pac twelve tourney games. Let's say Arizona plays 34 games. What do you think their final record will be like a ballpark vicinity? You know, ideally, it'd be nice if they were 34. No, but I'm not going to go that route.
00:41:47
Speaker
You know, I, when you look at those non-conference, I mean, they played, if they can play ball well and transition well, you know, you're probably going to look somewhere between a 20 to 30 win season with Arizona, you know, those non-conference games. I mean, those aren't programs that shy away from a challenge. I mean, would it suck to lose those games? Yeah, but I'm guessing they're, they're probably going to be somewhere in a 20 to 30 win season. That would be my prediction.
00:42:14
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, I had U of H going like, I think like 26 and eight. I could see Arizona, you know, going somewhere around there, 26 and eight. I had Houston, I had a Houston with a, with a two seed. What type of seed do you think Arizona is looking at? Um, you know, you want, you want to have a number one seed. Um, but again, that puts that target on your back. So.
00:42:37
Speaker
I think they could be easily a one through five seed, just depending on how they do. And again, those big non-conference games will play a factor into that and where they finished in the Pac-12 tournament as well. So. Okay. Hey, and if all the cars fall, right, how far do you think Arizona can go? Do you think they're capable? Let's say final four national champs. Where do you, where do you think the ceiling is for this team?
00:43:00
Speaker
You know, I'd like to see them be National Champs. I mean, that's the goal every year. I'm one of those guys that when the brackets come out, I always have one bracket where I have Arizona going all the way. Sometimes that bites me in the butt. I'd like to see them at least make it to the Elite Eight, not the Final Four.
00:43:17
Speaker
I think they're capable of doing that. I mean, you're bringing in some players that have that tournament feeling now. Um, so they can get in there. Um, again, you have Johnson from San Diego state who was part of a final four team. So, I mean, just having some of that veteran presence that's gone in the tournament and all that stuff helps play a different role too. So, well, yeah, Caleb love a couple of years ago was on the Carolina team that had a 15 point lead at halftime over Kansas and they ended, you know, they ended blues. And so.
00:43:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's uh, that's some really good experience there. Let's see as an Arizona fan. What would you see as disappointing? Not like Princeton, right? Yeah, I don't I don't want to see another first-round knockout I mean, that's why they call it March Madness, but I don't want to see another first-round knockout I mean there was one thing about it is no nobody
00:44:08
Speaker
one, you know, that's got like a one or two or three seed wants to see an Ivy league team. No, I mean, they lost to Princeton that round several years ago with Sean Miller, they lost to the Paul in the first round. I mean, no, no one wants to see that you expect more from that. And when that happens, it's just kind of disappointing.
00:44:27
Speaker
Okay. And then Hayden, last thing, next year after this year, you know, headed on to the Big 12, we have Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, Colorado. Your thoughts on joining the Big 12. Will you miss the Pac-12 since that's what you grew up with? You know, what do you think about joining the Big 12 and where do you see Arizona in the pecking order?
00:44:49
Speaker
You know, yeah, I'm going to miss the Pac-12, but it's also going to be an opportunity for Arizona to get some good basketball playing. I mean, you look at the big 12, you have Kansas, he's always pretty good. You know, now there's Houston in there and Houston always does a good job.
00:45:05
Speaker
Yeah. Baylor just, you know, won a national championship a couple of years ago. You got Baylor in there. I know TCU has been up there. Iowa State. K-State. Yeah. K-State. I mean, you go through there and you know that it's a basketball conference. I mean, yeah, they do fairly well in other sports too, but they're always up there in basketball. I mean, you got some pretty big basketball programs up there.
Closing Remarks and Future Episodes
00:45:27
Speaker
Yeah. Steven, I think it's the best basketball league in the country. So, all right, Hayden. Well, thank you for joining our show.
00:45:35
Speaker
And thanks for having me. Let's have fun during the season. And then next year, we'll have to go to some Arizona U of H games. Yeah, absolutely. Bear down.
00:45:47
Speaker
That's it for episode four of the No Conference for Old Men podcast. Hope you all enjoyed it. And again, would really appreciate it if you listen in, follow, subscribe, collect our podcast, depending on whatever your platform of choice is. We truly appreciate and love all of your support. It keeps us going and reinforces our view that there is an appetite out there for the type of deep college hoops in sight we're trying to provide for Cougars and Big 12 fans.
00:46:14
Speaker
and please provide a rating and feedback. Also, give us a follow on our Twitter account, No Conference for Old Men. Thank you all again for listening and episode 5 will come out next week with finally some regular season games that we can start talking about. So please be on the lookout to listen, download next week. Thanks again.