SportsPrep Live

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Graydon Prescott 0:17
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of sports prep live, sports prep live, where we unbox the bike and talk excellence in athletics.

Graydon Prescott 0:35
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of sports prep live. I'm your host, grade and Prescott. Today we are going to be discussing UNLV football, women's basketball and men's basketball. Also a little bit of college football. Not much, because there weren't that many surprises, but there were a couple of close calls. So we'll start with just general college football I got. KB, here today. Nothing special. Welcome back. KB,

K.B. 1:02
yes, good to be back in the lab. I know you had a couple of big interviews the last few weeks. Yeah, sitting down with coaches, the Coaches Corner for sports rep Live, which is really interesting learning a lot. I think one of the themes that continues as I listen to these sit downs that you're having with the coaches in your coach Coaches Corner is and I think we will keep harping on this. We'll keep coming back to this is each of those coaches that you've sat down with having, in their own way, expressed, hey, we need to make sure that we're getting our student body in there to support these teams, because often that's the 12th man or the sixth man for the unit that's on the field or on the court. So that's something that we will keep coming back to and it was good to hear your conversations with him. I really learned a lot. So keep it going. I know you got some more stuff on deck, so I won't spoil it, but I'm looking forward to stuff that you have coming in the next couple

Graydon Prescott 1:52
of weeks. Yeah, absolutely. It's been great sitting down with the coaches in the last few weeks, and we've definitely had an opportunity to talk a lot about the programs, and of course, that student engagement actually at the women's basketball game I attended yesterday against DePaul, very impressed with the turnout, turnout, crowd engagement. The there was some booing towards the referees, but no, but loud crowd engagement. It wasn't, it wasn't to sell out. Actually, I expect a huge turnout this Friday against the number seven team in the country, the Baylor Bears, yes, but if that's the turnout they got in the second game of the season against DePaul, I think they're in for a pretty good season in terms of crowd engagement. If they keep winning, you know, winning is going to draw the crowd. Sure draw the support. And this is a proven winning program. And you know, Coach LaRock, she was on the show last week, proven winning coach, absolutely at all levels. Yes, you know, she was a winner in High High School in college. She was a winner coach at Stanford in Oklahoma and Belmont and now at UNLV, she's 120 130 and 30. Now, yes, with her two victories to start off this year,

K.B. 3:10
winning certainly matters. But I also think that you know you're probably not going to toot your own horn, but I also think it matters for a station like this, where you know your listenership is largely going to be comprised of the student body here at UNLV, to have you talking about it, to have you talking about it with the coaches and them stressing the importance of it. I know a lot of times we hear back, you know, the kind of the counter argument to, you know why, though those students aren't turning out in the numbers that you might see. I know you guys referenced, say, University of Iowa, Carver, Hawker arena, or connect stadium, because there's a lot more options, you know, available to Las Vegas than there there would be in, say, Iowa City. But I would say the counter to that, that that counter is a lot of colleges and universities are their own little island, right? And so even though, yes, UNLV sits in a much larger metropolitan area than, say, Iowa City or Iowa State, or what have you, Ames is, which is where Iowa State is, even though you know this sits in a much larger metropolitan area, the island itself of college and the experience that college students go through the island is quite similar. There's options to travel and go sightseeing and do outdoor stuff at the colleges that we've mentioned before, you know, the aforementioned University of Iowa, so on and so forth, Duke, you name it. Yeah, there's options for those that student body, just like there's options for this student body, but I do think that they make it more of a priority. And it's nice to hear that they had a really good turnout last night. We want to continue to push that. And I think that is to your credit that you've you've taken it upon yourself and upon the show that, hey, we're going to make sure that we're engaging students and talking to them about showing up for the lady rebels and the Running Rebels and other sports frame. Guys is here

Graydon Prescott 5:00
at the university. Thank you very much. So let's focus, or shift our focus a little bit, to general college football, and we'll get to UNLV momentarily. No changes in the top seven, but both Oregon, the number six team in the country, and Indiana, number two team in the country, had squeakers close calls. Indiana was about a quarter of an inch away from losing, and in one of the greatest Toe Tap catches I've ever seen, it was incredible. They won

K.B. 5:29
the game for him to have the presence of mind, get his foot down. And I think it was his

Graydon Prescott 5:34
loved foot. It was a bullet pass too. It wasn't like he had a bunch of time to figure out. He had to go up for it, come back, jump up, get a bullet pass and then have the presence of mind while getting tackled to get his foot down. Yes, it was one of the most impressive while falling impressive catches I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it, I'm sure it's going to be on SportsCenter, ESPN, every sports media page, incredible catch. Yeah, it's one of the greatest catches ever that I've seen, yes, Indiana against Penn State and Oregon almost lost to Iowa, who we had mentioned in the last couple of weeks, over at Carver Hawkeye. Carver Hawkeye, they play or Kinnick Stadium, yeah, yeah. Carver Hawkeye arena, that's basketball. Yes, Kenneth stadium, yes. But that crowd at Kennewick stadium sell out every game, so it's not easy place to I was not a top 25 ranked team, but I will die on the Hill that they're one of the toughest places to play.

K.B. 6:28
Is a difficult place to play. I have been in that stadium. It is loud, it is boisterous. It is filled with students and others that come from all over the state of Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, everybody.

Graydon Prescott 6:43
Everybody comes from not only the Quad Cities, but people coming up from Des Moines and people coming down from Minnesota, even Chicago or everybody. It is an experience to be in Kinnick Stadium. That's awesome. I think it and the big 10 is like that Football Conference in terms of fan engagement. It's them in the SEC I think Iowa's kennick Stadium in terms of crowd environment, and home crowd environment has got to be in the top. It's

K.B. 7:09
one of the best in the country. Yeah, maybe it is one of the best in the country.

Graydon Prescott 7:13
Yeah. And they just, they do it every season, you know, with the wave at the end of the first quarter. Yeah, to that, to the hospital, hospital, which is located just across the street, yep. I mean, they're a tough place to win, so I'm actually not shocked that Oregon barely escaped with a victory, because I was just a tough place to win, and they're always going to have a great defense, too. Yes, that's a tough place to win, but they did still. They got it done. Yes. Now one top 10 team lost, that's BYU. They fell from number eight to number 12. They had their first loss against Texas Tech, right? Well, I think coming into the season, or coming into the game, was number nine, and they went up to number eight beating BYU. So it was eight, nine. Sure, sure, could have gone, yeah, that's not that doesn't really, I won't count that as an upset, right? But other than that, no big changes in the top 10. One of the biggest surprises was Virginia, who went from number 11 to number 19 after a home loss to an unranked white forest team. And then Louisville fell six spots to number 21 from 15 after they lost, of all to Berkeley, of all teams in the country to lose a football game to the Berkeley Golden Bears were who they managed to lose to as the number 15 in the country. Yeah.

K.B. 8:25
And there's always going to be movement. You know, I think outside of the top 10, certainly, once you get to 1214, and on, there's going to be a lot of fluctuation. It's harder in that top 10 to have much movement, because those those teams are perennially, you know, solid programs, and so you're just not going to, it's not

Graydon Prescott 8:43
going to be as fluid. I saw Callum Colin Cowherd on the herd. Yes, he was talking about how, over the past 50 years, there's only really been one team that went from a no name football program to a dominant football program, and there's a very specific reason that they did, and that's Oregon, because of Nike, sure. And you know, with headquarters all night, pouring a lot of resources into the ducks. Other than that, the the top football programs have been the top football program quite some time, right? Yes, there is not really any movement. So once you get past that, you know, one through 12, that's where you start to see the fluctuation. But I think looking back over the past, you know, few years, you're going to see pretty much the same teams, even if a team has a down season, you're going to see Ohio State, Alabama, Clemson, right? LSU, etc, etc. But it's really hard to win in college football, because these teams with these big legacies have, you know, kind of control of the top 12. So to your point, winning in the 13 through 25 is difficult to do, and there's a lot of fluctuation in those teams. So right, right, those rankings will never be the same week to week. And I think a lot of people tend to think, you know, a 15 team and a 25 team aren't really on the same level, but I think in some. Specs. They are, yeah, they're very, very Yeah. I think 15 is a lot closer to 25 than 15 is to 11.

K.B. 10:06
And you could, you know, they may, they may be separated by a loss, yeah, two at the most, right? So you're absolutely right. There's just, there's going to be more fluctuation there. So it's not surprising to see, you know, a Louisville fall six spots to number 21 with which, lets us know that they were at number 15. That's that range where just one loss can be really, really costly, especially if you're losing to an under rank program or what have you.

Graydon Prescott 10:30
Yep, and Pittsburgh and James Madison entered the top 25 they're 23 and 25 respectively, and then 23 and 24 from last week's rankings, who were Memphis and Iowa. They fell out. I don't think Iowa deserved to fall out, because you lose by one point in the number 16 as the 24 team you lost, so technically your ranking should be impacted. But I think context should also, I agree play. I agree. I think they deserved to hold their spot at 24 if not a little bit because they played a number six team like that. That's a, that's a very, very respectable loss, absolutely. So I think, you know, Iowa, even though they're not ranked in the top 25 right now, I believe that's a top 20 to 25 football team, absolutely, in the country. So, you know, Iowa was probably disrespected in this last ranking. But it is what it is. They know what they're capable of. They're still bowl eligible, so they're gonna have a, you know, a good postseason in Oregon, deservedly so is still the number six team in the country.

K.B. 11:27
Coach ruins out there. They are the better, newly strong program.

Graydon Prescott 11:32
They are the better football team, but Iowa definitely played the better football game. Absolutely. Also big shout out to a bishop Gorman alum, Micah alahado, who was the National Player of the Year in high school as a quarterback a couple years back over at Bishop Gorman, right he threw for 256 yards, nice and three touchdowns in a win for Hawaii against San Diego State, 38 to six and he's recorded, he recorded touchdown passes of nine yards, 34 yards and 35 yards, all to a receiver. Jackson Harris, he is a baller. Yeah, he's he's a serious problem. Yeah, we know, not a big guy. Yeah, he's small, yeah, which I think his size is the only reason that he wasn't a four star, five star kind of guy. Yeah, he was a three star recruit coming out of high school. But in terms of just arm talent and awareness, he was on par with everybody. Yes, and he's maybe 5758, so that probably held him back a little bit in his rankings. But look, he's leading his rainbow warriors. They've scored 30.5 games in a row. They're one of the most high powered offenses in all of America right now.

K.B. 12:43
He's things they haven't seen since, like, 2006 Yeah, so he's doing the darn thing. He's

Graydon Prescott 12:48
been brilliant over there. And it's, it's not surprising for anybody who saw him play in high school, going toe to toe with, you know, with a modern day top teams in the car, with a Duncanville out of Florida. It's just not surprising to see that. But I am happy for him getting the opportunity as a starter at a division one program, or being a little bit undersized, he might have to show what he's capable of. Yeah, right. So, you know, big shout out to Micah. There's another Micah headed to Hawaii from Bishop Borman right now, Micah Eugenio, and he'll, he'll do big things as well, sure, but shout out to Micah senior, or Micah alohado, right, Hawaii, right, Lefty. He's doing the darn thing. So, you know, we want him to keep it up. And then we go to UNLV football team, who, after two straight losses, they got back in the win column. Coach Mullen and the crew back in the win column. 42 to 10 victory over Colorado State. It's actually the first time they've won at Colorado State, at Colorado State since 2002 23 Wow, consecutive years without having beaten them at Colorado Yes. 32 point victory for the squad. Defense was great. Offense was great. And over the past two seasons, actually, UNLV has led, leading the nation in road victories. That is their 10th in the last two years, which was a stat to me that was surprising, but then, you know, you look into it, yeah, this is a team that went, you know, 11 and three last year, right? And they're seven and two now. So not surprising, when you actually break it down, you know, you expect to see one of the, you know, in Ohio State, or something, sure at that category. But look, UNLV has played great. They've played great on the road for the past two years. They've turned the program around. Bowl eligible again. And you know, 320 yards of offense just on the ground, led by Jaden Thomas, who had 131 yards and a touchdown. And, you know, you hold Colorado State to under 300 yards and one for 13 on third down,

K.B. 14:50
right, which is huge. Yeah, yeah,

Graydon Prescott 14:53
that's, that's 7% yes, you know, they got the big win. And I think that's gonna be huge for. Am going forward for the rest of the season and going into this this coming weekend, right? Utah State, yes, back at home on Saturday, 4pm again, winning program. I expect them to get this dub against against a Utah State team. Utah state's not shabby, but I think UNLV is arguably top two in the Mountain West in terms of talent. I think it's them in Boise State. They practically played Boise State to a draw, except for the third quarter, if you remember back a couple of weeks, yes, in that game at Boise State, where they Dave up like 56 points or something like that, right? Other than third quarter, they played them to a draw. Literally, they tied. So UNLV, they're as good as anybody in the Mountain West. And I think we show up, we show out, and they're going to be a tough team to beat at home. Absolutely,

K.B. 15:48
I could not agree more. You know, just this last game, you know, Anthony Calandra is still doing the darn thing. 15 of 22, 251, yards, two, TD, two. TDs did have one interception, but the train was just rolling. Yeah, this was a game where you never like to see it, but you could afford it. In a game like this, he really put together quite a performance. And I'm a big fan of coach Mullen, what he's doing with this program, his emphasis on defense, like you said, they dropped a couple. But you know that's going to happen. You know, because, as you alluded to moments ago, so many of these teams are so good at their

Graydon Prescott 16:24
craft. So this is a good conference. It's an underrated conference, absolutely. So

K.B. 16:28
it's not surprising that you run into another good team and you may drop one, but for them to learn from that experience and come back in get another victory, like you said, Jump to seven and two still bowl eligible. Yeah, yeah. You get to six wins coming into a home game having put a little bit of a wind in the sails and got some momentum at their back. I will be in the building 4pm Allegiant stadium this Saturday versus Utah State.

Graydon Prescott 16:50
Yes, sir. And I actually think seven and two as good as that record is, they very easily could be eight and one. Yes, they could. And if it weren't for the third quarter, they could be nine and up, yes, but we are where we are. We're seven and two. That doesn't change the fact that this is still an outstanding football team, yes, and it's one of the best we've seen at UNLV in years. It's great. Impressed guy here on Sports prep live, and we're getting a chance to talk about college football and UNLV specifically. And now we're moving to UNLV basketball, both the men's and the women's. We're going to start with the men's team, because of the two they, at least in my book, were the less notable over their first two games. Yes, they have played two games against two Tennessee teams, UT Martin and Chattanooga. UT Martin, game I was there. I've actually been in all five games, or the last five games that have been played one exhibition.

K.B. 17:45
This is a game they were expected to win, yeah.

Graydon Prescott 17:49
So look, they lost, yes. And a game that I think ESPN had them projected a 91% chance to win the game against UT Martin. Not to be disrespectful, how many people listening to the program have heard of you team are right? You just it's not a school you've heard of now, I will say they were down five scholarship players, which is not to that matters. It does matter. But they turn the ball over 22 times. They only had 16 assists. So that's a negative six, six.

K.B. 18:18
And I think those are the things that Coach Pastner is going to focus on, right? I happen to be in the building as well during that game, and you're right to point to the controllables, the 22 turnovers, the, you know, only having 16 assists. You know, the ball got a little sticky. You know, the defense was probably not what they wanted it to be, but huge outs, but the officiating in this game one of the worst I've ever seen. Wow, and, and I'm not a player. I'm not a person who, yeah, jumping

Graydon Prescott 18:50
to blaming the official officials for a loss bad. We're talking about 48 free throw attempts in 40 minutes for this UT Martin team. They officiated the game as if they had a parlay on UT Martin to win, or seemed like that, or if it was a UT Martin home game, literally anything. If you breathe on a person, you get a foul. It was really bad, and it could have been a much bigger loss had UT Martin not missed 21 of those 48 free

K.B. 19:21
throws, but to get 48 but to shoot 48

Graydon Prescott 19:23
free throws, that's a lot, way too many. And I think if this game were officiated, I don't want to say true, but more fairly towards both teams, if it

K.B. 19:36
was equitable, yeah, right, right, like, because what happens on one end of a floor generally happens on the other end of the floor, right? Like if you're playing guys that are 656667686, 10. Basketball is a physical sport, so there are going to be files that you know our our problem or our issue with this game is not that how. Hey, there were too many foul calls. It was, it was one sided, right? That's the problem. And they didn't seem like they were affording the Running Rebels to be as physical as they allowed the UT Martin absolutely team to be. Again, having said that Coach Pastner, who I again, I'm a big fan. As a coach, he's going to focus on the controllables. Yes, as well, he should, and

Graydon Prescott 20:24
he and he, look, he absolutely did. Their second game this season was Saturday at 6pm back at Thomas and Mac. I was in the building for that one as well. Chattanooga. Chattanooga, yeah, this time, they won by 32 and it wasn't close. Pretty much the entire second half, they were up 11 at halftime, and by the end of there's no quarters in men's basketball. So we'll call the quarter the halfway mark of the second half, which is 10 minutes. We'll call that the third quarter. By the end of the third quarter, per se, or the first half of the second half, they were up 25 and right, the game was completely open.

K.B. 20:59
And I think what you know, when you had coach passenger on, you know, the one thing that he talked about is we want to have seven different instances of getting three stops, three stops in a row, and they did that, yes, yes, they did, and it was more than seven. And that's, that's what I love. Like he was as bad as the officiating was in that initial game, that's not something that he was going to talk about. He didn't talk about it in the press conference. He focuses on the controllables. And because he focused on the controllables, look how they turned it. Turned this around. And a lot of good coaches will tell you, you have to play above the official. Yeah, right. And they certainly did that against Chad Newman,

Graydon Prescott 21:36
yep. And the thing that stood out to me that I got to see, they cut that turnovers down from 22 to eight. Wow, turn the ball over less than 10 times in a game. You're going to give yourself a great chance to win. And they did that. They shot 56% from the field. They dominated the paint, winning that by 18 and look, all told, great rebounding performance, good shooting performance, and they didn't turn the ball over. That's going to be recipes for success. So if coach, passenger and the crew can keep that up as they get some scholarship players back, they're in for a good season. So I loved what I saw they take on Montana tomorrow at 7pm Thomas and Max center, and as we move on to the lady rebels, which, first of all, I would like to pause. I don't like that. I agree. I don't like that. I agree and look three, it's the it's what the program has always been. But I don't care if you're look, you can't say if a person is, you know, tall or if a person is short. You're the tall rebels and you're the short rebels, right? You can't say if a person has big feet and a person has small feet. You're the Bigfoot rebels, and you're the small foot rebel, right? The men's team is called the UNLV rebels running the women's team should be called the UNLV Running Rebels women's basketball same thing. Uconns women basketball team isn't called the lady Huskies. Iowa's women basketball team with Caitlin Clark isn't called the lady Hawkeyes. They're just the Hawkeyes. Stanford's isn't the Lady Cardinals, right? The top teams are have continuity in their program. Sure. Top programs have continuity the lady rebels. And look, I respect this team, their coach are, yeah, this isn't a decision, yeah, this isn't their decision.

K.B. 23:16
This pre dated, their arrival, whoever. I just

Graydon Prescott 23:19
wanted to get it out there that the lady rebels are, yeah, at least to me, like, ladies and gentlemen, it's 2025 it's 2025 rebels. They're just rebels. They should be just the right don't have to genderify the rebels. They're just the rebels. I know that

K.B. 23:36
there is brand equity in that, that name, that moniker, the lady rebels, but I'm just not sure how sustainable that is over

Graydon Prescott 23:44
time. I think, I think it changes the mindset. I feel like it, I feel like it kind of makes them seem soft, diminishes, yes, like women, not that women are this squad is for real, right? But I think the term lady rebels kind of diminishes what they do. I do for the UNLV rebels program as a

K.B. 24:05
sports Pro. This is a flat out good basketball team. They are very well coached.

Graydon Prescott 24:09
They've been putting it on display, two and oh. Season after season, wins are under Lorac two and Oh. This season, wins against Washington State by four, by 13, and a win against DePaul yesterday at Cox pavilion by seven in a game that both games I was able to attend, the Washington State game, was kind of a wire to wire victory. They gave up a little bit of the lead at the end when it was time for the starters to rest. So that one wasn't too notable to me right now, the DePaul game was close. The whole way. DePaul was up at the end of the first quarter by two. UNLV was up by four at halftime, and then six at the end of the third, and they won the game by seven. So it was a close game the whole way through. Big shout out to meadow Roland. She's averaging 17 and a half points in 12 awards for the season so far. Mountain West. Women's Basketball Player of the Week is meadow Roland, of our rebels, number 32 big shout out to meadow. Yeah, you think, and they've gotten big contributions across the board. Aaliyah Alexander has been excellent. She had two straight games with 18 points. Jasmine Lott's averaging 15 points a game. Destiny Leo had her first double figure game in a UNLV uniform, with 11 points against with 11 points against DePaul. And look, I was there. Those were a huge, huge 11 points because they were in they were down by two right middle of the third quarter, 51 to 53 and eventually they get the ball to her in the corner, and she hits a three, and then they get a steal, and she gets a fast break layup, and then she hits a pull up three on the fast break timeout. Wow. So they went from down two to up six, yeah, like that. And it they never lost the lead the rest of the game. And it was jumping in there after she did that too. I would imagine number seven, I would imagine she's not a starter, but, and I love to see that coach LaRock didn't take her out of the game. She just, she kept her in because she was bending the defense. She was she can, this girl can shoot right, right. And it was a sequence that won them the game. Practically. They went from down to up six, and they won by seven. So that sequence right there it was probably in the span of 90 seconds, and it won them the game. So she was fantastic. DePaul is one and one. Now they're a big east program, so they're going to, you know, they're new cons conference. They had a good game. Kate Novick had 20 points. That's a good program. Yeah, it's a good basketball team. But UNLV looked very good. Now here's the thing with with UNLV, are our rebels? We have a game on Friday. Yes, the lady rebels. I prefer the rebels, but the women's basketball team, yes, and that game is the number seven team in the country, the Baylor Bears, ESPN, the lady Baylor Bears, the Baylor Bears, okay, right? I see where you go. ESPN has given the bears an 80.3% chance to win the game, right? So that leaves 19.7% that UNLV wins in our house, 19.7% chance to win. This is a team that in the last six years has gone 130 and 30. That's 83% this is a coach that has taken her team to four straight postseasons. I feel disrespected by ESPN and that and that,

K.B. 27:30
that's understandable, but, but we must acknowledge that Baylor is great. Baylor's Great. Baylor is a very good basketball team, and these are simply predictions, right, right? And it's not always going. So here's, so here's, there was a prediction we just said a moment ago, right? A prediction that the Running Rebels were going to be Martin and UT Martin had some flamethrowers on there, and so, you know. And then the turnovers and things, and not sharing the ball enough. So Coach Pastner got into, got into, got in their rear ends about that, and, you know, they turned this around. So I would imagine. And the whole point of that little soliloquy was that they were projected, and they were predicted to win that game, UNLV, and they did not. So yes, you know, ESPN does this, the bet makers and the markers and all of this, they they have to put out their predictions. But that doesn't mean that's the way, that way this game is going to unfold,

Graydon Prescott 28:26
right? So here's what we need. Yeah, we need the students. We need the fans, rebels. We need the parents. We need the booster. We need everybody, alumni, the people living down the street, the people who are across the neighborhood or across town, because this is the number seven team in the country coming to Cox pavilion to play the rebels women's basketball team, who last season went 26 and eight, and the year before that went 30 and three, and the year before that went 31 and three. So we can show ESPN and all those predictions makers, you're wrong. What? What they're what they're getting themselves into. It's really giving us

K.B. 29:05
a don't know if the student body here realizes that, or realizes this. The for you to go to the game, any rebels game as a UNLV student, it's free, right? It's free, free. No, not a penny, right? Just show them your ID and you are in so for the UNLV women's basketball team,

Graydon Prescott 29:24
and we're gonna beat these bears. Thank you everybody for tuning into this episode of sports prep live. It's been a great one. I'm great in Prescott, and as always, have a great week everybody, and we'll check in with you next week after we take down these Baylor Bears. See you everybody, thank you for tuning into this episode of sports prep live. I'm Graydon Prescott, and don't forget to catch all of our episodes on Apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow us on Instagram or Twitter at sports prep live. Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai