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Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of sports prep live, prep live, where we unbox the mic and talk excellent in athletics.

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Welcome back to the sports prep live podcast. I'm your host, Greg and Prescott. For those of you who don't know, sports prep live has its own blog called The prep sheet where we highlight some of the more notable stories that are happening in and around high school, college and professional sports. And today, we are introducing a new segment called the prep talk, where my guests and I will discuss some of the topics that have been featured on the blog. Joining me for the very first pep talk discussion is our resident sports guru, and editor in chief of the prep sheet, KB is finally in the studio. What's up KB, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Great. I'm glad to be here. Looking forward to it's been a long time coming. KB has been with me since the launch of the second iteration of sports prep live, we talk sports quite often don't always agree. But it's always informative, engaging and sometimes can be a little bit heated. One of the installments of the prep sheet that has gotten some of the most interaction was Caitlyn Clark potentially being the first $100 million women's basketball player. Absolutely. Where do you stand on that? While Yeah, there was a lot of engagement from the time that we put that post up a couple of weeks ago.

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A lot of passion on either side of the issue. I think some of it stems from

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maybe some of the people who are fans of players that are currently in the MPAA who feel like Caitlyn hasn't even made it to the NBA WNBA excuse me, and so she hasn't paid any news, right? Dues haven't even come up. So it'd be putting her out to achieve something like that. I think a lot of people wanted to kind of push back on but then there were also you know, a lot of her proponents who agree with that assessment. You know, she has an endorsement deal with Naik, one of the only college players I think they were to this year that they signed it in addition to to high school players. So she has an endorsement deal with Nike. She has an endorsement deal with Buick, she has an endorsement deal with high V she has an endorsement deal with one of the tax preparation companies I forget which one is karmic? No it's out it could be h&r block. I know that her and Zoe, the lady that the young lady that played at South Carolina.

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Her And Zoey had an endorsement deal with a tax preparation company. I think it might have been h&r block. Right? But But yeah, I actually agree. You know, it was it was fun to put out the article and see a lot of the feedback, but just based on seeing her play, not only on television, but I've had the opportunity to see her play in person. I know that you coined a nickname for her the maestro when you were when you were still in grade school. And that really and I actually heard someone refer refer to her as the maestro style during the last gala and the tournament. Yeah. And I think that epitomizes not only the way she plays, but just how she goes about things in general. You know, she's no nonsense. She just wants to hope.

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She she doesn't want to be a model. She doesn't want to be an influencer.

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You know, she doesn't want to be a social media star. Caitlyn is just and I think it's the highest compliment. Anyone can pay her. You know, I agree with Kevin Durant. She's a Hooper. And so, you know, going back to the original premise of the question. Yes, I think that Caitlyn can be I think she will be.

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The WNBA is when she goes in. I don't know if that's going to be next year or the year after. I think she's going to be the women's first $100 million player. And I think she will accomplish that feat with ease. Yeah, I completely agree. And you talked about the people that may hold the stance that she hasn't accomplished anything in the WNBA yet and she hasn't technically made it yet. But

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when you're comparing college careers to players who are in the WNBA there's nobody in the history of women's college athletics that has accomplished what Kaitlyn accomplished last season. She average, I believe 20

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Seven points, eight rebounds, seven assists. She's second all time in collegiate triple doubles. She was the first person to have a 40 point triple double in the NCAA Tournament male or female, she had the most points and a Final Four game ever right male or female. And she won all three Player of the Year Awards. She swept the player of the year. So just based on what she accomplished last year, I absolutely agree. She is going to be the first 100 million dollar female basketball player not just based off of her salary in the WNBA, obviously, but the endorsements with Nike and high V and I believe you said h&r block, and she has the Buick endorsement as well correct. So just based off of those, plus, you know what she's going to mean to the WNBA and possibly international plays? Well, she's just going to end up being that first 100 million dollar athlete, Kaitlyn ignites a lot of passion, either way. And you know, the interesting thing about her clash, if you want to call it that, not only with Angel Reese, but with a real good buddy of hers. Haley van Lith

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when Caitlyn is on the court, she she has a mentality like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, right? It's just take no prisoners, you are not my friend on the court, even though she's really good buddies with a lot of the people that are on the opposite side of the line from her, or the other side of the ball, if you Well, in fact, she's played with some of these young ladies on one of the three USA basketball teams that she's been on and won a gold medal. I think one of the reasons that she went off against Louisville was because when she was on the USA basketball team, Haley was starting overhead. Haley was starting and Caitlin did not get a lot of playing time of the the coach at Louisville is the same coach who started Haley over Caitlin on that USA team. So I think I don't think it was as much directed as Hey, at Haley, it was more directed at like the coach because, you know, you started this girl over me and you recruited her harder than me. So I'm going to prove to you today, the mistake that you made. Right and and, you know, when so you take that battle, and then you fast forward to the battle that she had with, you know, South Carolina, and I know that her and Alia Boston are really good buddies. They were finalists in some of you mentioned three awards, but she ran the table. It wasn't more than three. She went yeah, I'm talking just the player of the year. Right, right. Yeah, she ran the table on Player of the Year awards.

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But Alia Boston is a really good buddy of hers. And they were finalists in a lot of the awards, that Player of the Year awards that Caitlin ended up winning or edging her out on.

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So that one was, you know, not as it was shocking to see Iowa win that game. I think Caitlin had 40 Plus in that game again. And now you're doing what he wants six and eight. Yes. And so there wasn't as much drama there except for her waving off one of the players for South Carolina. And I think that's a little bit where the drama came in. But there wasn't as much drama there. Yeah. The the ensuing game, right, against Angel race, you know, again, going back to this whole 100 million dollar player thing.

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Everyone knows that they broke records, right? It was over viewership, right? Yes. 11 million people tuned in. And I genuinely believe having watched the trajectory of Caitlin's career. I know that Miss Reece will say otherwise. But the lion's share of that audience was going to be there. If Caitlyn was there, and it didn't matter who she was going to be up against. You don't have to have to believe that based off of what of could have shut up you can look at the viewership for the previous correct and correct, you know, LSU people were watching couple million people. But Caitlin had three or four games in a row that past 910 11 Millions of viewers on average on national television. So it was just the Caitlin Clark draw at that point, instead of the angel Reese and LSU, which is I think that's where Angel might have it mixed up a little bit. It wasn't the LSU draw was

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if we're going to be completely honest about it. And you probably can't tell her that and shout out to Angel Reese. She's, she's proud and she feels like she was as much a draw as Caitlin, but I think everyone knows, that probably isn't the case. Yeah. And but she did make the most of that moment. I think, you know, Angel has done a lot in terms of her nio deals, and so, she's going to be formidable.

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But just in my own personal opinion, you know, and the opinions of the people that I see responding to the prep sheet and some of the articles that we've posted

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Um, we don't envision her career being as gigantic, if you will, as Caitlin's. And you can already see Kaitlyn has laid the groundwork, right predicate is there. You can see just her response she did. And I've actually played on this golf course and syllabus, she played the John Deere classic. Oh, yeah.

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And just showing up for the woods type response. Yes, there was a Tiger Woods moment there. I mean, 1000s of people showing up just to see her swing a golf club.

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And people coming from Indiana, Chicago, Illinois, obviously Illinois because syllabuses in Illinois,

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Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, people were coming from everywhere. Yeah, just to get a glimpse of, of this young woman, and she's a good person. So it's, you know, when Michael was playing in, he was signed to or his agent was David Falk. David Falk did a really good job and making sure that Michael was

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seen as kind of all American, you will. And I think that the team that Caitlin has around her, which really includes her family, and a couple of other advisors who I believe are related to her as well.

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They just do a really good job of making sure that who Caitlyn is kind of shines through. And I think that's what brands tend to look for that authenticity, that it's organic, who she is on the court and who she is off the court. It's organic. And I think that's what brands are going to respond to over time. And that's why we say we believe she's going to be the first $100 million player, I've met women's 100 o'clock. I've spent a lot of time with Caitlin and her family, they're great family, friends of ours, she is absolutely the same person off the court, that they advertise her to be on the court. And there's nothing in genuine about that. It's all it's all real. And like you said, with Michael Jordan, you know, the advertising, they're just trying to focus on who he is, as a person. The same thing can be said for Kaitlyn up, you know, I went to her high school games. And, of course, you mentioned me dubbing her the maestro was nine years old. So I've known this. I've known her since she was about 16. And now she's entering her last year of college and she hasn't changed. She's still that same extremely hard working perfectionist.

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And I plan to interview her on this show in the near future. You've interviewed her before and past as well. Yeah. And she told us on that interview, she is a perfectionist. She is hard working. She's always upset if she doesn't, you know, absolutely outperform her expectations and expectations. Yeah, she holds herself to an extremely high standard. And I think that's extremely noble for an athlete of her caliber to just always be seeking perfection like Michael Jordan, like Lebron James.

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In the women's side, you know, Sue bird, Candice Parker. So Lesley, all these legends of the game that were just perfectionist, and they didn't accept anything less than the absolute best out of themselves, and their teammates. So I think that's extremely noble. I want to ask you something that you said about Caitlyn? Yes. You said she doesn't want to be an influencer doesn't want to try to be a model. Yeah, shots fired and Angel. I'm not gonna say,

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I'm not gonna say shots fired. But angel has made it pretty clear that she is looking to squeeze all of the juice out of this thing that she possibly can. Yeah. And

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I'm not sure I didn't follow her career when she was at Maryland, and transferred from Maryland to LSU. I know that she has reclassed. And I think that she's readily acknowledged that

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being in college gives her you know, the biggest opportunity to earn the kind of money that she's earning, because once she hits the league, she's going to be in competition with everyone else in terms of brand dollars,

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to receive endorsement deals. And as a big wish she is in college, I'm not sure if she's going to play a big in the WNBA.

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As a big she's not going to be in the top five the way she is on the college scene.

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So I think she and I'll give her a lot of credit. She is rightly recognizing that the opportunity is now that she has to strike now in terms of those endorsement deals, building the relationships and hopefully those follow her into her WNBA career.

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But she said it herself, right that she wants to be a model. You know, I think she was recently on the cover of Teen Vogue.

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She does enjoy being an influencer

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Though it's not really a shot fired, but I think it's a recognition that for Caitlyn,

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Her focus is single mindedly on basketball, right? And knowing a little something about the world of NIHL and knowing something about the world of endorsements, that's what brands are looking for, that you want to be

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in a relationship with someone whose sole pursuit is becoming better at their craft. Yeah.

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I'm great and Prescott, we're here at sports prep lives the prep talk, and I'm here with my editor in chief of the prep sheet KB, discussing the matters of our blog. Yep, yep.

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So we just talked about Caitlyn and Angel Reese, another women's college basketball player who has been making a lot of noise since she was in high school, this page Becker's Yes, last season, she faced an injury she had to miss the entire season. However, her coaches and players that have been training with her and doing open runs with her saying that she's back in great form, and she's going to be contending for a player of the year. How, how excited are you to see her return? And what are you looking for from her? We are very excited. In fact, we did a post on page Becker's probably about 10 days ago or so. Yep, received a lot of good feedback and a lot of good engagement. On that particular post. I've been a fan of hers for a while as well. I've seen some of the competitions that she's had against, you know, the aforementioned Caitlin Clark. They hail from neighboring states pages from Minnesota. Kaitlyn was there in Iowa.

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I really think that cage is going to have a strong return, she took the amount of time the requisite amount of time that she needed to take to get healthy. I think that's one thing. One of her partners in crime and another young lady that I've met and I know that you have AZ Fudd I think there may have been a little bit of pressure for AZ to come back just in maybe rushed it a little bit. Yeah. You know, I could be wrong but just my sense of what the injury was, you know, knowing about the injury and she's had injuries in both knees

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and just not taking you know that that little bit of extra time and I can understand the pressure of being you know, highly sought after recruit number one in the country for her class and then coming into to UConn and there was a lot of expectations for her, especially with our very good friend I think best rated page backers. But with Paige, I think she either learned from that situation or she learned from others who came before her.

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And she really took her time she really made sure that she was healthy before she started working out.

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We both know you know a gentleman that you told me you're going to have on the show here in the not too long not too distant future Julian

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who is a trainer here in the Las Vegas area in Juliet has actually worked with with Paige as well and you know, he's another person that can kind of endorse or our

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support the idea that Caitlin orbs are not Caitlin Paige is really methodical about coming back. So I expect some some some big things from a great she's just a super, super talented player. Obviously, you know, before Caitlin did she won Player of the Year. I do think she got a lot of accolades that were

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they probably happened a little bit before they should have freshman year right but she's just hyper talented. She is like a when she is a hope or she's whip smart, so hard working very hard working. So I'm looking for some big things from Paige Becker's and I think, you know, she feels like she she probably has a lot of things to prove not not so much to the public, but but probably to herself. Yeah, I absolutely agree. She she's just a hard worker. She's super at heart.

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She's like that Kevin Durant mentality. She just wants to hope she doesn't care about all the outside, you know, influencer entertainment type of stuff. She's just pages. Hooper.

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Another man on the male side, who is a Hooper is a man by the name of Cooper Flagg. Yes, he was going to be going into his junior year, however, he made the decision to reclass to the class of 2024 and will be graduating high school this year instead of his, instead of in 2025. I thought that was an interesting decision. We covered the decision on the prep sheet. What were your thoughts about that? What did you think? Do you think he made the right decision? Do you think he's maybe getting ahead of himself? He had a great tournament at peach jam. However, I do think that might have influenced this decision a little bit. Do you think he's getting ahead of himself or is he right where he should be? Yeah. And I don't recall if he jumped from 26 to 25. He was 20. He was 2025. He was going into his junior year. I'm one year below him. Okay, so he's going to be

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Going into his senior year now. Okay, he jumped up one grade. So previously, he was going into his junior year. He reclassed. Now he's going into his senior year. Again, another person that we've done a post on, on the prep sheet. Cooper is a problem. Yeah. Just unbelievably talented individual. He is passionate on the basketball court. Oh, yeah. If you are being defended by Cooper, he's letting you know you're being defended. There's levels to that, and I don't have a good time, right, that you're being defended in, you know, as as prolific a score as he is, I think he almost gets off on defending a big defensive play more than he does a big offensive play. And I think that, that kind of mentality ingratiate him to the recruiters and coaches, whether they're on the college level or the NBA level, just to find someone who loves excelling at defense as much or more than they do on offense.

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You know, it seems like it came out of left field being this this guy is from Maine,

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probably not a lot of great basketball talent, or at least notable basketball talent coming out of Maine. So it's a cool story in that way. But he's been embraced by all of the top players. I know. A little over a week ago, he played at Rutgers, you know, one of the high school players invited to Rutgers. They were down with about three seconds slamming into the game, and he hit a game tying three. And you know, for being in New York,

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the crowd just erupted and I think that he came out of there. Even you know going into it maybe AJ you know, might have been a fan favorite but I think coming out of there

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a lot of those that a lot of the crowd that that raucous, tough New York crowd that's hard to win over. I think a lot of he went a lot of those people over. Cooper Cooper is a Hooper, and I look forward to the big things. Yeah. And also featured in that game. Shout out to the previous guest on this podcast. Jackson Richardson. Yes. Also featured in that game was his older brother Jace. Yes. He had a pretty good performance he did. Was he on the winning team? I don't know. He was on the team that was winning. Oh, he killed the three pointer was hit. Yeah. And then Cooper's T went on a little bit of a run in overtime and ended up winning the game but Jays had a really good game and Jason's another outstanding player. It's

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Las Vegas lost a good one. Because he left Bishop Gorman and I think he and his brother went out to Yeah, Christopher Columbus High School in Florida to play with the boozer twins are the Bucha brothers,

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which, you know, that team is going to be forming and not that they weren't formidable before. Florida's got two of them now. Yes. But yeah, I can't wait to see more from both the Jace and Jackson Richardson just Hooper's to the core really good guys.

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And you know, I expect at some point in time, you'll have you know, Jason sports rep live in the way Yeah, Jack. Yeah, that's the goal. Yeah. Obviously, you know, Jason is a super big talent. That game was a huge success. You had Cooper hitting the game tying shot. You had Jace, having his great performance, and Jackson was another was another one. He had 45 points. We wrote an article about in Jackson as well. I believe he is the number one ranked Junior in the country. Right. As of right now. Kentucky commit, I believe he is the Kentucky commit as well.

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Another collegiate athlete that's been getting a lot of headline recently is brawny. James. Obviously he had the the health scare in practice, right.

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We wrote multiple articles about you know, updates on his condition and where he is he's doing a lot better now. He's back in school. Yes.

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Do you think he should start to get back into basketball? Or do you think he should take his time rest? Where do you stand? You know, one of the people that impresses me the most in inside or outside of sports is LeBron James Right. And so far be it for me to question. You know, the judgment of LeBron. I know he's going to do what's best for his family. He's a good dude. He's wept smart.

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And you know, obviously really loves his kids and enjoys watching them play. So I am sure that they got the best possible advice, not only about when he should come back, but how I do know that he is

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back at USC. He's back on campus now. He was recently at

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A football game with some of his USC teammates. So I expect that it's not going to be too long before we see him

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on the court again. So I think that he's going to follow his dad's advice. Follow the doctor's advice. I expect that we'll see him again. And yes, I would love to see him on the court again. He's another player that's really fun to watch. I've had an opportunity to see him a couple of times because he's been here in Vegas playing Yeah.

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So yeah, I agree with, you know, what they're doing. They're, they're taking it slow. They're being methodical listening to the doctors, and he's going to much like Paige Becker's did, you know, work his way back? You know, slowly but surely. And I expect that we're gonna see him on the court before too long. Absolutely. Well, KB thank you for joining me on today's show. It's been a pleasure having you. Thanks for having me long time coming. And as for the rest of our listeners here today, be sure to tune in to the other episodes of sports prep live on 91.5k u and v HD to radio for the full stories that we covered today. And more. The prep sheet on sports prep. live.com. Thank you for listening. I'm Greg and Prescott. Have a great day. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of sports prep live. I'm grading 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 rep law. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai