And welcome back August 27th, 2024 in the dog days of summer.
All of us teachers are super excited to get back to work.
The Bristol boys are checking in.
Check us out on X or Instagram.
You'll likely be corresponding with Angry J. So there's always a shot that things will
escalate quickly.
And you could have some fun.
Lottie Dottie, studio owner in the house with his captain's shirt on.
Where'd you get that captain's shirt?
I was at the state a couple weeks ago.
Another Yankee W.
Who's your favorite Yankee captain of all time?
Thurman Munson.
That's why you have that on.
That's right.
Number one five.
We've had some good ones though.
Of course he's right up there.
We got the commission.
The commission's brought us a gift today.
You guys are going to find out in a little bit from his days with the pen, with the pen
and the pad.
My famous fruitcake.
A stereo tape.
Angry J.
What?
Yeah.
Thanks for coming.
Best record and baseball.
I still angry.
The Donfather absent studio engineer Kevin Ross.
Thank you for coming Kevin.
A shout out to the original studio engineer who never came to the studio.
The round mound of sound, A.J.
Bonnell.
Crocker, as usual.
You can always count on Crocker.
And our in and out guest, the tax man.
Our special guest in the studio tonight.
One of the best coaches in the area.
High school boys basketball, Ryan Raponi.
He laughs as I say that but he knows that I told him that.
Not just the area.
Trust me.
The area meaning Connecticut.
I appreciate that guys.
Thanks for having me.
Very welcome.
I have you.
Coach Rap as they call him in the blue collar town of Burlington, Connecticut.
One of the faces of Yukon Men's basketball.
Mayor may not be joining us tonight.
We're going to let you, we're going to have that be a cliffhanger while we talk about the
most important thing in the dog days of summer, the angst.
They may or may not have the best record in baseball right now.
It seems like it's one day they have it, one day they don't.
We still complain whatever.
Angry J. Are you believing in the angst yet?
No.
Why is that?
I've seen this.
They have Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth on their team and after that there's nothing.
We're going to count on standing.
Kamish?
He's horrific.
We got the best player in the game.
We don't have the best team in the game.
Okay.
Taxman.
He doesn't pay attention.
Socks are hot.
Socks are hot lately.
Socks lost eight of a love and he passed.
Unfortunately, socks are all done.
No, they're not.
They're going to make it, right?
No, they're like five games behind the third place wild card.
I don't think they can catch the royals.
They got to keep their guys in the lineup.
They're slurring into the stands and insulting people of all choices and whatever.
Coach Rapp, what do you think about the angster?
Do you care?
Well, I'm a Braves fan.
But listen, I always want the Yankees to actually make the World Series and I'd love them to
play the Braves because my father's a Yankee fan and that would be a good time.
I got a lot of boys that are Yankee fans.
So I feel like we could go back to the old days where you could probably just kick the
Braves ass again.
Speaking of Braves, did you see the magnetic documentary on MLB network?
No.
I got it taped.
Fantastic.
I got to watch that.
You got to check that out.
I did catch Grisham trying to score from second the other night on a single.
Lottie, did you see that?
You're not going to ask me my opinion on the Yankees?
I know your opinion.
Before I get that.
What's your opinion on the Yankees, Lottie?
I think there's a lot of mediocre teams in baseball and they're one of the better mediocre
teams.
That's all.
They have as good a chance as anybody.
What's your question mark going in to playoffs?
I said when we did the show near the trade deadline, they needed a legitimate closer
and they didn't get it.
So that's my biggest concern.
Still, is the back end of the bullpen.
Are those guys out there though?
There were a couple at the time, but I don't think they wanted to get rid of what, you
know, that was at Dominguez, Spencer Jones, those kind of guys.
I saw Spencer Jones.
You saw him one game.
Goodbye.
That's all it takes.
Yeah, it's all it takes.
We'll make the judgment on the one game in double way.
What about Christian against the Tigers?
Were you checking that out?
Do you guys remember this game?
The one that they lost to Detroit and extra innings?
I think they had to wake them up in the clubhouse to pinch run and then Wells hits one off the
top of the center field wall and he's like the hunchback and Notre Dame between second
and third base.
The guy, Stanton could have beat him in a race from second to home.
That was pathetic.
Anger Jay, you know it too.
Does he not want to play?
If you don't want to play, bring up the Martian.
Why was he whole hunched over?
I don't know what he was doing.
He wasn't even taking full steps.
Seriously.
He definitely wanted to stop playing third.
Booney had an elbow in the clubhouse.
He was passed out.
He ate too much of the buffet.
Like get off your ass and get in there and run hard.
Glaver's like, you got a hustle, dude.
I was never so disgusted.
I talked to Bobby Mack the next day in the street.
Oh man, that was bad.
You got to win those games.
They'd be up five, six games.
How many games had they blown?
The game, the Little League game on the Sunday night.
Dominguez had a tough one.
It was one game.
Was that that night?
Yeah, it was.
They brought him up for one game.
He batted fifth.
They sent him down.
But he knew before that he was going back down.
Didn't know when to bring him up.
And who was that against?
That was Detroit.
Yeah.
That wasn't the lefty though, was it?
Yes.
School Buller.
Yeah, that's cool.
And he double clutched on the way.
Yeah.
Bring him up for the left, the best left in the game.
Jesus.
In Homes, coughed it up again.
In the game, I went to Homes, almost coughed it up again.
They were up eight, three going into the eighth.
Lider gave up two bombs.
What game did you go to?
I was at the game on Sunday afternoon when Soto hit two and Judge hit one and Stanton
had one.
Well, Judge, he always had one.
You want to talk about that season, rap, Judge's season?
Have you ever seen anything like it?
It's not even September yet.
He's got a long month here.
Good opportunity to, I guess we could say, take over the real record at this point.
Well, you see, I get the text alerts on my phone.
Every night, it's like, Judge Hormorne, Judge Hormorne.
I'm like, is this from yesterday or is this today?
Good Mitch, are you not watching?
Well, it's not today.
Well, we're not watching right now because you're getting tattooed.
No, we know.
We're coming back to it.
Donati, not a problem.
No, the commission watches.
Commission, you used that never miss a game.
I've got my priorities changed a little bit.
I still am into what they're doing right now.
But yeah, I mean, the team is flawed, but like Lottie said, they're a very good higher
level.
They're one of the better of the mediocre teams, no doubt.
So the first comment we ever got on a YouTube watch was Kenneth Naylor, who was a staff
member at my school, and he told me today, straight face, that the best player in baseball
is Ohtani.
And his argument was, well, he pitches.
When?
Yeah, when?
I said when.
And he's not the best player in baseball this year, that's for sure.
No, not even close.
Not even close.
Can I be, can I complain on something?
When Kenny Naylor called in, wrote the comment, I thought Kenny Naylor was a fake name.
Like, hey, would you blow me or something like that?
Oh, I didn't mean that.
Headed to it.
I was like, no, he works at my school.
I'm like, oh, cool.
He should go by Kenneth.
He does go by Kenneth.
He is a great sports guy, but you know, I brought up Ohtani's record, and he's one of
these guys that says you can't judge wins and losses because like Nolan Ryan had, you
know, barely over a five-point-trick.
You want to know slap this, this says Jeter's overrated.
Yes.
There you go.
Another edit.
Bobby Mack.
How good a season is Soto having, and no one's even talking about it.
He's like, vice president.
He's vice president.
We had Garaghan Roos.
You guys going to hit close to 50 home runs and drive over 115 runs?
Right around 300.
And hit right around 300.
Way up there too.
Oh, how about the walks he takes?
They both have over 100.
Yeah, they both do.
Yep.
What does Ohtani get 50-50?
Who cares?
I mean, I'm more impressed with Ellie getting 20 and 60 than that, and he'll probably end
up with 30 and 70.
I mean, that guy is a different player.
Judges putting up Ruth and Bond's numbers.
On a team where they know, after him, nobody's going to hurt you.
Well, that's the thing.
He's hitting his home runs, but they're trying not to let him hit anything.
He's not going to get a pitch in the playoffs.
They're just going to roll it up to the plate and tell Stan to beat him.
You know what then?
We got to get creative.
We got to get him second.
Put Soto behind him.
Yeah, or Wells is going to beat him.
If there's a righty on the mound, Wells will beat him.
You love Wells.
I love Wells.
But you love Ferdugo too.
We don't play Wells all the time.
I know.
I love Ferdugo until May came.
Vanellies.
And then, although he's hitting better now, Torres is hitting better now.
Got a pitch?
I don't want to hear about Torres.
All right.
You won't.
Enough about the Yanks.
Coach Rapp, I actually do want to hear you talk just about Judge.
You got a dynamic player in your city.
Compare him.
Which there is none.
But go ahead.
Well, I mean, unfortunately with Acuna this season, we haven't had the opportunity to
watch him try to repeat what he did last season.
We're missing an ACL tear there.
Jesus.
Oh, my.
But I mean, Judge just the raw power.
And now that he is getting so selective, I think at the plate, I think a big problem
for him in his younger days was kind of expanding that zone.
And now he shows the patients to take the walks like Bonds did years ago.
And like his teammate, Soto, is.
And I think it makes him very difficult to get him out at this point.
And Acuna has kind of showed that as well.
I think the difference in their games is the speed that Acuna presents.
You know, but right now, Judge is dominating the game.
Rapp, that's a great comment.
And but you got to say this at his size, expanding that the zone is a natural thing
because he can reach the pitches.
It's just he shouldn't swing at him like those little compact guys.
I believe they have an advantage there because like there's they shouldn't swing at some
of those pitches because they can't hit them.
Yeah, I also think, you know, he gets a raw deal sometimes being, you know, so large up
there at the plate where he does have so much to cover, you know, and the umpires maybe
are given a little bit more to the pitchers with him at the plate, you know, than they
should.
So yeah, and his defense, I guess he has to kind of go after some of those pitchers.
Plus the fact that they're not throwing to him, you know, as much as they would be if
he had a little bit more protection in the lineup, you know, makes it even more impressive.
We got a circle back to the great high school coach, Greg Hunt, who we had on a long, long
time ago back in the YouTube days.
And like, the judge wears the high socks and back when you didn't have like, whatever,
stat cast and umpires grading systems and this and that, he said, you should wear the
high socks for this reason.
So the umpire knows where your knees are.
And I think that's awesome by judge.
He's not like a fancy pants, uh, wearing different color stuff all the time.
Like my man, jazz, a lot of teal.
Yeah.
Once in a while.
You, you talk about the, uh, the oven man all the time.
What do you, what do you think about the, like I was a high sock guy.
I used to always want to buy two and judge does, you see these clowns now that they have
them above the knee?
Like you see, it's got to go.
Santa.
Hunter Penn starts.
They're like shorts.
They're like, when shorts, it's awful.
It's like Caprice.
Hunter Penn started it.
It's like those football fans.
Like the white socks back in what was it?
70.
Yeah, but there was, there were actual shorts.
Yeah.
That should be illegal.
I mean, in the NFL, there's tons of fines for uniform police.
I'll volunteer to be the major league baseball.
The game would get better with that.
I was wearing what Jane wants to wear.
All right.
It's interview time.
Our corporate sponsor jumped up a level of corporate.
Joe Moriello, vice president, capital securities.
We all know their motto and his motto by now, a life.
Well planned.
We thank Joe and his company.
Also our consistent sponsor, not in a corporate level, but right up there.
Skygazer brewing John Tice.
And I think Lottie may know this.
I know it, but their motto is, you know, this is Sky Gazer, never stop looking up.
They're hitting it big with a couple of reloads on some of their new items.
Can't keep it on the shelf.
Well, they actually have a new one now, lemon and raspberry.
Really?
I haven't seen a raspberry one in the stores, but he sent a picture of it and boy, looks
like it's there.
There's not a bigger promoter than Bobby Mack on this shandy.
I'm telling you, every store he goes into.
Do you have it?
And why don't you have it and let's get it.
Yeah.
Doing it for a friend.
Even Walmart.
It's not just that he's our sponsor.
He's our friend.
If you guys haven't had it yet, do yourself a favor and find it.
And you know what else?
He never stops looking up.
All right.
What if I told you the most decorated, one of the most decorated assistant coaches in
men's basketball, NCA division one was going to join us?
What if I told you that this, what if I told you that this coach, coaches at the University
of Connecticut?
What if I told you this is his second stint?
What if I told you he was a head coach at division one Quinnipiac in Hamden, Connecticut?
Would you know who I was talking about?
I'll tell you who I'm talking about.
The commission went back to his sports journalism days.
Broke out the pocket protector.
Oh yeah.
He's writing one on this little pad.
Writing his little hieroglyphics.
Recording everything everyone says.
Oh yeah.
He's got his microphone out.
Okay.
All right, everybody.
So I'm sure you have your guesses, but without any further ado, Yukon men's basketball coach
Tom Moore.
Welcome, Tom.
Hey, great to be here.
Great to be here.
I'm looking forward to joining you guys.
Coach Bobby Mack here.
When did you know basketball coaching was something you wanted to pursue?
Wow.
It's funny.
You know what?
It happened as I realized print journalism was something I didn't want to pursue.
It was crazy.
I went to Boston University back in 1983 because I wanted to stay around sports and I figured
the best way to stay around sports was to be a sports writer.
And back then for the younger people, I don't realize like newspapers were really still
hot and really big.
They were most major cities had morning papers, afternoon papers, and I thought being a sports
writer would be terrific.
So I picked a school coming out of St. John's High School that had a strong journalism program
and I threw myself into it at BU for like three years.
I was on the school paper.
I loved it.
You know, the yearbook.
I was doing everything covering hockey games, basketball games, all that stuff.
I got to the end of my junior year and for whatever reason, I was like, it reality hit
me that like, hey, a year from now, I'm going to be in the profession.
I'm going to be out doing this.
And I just sort of fell out of love with it.
And so now I'm sitting there at the end of my junior year and I'm like, I don't know
if I want to do this.
And I think that's what happens a lot when you go to college.
You try to find out what you want to do, but sometimes you find out what you don't want
to do.
And so then it was like, now what?
And for whatever reason, like being a college basketball coach was always something that
was appealing to me.
And just in covering the BU basketball team, I was really, became friendly with Bill Herrian,
who was an assistant on that team, and Carl Hobbs, who was an assistant too as well.
And just got close to those guys.
And I went to them at the end of my junior year and I said, is there any chance?
Like what do you guys thoughts on me trying to become a college basketball coach?
You know, like didn't play much in high school, didn't play in college.
Is there, you know, is this a pipe dream?
What do you think?
I think both great to me.
They both were like really encouraging.
And then they were like, you know, you're going to start work camps, get to know a bunch
of people.
You're not going to make a lot of money, but you can do it.
You know, both of them.
And they had me meet with coach Mike Jarvis, who was the head coach at BU at the time.
And coach Jarvis was the same way with me.
You know, he's like, work our camps, work a bunch of camps and get out there.
You might have to start division three or whatever.
And that's what, that's how it played out.
I started at division three level, went to the division two level for a year, got back
to division three as a head coach.
And then I got my break when I got here in 94.
But so yeah, I would say long story short, like, I guess I was about 20 years old when
it, when it hit me after thinking, you know, when I was 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, I was going
to be a sports writer.
That's crazy.
It's like being at the right place at the right time, right Tom?
Yeah.
You know, and just like, you know what I often think about is what if Carl or Billy had been
like, yeah, that's probably too hard.
You know, like you, you haven't played, you don't know anyone.
I wouldn't do that.
You know, like, I don't know how I would have, what I would have done if those guys were
discouraging, you know, but both of them were really encouraging.
And you know, I just sort of ran with it.
You might have been covering the UConn team instead of coaching them.
Yes, exactly.
I would have been next to somebody.
That's not a bad gig either.
I know some dorks that did that.
I don't know.
Coach, I know.
Okay.
Yeah.
It was a great, I mean, it's a noble profession and it was like, it was, you know, like I
said, I mean, I'm from Worcester, like that central mass area.
There was a Worcester Telegram.
There was an evening Gazette.
Yeah.
Like I just figured, hey, if I, if I, if I can't play professionally in sports, like,
let me try to cover sports.
I mean, what a great, what a great life, you know, I thought that would be terrific and
something pulled me the other direction and here it is.
Yeah.
Coach, I know you alluded to your head coaching stop at Worcester State.
Could you talk a little bit about that and what it was like being a head coach for the
first time?
Yeah.
How about this?
I'll share a funny story with it.
So I get, I do one year as an assistant at Worcester State.
I do one year as an assistant at Assumption College in Worcester division two school.
And now the Worcester State head coaching job opens up, you know, at the start of my
third year.
Now I'm only 24 years old.
And I've got only two years of experience and, but it's a part-time position.
It's at Worcester State back in, this would be 1989, 90.
And so it's not like there's a lot of people clamoring for a part-time position at the
division three level, which paid $3,500 for the year.
That was like the stipend, you know, so it's like, it's not like I was fighting off like
a young Mike Shieshsky or a young Bobby Knight to try to get the job, right?
So the former assistant, the former head coach who I worked on, the who left, he said, you
should apply, you know, and I'm like, Hey, I don't think I'll get it, but I'll apply.
So they, they take it down to three guys, me and two other guys, they interview us,
right?
And they offer the job to another guy.
So the guy says, he goes, let me think about it for a night and I'll talk to my wife and
see if I want to take it.
He sleeps on it and he comes back and says, I don't want it.
So now it's me and the one other guy, they offer it to the other guy.
So I was third of three, third of three.
And the other guy goes, let me think about it.
I'm going to talk to my wife and see whatever it, they must have looked at it like the amount
of time, 3500 bucks.
I got to be crazy.
So he turns it down.
So like, what a great vote of confidence.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah.
And I think because I didn't have a wife at that time that I was single and I was, I
would have done it for free.
I didn't want to tell them that, but you know, I thought I was coaching at Duke, you know,
to get that opportunity at 24 and off I went, you know, and it was awesome.
I loved it.
I mean, it was great.
Those kids were, those kids, I loved coaching those kids because it's a state college division
three.
And there's two things about those kids that are neat.
One is that most of them, the first generation in their family to go to school.
So it was really rewarding to watch them go through that.
And number two, like those kids love it just as much as these kids do, you know, like we
have 200 people at our games, you know, and here at Yukon, you get, you know, you're
going to play in front of when you play a national championship, you're playing in front
of 70,000, you know, but like these kids wanted it just as badly.
The time commitment they gave, the amount of toughness they showed and, you know, with
the state Salem state game, you know, had the same meaning to those kids as a Yukon
Villanova game would mean to one of our guys.
That's cool.
You guys remember when coach Pichl said in the New York post about not being the first
picked for whoever, maybe it was Rutgers, I wasn't my wife's first choice either and
things worked out.
Yeah, I ended up in sports illustrator that quote.
Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Coach, Jason Harle here.
It's funny that you were, you're mentioning division three basketball.
I actually coach right down the road from you guys at Eastern Connecticut.
So, um, well, great.
Yeah.
Jason, I used to coach against the years I was there, Dan Swachenko was.
Oh, he actually just retired last year, believe it or not, from teaching.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was terrific.
Yeah.
He was intense and they had great teams there when I was there.
Yeah, they played defense.
I got to ask you this.
Um, a lot of our younger listeners probably don't know that you were on the staff with
Calhoun and when you guys won the first championship back in 99, can you compare and contrast the
coach Calhoun style with coach Hurley style now?
Is there similarities or what, what are the differences?
Yeah, I love talking about it.
I'm going to use up the rest of the show on this thing because those two guys are so similar
in, um, I think, I think I'll put it this way.
They're so similar in their approach to running this program.
Uh, very, very similar, eerily similar in how they attack running the program.
Um, from a, from a coaching and a technical point of view, I think they're both defensive
minded first and foremost.
Um, and I think Dan is, Dan has come up in an age where the offensive sophistication
has become much greater with the influence of the European game.
Um, and, uh, there was a little, there was a little less of that when we were in the
mid, early to mid nineties.
Um, so, um, I think there's a little more emphasis on, on, on offensive actions right
now, you know, that, that Dan has sort of brought and really elevated in the last couple
years in particular.
But um, I think both of them first and foremost are, are defensive minded coaches, but they
are both incredibly driven, um, incredibly passionate about their programs and their
kids.
Um, they are wired so similarly in terms of the commitment they make to the program.
Um, you know, it's, it's eerie that, that, that like married two boys roughly both about
the same age when they were coming through.
Um, you know, like I, I often say about both of those guys, if you wanted to put a hit
out on Dan Hurley or coach Calhoun, you'd be able to, there's one or two places you
could go send the, send the killer either to their house, just wait at their driveway
or their parking space at gamble.
Yeah.
Cause that's where they're going to be all the time.
Right.
Like they are, if they're not at home, they're here.
And if they're not here, they're at home.
You know, they both started in high school too, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
But they're very much like they like their, their wives, their two chit, their two boys
and my program.
And that's what they, that's what consumes them like 24 hours a day.
And it's so similar.
Like I might get something from Dan now.
Um, where we're at, you know, 10 at night where it's something about NIL or it's something
about scheduling or something like that.
And I'd get something from coach Calhoun back in the day at 10 PM about like, you know,
a, you know, back then I was doing all the scouting, like a scouting thing or a recruiting
question, you know, so like it's they, they're consumed with, um, the program and they're
both, they both will, will fight tooth and nail to try to not give any ground to anybody
in terms of any aspect of the program.
But they're always competing at trying to make sure that the program doesn't get anything
taken away from it, uh, you know, from a support standpoint or that the program isn't
slighted, you know, from a conference standpoint or from a media standpoint.
Um, they're just like, it's their lives.
They throw everything into it to hear all the time.
Uh, and, uh, that's why I say like that's the common denominator too, with, uh, people
ask me all the time, like, how did they play so hard for him?
You know, they used to say that to me about coach Calhoun.
Now the thing about coach early, like, why did they play so hard for him?
It's cause all these dudes know, like he's with them all the time.
Like he is in the fight with them all the time.
I could say the same thing about both of them, you know?
So, um, yeah, they're, they're, they're very, very similar.
It almost, almost like exactly the same in their, in their approach to program to running
the program.
How about this?
Um, I make the comparison of, I don't know if he would like this coach early, but he
reminds me a little bit of a young Rick Bettino, the way he's on the sideline, but I don't
want to make it about them.
I've said this to all the guys here in the past and I've argued with people about this.
I think maybe I'm biased cause I'm a, I'm a Yukon Homer too, but I think Jim Calhoun
has done, did the best job ever of building a division one program.
Just from the fact that, I mean, you know, the field house, the Yankee conference, where
they were, I know people will say, well, John Wood and all that, but like it was LA like
stores Connecticut is like it's a name now.
And I've never seen like, you know what the field house looks like, right?
I mean, the Yankee conference.
I mean, do I have a good case on that?
Cause I'll argue that to death with people.
Oh yeah.
I would agree.
I mean, I'm biased too, obviously cause coach Calhoun means the world to me.
But yeah, I agree with you a hundred percent.
When you think about, you know, I'll debate people.
Sometimes people will talk about, all right, we just coach stand on the top five greatest
coaches of all time and people have them at three or they are math five or they have
my whatever.
And now, you know, you want to say wooden or eight, I guess.
And then you want to sit, you want to say Shoshesky like, okay.
Yeah, but they were good.
They were good before.
Yeah.
But the places they were at, you know, like Duke had a history and Duke had a history
and Duke was in a great conference.
And like you said at UCLA, you had the pack 12, pack 10 back down or probably pack eight
when he was there and you had Los Angeles.
And people will talk about Roy Williams and coach Williams is a phenomenal coach and his
his track record of final fours and lead eights incredible.
But again, his two jobs were Kansas and North Carolina, you know, and so like, yeah, to
think that he built this out in stores, Connecticut, at a place and with those facilities.
And even in the big East, like they used to tell me stories when I first got here about
how they built it.
And they started, you know, like 86 and they were selling the selling the league.
Like they weren't selling Yukon to recruits in those 86 87 88 just getting it going.
They were selling the big East like they were selling play on Big Monday, playing the carrier
don't, you know, play at Villanova, play at Georgetown, play at Syracuse, St. John's,
you know, the big East tournament.
They really couldn't.
They didn't have anything to sell at Connecticut.
You know, they were like, and then if you also notice, if you look at those rosters
of the early teams, like they didn't feel like they could win battles in the Northeast
cities for great players, you know, like they couldn't go to New York City and beat St.
John's and Syracuse were getting guys out of New York City, right?
They couldn't go to Philly and beat Villanova.
They couldn't go to DC or Baltimore to beat Georgetown and beat Georgetown for anyone
worth anything.
From a recruiting standpoint, you're saying?
Yeah, from a recruiting standpoint.
Yes.
So a lot of those guys with the recruiting, but what they did is they sold, you know,
they went after guys that were outside the geographic footprint and they sold the big
East, the allure, the big East, you know, and you think of, you know, some of the guys
over the years that they went after that came in and built like Lyman De Priests is from
Michigan and Rod Sellers is from, you know, down in South Carolina, you know, taking
them in.
Donnie and Ollie.
Yeah, Donnie, Kevin, Travis Knight, like, you know, then he goes from the dove overseas,
you know, and drone overseas.
I love Jeff.
Yeah, Kevin from LA, right?
Like a lot of those guys were from areas that they couldn't, they didn't feel like they
could beat, you know, some of those big East powerhouses and, you know, and then they got
a couple, obviously, Chris Smith is a huge recruit, maybe the most important recruit
because it made it cool for a Connecticut kid, you know, to go to Yukon and then obviously
Scoparelle was a huge recruit because it was an in-state kid.
Once he hit, like, you know, 1990 and that dream team, like it started to really take
off, you know, and it was like a legitimate, you know, basketball powerhouse.
Coach, I want to stay with Coach Calhoun just for another second.
When you were hired in 1994, what was your connection with Coach Calhoun?
Did he know you from Worcester State or did he know you previously or how did that come
to pass?
Well, that's another funny story here, all right, on this one.
It was Carl Hobbs, you know, like, remember how I mentioned it when I was a student at
the U.S. when I met Carl.
I go, so now fast forward, I go one year at Worcester State, one year at Assumption, now
I'm in my fifth year as a head coach at Worcester State and we have made, like, in 1993, we made
the ECA season division three.
It's like the equivalent of, like, the NIT and then we made the NCAA tournament in 94
at Worcester State and they hadn't made it since, like, 75 or 76.
I'm like, this is the best I can do here, you know, like, I've done five years and,
like, I've got to get a division one assistance job somehow.
So I really tried hard after that 93 year and the 94 year and they had a restricted earnings
position which is basically like the third assistance spot at Yukon and Carl, just a
word of mouth, I get out there, Carl finds out I'm interested and Carl's like, I can
get you involved here with this because Carl, actually what happened was Dave Lado took
the northeastern job and they moved, Coach Calhoun moved Carl up from the third spot
to the second spot.
So now the third spot's vacant and it's June, July, August and Coach Calhoun is, like, his
preference is to give it to a former player, you know, because those type of positions
sometimes go to former players, you know, somebody who might have played overseas and
is finishing up their career and they want to get into coaching.
So Coach Calhoun was pretty transparent with me.
He was like, hey, you're impressed, you know, your stuff's impressive.
What you've done, you seem ready, you're 28 years old and stuff and you've already got
a lot of experience.
You could be good at it, but like, I prefer former players and I'm just sort of weeding
out who could be one of those guys, but you're right there.
So he takes his decision into like the end of August and he decides on someone else.
Like he gave it to one of his former northeastern players who had just finished a career overseas
and thought they wanted to get into coaching.
So I came in second again for this job, you know.
So there you go.
I'm in second again, two out of two and so I'm heading back to Wister State for my sixth
year and I'll never forget this is the most faithful night of my life professionally.
I mean, you notice guys, I threw in there professionally because if my wife hears this
and she hears that, I don't say personally, like she's going to be mad at this, but this
was the biggest night of my life.
It was a Friday night, like the third or fourth week in September of 94 and I decided like
there was a AAU tournament going on in Boston at Northeastern and I'm like, should I go
down there and recruit?
You know, it's like, you know, I'm thinking back and forth like I was over at Wister State
that Friday afternoon to like, you know, there was, we had workouts and lifts and whatever
and I'm getting ready again for my sixth season over there.
And this guy at UConn has been working at the job for like, you know, whatever three
or four months or three or four weeks, right?
He had just gotten the job.
And so I decided to go down up to Boston to recruit.
I'm in the stands.
I'm watching games six o'clock, seven o'clock, eight o'clock, nine o'clock, just like recruiting,
you know, for Wister State.
All of a sudden Carl Hobbs walks in at like 9.30 or so, right?
And he sees me and he's like, you know, there's only five or six college coaches there.
He sees me and he's like, what are you doing here?
You know, I'm like, I'm just recruiting, you know, he's like, me and coach are going
to watch a kid in the 10 p.m. game.
And he goes, coach is meeting me here.
He took a separate car.
So I said, oh, all right.
So he's sitting down.
I had no idea he was coming.
He had no idea I was going to be there.
But all of a sudden came comes coach Calhoun, right?
So this is my first time that my, I didn't interview with coach.
I just did a couple of phone interviews, you know?
So this is my first time around them.
I'm nervous to shit.
I'm like, oh boy, like coach Calhoun, you know what him, you know, it's just like, I'm
like, oh geez, you know?
So Carl goes, hey, coach is a Tom.
Remember, you know, you're the Tom Moore for a while.
Hey, nice meeting you in person.
Hey, what's going on?
And we sat there, me, him and Carl, and he was like, just like low key.
He was funny.
He was laughing.
He was joking.
He was like, just a regular guy.
It was just the three of us, you know?
So I was like, wow, coach is like different than what you see on the sideline, you know?
And Monday morning comes and Carl calls me and Carl goes, hey, listen, do you think you
could get out of the, you deal at Wista State this year and come and take this job?
You know?
And I'm like, yeah, I'll walk down there to come down.
I'm like, yeah, yeah.
Even though it was restricted earnings, I was going from, you know, and by this point,
it makes it even interesting, but I was getting married like a week, a week or two later.
And I had to tell my wife, like I was making like the hefty salary of like, I don't know,
25 grand or something at Wista State, and I was going to go now make 16 at Yukon, you
know?
And I had to explain to her that it was a promotion, you know?
There's not going to be a honeymoon.
No, no, exactly.
And it wasn't two because practice started.
We had, at the division three level, practice started November 1st.
So we get married October 22nd.
You know, we picked the date like a year and a half in advance, October 22nd.
We'll do like seven days, take it to like the 29th, and we'll start practice at Wista
State on November 1, right?
But I get the Yukon, I get the thing at Yukon and practice starts October 15th.
So I said to Alina, I'm like, I'm going to be lucky if coach is going to give me a wedding
day off.
Yeah, exactly.
Like a honeymoon.
Yeah, I don't even know if I'm going to get the day, you know?
But so anyway, we ended up, and the reason they did it was just because the guy that
they hired wasn't quite ready to make the transition from playing the coaching and he
didn't do a good enough job, you know?
And coach liked what he saw when he met me and hung out with me for that hour.
He was impressed with me and he was just like, you know, my guys, my former player is not
ready.
Like we got to pull the plug on this and we got to get Tom in here.
You know, and it was like, so just through like, just through trying to do a good job
that night for Wista State, I got like the opportunity of a lifetime.
I'll never forget it.
Everything happens for a reason, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So I want to focus on what you hang your hat on as a staffer there in the Calhoun era
and now, like what do you do primarily?
Is it game prep, recruiting, offense, like guard stuff, postman stuff?
Like what's like your major function on the court and off?
Okay.
Um, the first time I was here, it was, it changed quite a bit from that restricted earnings,
94, 95, I couldn't go on the road recruiting.
That's how the third assistant spot was delineated by the NCAA.
So coach Dickerman, Howie Dickerman was on staff and Hobbs, he was on staff and they
did all the recruiting and I had to, in July and June, I couldn't, during the season,
I couldn't go out and I stayed as the third assistant.
They lifted the restricted earnings tag on that after one year, fortunately.
But um, so I think I stayed from 94 to like, oh, 2000 in that third spot and what coach,
the way coach did it is he had the guy in the third spot to every scout.
So I was on the court for practices and I was on the court, obviously on the bench for
games and I did every scout of every opponent.
Wow.
In those six years, yeah.
And um, and Carl did the guards and coach D did the big and um, but I just sort of picked,
you know, filled in wherever I could here or there or whatever.
Um, I got, I got, I got to jump in.
Are you talking live or VHS type of stuff?
It's not like the technology today where you can click on like, you know, no, it was VHS.
Yeah.
Like deck to deck, like we had two, two VHS players and you had to like cut out, you know,
edit what you needed.
Oh my goodness.
Did managers help you?
No, not really.
Oh my goodness.
They would help it.
Yeah.
They'd help in acquiring the VHS tapes.
You know, we always had a well-stocked library of VHS tapes, but um, you know, I did all
the watching and all the editing and uh, it was just, you settle into a rhythm and a routine.
I mean, it was hard, you know, you get your occasional Saturday, Monday game or something
and it would be hard, but like you just, you just climb through the season and you,
there's a rhythm to it too, you know, that, that is, you know, that, that you just sort
of settle into, you know, but um, and then in the summer I ran his camp.
Like that's what I did basically as soon as we got back from the final four of the
coaches convention and, or if we were in the final four, like I would come back and I just
run to get three weeks of day camp or overnight camp in, in July and I would run that.
And then once I, we got to 2000, 2001, I was, he, uh, I think what, oh, Carl got the George
Washington job and he moved me up to the second spot.
Then he moved me up to the first spot and it was, you know, then it was traditional.
I had, uh, the guards and, um, I had a full load of responsibilities of, uh, recruiting
and, and, um, and then he moved me up to the associate head coaching position for a couple
years too, as well before I left for Quinnipiac.
Now it's, it's been different.
I came in with Dan as pretty much a traditional assistant coach where I worked with the bigs
and, um, did scouts and did recruiting.
But in the last two years, Dan is like probably the last year in two years.
We're trying to get ahead of this NIL stuff.
And I think he sort of sees me a little more in terms of a general manager.
So, um, Luke and Kamani have done all the scouts and we've sort of like transitioned
me from even recruiting, um, into more of just the general manager type of thing.
So I'm dealing with NIL and the collective and I'm dealing with scheduling conference
issues and things like that.
So, um, I'm enjoying it.
It's new.
It's different.
It's a new challenge.
And, uh, I'm just, I'm thrilled to be able to still be a part of UConn basketball in
these last two years, obviously, as you guys can imagine, it's been like just a dream.
So Tom, Tom, I have a question for you on the scout.
Um, did you, you did the scout for the 99 game?
Against Duke?
Yes.
And what did you think when you saw them and what was the message to the team to coach?
Um, this is, uh, there's another funny story with this.
It's a coach Calhoun used to have this thing where he had, and if any of the people on
the podcast have read his book, they know the story.
Um, he told a couple of them in regards to this game is he used to watch games like religiously
at home at night, you know, and he had these blue cards.
You're like, uh, index cards and whenever he's played a team that he thought we might
play in the NCA, he would take little notes on different teams that he would watch nationally.
And he had a ton of notes on Duke because he thought we were one of the best teams in
the country and he knew they were one of the best teams in the country.
So he, you know, I think he felt we could meet them in a regional final or a final four
game or a national championship game.
So he had a lot of ideas on them as we approached that week of the final four, we had to get
ready for Ohio State first, but, um, it was a feeling that we would be playing Duke if
we got by Ohio State.
And he had a pretty, he had his all his thoughts and ideas on what he wanted to do ready, um,
you know, for Duke ahead of that game.
But, um, you know, we did come up with, we talked about double teaming out and brand
that was, that was really important.
There was a couple of things like offensively, we really tried to get Ricky more juiced up
about scoring because we knew that they were going to try to deny both ripped and collared
on the wings.
They had, they had played a style of man defense that year where they put extreme ball pressure
on the ball, whoever was handling it on the perimeter.
And then one pass away, they were really in the past some lanes trying to deny.
So like we had told Ricky, like you got to be prepared to beat your man and go try to
score because if you look to your left or you look to your right, they're going to be
really exaggerated and passing lanes and they're going to be pressuring you, Rick, basically,
you know, and Ricky as, as you people remember, the people watch us closely, Ricky was a reluctant
scorer.
He came in as a, as a big time scorer in high school and then he started to lose some confidence
in his shot and then he gets surrounded by two guys who didn't mind like casting them
up and Rick and Colin.
Yeah, that was kind.
So yeah, exactly.
So those two guys never met a shot they didn't like.
So Ricky was like losing sort of offensive scoring confidence and then playing with two
guys who wanted the ball and loved it all the time.
So Rick became like this monster on the ball defender and a really good push point guard
and a good facilitator, you know, but he had to sort of flip his role offensively for that
night.
And if you guys remember, he was big time in the first half.
Yeah.
14 points.
He was like, they were taking away Rip and Colin on the wing and they were trying to pressure
him and no one can keep him in front.
Like you can't keep Ricky more in front of you, but it had worked for coach K that defense
the system all year.
And I, he got to the point where I think he was just like, yeah, we're not changing.
Like, and I also wonder if Duke had come into that game and just said, like, maybe if we're
soft on Ricky on the ball and we sort of cushioned on Ricky on the ball, but we played Colin and
ripped the same, like they, Ricky might have had a little more struggles to try to score.
But you know, when you challenge Ricky at 35 feet with a live dribble, like no one's
keeping in the front of them.
So he got to the lane and he scored on pullups.
They scored on a couple of layups.
He scored.
He scored on one banker where he was dribbling away from the basket, which is a great memory.
Exactly.
You know, and like the other thing that's funny about that game too is the night before coach
would always like, let me do the personnel and say a few things.
I show the video and then I show the person and then I talk about the personnel.
We'd have moments whiteboard, right?
So like you got to remember fellas like that.
They're top seven, eight guys.
Like I think all of them played in the NBA.
Four of them were among the top 14 picks in the draft in 99 later, you know, the drafted
two months after this game.
So I'm explaining these guys to our players and I'm like, I got to be honest.
I'm like, you know, Elton Brand, like, yeah, that's a big guy in the country.
Like William Avery, like one of the best combo guards in the country.
Like Shane Badi, like, you know, one of the most versatile three, fours in the country,
you know, like, and I'm like, I'm gassing these guys up.
They're pretty good, you know?
And I, so then coach would always finish up with some final thoughts.
So I go sit in the back, coach walks up and coach goes, coach, and I can see like Kevin
Freeman's getting pissed at me.
He's in the front row and his knee is like, it's raced it up and down.
Like he's getting pissed that I'm giving them too many flowers, right?
And I guess because like the media had given them so much accolades all year too.
I think our guys were just sick of it, you know, and then to hear me come up there and
I'm praising them, right?
So I go sit down, coach comes up and he goes, well, you know, Vegas says we're 10 point
underdogs and I think everyone else in the country doesn't think we have a shot.
He goes, I guess, including coach Moore.
Oh my God.
All right.
You know, so those guys all like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All like that.
Yeah, screw coach Moore.
Yeah, exactly.
I was president and come back and it knocked me out.
But another, hey, another funny story from that night, I had to do bed checks.
I was doing bed checks that night, the night before the national championship game and
we're at, you know, these kids at a final four, they have all kind of family and friends
visiting them and stuff.
So Rip and Kevin Freeman used to let always room together on the road and I knew all their
parents and their family and friends were all here and stuff.
So as I'm going to their room, I'm like, oh man, I'm going to be the bad guy now.
I'm going to have to break up like a bunch of people.
They got to leave the room and whatever.
I get close to the door and I can't hear anything.
It's like really quiet.
Knock on the door.
Here comes Kevin to the door and there's not a pin.
Like you can hear a pin drop.
There's no one in the room and he's got his game uniform on.
I before the game at midnight, he's got his 15 Freeman, Yukon, shirt and shorts.
Right.
And I go, I go, what's up, man?
I go, you're right.
First of all, I'm like, why isn't anyone here?
He's like, no, no, no, we kicked them all out.
Like they're all gone.
I go, why are you in your uniform?
Like that, you know?
And he goes, just we're ready like that.
And Rip comes around the corner and Rip's got his uniform on.
And I'm like, all right, I guess you guys are ready, you know?
So anyway, but.
Coach, can I tell you, we had, uh, Raj Maljohn's on this, um, couple months back.
He told a story when they were hanging out in somebody's room that night.
I think it was Ricky's where, um, the local news or the, they, they went to ESPN went
to like some feeds from Carolina and they were already, uh, selling championship t-shirts.
And at that point Ricky said, all right, everybody get the F out.
And then that was on from that point.
That might have been it.
Then maybe that's why they left.
Yeah.
He might've kicked Kevin and Rip out of his room.
Right.
You know, who was a better player, number 15 Freeman or number 33 Freeman?
I'd like 15.
Yeah.
Me too.
Yeah.
Coach, we actually sleep in UConn pajamas too.
Yeah.
Good stuff.
Only the first Monday in April though.
Yeah, exactly.
Coach, when you win that in 99, there's any thoughts that like, UConn's going to go on
and run like they did today to this day, all those national championships.
What'd you think back then?
Was that like breaking the ice or what did you think?
Oh, no, I mean, how can you, I don't, you know, I, yeah, you know, I shouldn't say no,
you know, like, I mean, six over the last 25 years is staggering, you know, when you
put it in those terms and you really think about it, like, and then you think about how
many some other schools have won over the last 25 years, you know, and, and like, geez,
six, you know, basically one every four years is, it's amazing, you know, but I shouldn't
say that I'm surprised because it's like we said, you know, like he got here in what,
85 or 86 or whatever, and he gets, he wins the NIT in 88.
And then he's got the dream season in 90.
And then really from 90 to 99, like it was, they had a legitimate shot.
Yeah.
You know, not to like, yeah, I mean, there were at least a, a round of 32, sweet 16, final
18, like multiple times, you know, the only year probably was 96, 97, which was the year
after Ray and Derone and Travis and those guys left where we're ripping and, and Jake
and Kevin were young, you know, and we lost Kirk and Ricky had that, those suspensions.
That was the only year I think like, and maybe one of those years, 91 or 92 or something,
I think Lindsay Hunter beat him in the NIT.
Yeah.
But like, when you think, yeah, yeah.
When you think about it, um, coach was starting to get, see that's, this is the game, the
game I remember the most where I thought coach was the most relieved in, in, in every single
game I was with him and I was with him for 450 games or something was the 99 final eight
game over Gonzaga.
Yeah.
Like he had finally made the final four.
I had never seen him more relieved.
Like he coached loose and, and, and not, I don't want to say carefree, but he coached
loose that whole week leading to Ohio State and then he was really loose leading up to
Duke, you know, because I think he felt like, you know, like it used to be a big thing where
every year there was this annual thing where like who's the best coach to not make a final
four.
Yeah.
And as you got the 96, 97, 98, he's name starting to become on that list, you know, and, and
he got that off his back and then he, and then he wanted, but um, no, you know, and
then like if you look at it, so stop there and you're like, all right, uh, 2000, 2000,
2000, wasn't quite, wasn't quite, didn't we lost to Tennessee, right?
But uh, and 01, uh, I'm trying to think of 01, but 02, I don't, I forget.
02 was Texas, I think it was Maryland.
Maryland.
Yeah.
Maryland.
Yeah.
01 I think, yeah.
Was Texas, 02 was Koran at Syracuse against Maryland.
Exactly.
And then 03 I think was Texas.
Right.
And then 04, we win the thing.
Oh, five we, we were pretty, could have been pretty good.
We had the two kids, Marcus and AJ had the laptops or the, and then AJ one year had the
brain aneurysm and now, so now you're 06.
That team had a chance, you know, um,
That George Mason, George Mason.
Yeah.
That was a tough one.
George Mason, which was, that was the hardest loss that I ever took here as an assistant
coach.
And then, you know, then they, I leave, but they knew they were in 09 in the final four.
They were there, they win the thing in 11, they win the thing in 14, you know, it's like,
so I guess they were consistently knocking on the door.
You could make a case every year from 90 through, you know, 14.
So that's a, that's, that's quite a run.
Coach, we gotta ask you this.
So we're, we're based out of Bristol, Connecticut.
Obviously the big guy, Donovan Klingon, um, gotta ask you this, we love him.
We have, we've had him on.
How do you think he's going to do in the NBA?
How do you think he's going to stack up?
I think he's going to be great because I think like his, his rim protection is a real
thing.
Like his, his instincts and his lengths, I think it translates even to the, to the larger
players in the league, you know, that's one thing on the defensive end.
He's much more nimble and moves better than people think.
I think people look at him and they see, you know, seven, two, two, 80.
And they assume that he doesn't move in, in short areas.
Well, but that's a, that's, that's a mistake.
He's very agile in, in short spaces, you know, and quick off his feet for someone his size.
Second thing, I think offensively he's going to be much more diverse in the league.
I think he'll be an excellent like high post passer.
He's a very good low post passer and he's, and he's a good high post passer, but I think
he's going to get even better.
And the other thing is I think he'll become a really good shooter as a five man in the
NBA.
Like it's, his touch has been there, you know, like his dance, dance thing with like a lot
of people ask us like, all right, why didn't Dan let him shoot more threes or something
in college?
If he hadn't gotten hurt twice this sophomore year, he would have been shooting threes.
Like coach, coach was, coach was by the time we got to the end of the year, coach was
starting to play around with like, we may have him pick and pop or have him take a trail
three.
Like Dan always had him shooting threes.
If any of you guys saw us pre game and if, you know, we don't have our shootarounds are
closed, but our practice is a close, but like he would have, uh, Donovan shooting threes
in practice.
But what Dan's great at offensively, one of the many things he's great at is he really
knows how to get guys to grow their own game within the con, within the context of their
career and a year.
So I think like, again, had he not got hurt in the preseason, um, you know, cause he got
hurt preseason and he really, his first practice was the day before the first game.
So if you guys remember, he had a lot of rust on him, uh, those first five, six, seven games,
right?
Like he was still trying to get caught up.
Then he starts to sort of come out of it and then he hurts the foot again, December
20th, um, at Seaton Hall and now he's back again on the shelf for maybe about four, three,
four weeks or something.
He has more rust when he comes back, but then by the time he hit like early February through
March, I mean, he was like running well, moving well.
And what Dan wanted him to do offensively is like master the low post stuff.
And then once you, once you sort of mastered all the low post stuff, like then we'll get
you in the high post a little more and then we'll have you shooting threes.
So I mean, I think he just ran out of time in his sophomore year, but I tell people that,
you know, I said, if we played an NBA season last year and we played 82 games or if we
won the whole thing and we played like a hundred games, he'd have been shooting three or four
threes a game by the end of the year.
Cause that's how Dan likes to sort of layer all these guys off of the games.
Yep.
All right.
Good.
All right.
Coach, you got to give us one second here.
Yeah.
We got a phone call.
We're going to call on you with us, which never happens.
Yeah.
It's just for you, coach.
Hello?
Hey, you're on your coach.
What do you want to say?
Charter.
Oh, we got to merge them now.
They're both there.
Coach, are you there?
Yes.
Yeah.
We've got a rather tall guest here.
We got, we got Donovan on for you, coach.
What's up, Donovan?
How are you doing, man?
I'm good.
Good.
How are you?
They just, they just asked me a question about you and I said you'd have been taking
three or four threes a game if we played an NBA season.
How's that?
Yeah, maybe.
Hold on.
Hey, Donovan.
Are you, uh, there's, there's rumors, Donovan, you're going to come visit us soon again.
Is that true?
Yeah.
I've been here for a couple of days.
Awesome.
Donovan, what did Coach Moore mean to you, Donovan?
I know, um, you know, he had a role with big guys before you were there, but just what
did he mean to you?
Coach, uh, he's the one that recruited me from the beginning.
Um, you know, obviously Hurley came and watched me, um, my sophomore year of high school,
but you know, from when coach offered me to, you know, the time I got to UConn, you know,
coach Moore really just built a great relationship with me and my family and just, you know,
really helped, you know, persuade me to go to UConn, even though, you know, the whole
time I thought obviously knew that UConn was probably where I was going to end up, but
you know, just, you know, coach Moore definitely made my decision feel like it was the right
one.
It's great.
Coach, what kind of worker was this young man in practice?
Go ahead, Don.
We like stories.
Go ahead.
Oh, yeah.
He was, uh, he was a great worker.
He was a great worker.
He, it was, uh, it was quite a, uh, an indoctrination form, like right away because he, we had him
guarding this guy named Adamas Sanogo.
He took no prisoners every single day and was about as physical a guy as you could get.
So Donovan went from being guarded by and guarding like, uh, five 11 centers from Rocky
Hill to a six nine, 245 pounds like cyborg who wanted to score every single time he got
the ball.
So his adjustment to college was unbelievable.
It's amazing the job he did in his little window from the end of his high school season
to when he got to us.
Like he really did a great job of getting himself into phenomenal shape.
Like people told us and, and we were nervous watching him in high school a couple times
at like that.
His body was changing, you know, like you're different when you're 15 than when you're
17, you know, and, and so he was taking on some pounds and then he had a tough, you know,
he had to play through COVID to his weld while during a high school season was hard to as
well.
But by the time he got to Yukon and we started the summer before his freshman year, he had
done an incredible job of him and coach Barrett and all the people at Bristol central of just
getting physically ready for this, you know, and then he's humble, came from great parents
and a great background and he's tough and he has no ego.
So like all that stuff factored into him being like it's such a seamless transition, you
know, into college and the workload that we require at Yukon and how demanding coach
early is on a day in, day out basis, play in, play out basis.
He was ready for that, you know, and he had to tell you.
Yeah, I'll never do that again, coach.
No, no, no practice hasn't been like that yet.
No more stairs.
One of my favorite Donovan stories real quick is it'll forever be known as the Joey Calcuttaire
at Georgetown game, you know, before his freshman year in gamble, where we were losing
to not a great Georgetown team and we came back with this great run and Joey made the
big three and Tim Brando says bingo, bingo, bongo and it was just a, I, the gambles that's
about as loud as I've ever heard.
Yeah.
During that time and Donovan gets his tooth knocked out.
I think for a second time, Donovan, our first time.
So first time in the first half of them, I got hit again in the second half.
Yeah.
So he has it knocked out in the first half and he, and the training puts a temporary
thing of it to try to stabilize it or whatever.
Then he's in the second half and he blocks a shot, but in, in, in blocking the shot,
the guy hit him with an elbow and knocked it out again.
So he's trying to save the tooth.
The guy gathers the ball up again, challenges him again while Donovan's fixing his tooth.
He blocks the shot again, gets the ball, outlets it and you can see him like trying
to play with the tooth on the way up.
But you know, the next, I knew it was all around the mouth.
He's just trying to like not lose the tooth, right?
So the next day in film, we're going over that play and Dan's saying to him, why are
you, why are you playing with your mouth?
Stop playing with your mouth.
Like keep your hands up on people.
I like to get bought two shots with a broken tooth and save the tooth and got the outlet.
That's a great story.
I needed it though.
So both of you like how often do the boys come back to campus to work out?
Are they there during the summer?
I'm talking about Adama and all these other guys that are in the league or trying to play
overseas or whatever they're doing.
How often are the guys working out?
I try to get there whenever I can.
Yeah.
I love it there.
I missed it.
Yep.
I missed it, but you know, I just whenever I'm home, I'm definitely trying to get up
there.
Yeah.
It's a little different guys for like some of the guys who aren't Connecticut guys,
you know, that have home bases in other areas of the country.
But because stores isn't really a destination spot, right?
I don't know if they could go and stay in Miami or LA or something like that.
But like they do find their way back here whenever they can.
It's great to see them come back through and especially the guys who have been here for
a while.
Yeah.
Steph was here last week and he looks great and he seems happy and he's excited about this
year in San Antonio.
You'd be proud of him, Donovan.
He's got a great maturity for a 19 year old.
I keep having to remind myself.
Yeah, I know.
But oh my word.
Hey, Don, what did you think of coaches brought up the castle?
He had, you know, that big first summer league game and then all of a sudden he came up with
the fandom sprain wrist where they they're like, we've seen enough of this guy.
We just make sure he doesn't get hurt in a summer league.
No, yeah.
I mean, I mean, Steph was going to have a little bit of edge that game.
I mean, I did too.
You know, I'm still bummed that we weren't able to win that game.
But you know, Steph, it just shows you a step, that's a different type of player.
You know, he could play at any level, any team.
And, you know, he's just such a team guy and he's so skilled and, you know, he just
parts of the game that, you know, an NBA you're able to show, you know, they're not
able to show him in college just because of the way that, you know, teams play defense
and, you know, the spacing on the floor.
But, you know, Steph is, you know, going to be a very, very good player and, you know,
he's going to have, you know, great career and make a lot of money and win a lot of
stuff.
Guys, I want to just share a perspective real quick on what made last year's team so special
is Steph Castle and Donovan Klingon.
This will give you a little hint as to what's how special these two young guys are.
And again, like how young they are and how humble they are, how well raised they were.
They were the fourth and fifth leading minutes guys on our team and the fourth and fifth
leading field goal attempted guys on our team.
Tristan, Cam and Alex all took more shots and scored more points than Donovan and Steph.
And Donovan and Steph ended up getting picked fourth and seventh.
And it was never, ever a peep out of any of the, either of those two about playing a bigger
role or having more shine.
So, I mean, I'll never forget that about this team and how much humility and how humble
both of those two guys were.
That's special.
Hey, coach and Donovan.
Sorry, this is Ryan Raponi.
I was going to say, it's hard to ask for a shot when you win national titles.
That's true.
Guys, this is Ryan Raponi, head coach over Lewis Mills and I was sorry to hear that
our seven games against Donovan didn't really prepare him for that division one level.
But I could also attest, Coach Moore was talking about your ability to make threes and I could
attest that Donovan can make a three in a basketball game with the scoreboard on because
he did it against us a couple of times.
But you know, my question for you talking about, you know, I think you can, you know,
for a long time you talked about the similarities with Coach Calhoun and Coach Hurley on defense
and rebound and but I think the exceptional thing that I saw, you know, with your team
this, the past couple of seasons and with Donovan included and you just talked about
it is that the ball movement and the sharing, you know, of the ball offensively and in the
blending of actions and concepts.
And I just want to hear what are the major points of emphasis, you know, and either of
you could get in and answer this, you know, to the development of that over the past few
years that's made you so unstoppable.
Team Warhouse, that's on real quick.
Go ahead, Donovan.
Something about like the way Coach Hurley and really the staff teaches, you know, not
even just halfway basketball or offense is just like, you know, if you want to win games,
you want to do something special.
It's not about you.
It's about, you know, everyone else and about making, making a sacrifice for someone else
and, you know, it's always like, you know, I'm going to take this shot contested or I'm
going to pass it wide up to the guy wide open where there's a better chance, you know, and
that's just something we always practice and, you know, Coach Hurley, like our offense is
something that, you know, and I'm talking to coaches now and they're, you know, I feel
like I've never seen offenses like that, you know, it's our offense is ran so perfect
and the way we practice and prepare for games and the situations that coach put us in,
like it's just, we're always ready for whatever defense is coming at us and, you know, everyone
on our team is just so selfless and always wants to make the play for the next guy.
And you know, something about like these college teams is, you know, everyone's trying to get
their own and trying to, you know, just score as many points as they can, but, you know,
not winning games and, you know, our team, we have multiple players who are, excuse me,
like all five starters who are in double figures and we're winning games.
You know what I mean?
And so if you're just looking to play, play for the next person and just like have that
bond, I feel like something that the coaches have really, you know, like just taught us
well and really enforced just, you know, we got to play for another like the guy next
to us because, you know, it might be a better shot than the shot you're about to take.
Well said.
What a great message.
I could have said it better myself.
Donovan, we don't want to take up too much of your time.
I thought it would be a good surprise for Coach Moore.
Thanks for coming.
Good job, Don, buddy.
We'll see you soon.
Best of luck.
Yes, we'll see you soon.
Stop throwing, man.
Stop throwing passes off my son's face.
For the alley-oop.
All right, Coach.
All right, thank you guys.
Thanks, Donovan.
Hey, this has been terrific.
The Yukon stuff, it speaks for itself, selfishly, as a high school Connecticut basketball,
basketball fan.
I have to ask you a few questions about Quinnipiac.
The first one would be, there was a youngster from Trinity Catholic.
I asked Rashemel about this guy, too.
I saw him in a state tournament or a state championship game, a time or two, by the name
of Tevin Baskin.
And I saw him against Crosby at Gamble.
And I swore the kid would be like a stud on the Division I level.
And I know he bounced around.
He was with you guys for a minute.
He may have gone into coaching.
You just talk a little bit of, was he there during your time?
He was, right?
Yes, he was.
Yeah, he was.
Incredible, incredible high school player.
Wasn't he?
Yes, he really was.
And a really good kid with a good family, like a kind soul, like a really good kid.
And he was, I think, one of those kids.
And this happened sometimes.
And actually, you guys mentioned Rash.
Rash fell into this a little bit, too, where they might have peaked, you know, like sophomore
year of high school.
You know, some kids are just like comets where they like all of a sudden, sixth, seventh,
eighth, ninth grade.
And they're just like, really, Edmund Saunders was another kid like that, right?
From Waterloo.
You guys remember Edmund?
Yeah.
Like sometimes just athletically and physical gifts wise, they're really, they hit a spurt.
And they're just so far ahead of kids their age.
And then they, it levels off a little bit.
You know, I think some of that happened with Tevin.
I don't know that his, you know, his overall game ever, ever like quite caught up to his
athletic gifts.
But he was a terrific player.
And we had him, I think, for one year at Quinnipiac, if I'm not mistaken, and he ended up transferring.
But he was a, he was nothing but a joy coach and having the program.
And we were really excited when we got him because we saw the same thing.
We saw great potential and great upside.
And it didn't, you know, it didn't really like blossom at Quinnipiac as much as we
would have hoped.
But he's, he was coaching.
Last I knew, he was coaching up at St. Michael's with Eric Eaton, who used to be one of my
assistant coaches.
Oh, that's neat.
And I think, yeah, I think he's taken another job if I'm not mistaken.
But yeah, he was a terrific player at a young age.
Were you at the game at Gamble when they played Crosby out of Waterbury?
I didn't see that one.
No.
I mean, Crosby out of Waterbury had BJ Montero, who was a heck of a player.
Anthony Ireland, who might have been MVP of what was it?
Who?
Saunders.
Oh, a Saunders.
A Duquesne.
Yeah.
Also a Duquesne.
Mike, Mike Saunders?
Two of those kids wanted Duquesne.
Yeah.
Man, what a crazy game.
Now were you there for Peter Kiss?
Was he a Quinnipiac guy?
Yes.
Because he went on to Rutgers and, you know, we thought he'd be something there and then
he ended up at Bryant and then went bananas finally, right?
Can you talk a little bit about Peter Kiss?
I love Peter, but you earn your paycheck every day.
You know what?
The juice is worth the squeeze.
That's what I like to say because he was a talented player, man.
Talented, talented player and a super competitive kid.
You know, he had an athletic rage about him that sometimes he couldn't harness.
And as a coach, you're working every day to try to just control that, you know?
And it's a lot of energy and a lot of effort that goes into it.
But like I said, if you're at Quinnipiac, you're at Bryant, it's worth it in my opinion.
You know, I think he would have, I ended up getting fired at the end of his freshman
year.
And Mikey Dixon was the other kid in the backcourt that we had as freshmen.
And I was like really hopeful I would have had an opportunity to coach those guys for
a couple of years because this was pre-NIL days.
You know, like if this was NIL back then, those two both would have got offers at bigger
schools and they would have left me, you know, after their freshman year.
But we had never lost a guy to transfer that we didn't want to have stay, you know, at
Quinnipiac.
And the school was, you know, I think the school was, it's a great school.
It was a great arena.
It was a fun conference to play in both when we were in the NEC because we were near the
top of that league and in the Mac, you know?
So kids were generally happy there.
And I think Peter and Mike both were the state had I been retained.
And it would have been awesome to try to coach, you know, to be able to coach those guys into
their sophomore year.
And, you know, maybe we could have kept them even as juniors because Peter was super talented
and super competitive to as well.
I still, I have a good relationship with him.
I still talk to his mom too as well.
And he just actually signed another contract for another European team.
So he could play for a while.
Like he's, he's that talented and, and that competitive coach.
Would you, would you entertain a head coaching job in the future?
Are you set where you are?
I know, yeah, obviously.
Yeah, I would.
It would really have to be the right one.
Like I'm 59 now.
And it's not something that I'm looking to have end my career.
It's not something that like consumes me.
It's not really how I see my career ending right now.
But you know, it's the, it's the right low major job came up in the Northeast.
Like I had interviewed at Holy Cross two years ago and I would have loved that because
I'm a central mascot and I love and respect the tradition of the school.
But it just, you know, it didn't, it didn't really, it didn't happen.
But so yeah, I'm happy with, I love being with Dan.
He's terrific.
He's the best college basketball coach in the country right now.
And I told this to one of our, one of our trustees the other day.
It's inspiring working with him just as it was working for Coach Calhoun because of how,
how good he is.
I mean, I catch myself sometimes in his, in, you know, being in a meeting with him, with
one of our players at how great he is at pushing players buttons, but mostly like watching
him call a game and hearing him in timeouts and watching him in practice.
I mean, he does his best work in practice and it's, it's highest level stuff.
You know, he's 51 years old.
I don't think there can be many better right now at offensive, offensive philosophy, defensive
philosophy, preparation, roster construction, what he's, you know, again, in team building,
he's like checking every box at the highest level.
So it's, it's great being a part of this and I'm really enjoying it.
Coach, we're gonna, we're gonna ask you a couple more questions before we wrap it up.
But I want to know on this year's team, who can we look forward to make a big step from
last year and which newcomers have impressed you the most?
Okay, I'd say from last year, the two guys we, we're relying on the most that are probably
Jaylin Stewart and Solomon Ball.
Jaylin flashed his talent in certain moments last year, the big game in the Big East tournament
and he had some other moments too as well.
He's like, I'd like to compare Jaylin to a sort of a poor man's Karam Butler.
I hear him very similar in size and game.
Yeah.
And I did say poor man's now because of that.
Unless he gets to the NBA.
Yeah, that's, yeah.
He was like a 15, 16 year NBA player.
And when the ball went up, there was no one you wanted in your corner more than, more
than that guy.
I tell people who don't know him, like we referenced it earlier.
Go watch the 2002 Elite Game where he almost single handedly beat the Maryland champion,
you know?
Yeah.
And so Jaylin's got, got, got ability like that though, you know, he can shoot it, he
can pass it.
He's got a lot of game.
Things come naturally to him.
He's got to get his sort of cardio right, his body right and his play in and play out
consistency right.
And I think that'll happen this year because he's going to have a longer rope this year
because of, you know, with a couple of the older guys not being in the program, you know,
I think he'll be able to play through a couple more mistakes and miss shots.
And once he's allowed to feel comfortable out there, I think you're really going to
see him blossom.
The other guy, Solomon is just, he shoots it, so shoots it better than we thought.
His catch and shoot game is, is at a higher level than we thought coming in.
He's got to improve a little bit on his handle and his passing and just sort of refine some
of his guard skills, but the athletic, athleticism is there, the shooting is there.
And as far as the new guys, you know, we took two older transfers in, in Tarris Reed and
Aidan Mahaney.
They'll both be very good.
They've got a track record.
They've played in big games, but Liam McNeely of the new guys is probably the most game
ready right now.
I think you call fans are going to love him.
He's like six, eight, he can really shoot the ball.
He's a confident offensive player.
He's got a lot of swagger.
Again, he's going to be one of those guys that I think big East teams are going to probably
hate.
He's six, eight.
Fans are going to love.
Yeah.
And he's like, and he can really, really shoot the ball, you know, so like, and he's
got other parts of his offensive game too, as well.
That are pretty, that are pretty diverse too, as well.
So we got to get him a little bit more understanding of how we play defense, but he's not reluctant.
You know, he's just got to get caught up conceptually with, with sort of how we do things.
But boy, he's got, I think he's got the, the self confidence as a freshman to pull the
thing off.
You know, and what I mean by that is like, you know, he's, he's mocking in these early
20, 25 mock drafts as like a top 10 pick.
And I think he has enough self belief and I think he'll flourish in our, in our offensive
system that he'll show well enough that he could have that come true.
So I don't think we'll, we'll have him long, you know,
You better hope so because if you guys don't three P you're on a hot seat here.
Dan doesn't shy from it, right?
Every time the dance talks to anyone, he's like, yeah, let's go for it.
Yeah.
Coach, that leads me to my question.
It's just so impressive how you guys have struck a balance between the transfer portal
and, and bringing in the recruits like a Klingon and a caravan and then the transfer stuff
with new and in Spencer.
I know the landscape of college basketball has changed, but when it became a big, a big
thing for rosters, did you guys really sit down and talk about that in the off season
with coach early in a coaching staff, how you guys wanted to attack and create your roster
using both the portal in recruiting?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, when we lost that New Mexico state game a couple of years ago, I think Dan did
an incredible job of like sort of self reflecting on, on how the whole thing works and then
correcting, sort of course correcting how he was constructing his teams and what he was
looking for and, and sort of how he was coaching them.
And he's, he's in addition to being, you know, a great coach, he's, he's incredibly smart.
And I'd like to say, hey, the whole staff and the four of us put our heads together
with everybody.
He's the one who, who like, who just sort of drives every decision and he, he just realized
like, you know, at that point he's like, he saw what Alex could be.
And he's like, we need a more of an offensive, offensively diverse format, someone who could
shoot and pass and he wanted to play four out, five out and, and be able to do more
things on offense.
And he saw our Alex as a key piece in that.
And then, you know, he always felt like, let's get a couple, like, you know, maybe try to
get one like stud freshman who's ready to do it right away, maybe get a couple projection
type of guys, freshmen, make sure you back on your player development because he's a
huge proponent of that.
And he thinks we do a really good job of getting these guys better.
So you got to have sophomores that are going to become juniors, the freshmen are going
to become sophomores that are, that are getting better and know your program and you can rely
on them.
And then like, sort of supplement the thing at the very top with some transfers who you,
who have proven track records that you think will fit in as people and players.
And he's, he's got it like he wants probably about three of each, maybe two transfers or
three transfers in life for those, those improving program guys and then three or four freshmen.
And he's like, that's the perfect roster construction.
It works for him.
That's what he liked.
And he's really good at that.
That's great.
So the team guys, yeah, progressed.
So.
All right, coach.
We, we can't thank you enough for coming on.
We have to ask you one tough one.
Are we getting Malik Thomas?
No.
Um, Mount Rushmore.
Mount Rushmore, you got to come up with your four guys.
You've been here for good 25, 30 years, right?
Who are your four Yukon players?
We can't put Coach Galhoun on or Coach Hurley.
You got four guys for the Yukon.
And they could have been there during your Quinnipiac years.
Just give us four since when you got there.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
I just want to let you know what got Ray Allen.
When we had Ross Jones on, we were at, we did a, who would you rather?
So we pitted him with one Yukon guy versus the other.
We're giving you an open book.
He was, he was key.
He answered quickly and honestly.
Yeah.
So we're going to say Ray Allen, um, rip.
Um, boy, this is, uh, um, um, um, um, Mecca.
Oh, and then now, now.
Say it, Tom.
Say it.
Number three.
If I had to go, if I had to go, see, I, I, I want to say Kembo for what he accomplished.
I didn't coach him, you know.
Um, so I'm going to couch this.
And I feel like I have to take, uh, someone from the disc, uh, these, this last, these
last two teams to represent the last two teams.
Um, so I'm going to go Donovan.
Wow.
You're on a Bristol podcast.
I tell you, Daniel gets no love anymore.
How about Karan?
No, we got a special guest.
Karan's online.
Hey, you can't go wrong.
There's so many good guys.
We want to thank one of the most decorated assistant coaches in the history of division
one college basketball.
I think, I think he's a hall of fame.
Four time national champion, future hall of famer entering his 20th season overall at
UConn.
Thank you for all you do for the state and for the Huskies and we'll be rooting for
you guys all year.
Thanks coach.
Thank you coach.
Thank you.
It fellas, my pleasure.
This is, yeah, thank you.
This has been an honor and a thrill and it's been a lot of fun.
So thanks a lot.
Save it for next time.
All right.
Yeah.
Thank you coach.
You can go to your car now.
All right.
Thank you.
Hey, Tom, thank you so much.
We really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Hey, and coach, I hope I didn't insult you with one of your centers, the 511 guy from
Rossi L.
Yeah, we were trying to defend him with a 511 sophomore the first time we played him and
the closest we ever came was the first time I coached against him and that it just kept
getting wider and the gap kept getting wider and wider and wider.
Yeah.
Not a problem though.
Well, listen, it was a pleasure doing this with you guys.
I appreciate it.
I'm still sitting in the academic study hall.
Yeah, it's awesome.
Because I never, yeah, there were enough people around still in the offices that I, every
time I poked my head out, there were people still around.
So I said, I'll just stay here and finish the park.
Just throw hurly on your recruiting call.
Really appreciate your time.
Exactly.
Tom, awesome.
Thanks so much.
Thanks.
All right, take care guys.
Yep, bye now.
Okay, guys, that's right up there with one of our best segments.
Unbelievable.
Coach Moore, well-spoken, commissioned thank you again.
Donovan showing up, studio engineer Kevin Ross.
I can't believe you navigated that.
Can't believe you didn't hang up on one or the other or both.
That was great.
Better than I thought it would be and I was looking forward to it all week anyway.
That being said, we're going to shift gears.
Capital securities, Joe Morello, a life.
Well planned.
We're going to go into the Hoot Your Rather segment and welcome Coach Wrapped in with
Crocker and the tax man if they want to get in.
Angry J.
We got a million guys in this tonight.
Yeah, we got to go quick.
Yeah, that's fine.
That's...
I think these are all listeners right here.
We're all over the place with this tonight too.
No fill-up.
Running backs, quarterbacks, the Jackson Five and food.
No.
So here we go.
Joe Jackson, Tony Dorsett.
Bo.
Touchdown Tony.
Bo Jackson.
If you're talking NFL careers, TD.
I'm going with Tony Dorsett too.
Touchdown Tony.
All right, we're going just college.
Running backs now.
They're college career.
Herschel Walker, Barry Sanders.
Barry.
Herschel.
Georgia.
Barry.
George as well.
Herschel.
He was unheard of in the early 80s for a guy like that.
I will go with that too.
Herschel Walker.
All right, we're going again just college running back careers.
Ricky Williams, Archie Griffin.
Ricky.
Ricky Williams.
I kind of want to go Griffin, but I'm going to go Ricky.
I'm going Ricky Williams.
Ricky as well.
What do you haze this guy?
Oh, thank you.
We finally got one smart guy in there.
I'm going Archie Griffin too.
The only guy that wins two Heisman trophies, and we can't get any love there.
All right, NFL careers.
Jerome Betis, Franco Harris.
NFL.
The bus.
Harris.
Crock, you can't answer this one.
I'm going, I'm going to bus.
Yeah, I'm going to bus.
As a Steeler fan, I'm going to bus.
I think I'm going to go Franco because he's from Penn State.
I'm going Franco's army.
We did this for Crocker too.
So Terry Bradshaw, Ben Ralfersburg.
Bradshaw.
A big Ben.
Bradshaw all day.
Terry Bradshaw.
I got to go Ben.
He was a better passer.
Bradshaw can't remember any of the four Super Bowls, but I'm still going with Bradshaw.
I will second that, but I'm not going with the Super Bowls.
I'll go because he was in the Cannonball run in that movie Rock.
All right, Michael Jackson or Janet Jackson.
MJ all day.
Michael.
You were not alone.
Me too, Michael.
I'll be the only guy that remembered that Super Bowl halftime show, Janet Jackson.
I'm with you, Rap.
Janet.
One of the best entertainers of all time, MJ.
Oh, you guys are, I'm going to shine it through it.
Right.
Entertainer or looks?
Whatever.
Here we go.
Grilled cheese.
Wait, who would you rather have babysit your kids?
Shane A.
Charles Manson.
That's part of it.
Grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly?
You know what?
I'm on the PvP and J-Tip right now.
Peanut butter and jelly.
Grilled cheese.
Ketchup?
I mean grilled cheese if I could add bacon, tomato, to it.
No, no, no.
You can't have that.
Peanut butter and jelly for me, I had steak.
Rap and I are getting along.
You throw a little fresh-garded tomato on that grilled cheese all day long.
Wasn't a question.
All day long.
Peanut butter and jelly.
Grew up on it.
Come on.
Yeah, peanut butter and jelly with the strawberry jam.
All right, French fries, onion rings.
Oh, fries.
Onion rings.
Fries.
You know, onion rings is like a step up from the fries, but fries are classic.
I go fries.
Is it shoestring onion rings?
That onion rings.
Steak fries, regular fries.
I'm going steak fries all day long.
Fries.
Onion rings.
All right, two to go.
Mint chocolate chip ice cream or black raspberry?
Ooh.
Both gross.
Yeah, that's vanilla.
I'm going to say black raspberry.
Neither for me.
Tax, man.
You can't do that.
We're going to order you.
Okay, black raspberry.
I go mint chocolate chip because it's almost disguised as pistachio.
Both of my wife and I love both of those, but I'm going to go mint chocolate chip.
Black raspberry with your cracker.
Black raspberry.
Also, last one, vanilla ice for Dugo or Jean Carlo stand for the rest of the year.
Man.
You got to play one every day.
That's the question.
One of them has to play every day.
They have to play every day.
Stand.
Stand all day.
Stand gets on a heater.
Can't you start them both?
No.
What do you got?
Stand, I guess.
Stand's one of my least favorite Yankees of all time, but it's stand by a wide margin.
I'm going for no ice because I hate stand.
Well, then you don't want to win.
I don't.
I don't want to play vanilla ice.
I have a baseball player out there.
Angry J. Those were great.
Thanks for the 30 seconds.
I thought I was going to say vanilla ice cream or black raspberry.
I thought it was vanilla ice or OPP or something.
It's probably a fucking coffee ice cream.
Only chocolate chip.
We're going to take a turn here toward the serious with our studio guest tonight, Coach Rapp.
How many years you haven't Lewis Mills now?
Is this four or five?
Five and this is year six coming up right now.
Okay.
So he's going in five years.
He has taken a team that no one liked.
Didn't like the kids of the community.
And turned them into like a darling on the CCC and state level.
People want to go see him.
They like the way the kids act.
Love the way the kids play.
He's been a lot of that and he won't take the credit,
but it's really due to the way the guy coaches.
They've not been able to retain a coach more than a few years and a lot of coaches here.
And there's a reason for it.
Nobody wants to be there.
They don't want to hear it from the school or the parents or whatever.
But he's already in five years been to Mohegan's son.
And from what I hear, that's a really difficult accomplishment.
I think too, when we heard they're going from the Berkshire League to the CCC.
We were laughing at it.
I thought, I wonder what they think they are.
Now you're going to play with the big boys.
You'll be okay in soccer, but wait a basket ball.
Next thing you know, we're watching them in Uncusville.
Rap.
You love it, right?
Oh man. Yeah.
It's been, you know, in my coaching career, I mean, which, you know,
I mean spans, you know, multiple sports and, you know,
upwards to almost 20 years now with my years as an assistant.
I mean, this is just, this was a great decision.
I couldn't be happier, you know, to be the coach of Lewis Mills basketball right now.
And I got to give, you know, a lot of credit to my players.
You know, when I came in, talked about four things being really important to us,
you know, respect, responsibility, hard work and being a good teammate.
And my first team, which, you know, won't get a lot of accolades unfortunately,
because, you know, we didn't win a ton of games.
We were 0-6, believe it or not.
And then in CCC, when people thought we were going to go on 20,
and they stuck with it, you know, those first group of guys that I had.
And, you know, that kind of laid the groundwork, you know,
for the belief that we could win in that league.
And we ended up finishing up 8-12.
Geez.
You know, we qualified for the state tournament.
But so this was COVID year, you know, unfortunately, 2019-20.
We were all set to get on a bus on a Tuesday afternoon, you know,
and head over to Ellington High School.
You know, we had a really good team, you know, they were a higher seed.
But, you know, my guys were really confident.
I was really confident.
And that morning, they made the call and said that the tournament was going to be canceled,
you know, and obviously a lot of teams, you know, were upset about that.
Some of our, you know, local teams, you know, Bristol Central, you know,
it was very good that season, had a good chance to make a run.
But, yeah, for me and my players, it was very disappointing.
We were able to bounce back, you know, a couple of years later and get back in there.
Let me say something before Lottie's question here.
I think the CIC did the right thing based on the information they had that year.
The where I thought they fell short was the following year,
when you could have easily had that tournament at the higher seeds place
and just let their parents come in because that was a stupid rule at that point.
And you could have played a state championship in, let's say, Bristol Central's gym
and you would have had a state champion.
Why can you, why, they have to look back and regret it.
Why can you play up to this many games against local teams?
But, I mean, COVID traveled.
It traveled.
It was getting off the bus no matter who you are.
Put the mask on, play the state tournament at the higher seed and play it out.
They should have done that.
So we had two years and no state champion.
Give me a break.
I mean, we, we, we, we dubbed Bristol Central state champs because they didn't lose for two straight years.
And what they went through.
I mean, come on, Windsor Northwest and East.
I mean, but still, I mean, that's, that's almost as difficult.
We've talked about it almost as difficult as winning a state championship.
Yeah, it's winning CCC.
Yeah, look at the teams they, they played to win the CCC.
Windsor Northwest.
And East.
Yes.
I remember that COVID, obviously with the, you know, being a little bit close to the St. Paul thing,
beating Maloney and then we were going to play a short handed talent and then you win that and anything happens.
And, but to go on six and then win eight of your last 14 is very impressive first year.
Now, I know, I know a lot of, there's been a lot of openings and I know a lot of people would love to have you as their, as their head coach.
What keeps you at Mills?
I mean, as I said, you know, the, the players, I tell you what, the players, um, and, you know, I give credit a lot of, you know, to the parents and the administration when, you know, when I met that entity or banquet, you know, this season, um, which was, you know, a celebration, you know, we were disappointed to come up short, you know, in that state championship game, you know, we had a really good shot.
Um, you know, we didn't play our best early and, you know, we really gave it a good run at the end.
But, um, you know, when we were looking back on it and just, you know, my overall appreciation for the way that these players buy in, um, you know, the work that they've been putting in in the off season and, you know, just the way they act in general, you know, in the building and the community and everything along those lines.
I do give a lot of credit, you know, to the parents, you know, and the people that, you know, coach these kids beforehand, you know, because it put us as a coaching staff in a really good starting place, um, you know, and allowed us, you know, to really kind of take off and do what we were able to do with these guys.
All right, Rep. I'm watching that game and, um, I really had no reason to still be there. That was on Saturday, right?
Yeah.
Saturday afternoon.
You had a reason to be there. Well, no, my point was we were saying my whole family stayed.
Yeah.
And many of our families stayed.
We were out there.
And, um, it's half time and like you just couldn't keep up with them athletically and you came out and made an adjustment and I think you went triangle on two on those guys.
Got it to one, right?
Did you practice that? Because I thought it was a ballsy, ballsy call.
And next thing you know, you're down one and your big guns aren't doing what they normally do because all bets are off when you're down there.
Well, and I'll tell you this, like, and this just goes to our, you know, philosophy and the buy-in from our players over the past few years, which is like, you cannot allow your offense to dictate the way that you play defense, you know.
And if we had allowed our offense to dictate defense when we first started playing, uh, in the CCC, I mean, you know, we wouldn't have much success.
We wouldn't have made the tournament all these seasons.
You know, we've made it every season.
There's been a tournament and we've also made the CCC tournament, um, the last three seasons as well.
Not easy.
Our seed keeps going up.
Unfortunately, we've lost some close ones to some good teams.
But that, that being said, in that moment right there in that locker room and, you know, obviously you're a multiple state championship, you know, coach.
So, you know, going, going into that locker room, you have a little bit more time than you usually do.
You know, it's different.
And I think it actually allowed our guys to kind of process what was going on a little bit quicker, you know, and I didn't have to, you know, just jump in there and start making adjustments.
And that defensive adjustment that we made is something that we actually pulled out in multiple games this season, you know, and it's something that we had practiced.
And, you know, some of our biggest wins have actually been in that defense.
I don't know if you know that Platt has a couple guys that are going to be playing Division one basketball this season.
And the year before that, we were down 12 going into the fourth and we implemented that defense.
And came all the way back and beat them by about five or six.
Oh, that's great.
So it's, it's been a kind defense to us.
I got a, you know, it was kind of, it was a Rick Majeris thing, I believe.
And, you know, I looked at a lot of his, you know, coaching tapes and things along those lines and you got to have the kids that are willing to do it though.
And I had guys that weren't overly concerned with how many points they were going to score.
And they just became, you know, defensive guys that were willing to lock big time players up and just give it all out on that end of the floor.
And, you know, this year, you know, things like Charlie Joyner, Jack Nester, you know, those guys, Eli Pelletier, Tristan Mota, I mean, all of them would do it if you asked them to.
And I think that's why we're so successful and we were able to come back in that game is, you know, they didn't believe like we're out of it.
You know, this is actually, they believed it was going to work every time we did it.
Well, that's more than half the battle.
That's probably about 95% of the battle.
If they think it's going to work, they'll make it work.
Funny you say Jack Nester, his father, I believe, went to our college with Angry J.
That's right, they have heard that.
I want to make another, I think he's an Eagle fan too, is he?
Oh, he's a diehard Eagle fan.
Big Billy, yeah.
Listen, he was the punter on the Western football team that would go one in ten every year.
And I think that dude got so much work, they were calling for the punter and threw down.
They're like, let's get him out there.
Before we go any further back, but without blowing up either one of you too much, but I just want to say this,
I watch what Angry J did with a class that's Lichfield program.
And I watch what you did with the Mills program, and I'm literally seeing the same thing, and I know you don't know what he did,
but you're doing the same things he did, and they both work at both places, which are easy places to coach.
You know, you got student body in there.
You held your players to a higher standard.
You made work in the offseason, not mandatory, but as close to it as you can.
And consequently, one of the games I saw you at this year, you beat, you know, Central.
At Central, and the students wouldn't leave until you walked into the locker room, and they clapped as you went in there.
Now, if there was 400 of them, it would have been way cooler.
As it turns out, there's about 14 of them, but those 14, I mean, kids, they wouldn't leave until coach Rapp went into the,
they're holding your sign up, they're clapping, and like, you've created a basketball culture in a place
where they thought they had one, and they didn't.
They could say Thunderdome all they wanted.
It wasn't a thing until you got there, so you've done a great job.
Well, I appreciate that, and I've heard a lot of what Jay did, you know, at Litchfield, and obviously, you know,
I know that, you know, they were very formidable over there in years past,
and obviously, you know, they got a good relationship with Coach Kaczynski, and I think he's going to do great at Ken, by the way.
But the fan section's been awesome, I will have to say.
And I went to some Loose Mills games in the past, and they definitely had them there,
but the consistency of which they show up with to our games at this point, I mean, any game doesn't matter who you're playing.
It winning helps that though.
Well, yes, yeah, I mean.
Let me throw this at you.
So when you took over at Mills, did you have a, did you have a system that you knew you wanted to run right away,
or did you have to kind of check out the personnel, or how did that work?
So, you know, I was an assistant coach at Bristol Eastern for nine seasons, and, you know, Bunti Ray, when he first got the job,
and he's doing a great job over there right now with his guys.
They're loaded.
We've had some great matchups.
He's doing great.
And, you know, Mike Givonazo, you know, is who I played for, and my godfather, you know, and, you know, his philosophy, you know,
was always, you know, a scouting report and making sure that we were spreading up and down the floor, defending,
rebounding, and just being competitive, you know, and that was, the main goal was to compete for 32 minutes.
And that's really where I started.
And from an offensive aspect, like, I didn't quite know what type of talent I had going in, and I didn't know what type of style was really going to work.
I took some things that we had done there.
But, you know, my big thing, you know, on the offensive side, a lot of the time has really been to watch a lot of, you know, other, you know, teams play at the college level,
do a lot of research and kind of see what fits in my assistance.
Now, I got Isaiah Roscoe, who I believe played for you, you know, over at Western Connecticut, and he's a great contributor to us.
And Michael Keefe and Xavier Wade and other coaches I've had in the past have just, you know, continue to kind of aid in the way that we, you know, develop our game
and what's going to make us successful.
You know what's funny?
This is an admission by me.
I watched the detail that you pay attention to and coach to.
And for me, I'm thinking, ah, come on, you don't need all of that.
But all of that is what's gotten you certain wins, you know, and I coached a different sport.
So, like, pay attention to detail to a degree and then just let them go out there and make mistakes.
I hope that they make fewer as the year goes on.
But to your credit, all that little stuff you do makes a difference in the end.
What's the little stuff you're talking about?
Like, he'll get, like, crazy on like a baseline out of bounds and study it multiple times in offense the way somebody uses a screen,
changing a rotation on defense.
I mean, it's really finite.
And I think that's, I don't know if Jay, you were like that at Litchfield.
Listen, you do things right.
You don't do them right once in a while.
You do them right all the time.
That's kind of one of the things we used to say all the time.
To coach his point, like he mentioned about playing hard, kind of like one of the first things I did when I went to Litchfield.
It was the same thing.
Like, I just convinced him they weren't playing hard.
They weren't.
I mean, every 14, 15-year-old thinks they're playing their guts out.
Because they sweat.
Yeah.
And they're pretty much just getting exercise.
And then we kind of, we used to use the slogan.
I never really told anybody this, but some of the guys, I actually, more of the kids just went to a stag on Friday night.
You love stags?
Yeah.
But one of the, he said it to me at the stag, we used to say Sputari Sanghi.
It's Italian for sweat blood.
Oh.
It was like one of our slogans when we were there.
So.
That's pretty sick.
Where did you get that from?
I actually got it from a book.
A book, or was it Seven Seconds or less with Mike D'Anthony?
I'm actually, I'm reading that book right now.
You see, I told you to repair those for you guys.
Anyway, rap.
This was great.
Thanks for coming.
You got the horses next year or what?
I got guys that are ready to step in and, you know, help us get as far as we possibly can.
I really like our group.
I mean, I got young guys.
I'm going to tell you that they don't.
But that's the type of guy is, he's not going to back down.
He's going to go with the hand he's dealt and he's going to make a buster straight into something.
I'm telling you.
Yeah, we'll be ready to compete.
Absolutely.
Thank you guys.
I appreciate this.
Best of luck every night except when you play the Lancers and the Rams.
I'll be rooting for coach Ray.
You don't play Saint Paul, but I'll be rooting for coach Barrett and the boys.
You and Suddenton is intriguing and I also see parallels there.
Like finally they turned it around with this coach.
Yeah, I mean, I teach at Sudden actually.
So I know some of these players and they got some good kids, tough nose kids over there.
And, you know, obviously coach Quick is doing a great job.
And coach O'Toole.
They're slightly down too.
And when I say down, they're just losing immense athletes.
Yeah.
And you're losing an all-state play.
You know, you had Hamerlin and Conor Evans, you know, as an all-state player.
So when you graduate, those types of guys that, you know, do so much, you know, within your program.
And I have six seniors, you know, who we just went out and played golf with before they went off to college.
And I can't wait to see what happens with them, you know, and just their lives in the future.
But it was just a great group of guys.
So when you graduate, guys, it could be a little bit more difficult, but you got a next, you know, next guy up mentality.
And then these guys got to slide in.
You'll be like Coach Harlow having breakfast with these guys in 20 years.
Anyway, Tom Moore to Commish brought him.
Kevin Ross gets Donovan on here.
And the headline?
Coach Rapp.
Out of the hardworking blue collar community of Burlington, Connecticut.
Where they let the coaches do their thing.
Coach Rapp, thank you.
Angry J, we're going through the World Series.
Grisham's got to learn how to run, Mike.
Commish.
Well done.
Studio engineer Kevin Ross signing off with the Bristol boys.
Everybody bristling.
Good night.