How UCLA Turned Joy Into a Competitive Advantage and Won the NCAA Tournament, With Andrew Haubner

It's Bob and everybody it's Logan Murdock here from the Ringer the 2025-2026 NBA season is here and we got your group podcast needs covered. On the Ringer NBA show be sure to check out group chat with Justin Barrier, Rob Mahoney and Jake Hyleman on Sundays and Wednesdays and real ones. On Tuesdays and Fridays with myself, Raju Bell and Howard Beck gets your Ringer related NBA podcast fix on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. And of course, come find us on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok at the Handle Ringer NBA. Welcome to the Ringer WNBA show the UCLA Bruins for not the first time because Corey Close is an excellent job of preserving the history of women's basketball when she could very much take credit for herself. Our NCAA champions for the first time in the NCAA era though, however, and we are very, very excited to welcome Andrew Habner onto the show Andrew Habner of No Capspace, a favorite of hours Andrew has it going. Man, this is cool, right? I mean, we, there's been a lot of dialogues here about how we've kind of flattened discussion of the game this year around like these four teams, these four favorite teams and, you know, has the tournament been boring? Have the game has been boring. You know, this is where I don't look at it from a X's and O's like game watchability perspective. You look at it from a story perspective and from a story perspective, this is an amazing story for UCLA. This is not a historically significant women's basketball program. It never has been. They have been to four elite eights in their program history since the NCAA got started. They won that AIW championship in 78 with Ann Meyers, Dreistale and Needle or take a Denise Curry Hall of Famers, but the idea that this program is anything even resembling their men's counterpart side as preposterous. I mean, this is, this is India. And that's not Indiana football level of, you know, historical precedent, but like this is a, I mean, it simply put, this is a team that hasn't won a title in 48 years. And that's a huge deal. Story close is 15 years into this project at UCLA just won a title. The longest, the stat on ESPN said the longest tenured coach without a title finally gets hers. All of these players are, you know, they all have their own unique stories for it. So I just, I think it's cool for UCLA more than it is anything else. I also think it's a statement that, you know, there is a little bit more parody in women's basketball than we think it's just a different type of parody. It's parody of a different look in variety and we have to get OK with that concept. What do you mean by that? So like, I think in the men's, in the men's tournament, right? I think we look at the tournament as the centerpiece. Like we look at the variance, your mid major upsets. We look at your seven seed that can make it to an NCAA championship as the draw. And I think we have a much more college football centric approach to coverage in women's basketball where we are kind of holding our breath for how the best six teams are going to do. And especially this year, it felt very college football coded where it was like, OK, we know who the best four teams are in the country. Let's just sim it to the last week of March. And I think we realize what the limitations of that are and why we should not do that. But I think loss within that concept is the interest in the fact that this is a first time national champion in NCAA history. And so this tournament ended up being anything but boring because it's UCLA winning it for the first time in the NCAA era. That's the story. And we got to treat it as such. No, I completely agree with you. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately because there's been a lot of conversation around, hey, the first two rounds are boring. Now you just have all number one seeds. And I think the thing that makes women's college basketball special is that sort of balance and conflict between the blue bloods and the rising teams as well as the fact that like this is a sport that is governed by tradition and conflict within tradition. We obviously saw that in the final four. I think that fans tune in every single year to see the see if the same story that we watch outplay on a regular basis actually changes. Does LSU ever actually stop imploding against self-carelina? No. Does Geno ever stop beefing with the rival coach, whether it's Muffin McGraw or Pat Summoner or Don Saley? No. Does UCLA ever get over the hump? That was the biggest question of the season. Or like I think it was a season long. Are they ever going to be the AP number one team? No. Are they because they got stomped on by Yukon by over 30 points? Right? And it was always that. It was always Yukon's undefeated UCLA. They only lost one game. Well, look, what a turnaround. They went from losing in a 30 point blow out in the final four to defeating self-carelina in a 30 point blow out. I don't remember what the final score was, but it's lopsided, right? You have losing in a blow out, winning in a blow out. You also to get to the final four, you beat the one team that beat you in the regular season in Texas. And you do it in such a manner that it satisfies our biggest questions about you as players and about you as a program. We'll get into all of this, but just to sort of like the top notes of all of it, Lauren Betts, can she keep up with the physicality of an SEC team? Will they just beat two SEC teams to win the title? Will she shrink in the face of that kind of physicality, that kind of pressure? Well, she made Medina O'Cott, who was six-six and could go to the WNBA next year depending on her eligibility, a complete non-factor. She made Merriam Douda a complete non-factor. She made Taniya Latson driving to the rim a complete non-factor. She made Joyce Edwards, who is the future of the self-carelina program, a complete non-factor. She made it impossible for a self-carelina team that likes to get to the rim to get layups right after making it impossible for Madison Booker, the best mid-range scorer in the country to get off any looks in the mid-range. She was dominant defensively in any form that you asked her to be, right? Like, the way that they put her in the paint and had her also going up and down, like it was there were no stamina issues. There were stamina issues have been a question of her college career as well, especially playing two back-to-back games in such a short period of time. And then there was just the fact that UCLA went from being the team that got punked to being the team doing the punking. Like this is a team that we, our biggest question about them was never on paper. This is the most talented team in the nation. They have five, maybe six WNBA players in the roster, but the only thing that ever made you have any doubt about them is sometimes a way that they've showed up in big games. But then you have Corey Close preparing them. You have their assistant coach, Tasha Brown, who's also like their mental grew really preparing them for these moments. You have Gabby Hawke as dog who has given this very nice, fun UCLA team the perfect amount of edge that it needed. And you also had like a performance coaching wise from Corey Close where she made some key rotational moves that early in the first when it was still felt like a game. I think she tactically outcoached Dawn Staley. And I never thought I'd be this was we talk like people say, give her the nickname Corey can't close for some of the rotational decisions and end of game decisions that they've made. Now this this come and didn't come down to end of game, but they made really smart end of game decisions throughout the course of the tournament. So you have this team that has basically collectively gotten over every demon and one in a dominant fashion that can't make you question at all whether they were the best team in college basketball this year. It's a great story. Oh my god. It's a great story. And here's the thing. There was a term that other packed while coaches used for Corey Close. They called her CUMBIAC CORE. And that was a kind of like backhand compliment that I would hear coaches that I would consider to be maybe a little rougher around the edges in the pack 12 would use for her. And the argument was that she did a lot of this kind of like woo woo everyone's so happy type thing and that meant that you didn't have a team that could close like killers. And frankly it was a lot of the national dialogue around the pack 12 for a really long time which was like yeah your teams are good and then you run up against the SEC who takes pride in beating your ass physically and I don't mean that in like any type of code away. It's just like the SEC plays more physically. Their fans brag about it every single year. about how much more physical they are than other leagues going into the tournament. And so they, and they won. Like it's not a derogatory comment to say, like they play more physical, they win because they got dog that other players tend, you know, not to and other teams tend not to. But what you saw today was a UCLA team that basically like harnessed the ability to win at that level through positive reinforcement, you know, and like there is, there is a very fascinating, like coaching philosophy discussion to have about Corey Close and like, how do you win in today's world? In the NIL transfer portal world, you know, especially when there's this conversation about softness and coaching and like softness in players, how do you manage to win? Well, Kurt Signetti did this on the college football side and now Corey Close is doing it on the women's basketball side where they are presenting an alternative to how you can do this, you know, Signetti doesn't practice his kids for long hours because he values efficiency when, you know, more old school coaches are like, "No, run the Oklahoma drill," you know. Corey Close is like having her kids journal about, you know, after practice about how they can de-center basketball is a place in their self-work, you know, like it's just two very different approaches to sports and to coaching and to building young athletes that has now shown in two different sports that has the ability to win in different ways. And I think that is probably the coolest thing of all with Corey doing this, especially as it pertains to Warren Betz, you know, you have a player that courageously writes in the players tribune this past week about how, you know, she had to check herself in to UCLA hospital because she was going through a significant depressive episode and it was her mother and it was Corey Close who encouraged her to be open and vulnerable and share that experience with her teammates face to face when she returned from the hospital to go back to practice in January of 2024. And the way she writes about it in the tribune is that she did that and it felt like a release. And from January into 2025 and into 2026, they're doing TikTok dances, they're messing around, they're having fun, they look like the loosest team on the planet. And to me, there is something about freedom. That Corey Close is impressing upon these kids that they are taking because this team mentally looks free. They don't look dominant in the sense that they have to bury you under your own, you know, bury you under your own game and then like piss on your grave on the way out. Like they are a very competitive between the line's team who has that dog in the mementally, but they have it from like a place of self love, which I feel like is kind of unique in sports. We don't see a lot of teams that act like this from a mentality standpoint. And I think that's fascinating. - Yeah, I think you nailed it on the head. I think you're absolutely right. I think there's almost like, there's a way in which this team is also in conversation with like Alyssa Liu, the Olympic skater as well. Like somebody who also, who, like we kind of watched in real time decouple the idea of competition as almost a form of whiplash, ask Marty Supreme sort of, you know what I'm saying? - I'm burdened by this gift. - It's Jordan. - It's Jordan. It's all of it's Kobe. It's all of that. It's all of these, you know, I think sports, sports is a way that we get a lot of our lessons about what it means and what it takes to accomplish things. And here you had this skater who had to walk away from the sport and actually only came back to it because she was doing something else skiing. And it reminded her of how fun it was to skate. And then we watched her skate with freedom. And I kept thinking about that as I was watching Lauren Beds and I'm glad that you brought up that, that player's tribune article two because I think that Lauren has been so open about her mental health journey. And I think it created this contradictory dynamic where despite her value in herself shifting, despite her decoupling her value on the court with her value as a human being, it became actually harder not to watch her on court performance as a proxy of her off court struggle because she talked so much about being tall and being teased for that and that making her want to shrink. And now she's just being as the biggest most impactful she can possibly be and being proud of herself and caring herself in a way that is very evidently impactful on the court but even more so impactful on a human to human level watching her actually do it. And it's that sort of thing of, you know, once you let go a little bit of the grind and you don't carry that weight of expectation with you, everything you're doing becomes more fluid, more present. And there's a joy element of it too that like I think Corey exemplifies that incredibly well. But this was a team that was, you know, they're doing cheerleading dances before like they're dancing with the cheerleading team like as early as yesterday too, like they turn this trip, they carry this tradition over to the final four like they are having fun and it completely up and like this old model that says that you basically have to be crushed by pressure in order to, you know, sharpen yourself or basically overcome that pressure. You can also, there's a way to sort of like just let go of it as well and like kind of soften the aesthetics we have around sports of like dominating your opponents mentally as a way that you're gonna win. You know, like she's, that's just having fun. She's smiling like she's imposing absolutely but she's composed and loose and like, and patient. I think patient is something that's changed so much in her game and like really allowed her to come into herself especially as a playmaker too. And I think it's just really special to watch. It's so fun. It actually brings me to, we usually do this at the end of the show, but my between the lines of the week relates to all of this and Lauren Bed. So between the lines is a segment we do where we talk about the thing that happened in women's sports or women's basketball that related back to your life. And Andrew, you actually were kind of part of this because I was talking to you and I was kind of venting and I think that you know, in our jobs, we're kind of in this place where everything is happening all at once, right? Like we have final four, CBA just ended, free agency, the draft and we all want to do it well. And we all really care, but it's also kind of borderline impossible just given the time crunch of it all. And I was just feeling like just stressed about all of it. And then like last night I'm watching Lauren Bed's do her pre-game press conference. And you know, she's asked about her struggles. And she's like, you know, I just, like I just surround myself with good people that regardless of what I do on the court, it doesn't take away from my value as a person. Now that's, at this point that has become a cliche, but sometimes you just need to hear it in that moment. Like I was just like, it's just like, "Whoo!" Like I just, I just like let go of something. Yeah. And it's hard. It's really hard to decouple things that you do in public that you care about from who you are as a person. And I think that we're actively watching the, we've actively watched a process of her learning how to do that and stop caring about the outside pressure and feel just completely free as a result. It goes back to what coaches always say and we think it sometimes is a contrivance, but it's really not loving your process instead of loving your result. You know, the minute you become a process oriented, I think that's really, you know, the thing that, the thing that's obscured in a lot of great athletes and a lot of great teams and great coaches is, to your point, there's this treatment of like zero sum, what you have to do in order to succeed. And yeah, sure, some of the greatest of grades are biopically, you know, sociopathically focused on that level of greatness. But generally, the tie that binds any champion is being process oriented. And I think when you start to become process oriented, that's when you start to find your love of what you're doing because you're taking it away from whether or not you win a national championship. Did I play well? Did I control the things that I know I can control? You know, if I do that, then the result is immaterial. And that's, I think, something Corey Clos has always tried to build into these kids. And to your point about Alyssa Lew in the Olympics, like, I think Alyssa Lew really showed that. I was like, I love this process. I love being out there on the ice. And that's what this UCLA team has showed is that they love this process. And, you know, when you look at the difference between that team and the team that lost in this, you know, NCAA tournament, this Geno War IMA UConn team, for instance, that's a result, like, that's a result driven mindset. You are not crashing out like that if you're Geno War IMA unless you are in that place thinking about the result and crashing out over the lack of control that you have about the result. And I think if you were put a gun to Geno's head, a due to his won that many national titles by being process oriented, he would probably tell you that the thing that got him in trouble. situation is he got into it. He got in his own head over Don Staley and it started to become about beating Don Staley versus the process of how you are playing in that game. And that is what the difference was. And UCLA to their credit has been process oriented since day one when it comes to this particular team. Kiki Rice was just quoted in the post game presser. I got my Twitter open live here as we're talking saying I knew from day one this team was going to win a championship. And usually when you know when players know it's because they are following some degree of process to a tee in every morning that they wake up and they go to the gym and they go practice with their team. They know that everybody is on the same wave with them and as far as being committed to that process. That's also very much in the Corey Close School of Positive Reenforcement and manifestation. Hey Corey. Oh my god. Is this school ever in encapsulation of LA? This is it is such a young LA person mindset to have Gabby Hawkes too. Gabby Hawkes who was the the dog of the game set a very similar thing to Holly Roe as well too where she was like I well first of all she actually was manifesting this for a very long time. Gabby Hawkes is an LA native and dreamed of going to UCLA and getting a scholarship there and and wrote it down on a journal when she was a kid. Her brother Jaime Hawkes who plays for the Miami Heat also drafts steel. I don't know. I think both could be pretty both could be steels. James but like she said the same thing like she said from the start like she wanted to go to UCLA. I think you know she's she's interesting she she occupies a very interesting role on this team. I think she is the one that probably took those losses to USC the absolute artist. I was watching the UCLA documentary that they did on last on last season. One thing that that really stood out to me is after that USC loss I think it was the second loss they all go into the locker room. Corey closed talks for a while. Tasha Brown talks for a while and then they just they turn it over to Gabby. Gabby is the first player who talks and Gabby is the one who essentially tells them hey we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide that who we want to be. If anyone's interested you can even go back and watch Corey closest press conference. I was at that one after that loss. She hit them with like a coach Carter level. If you don't like want to live up to this standard like don't show up on the bus tomorrow when we go to the the big tent when like when we go to the big tent title like the tournament and it got me thinking because I was like I was it stood out so much because Corey closes obviously very passionate. She does have a standard but it's not necessarily her style and the ESPN broadcast was talking about about it today and it kind of put it together. Gabby Hawkes was the one that kind of had to force Corey to be harder on them. Like she doesn't like to go into a film session guns blazing but Gabby Hawkes was the one that was like look we actually need this. We need you to turn the temperature dial up not to you know not to a boiling point but just a little bit. Just turn it up like the accountability aspect of this just a little bit and I think that's a key part of of what happened for them like throughout the course of this season. I agree. I mean I and to me that's a testament to the mentality that you have taught your players you know I mean it's it's really easy for player leg. Yep it's very easy for players to turn around and be like you know what be a little less hard ass on me. It's very hard for players to go to a coach and be like you got to turn it up on us a little bit. That takes a degree of self awareness that I think a lot of players and you know at that age especially at the college age just don't necessarily possess and it's a testament to your coaching that your players can lead in that way and honestly man that that isn't even to take away from how Corey like tactically handled this game. I mean if we want to talk pure exes and owes she outcoached on stately who is. I want to get to that. Yes yes yes I want to get to that in a second. I want to know what you got between the lines was. I think my between the lines is the fact that this is a proper epilogue for the Pac-12. To me I look at this last recruiting class like the Kiki Rice Gabby Hawkeyes. I believe that was 2021 where ESPN has more in bets as the number one overall recruit going to Stanford and Kiki is the number two overall recruit going to UCLA. At the time Kiki was one of the highest ranked recruits ever to commit to UCLA. It was a signal in a proto NIL transfer portal era that like oh maybe UCLA is willing to like throw something around or try and build something a little bit different than what they have in the past few years right because to get back to the thing about you know Kumbaya Corey being a thing it's because when she wanted to go against the Stanfords and the Oregon's and the Oregon states of the world that were at the top of the conference at the time like those teams would wilt like that Michaela Anion Wedi Elite 8 team lost to Texas and it just you know it wasn't a it wasn't a team that you know it had all of the talent but they just didn't appear to be able to put it together and it was actually Mississippi State they beat Texas lost to Mississippi State that your Vic Schafer's Mississippi State with Tierra McAllen mind you but from Kiki Rice and Gabby Hawkeyes in recruiting they are able to then get Warren Betts and the transfer portal from Stanford they are able to get Angela Dugelich and the portal out of Oregon they're able to get Gianni Pkin's out of the portal out of Utah and Charlize ledger Walker out of the portal from Washington State. So in the six player rotation that UCLA has five Pac-12 schools are represented in that six player rotation and so to me there is something and like this is the Pac-1 time Pac-12 writer Romanticist and me about West Coast basketball that like that conference did not get the proper send off for what it has contributed to the women's game you go all the way back to post title nine and you see the basis of women's basketball history that is rooted specifically in Southern California with UCLA winning that national title in the AIW in 78 and then you see it continue with USC and Cheryl Miller's USC teams with Coop with Rhonda Windom and the McGee sisters and Linda Sharp coaching they win titles in 83 84 and so there's always been a through line of West Coast basketball that is inextricably tied to the history of women's college basketball the chapter to me like the story of the Pac-12 and the Pac-10 Pack 8 what have you it begins in the early 80s when USC wins that first championship for that conference the story ends with USC's Juju Watkins team winning the last Pac-12 women's basketball tournament before realignment blows it up the Pac-12 is still a lie mind you but it's just not the same conference is what it used to be so it's over right like the the league is broken up it's it's adapted and evolved into something that will probably never be what it once was all of the best programs have scattered to the win to the ACC to the big 10 to this new Pac-12 to the big 12 and yet here is this team that is arguably the first real major women's basketball program on the West Coast to announce themselves on the national level dating back to 78 now with the team that's filled with Pac-12 you know cast-offs or transfers winning this trophy right at the end of the recruiting cycle for Pac-12 players because people the next group of kids that are going to come in and the next group of kids that have come in post 2024 for instance those kids didn't get recruited under the same Pac-12 parameters they never played in the Pac-12 they never played in that league as it was constructed so they don't know what it's like to be playing five top 15 teams in seven days and even if there's not a title winner out of that group the Pac-12 is going to reliably put three to five teams in the league eight every year I mean they were that good they just they didn't have a team outside of Stanford in 21 that could win that title all the way through the 2010s but when you look through the Pac-12 and what they were able to do during that era you have Washington that made the final four in that decade you had Cal Oregon state Oregon Stanford Arizona State UCLA made the elite eight you USC was down at that point Utah went Utah and Colorado were sweet 16 teams at that end so about half of the conference maybe a little less than half Arizona as well had gone to a national championship game about half of them had gone to at least a final four oh two thirds had gone to an elite eight and almost all of them had been to at least a sweet 16 in the last 10 years that is and that is a relevant important conference and so and so now that everything is settled and we get into the epilogue of the story right the epilogue is this UCLA team comprised of arguably the best of the last few years of the pack 12 coming together for the school that had not done this in 48 years winning that championship. It just, it feels like a narratively perfect way to say, you know what, you're in the big 10 now, but this championship was won on the backs of the pack 12. And if you're a romanticist for the league and you're a romanticist for women's basketball, that I think is what I take away and what's important to me is the fact that we're never going to see a team that's built in this manner again. I will never going to see a team that has this type of background from, it's like a past teach of all other teams in your former conference. You know, like this is like, if this is like if South Carolina left the SEC and won with the team that was comprised of transfers from like LSU Mississippi State forward. Like it, it just, you basically take like the all pack 12 team put them on UCLA and they win a title. That's, it's beautiful. Three of the four transfers were pack 12 first timbers at one point in their careers. Ledger Walker, Nickkins and Betts. And it's something so funny about the fact that it was at UCLA too, who like program wise right now became sort of like the little sister in LA after juju walkins committed to USC. Like there is something very interesting about that. Like you and you've had over the last few years, these UCLA USC matchups are big time and you see the sort of tides of women's basketball turning back towards the West in these ways. It's almost like this, this, this area insists upon itself. It says, you know, we're like and to have the, you know, one of the regionals in Sacramento too was a testament to that to have, you know, a player in in Carolossian who played for the Sacramento Monarchs, you know, be one of the coaches there as well. Like that, I think it's interesting. Like there is a sort of mistissism here that you're getting at that I love that I love. I'm very glad that I asked you to give me your between the lines. That's that's so that's so that's so fascinating. Well, and the the other between like the extra place you can take that to go a step further to is this is a bad, this is a battery in the back of the battle of LA. I mean, we took a year off this year because juju was heard, but like, USC is going to come back with juju walkins, Sanio Hall and jazzy Davidson against a team that look UCLA is going to chant, you know, Portland probably four or five players word around the tournament was they have money to spend and they plan on spending it to bring in some bring in some top end talent. But if there's one thing USC donors hate it's watching UCLA succeed in this manner. And I think the thing that scares a lot of people and probably should is that crowd in Phoenix even on TV hugely UCLA like massively UCLA. I've been to a couple games there they had they had a bit of a mid season wall early in the season there was a Tennessee game that I went to and I was kind of surprised at the lack of the crowd, but other than that going to a game and that arena is incredible and it is UCLA fans and they are incredibly passionate like these are basketball fans LA is a basketball city polypavilion is an incredible arena experience. It kind of it's this sort of there's mysticism to it. Has you really impressed well it's like a compressed dome almost where it's like everyone sort of stacked on top of each other and it's kind of imposing as well and it's it's renovated and beautiful but it's sort of it's maintained that and the acoustics are amazing and the band is amazing. It definitely gives you that feel of a big time big time imposing college basketball program now on top of that. You have this coach in this program that's been able to sell this vision around winning as a means to lifelong relationships and healing self-actualization. Self-actualization like and you're going to have this coach who understands who you are as a person and and you know and I think you know like it's not like Corey closest the only coach in the universe that does that I think this program just leads with that in a way that's great marketing for a new era of college kids in a transfer portal it's like what people are predicting like a thousand kids are going to be in the transfer portal which we'll get into we'll get into some transfer portal stuff later but the one thing I'll say too is like they are a very interesting case study on how to make the transfer portal work and feel cohesive. Lauren Betts is a transfer portal portal success story. She sure is. As much as she feels woven into the culture of what UCLA is she will tell you that transferring from Stanford was the best decision she ever made in her life all the players that you mentioned were a transfer portal success story and they found this cohesion and they found this sisterhood through the through the culture of team that Corey closest created. But yeah let's talk you wanted to talk about the X's and knows as well let's get into that like I definitely have my thoughts but I'll let you I'll let you start. I mean I think the first thing is. How easily UCLA was able to get into the paint and how aggressive they were in that first quarter in not being afraid of the thing that South Carolina relies on and you know in the same way that I think South Carolina punched Yukon in the final four and Yukon just did not have an answer for it I think I think UCLA shell shock South Carolina bit because for five plus years now the calling card of South Carolina is like you do not drive on us we got someone in the middle that's going to make your life hell and this is the second straight season where you've seen them miss Ashland Watkins because Ashland Watkins is the rim protector high leaper shot blocker that'll put your stuff into the third row and it scares people and Chloe Kits it scares people to drive on them the same way Lauren Betts made it scary to drive on UCLA this year and I think they just didn't have anyone that could do that and and additionally first quarter especially Corey's keeping guards away from like the baseline corners while Lauren has the ball in the block and I think that was me that was giving South Carolina problems and being able to provide help side defense and and be able to try and like collapse or trap on Lauren when she gets in so now you're having to do one on ones against Betts and for whatever people want to say about what she's what she is offensively she's proven this tournament there's there's a bag in there you know it might not be you know Yokeach in the dream shake but like it's there's a there is an offensive bag in there and how it translates to elite WNBA centers defensively is a different story but against Medina O'Cott who is a good collegiate big defender but maybe not a WNBA in an elite WNBA level big defender um you you saw Lauren kind of take her lunch a few times especially in that first quarter so Corey did a good job of keeping the space and action away and South Carolina has no choice but to try and defend the shooters and and I do think there was a little bit of hubris there from South Carolina in thinking early on like yeah we can do this all one on one you know I was told all year long that you know because UCLA couldn't pass the paper bag test that they didn't have any athletic guards in their back court and you know I just I whole I wholeheartedly rejected that all year I think if you had been watching Gabby Hawkeyes in particular you're like that's an athlete bro that's someone who can get laterally quickly across the floor and and I think there was a little bit of exposure there of like these UCLA guards are not just like your average fundamental like big 10 basketball players like they can play one on one like there's a reason they're all probably everyone's around like yeah yeah so I I thought Corey did a great job early on I think South Carolina started to settle in but by that time I think the damage was more or less done because look if you can't win the minutes where Lauren Betts is off the floor because she's got dry mouth like you're not going to win you have to win the minutes where Lena Billek and C.N. Betts are on the floor in their first ever national title you know that moment was so key to me now this is both of these teams you know they don't really get too deep into their rotational big right like they kind of have their seven that they like and every once in a while Don will throw out you know she'll throw out Alicia Turnabies thought in this game bad idea throw out Miriam Dota this game thought it was bad idea that really I was shocked by that one I but I get it like you don't like it's Lauren bad so you are a little bit less inclined to go small but I think that moment when Lauren you know she had something stuck in her throat and she had to go to the bench that's where the game was really won and lost I think that Cory had actually taken her I think her hawkheads and maybe neepkins out of the game at the same time and just given them a little bit of rest in that first quarter and at that point you're anticipating that it's going to be a much more competitive game right and UCLA still won those minutes she you know she drew up a couple plays for Charlize ledger Walker to get some threes but I thought that was when South Carolina really needed to strike and they went to their bench like they had they had a doubted turn of bees and I don't even know if they got McHier was in and Maddie McDaniel was in that was in there and those two were the ones finishing plays alongside a few tests of Johnson moments in the time that UCLA's defense is like the most compromised. That's when you real quick go hey to Nihilats and get in the game like Raven Johnson get in the game like let's let's get our layup so we can get them because something's going on Lauren Fett's at the end of the bench and I was really surprised just given you know everything that we know about Don that she wasn't really able to recognize the opportunity in that moment. I think she I don't know I mean I think that in the last couple of years the deficiencies been obvious and I think this was a year where I think she realized pretty quickly that like this group just was overmatched. I mean look far be it for me to critique a player who can do things that I will never be able to do on a basketball court but like Medino Akats should not be shooting three in the first quarter brother like well that was a court that was a great court close move like they just weren't guarding her. Yeah I mean like and Lauren Lauren was like just in the paint and like you look we can talk about the transfer portal but I think the no three in the key rule is like the most unregulated part of college basketball at this point and Lauren Fett was thinking full of that job. Yeah like they just weren't guarding her they didn't care. Yeah not at all I mean it was like look if that's and and I I love that idea of like look if that's how you're gonna beat us like fine you know like we'll just let you do it but I think I think it was just the bigs at Lauren Fett's to me just showed what a difference maker she is and I think Angela Dugelich too you know nine nine points five rebounds for assist the way that we talk about and have talked about Raven Johnson from an important standpoint is like the statistics belive what how good she's actually is and what she's doing on the floor. I think that's kind of Angela Dugelich's role with UCLA as well where it's like oh you're thinking true like triple single like you know who cares but like all of them are seemingly consequential plays and I think that for for UCLA has been the the biggest thing for them man. I mean bro just this is this is a truly genuinely elite team. I mean I like I want to go through just the the schedule of this real quick there's 37 and one you know and and obviously the top 25 is reflected differently now but like you beat number six Oklahoma number 11 North Carolina you lost one game this whole season to number four Texas you beat Duke by 30 you beat Tennessee by 22 you beat Ohio State when they were number 19 you swept USC you beat Nebraska you swept Minnesota you swept Maryland you swept Iowa twice you beat Michigan you beat Michigan State both at home then you get into the NCAA tournament you paste everybody Oklahoma State Minnesota Duke beat Texas by seven and then beat South Carolina by 28 I mean this is one of the most dominant teams that we've seen in a minute the way we talk about Yukon and South Carolina teams this UCLA unit is in that rarefied air for how historically good they are as a program yeah I completely completely agree with you I think I think there's something about the fact that because of the sort of narrative around where they're going to show up at when it mattered um I think we probably we held on to for probably an unfair amount of time uh now in hindsight it's almost like let's watch them this blow out and I was like wait is this really the last time I'm watching this UCLA team like admittedly in the moment where I'm finally fully appreciating how great they are like where it's like finally all the other concerns fall away I do want to say meant I completely agree on Duke uh Duke Leach she has just incredible chemistry with everybody on the team she's one of the best high low passers to Lauren um she they run like and I think this is also where like there were a couple moments where the talent discrepancy was just really obvious um and the size the size physicality and athleticism discrepancy like there was a I think in the second quarter McKeer and Latson were guarding Gabby and Duke Leach on a post-cross screen and they switched it and Duke Leach found uh found Gabby in the post mismatched against Latson and then the next one self-care aligner plays better defense they don't switch it and then it doesn't matter because Gabby's also still gonna be better like bigger like we're Duke Leach is still gonna be bigger as then McKeer or Maddie McDaniel or Duke Leach and this is where like you kind of question some like the matchup decisions and how many minutes some of the the bench players play it for self-care aligner for sure but like I think that they were just over-matched like you think about how much self-care aligner won the rebounding battle the guard rebounding battle against Yukon and that completely flipped Gabby Hockets had nine rebounds in like the for like like five minutes like not even five minutes three minutes into the third quarter you know like she's doing things like she's first like in tonight Latson and Raven Johnson and just like straight up not boxing her out and that's where I'm like guys like what like did you think the there wasn't there was a tiny element of did you think the title game was against Yukon there's a tiny element of like I almost feel like they wasted some of their voltage on on the Yukon matchup because of how badly they beat them last year because so much of you know that this season was about getting their revenge and this was like predating all the Geno stuff like that happened after the game but they you know they had Yukon circled on a calendar and it almost felt like UCLA became a bit of an afterthought to them after they won that game and and and I don't like I don't know I don't know if that's true because at the same time like as I'm saying as I'm saying all this UCLA is a more talented team they had they they just kind of outgun them that just about every position right like and I just can't I don't know I'm very curious about what the what the draft holds for these UCLA players right like I saw a hunter cruise we have on the podcast last week he tweeted that Washington could take straight up like they could take three UCLA players they wanted if they wanted to like they could go Cindy Johnson has been hanging around their games this March has he interesting interesting yep Tyler caught that I think it was one of the lead eight match I think it was the regional and sacrameno there but I mean there's fits there I mean Hawkeh's to me is the type of player that I think can work on any WNB18 like she reminds me a lot not in play style but in in kind of fit in the way like a senaya rivers or an Isomoro do where it's like you don't know the position but that doesn't matter you'll find a spot based off their effort and based off their output and what and how they're going to be in the locker room and and to me I think duke litches ceiling is a little bit lower for the next level but I still think she's going to be a player that stays on a roster for a long time especially with the expanded rosters regardless but Hawkeh's to me to your point is the one that like we could wake up and she could be a perennial all star and we don't know where she is I think she'll be a steal for sure and she'll be she'll play the exact role that she plays for this UCLA team like she will be the sixth woman on a team and kind of come in and fill whatever gap is not being filled by the starters like you can have her come in and hit a three she can be your distributor she can hit your big on the high low pass she can guard and switch and and be really aggressive on hedges like she can just do a whole bunch of stuff at a pretty good level while not having a lot of weaknesses and then with with Gabby I was so my roommate is a UCLA fan and you know he definitely is you know he's riding a high and he's having some hot take moments right now but he's got a little dip on his ship but I think well if you allow me to be a prisoner of a moment for a second what if Gabby Hackeh says a better WNBA career than easy fun how surprised is this spicy um not all that's prized and the reason that I say that is because like I look at a Hackeh's is like a K with the Wharton type of player where like she could spend a good chunk of her career being like a six player and then like some team takes the chance on her being like the main player and she proves that she can be the main player now does does that mean she can be the main player that can lead you to a championship no like she's not a top-by player that you probably need in the WNBA but I could absolutely see her being like the vital third player on a title team for Hackeh's I think AZ probably has the same same type of ability to be that I mean we saw her as basically the number three on a college title team um as important as she was to that run I think the two best players on that team were Paige and Sarah Strong um but I think going into this coming season in the WNBA I frankly think AZ has more questions to answer just based off what we saw here because this is the problem with the Big East and and this isn't a Geno issue this is not a Yukon issue like this is a scenario where Geno opening his mouth is actually warranted and understandable like it's not on him to make the Big East competitive some of these other schools have to wake up at some point like if you're see like see Nawhal's got a decent thing with Tony Bazzella like Villanova's got a decent thing with Denise Dylan but like some of these other programs man like there's no excuse for for the A10 to be sinking more money into their programs and hiring better coaches like SEC teams should not be overlooking the Big East to go take Tammy Reese from from Rhode Island team should not be looking at Aaron Roussell from Richmond or Vanessa Blair Lewis from George Mason and they're not even sniffing around at any of what you got going on in the Big East that's embarrassing it makes the it makes the Big East look like a lesser conference than the A10 without Yukon. And I think that that worked again. >> Especially with how much it - Very important to men's basketball too. - Exactly. I mean, it's like, you know, biggest men's basketball has that feeling, and the vibe to it, and it just, it's never caught on. And I think that UCLA, from a women's perspective, like Kentucky faces the same problem that Kenny Brooks is trying to change. Like when men's basketball is the show, women's basketball has a harder climb. I think UCLA winning the title this year is going to reestablish some of the expectations, especially since Corey's a great vibe in Micronin is just a category of awful vibe. He's just an awful vibe. And like he's like, he's all of the shitty elements of Danny Hurley without any of Goucchern. - Good job. - Like, I, you know. - Do you think of, oh my gosh, I can't think of two more opposing vibes. - Oh my gosh. - As head coach. - At least Danny Hurley and Gino are somewhat similar, but like Christ almighty, can you imagine going from one-- - You're a lot of you, if you win, you can do it. Like that's just as much of a-- - Oh, Ms. McDowell. - But as I contradict some of the things on the top of the plot. - Just granted. - They're the rules. - Rans and vibes at UCLA Men's Basketball right now. But to bring it back to center, the biggest, I don't think, set up Yukon for success this year. And I think it actually put Azy Fud in a bad spot because the only real basketball people got to see this year, she played pretty well in the regular season against top end opponents. You know, the ranked teams that Yukon did see in the non-conn. But this entire tournament she's been awful. And she did get a little bit exposed against South Carolina defensively and Gino crashed out in epic fashion, Notre Dame also got her. Like, so I think there is a fair question of how good are you when you don't have a truly elite point guard that's helping to dictate the terms of what you're doing offensively. So it's a worthwhile question, sir. I definitely think that's a sticky note for five years from now. - It's a sticky note, but I think it's also more so than comparing Gabby and Azy as players. I think it's about expectations, right? Like, Gabby Hawk, as we don't expect her to put on performances like this, where you start to really wonder about her versus Kiki Rice and who's making the most impact on the floor. I think UCLA, they do this movement monitor thing where when she's in practices, she has been basically doing the same, like the amount of movement as like two players do. And it makes perfect sense. When you watch her, whereas with Azy, because she's supposed to be a higher in pick, well, you expect a little bit of like, you don't want, you don't necessarily want to take a complimentary player. But if you're like in defensive Azy, if you're going to take one of the better complimentary players that you could see all time, somebody who could be like a sort of, like a high end, incredible pure shooter gravity creator in a game that's going more and more towards the three point line, like there's absolutely still that argument for her that I don't think like, you know, you don't want, again, like that's why I called it prisoner of the moment, right? I think it's just something to sort of look at right now. And I think it ultimately speaks to like, you're much happier with like Gabby Hawkez as like a ninth pick or like a, or then you would be like as with Azy as like the number three pick. Like that just sometimes is how the cookie crumbles as far as what we want from players in certain picks. But this is a draft that has a lot of, it has a lot of role players and maybe not as many like generational, franchise defining game changers as well. But there's like, there's, I mean, look, this UCLA team. They are full of players that I watch and I'm like, oh, like Gabby's going to get that put back and lay up in like a big playoff moment. Kiki Rice is going to hit that step back, that step back. My god, back to Don for a second. That step back at the end of the first quarter, Alicia Turnabies doesn't communicate on the switch. Kiki gets a wide open. That's like a regular season shot. Like those are those are the moments that I think that as he really, really lost the game there. But yeah, I think this, I don't know, I feel like I have to do a little bit of like maybe looking at my draft board. Like I feel like for me, my top eight is like pretty set. And like I know that, I know that, you know, like I think Chicago really likes Kiki Rice. I think the tempo kind of like Kiki Rice too. I personally would love to see the tempo take Nell and Gloma, who are kind of, who are happening to them right now. And then I don't know, like after that, I'm kind of, do I need to evaluate a little bit? Would you reevaluate anything? I still like, I feel like Raven to Portland is still what I have. And then Eana Martini to Golden State. And I feel good about that top eight. But I don't know, do I need to like, I don't think about it. There's too reevaluate. I mean, I think, again, I mean, I think we've seen this type of player before. Go first overall on the WNBA draft. If it is easy, like I don't, I don't necessarily think that, you know, like we watch Jackie Young and Kelsey Plum go first overall. And while Kelsey, I think, is maybe a little bit different. Like I think Jackie kind of carries a similar vibe and feel. I think Jackie's a very different player. I think like she's a much better defender. And I think there is things that she does differently, that easy does differently. But I think from the same, you know, aspect of things like the star of those Notre Dame teams when Jackie was there was a reek. You know, so it's like where are we, you know, where are you judging? Like the second best player or third best player on a roster of truly elite players. I've always been, all the honest, I've always been in the mindset that I think they should take bets first because I think you just cannot, in this league, you can't skip out on a 6-7 player. That is elite defensively. You just can't. Well, what if there's a 6-6, 19 year old in Spain that is hitting three and making passes in the short rule and is continuing to grow? What's 6-4 like 6 months ago? Is she, well, and I think this is the only retort that I have to that is, how are you going to employ her with a true center next to her? Or are you going to try and do the Asia like you're just kind of everything in the front court? And is she a good enough player? I will fam that is to take all that on at 19. You know, I think Lauren bets. I think Lauren bets can be a center that can be a day one impact starter in the WNBA. I think with Awa, you're betting on the ceiling, but I think bets can still have a high ceiling. I just think she has a guaranteed higher floor than, than, Asia or Awa at this juncture. Well, I think, I think about Dominique Malonga, right, who really didn't get a lot of play during the start of the regular season was really like slowly integrated into Seattle because they are a playoff team. That won't be the case for Awa. She'll get to play from day one. And by the end of the year, Dominique Malonga was playing like real impactful minutes against Asia Wilson of all people. So I think that if you care about development and you bring players along the right way and they have it, you can do it. And if I'm Dallas, I'm also just like, why do I don't need to, I get it. There's like a pressure there with Paige, but you also just got the epic provision in the new CBA, which means that you probably have a better chance of keeping her for a little bit of a longer time. And I don't think you want to put too much pressure on yourself. I say, and it could be Lauren. It could be Lauren, right? Like, I think Lauren has played herself into a position where she is kind of like the most volatile player in this draft to me. I think she could go any pick from one to seven at this point. And I don't think any of them would surprise me because after you get past one, I think Minnesota is probably going to take Olivia Miles. Seattle has DOM, although I had a Seattle fang on my mentions and say that they want Lauren Betz-3. So maybe you go the Twin Towers experiment. Washington has big, Chicago has big. Like Toronto Portland, who kind of like I think Portland definitely needs to center Toronto has some depth at that position. And then just as Lauren Betz played herself into a position now where you are like not thinking as much about fit as much as your art, or about her talent, I think that she's definitely starting to get you to ask those questions. And I'm very, I don't know, like she could end up, she could literally end up anywhere on this draft board and it would not shock me. And I do think that we are going to see some surprises in general on draft night. All right. Yeah. All right. Let's, let's, let's, let's switch gears a little bit here. So this week's, why would you to do that? Old to Brian Windhorst as the semi informed wormhole that we are going to go down right now is the revolving door of players and coaches, leaving Tennessee. With the cherry on top now being Olivia Edwards, the number two prospect in the nation who I also saw as a bit of a lifeline for Kim called well's employability in Tennessee being asked to be released from that program. Just to kind of, in case you haven't been paying attention to this, Tennessee has let go of two coaches on its assistant coaching staff in the last two weeks or so. One of them is it gave Lazo or gave Lazo? I've been saying Lazo. Okay. I guess I got to go find it on the UCF website now that I have to know his name a whole hell of a lot more, but I've been saying. Well, gave Lazo, there was one point where you might have been able to find him on the LSU website because about a week ago, he was supposed to be the assistant coach at LSU. And now the University of Central Florida, Central Florida has come in and decided to hire him as the head coach. Lazo was also the lead recruits on Olivia Edwards when he. was at Tennessee. And now Olivia Edwards has also been asked to be released from Tennessee as well. So there's, there's between 11 players leaving the program either because they're graduating or because they've entered the transfer portal. This has obviously just been a disaster class of an offseason or came called well and Tennessee. And I'm just, I'm just trying to unpack some of what is going on here. Yeah. Where where where what do you think? Let me actually let me let me also add in that radio show in Tennessee was reporting that a coach either Roman Subner who is also who is also left the program or Lazo was undermining Kim Caldwell and her system behind her back. Now they didn't say that it was Roman or Lazo. It was a fact. It was just like it's what you the belief is that it's lost. And yeah, that's a belief is that it's lost. Yes, that's the story. Exactly. And that lines up with what I've heard as well. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Some players have spoken out and said that they didn't feel that it was true. So I'm kind of of the like either one or one of two things happened here. Either it's true and he poised in the well and the players don't realize it. And I think that's in play. I think high level recruiters are excellent manipulators. Even like look it's not about kids. They're excellent manipulators of everybody or the current staff is trying to give the world an explanation for Tennessee's failures that protects Caldwell. I think like any great reality TV everybody is everyone's wrong and everyone's a terrible person. Basically here's here's what I've been able to surmise and talking with people around college basketball for the entirety of this year. Kim Caldwell is not up for a job like this. Like she that she is she is not met the moment. They took a big swing. She's going to be learning on the job. And if you are committing to tearing this whole thing down and starting from scratch to really get away from the Pat Summit legacy. Danny White is committed to that bit. I think there is a difference between coaches that come from you know the world where recruiting and the NIL and the portal conquer all and coaches that are coming up from more mid major like system matters and fit you know kind of an older school pre NIL coaching mindset. I think that it was a marriage that was always destined to end badly. I think the thing with Lasso that I don't particularly love is like he his his trajectory mirrors Mark Campbell's a little bit and where he has been a key recruiter a key players coach a key roster guy and just kind of is jumped around every couple years from place to place to place. The difference between Mark Campbell though and him is that like Mark Campbell there's pretty undeniable success everywhere Mark Campbell has been and even after he left the head coaches right because I don't think you can distill Oregon state's success in their final four run in 16 or Oregon's final four run in 19. I don't think you can distill that down to Mark Campbell. I think it was Mark Campbell and Chavilope and Scott Rueik. I think it was Mark Lopez and Chavilope as Ankelli Graves. Now you know Mark goes to Sacramento state and goes to TCU and you can see he is capable of building his own success but Mark Campbell went to two final fours as an assistant. Gabel has had a couple of teams at Mississippi State at the University of Tennessee uh Stony Brook where like yeah they were like 22 and 11 you know it's not as though outside of getting big players he can point to legitimate tangible success he's had as a tactical guy and you're going to need that as a head coach like I think in the big 12 going to USF it's going to be a little easier because it's not a deep conference TCU's the only team at the top and as we've seen for both TCU and Texas Tech if you spend money in NIL in that league your growth like you can experience exponential growth in very quick order. So do I think he was probably seeding some bad stuff about how the system wasn't going to work? Yeah. Do I think Roman Tubner was doing that? No. Do I think Kim Caldwell also owns some of this for trying to like channel like Pat Sumit, Kim Moky, like Iron Fistie nonsense? Like absolutely man like you're not you know personally like I think when when she had her baby and you know immediately returned to the floor because she wanted to channel Pat and like draw this comparison with sports writers like I thought that was cynical you know um there's a couple of things that I've heard about how she ran the program this year where like from a cynical perspective you're looking at that like what kind of Hoki Ass hardcore bullshit is that you know pardon my French like it just there's stuff that in terms of like how she interacted with players like things that she had them do his team building activities off the floor like things that just are for another era that are just like not done properly that just weren't done properly here and I think at the end of the season what we ended up getting was her basically saying I let other people influence me and so I am committing to my stuff next year and that is frankly that is what Vic Schaeffer also said after Vanderbilt this year when he said we're not tough we're not doing things we're soft the follow up that I asked Vic that night in Vanderbilt was you said you either allow it or you coach it which do you think you're doing and Vic went on this whole tirade about well other people are saying that I should coach this way or that way and I need to go back to coaching how I know how and how he knows is getting a team to the final four and then having what happened in that matchup against UCLA happened but but the difference between a Kim Caldwell and a Vic Schaeffer is Vic understands how that can be used and where he needs to tighten the screws to motivate his team he's been coaching for 25 plus years at this level Kim Caldwell has not well so Kim also went to him afterwards and they were they in that practice they had afterwards told him that they did not appreciate the way that he talked about them publicly yep and well and he and he and he has a lot more equity with them and he ate it and he said he was wrong and he's and and he apologized I don't know if he fully like I don't know if it was like a full apology I'm sure he ate it he he heard yeah he heard what they had to say and for Kim too we're getting I'm getting to a point with this system where you know I enjoy it on a sort of leza's known as sports writer level at the same time when you think about the system two years running now everybody talks about how the SEC record versus a conference record and obviously something had to go wrong in the locker room for it to be such a clear difference and I agree with that you can just tell from like the way the players look on the court that something was was happening but we're also looking at two years in a row where your system because you emphasize offensive rebounding and pace and your full court press might look really good against other conferences but the SEC is already what what that is all about so they aren't like there's no shock factor there's no we're going to get 20 extra positions you're not getting 20 extra possessions against Xs you're not getting 20 extra possessions against self-care aligna you're not doing like that's just not how it works in the SEC they bring the same fight that you do so all the sudden the edge that your system has doesn't work as well it doesn't work it didn't work against a Kentucky team that had Georgia Amore just passing over your traps like once you get really high level decision makers in there they're gonna beat it and they did and what I was hoping to see after last year was I didn't want to go say hey completely abandon the system but I was hoping to see some match up minded tweaks to it yeah that would help Tennessee evolve to the next level and so I haven't seen that either like I just don't agree with what it is tactically in words now we've seen two years in a row where SEC teams destroy this system because it's really easy for them to deal with it yep absolutely I mean it it takes time um yeah and and I'll and I'll say this real quick like Tennessee Tennessee committed to Kim called well at this point and I think at you know yeah you lost the Olivia Edwards Gablas those gone Roman tubners gone like you've committed to the rebuild fully and so if you're Danny White you gotta get out there and you gotta do it in full now I will say this being on the ground in East Tennessee well exactly being on the ground in East Tennessee though I do think that people need to be under be aware that there is a large divergence between how the internet Tennessee fans feel about this and how the Tennessee fans that are offline feel about this because there is a little bit of an aspect here of like Kim called well is taking the runaway transfer portal pay everybody you know transactional business side of this and basically flipping a bird completely to it for some people that believe that player empowerment is actually player entitlement and that it's the worst thing to happen to college sports there's people on the ground that are like yeah absolutely you know screw Lazo and how he's handled in this but there's a lot of people also on the other end of this that are like it is it really worth tearing this whole thing down for it the thing with Kim called well that I will say and the mistake I think Tennessee has made is I think Kim called well at her best probably is better. prime to be a Carl Snesco tight where she just runs it with a mid major team and occasionally cooks past that because her old team Marshall just won the WNIT. So they still have some juice to them. I just don't know if this system's going to win you an NCAA championship and that's what the expectation is a Tennessee. I also wonder maybe this like actually brings us full circle with the conversation we had about value at the start of the podcast. How much Kim called well, project her value as a coach onto her system. Like does she or are there other aspects of her ability is that she believes in and up that she's going to not be stubborn about about running that system. Right. And I think I still think that's an open question. I think I've seen good stuff from her. I've seen bad stuff from her. I don't really know what to expect next to be fully honest. Right. And I think, look, if you want to be the coach that flies in the face of the transfer portal, okay, go ahead do that. But you also, I mean, you went and got Janaya Barker after she transferred from two schools and like, I think, you know, she was a part of like the lack of locker room leadership there. And I don't think you necessarily thought very intentionally about bringing her in. No. So are you about it? And then the other thing is you have to be good at doing it that way. Yep. I think like you can't like like, Geno's good at doing it that way. I mean, I mean, I don't like everybody's like in on the transfer portal at this point. Like I just don't think I don't think that there's an escape from all of that. Like Texas is going to be, you know, bringing in players from the transfer portal. Like everyone is bringing in players from a transfer portal. UCLA is like a feel good success story. They are built by the transfer portal as you said, as you talked about earlier. So like, I just don't think that you can necessarily even get away from that as much as, yes, if you were like an old school tennis fan, like that, that's again, that's great sports writing. I just don't know if it's necessarily an actual achievable reality in the landscape that we're in. I'm very curious to see what happens with Lazo and the transfers in Olivia Edwards. Like I kind of my my conspiracy theory is that maybe Lazo thought that he like or LSU thought that they could do like Lazo and Edwards as a packaged deal because one of the schools that she was talking to before was LSU. Maybe it's UCF now. Maybe they have a big bag. Maybe they are trying to do the TCU thing and they, like I don't know if they can afford Olivia Edwards. Maybe it's not Olivia Edwards. Maybe it's maybe we see a bunch of Tennessee players end up at UCF next year. I wouldn't be surprised by that. Very curious in general where Edwards goes now. Like this is a huge sort of it's the biggest story in recruiting. I mean, this is the number one overall player who's like dunking at McDonald's all America who was supposed to be Candace Parker's heir apparent at Tennessee. Did you see that Spider-Man dunk? She did that Spider-Man shot. That's great photo. So sick. Yeah. So sick. Yeah. And like look, she's she's awesome and she could like I think what she's talking to LSU, South Carolina, Florida, a number of different schools. I think what else? What Washington, which is where she's from. So that thing that's why that's why they're on the list there as well. But like I mean, I'm kind of interesting. The fact that like there was a Florida school that was even in the mix could both positively for for UCF. It's a wild, wild west. Don't love it. Like it is what it is. There's some pro's. There's some cause of I don't know. I feel terrible for this sport, but it's tremendous content before I let you go. And you know, there's a bit of I can't help myself. Did you know come away as a sneaky winner of UCLA winning the title here a little bit? It takes some of the heat off of him. Like I think this puts his conversation like at the like he's always going to that moment he will always have shown his ass. But it saves him from this becoming a story into the week by South Carolina winning. Because Don Staley already in the post game. Rebecca Lobo gets gets on the broadcast and says. Geno called Don Staley. And in the post game Don said I have not heard from Geno yet. So like this story is going to go into the week. But had South Carolina won. This would have been a massive story through the rest of the week. I'm sure Geno was also in which it would have been like I mean, if you wanted the attention, sure, but if South Carolina won, I think that he kind of backed himself into a position where the very thing that he was insecure about happening was going to happen where we were going to be talking about how Don eclipse Geno, right? Like that's that was the source of the insecurity. And he kind of did that thing where you sabotage yourself into creating the situation that you fear the most and UCLA kind of I mean, they kind of saved him from that. The last the this is like a good teaser for for my Monday column five out like and on no capsis WBB dot com. The the comp that I have for Geno right now is Drake. Because in it. All right, we think about like Drake's two decade plus rain over him, right? And you think about the people that he has beefed with along the way. Like him and Jay Z had beef for like a four to five year period where like they're throwing subliminals at each other on music and Drake is basically coming at the throne while watch the throne is coming out as an album. That was his first shot across the bow at the greats. And people look at Geno and Pat as historical contemporaries. That's not actually true. Pat summit was coaching at Tennessee about a decade before Geno got into women's basketball. And so in a lot of ways like there is sort of this Drake Jay Zishness where there there is a belief during the period that like there's a contemporary or person coming up and history flattens that out into something where it's two Titans battling one another right. And so that battle occurs Drake goes on and has the run he had for the next decade the way Geno has. There's been other people that have come up to challenge right? Like there's also this interesting parallel to where I'm sorry to cut you off while you keep going after this but Drake loves you when he's your mentor and he doesn't like it when he's your rival. And I think Geno is kind of similar. Geno he will he has helped a lot of coaches. He's been a great ally to a lot of coaches. Don't as close with Pat or Don or Muffet. I made this point on our YouTube the other night. Geno sees the world in zero sum as a as a face of the game right. He only sees one him. He sees everything as a pyramid where there's one person at the top him. Pat Geno or Pat Don Muffet have all looked at the sport as like it is it is a pasty. It is all of us that grow this game. And I think the difference is because Geno looks at the game as a man and a woman's sport where he can look at it from just the sports perspective. Whereas women that are in the women's game we're looking at this as something that goes beyond sport because the sole women sports as a concept is rooted in struggle and suffrage and political activism. It's literally title nine is a law in the United States. Like it had to be legally codified that women had to have this type of equity and equality in sports. And so you know Geno had to come at the throne when he came in he came at Pat they made a rivalry right. Other people have come at him at different times the way you know Drake's had people like me or push it like come for him and you know what push a god one on. The same way Muffet's got one on Geno right. Yeah just mess don't don't mess with Philly. Yeah. It's basically. And then we get to the very end. And we'll we get to the very end and like Don I think is a kind of Kendrick level figure in this game because she is born of the culture. She is a black woman in this sport. She she played for T. M. USA in 96 like she's someone who's very rooted in this in the same way that I think a lot of people identify Kendrick Lamar as being rooted in American hip hop in the very essence and what it is meant to be at its core. And I feel like the same way Drake was kind of crashing out over you know Kendrick saying like nah like this is mine and you will always be a visitor to this like I always think that that governs and dictates some of Geno's insecurity around the sport is knowing that like women are just going to support women in this in a different way. And like as a man that's in this space myself like you just you just got to be cool with that man because ultimately we are in this and we we root for it and we want to talk about it. We want to build it in the way that Geno has and launch careers and do these things and help the game get to a different level. But it's always going to mean something more differently to women who grow up watching basketball playing basketball seeing that representation where it does not exist or did not exist prior. And so I think in a way like Don's ascendance has shown that there is someone that's not only capable of taking the throne from an accolade standpoint but someone who can take the throne the way Pat Summit held that meaning to the sport that goes beyond you. And I think the same way that Drake crashed out of Kendrick over that because Drake's whole thing is check my records, check my numbers, check all of these like checkboxes that show why I'm great Kendrick's response was it doesn't matter there's an intangible thing that I have that you don't and I think there's an intangible thing Don has that Geno doesn't and I think it's always going to eat at him and I think we got to that point where Geno was starting to see the next person take it and he don't like it. Yeah. And I think Pat had that too and I think it actually reminds me of a moment and the Pat Summit documentary that just came out where she it's about her coaching the Gold Medal Olympic team in 1984. And afterwards she's asked if she would ever coach the team again and she basically just says like a no like you know I think there's a level of exhaustion there but also that this is a privilege that should be bestowed to multiple coaches and I was just looking at it right now. Genose the only coach that's coach team USA twice like there is like a maybe the insecurity does drive a little bit of possessiveness and like I want to check the boxes I want to have two gold medals everybody else has won you know where everybody else is a little bit more thinking about the big and it's like I don't want to be to like Genose thinks about the big picture of basketball I don't I don't want to take that away from him I also think there's a moment where he's being you know piled on and nobody is as like bad as as these moments make them out to be like I don't I don't want to like overly characterize him as like somebody who's like been selfish about the game of basketball because I think he's been incredible to the game of basketball but you're right that there is a dynamic there that I don't like that maybe even if it's not true he feels yeah you know like and I think I think that it drives a lot of this discussion that's a really interesting comparison but it's almost like I mean we ended up in this place where it's like Don's Kendrick but it's like imagine if Kendrick just like you know his his Mike blew out during the Super Bowl or something like that like yeah it was like this was a moment this was like the like you were gonna do the fun you won't get it yeah that kind of was it for Don's statement too it's a great point yeah exactly exactly all right and you thank you so much for for hopping on the pod it's always so fun to chat basketball with you read Andrew at no cap space his five-out column will be out tomorrow I believe you also had a column on UCLA winning the title game and as always follow no cap space listen to their pod everybody that's on no cap space is a regular guest on this podcast I love the work that you guys do and I appreciate you making the time here today and thank you as well to sip on Anderson for producing he is as ever the Eric McDonald of this podcast with everybody else out on I are so much stuff going on right now but stuff like stuff on is just out here you know Brandon out these plots for us when when we need when we need him to so we appreciate him as well and we will be back very soon because oh my god everything is always happening um in women's basketball so I'll talk to you all soon