Joseph Duarte Talks UH vs Texas A&M NCAA Matchup

0:00Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Jamba. Jump in at JambaCasino.com. Let's Jamba. No purchase necessary, BGW Group. Boy, we're prohibited by law. CCNC, 21 Plus, sponsored by JambaCasino. Every day the world gets a little weirder and a lot more awesome. Cool stuff daily takes a look at everything from mining in space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know, you need it to know. Join us for cool stuff daily as we take a quick look at science, tech, and the wait, what stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner. Subscribe to cool stuff daily now because the future's happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing

1:01the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it. Asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts. 12, 33, Matt and Ross with you here on sports talk. Seven, let's go to a city. I've been to, I don't know, 30 times in the last 10 years, Joseph Dorte in Oklahoma city where he will watch the Aggies and the cookers play a 5, 10 game tomorrow inside the Paycom Center. Joseph, first of all, good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. Anything catch your eye yesterday? Forgetting about the score. Forgetting about the hot start they had, and they really wasn't even a contest in the second half. Anything surprise you, keen your interest

2:02in that first round gaming against the Vandals? Yeah, I'd start off with the, we've seen the freshmen play this year. We know what Kingston Fleming's is capable of. He's been all American. I thought Chris and that coming in, and I mean, good God, 18, 18 rebounds. I don't care if you're freshman, sophomore, junior, senior. That's pretty impressive. So I think getting the first game jitters out of the way was important. I thought that Emanuel Sharp for all that he's done and the score that he's done, you know, he's kind of struggling a little bit to fighting through some things the last couple of weeks for him to trigger that big run in the first half. Those are things that you want to see, but by no means is this team played a complete game yet? Last night was pretty close to it, except for that slow start, but you know, you see them trending

3:03and as we get into March here, that's typically what Calvin Samson seems to have done. So, you know, it's just little things like that. I don't know how much you can gauge because it was Idaho, but certainly moving forward, beginning Saturday against Texas A&M, it's the road gets much tougher, and that's kind of what you expect. You want to see that that gradual improvement as you move along in the tournament. Joseph, the game obviously nationally televised and there's still going to be a large segment of the population that didn't see the coolers at all this year. So there was a little bit of a storyline, not much of it, but at least a little bit of the, you know, this is Emanuel Sharp gets one more chance to kind of write the pathway of towards a national championships, been with the team forever and obviously the last few seconds of his career last year was not going to double dribble call. You've obviously talked to him about it, but you've been with those guys almost from the, not almost from the jump. How much has that entered his mind to say it hasn't entered his mind about where he needs to be and where he wants to go would be ridiculous, but how much has it been a theme

4:03in any point during the course of the college basketball season? Well, if you're a college basketball fan in Houston, you know, your generation in mind, generation Matt was the Lorenzo Charles right? And he stayed, you know, I'm watching the game last night, but I also have the TV monitors there and, you know, they're replaying that play, that moment in the final seconds against Florida where he didn't get the shot off or they turned the ball over. So, you know, that sort of this generation's bad heartbreak situation. And, you know, he talked about it at the beginning of the year. You know, there was a story in the athletic by CJ Moore that he went on a trip with Ramon Walker and Jamal Shed in the off season to, I forget where Turks and Kekos maybe. And one night they're sitting at the table and finally it was like the moment to bring it up to a manual sharp and he sort of therapeutic and he talked to us back in Houston about it

5:04right before the season. So it was there. I think it's more of a not to redeem himself from that particular moment, but sort of the get back to the national championship game and finish that job that they did not get to complete. The best thing about last night for me was that box score and under minutes played. And look, you just finished playing off three games and can't say the week before. There's a lot of intensity you're playing every other day to have some guys get some downtime in that second half. Had to be a huge benefit for the squad, especially in the first round matchup or teams like Duke and some others did not have a chance to do that. Yeah, I mean, there was no suspense and no drama. You know, Mercy Miller, I thought gave them some really good minutes. He's a he's a guy that last year at this time he wasn't even on the radar. He was gonna get mop up time if that. He was in a shooting slump. So it was good to get guys like him, you know, said, said lot who's number 14 or so on the bench.

6:04He got in with about three minutes stuff. So that kind of gives you an idea how things are going, but you're right. This type of a time of year, if you can get your starters out, get them, keep them healthy. It goes a long way. And now Chase Picardi was one that a lot of people were concerned about. He took a hard fall in the first half. Came back and played, talked to him after the game said it was his calf. He's fine. But, you know, if you can get guys out of the game and keep them fresh, that's huge because you never know what you're gonna run up into. And, you know, I think a lot of you of eight fans are, we'll hope that the second matchup with A&M and three years doesn't go to us a type of overtime thriller as we saw in Memphis a few years ago. This Aggie basketball team took care of business. Beat St. Mary's by 13. I don't know how much of you witnessed it personally. This A&G kid did a lot of heavy lifting for them yesterday. Yeah. So to the first possession of the game,

7:06they forced a 10 second violation and just went downhill for St. Mary's from there. A&M force 18 turn over to your right, the A&G kid. Guy, you know, he had 22 and eight, I believe, and he's a leading scorer, rebounder. But, you know, it was interesting because A&M did not end the regular season well. They got beat by 20 against Oklahoma and the first round of the SEC tournament. So it's kind of like what Aggie's team was gonna show up and I thought they'd get a really nice job. They went with a different lineup than they had all year. But it's sort of the same guys between Griffin, Dominguez, you know, I thought Pop Isaacs, you know, how did you game? They're gonna be formidable. They're under size, but they're scrappy. They can sort of bring the game down in terms of tempo. So, I mean, this could be one of those, you know, 60-something, 50-something games that sort of also plays into Houston's wheelhouse.

8:07So two sort of similar styles. So it should be a good one in the second round. Yeah, the Cougar size advantage is significant, but isn't Bucky Ball meant to run and try to run teams out of the gym? And I'm curious if you, if that's a concerted effort for them knowing they're gonna have such a size disadvantage against the Cougars. Yeah, and I don't know much about Bucky Ball since I've focused on Kelvin Ball from close to the year. That's funny. But just when you look at it, you know, there've been teams that have tried to, that their style is based off of that facet. Now, Houston can push the tempo when it needs to, Fleming's alone helps them do that. But I've seen more times and not that Kelvin teams in the way that they gain plan and prepare. They sort of will you to have to play their style. And that's where Houston becomes really good when you have to play their ball.

9:08And I just think from matchup, Houston should be the considerable favorites in this game. There's a lot on the line, Matt, you know, if you win this one, you are playing a de facto home game in the Toyota Center and you have two wins away for playing, you know, in the final four. So there's the motivations there. They quickly turned the page last night and they're set, you know, on A&M and Saturday. Joseph Torte from Oklahoma City. Let me ask you about just the Houston angle of going back here. It's been a topic of conversation, but I feel like there's at least one team that would have this kind of advantage. And so I'm not going to apologize for it. The University of Houston should not apologize for it. And ultimately, it was a community decision to put these teams in the South because they deserve to be there being the sixth best team going in the tournament.

10:08Right, these things are planned out in terms of who's hosting regionals for years in advance. And you just happen to have another year that Houston was in position for number one seed. And they were the fifth team just outside of that. And so they got a two in a very favorable region. They've seen it. Since I've been on the beat, they've had Purdue last year in Indianapolis. They've had some other schools that have played relatively close. So I don't really get it. The buy-ins that are arguing it, it wasn't set up this way. It was there was no conspiracy. This thing was planned out, but you have to take advantage of it. Now a couple of years ago, when the final four was in Houston, that was all the talk. So they get to a hometown final four. They ended up getting upset in the sweet 16. You got to go in, you got to take care of business. The interesting thing, Matt, is if this region holds, you have the defending national champion Florida, the one seed that would be coming.

11:09You'd have Houston as the two. You'd have Illinois as the three coming. And then the four seed Nebraska. Nebraska has taken over Oklahoma City. There's some concern that if Nebraska is in that South region, their fans will travel. So it's going to be really impaired that that it's used to fans show up and buy tickets because there could be red in that fan, but it may not necessarily be Houston red. Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Game night's fun until someone spends five minutes lining up one shot. Chalk, breathe, re-chalk, still aiming. While they figure it out, I fire up Champa Casino. I can spin anywhere, anytime. And there's always a new social casino game every week. Spins happen way faster than that shot. Play now at chumbacacino.com. Let's chumbac sponsored by chumbacacino. No purchase necessary. VGW group voidware prohibited by law. 21 plus terms and conditions apply.