Lakers Getting Hot, Opening Up the Mailbag, USC Women’s BBall Coach Lindsay Gottlieb joins

Speaker 1 You have one of the greats now, and who will be for the next 10 to 15 years, Juju Watkins. What was recruiting her like?

Speaker 2 So, Juju said, Can you talk at this time, this day? And I was like, eight and a half months pregnant. So, I'm like waddling around my neighborhood.

Speaker 1 And she said, She's coming.

Speaker 2 And I swear that, like, at that moment, my water could have broken. I couldn't

Speaker 3 Welcome to another episode of Throwbacks. Don't forget to throw us a follow at Throwback Show or email us feedback at Throwback Show.
We're going to read some of your emails later on in the show.

Speaker 3 But coming up in the next block, we got a really, really good guest. Couldn't help our boy Matt getting one of his fellow Trojans on.
Who's joining us today, Matt?

Speaker 1 Lindsay Gottlieb, our women's head basketball coach. By the way, women 26 and 2.
They just whooped on UCLA at the Pauly Pavilion last week.

Speaker 1 Most likely will be a number one seed in the NCAA tournament. And Lindsay's awesome.
I've known her for a couple of years when she got the job at USC.

Speaker 1 Crazy, kind of interesting background. She, I mean, we coached for the Cavs for a year.

Speaker 1 So was in the NBA, has won everywhere she's gone and coaches hands down the biggest superstar in women's basketball, probably outside of Caitlin Clark at the moment, and Juju Watkins, who, Jerry, I've seen play a couple times in person, and she's a, she's a beast, man.

Speaker 3 Do you feel, you'll be the best person to ask, right?

Speaker 3 And I know football and basketball are not necessarily

Speaker 3 one for one comparable because of just so many more players with football, but do you feel any like 0-3 vibes for this ladies? See, they got the superstar. They're kicking ass.

Speaker 3 They're going to be, all eyes are going to be on them in the tournament. Like they're being watched at a level and scrutinized at a level that, you know, starting to get some uncharted air.

Speaker 1 It eerily reminds me of it because when you go back to our day prior to Pete Carroll coming, who Pete Carroll's first year was my first year. So we had one bad year and then we just went off.

Speaker 1 You know, Carson's last year, we just won 11 games and that was kind of the start of that, that epic dynasty run.

Speaker 1 And in that run, we became, it was a little different because back then the Lakers, I think Shaq had just left. Yep.

Speaker 1 So the Lakers kind of were, they had the three-peat and then they had a couple of bad years there. Dodgers weren't great.
The Kings weren't great.

Speaker 1 UCLA football, I mean, just we were, we were the team of LA. There were no NFL teams at the moment.

Speaker 1 And so we just, the buzz was so big and everybody came out to see us, the celebs, the stars, the, I mean, just everybody. And it became normal and it became, that's just who we were.

Speaker 1 And we rode with it. Pete loved it, embraced it, and it just was a part of our thing.
I,

Speaker 1 you know, football isn't there yet, at least it isn't. It hasn't been there for a while.
There's no other sport at USC that's having a bigger impact on LA than USC women's basketball at the moment.

Speaker 1 And that's because their coach is great. And make no mistake, that's because they have the number one star in college hoops in Juju Watkins.
And you saw it.

Speaker 1 I mean, we saw at the UCLA game the other night, like the celebs that were there. Like it's ridiculous.
Like it's, and this is, this is where women's basketball is at, which is pretty exciting.

Speaker 1 And Lindsay is right in the thick of all of that coaching one of the best best teams in college football or college basketball.

Speaker 3 I do have something I would like to discuss with you.

Speaker 3 It's sports related, but it's also going to lead into, I guess, parenting to a degree, although I don't know how relatable it is.

Speaker 3 So first of all, our Nixon Lakers battling tonight, it's going to be awesome. Wow, have things changed.

Speaker 3 I tried so hard breaking down that trade for the Mavericks being like, no, I still like their team.

Speaker 3 Now with the Kyrie injuries, after the team, like this is, I don't even know what we could, I just I have a few Mavs fans in my life and like I don't do I send flowers What do I want to send

Speaker 1 I love I was a Mavs fan when Luca was there because I love Luca

Speaker 1 They have a great fan base I've been to a game in Dallas like it's just fun like it's a fun it's a fun team to root for like it's an easy team to root for my I rooted for them when they had Dirk like I used to love watching them play and now it's like you lose Luca and now you lose Kyrie man.

Speaker 3 But now here's why it's worse to me than anything anyone could have expected Because if the Mavs managed to stay healthy, maybe they wouldn't have been a championship contending team. Who knows?

Speaker 3 They would have been good and fun to watch, though.

Speaker 3 So now they lose AD and then Kyrie for the year. But the kick in the balls is the fact that the Lakers have figured it out this early.
They were already figuring it out before Luca.

Speaker 3 Like they were rolling. And,

Speaker 3 you know, now that they're a two-seed, Matt. They're tied for the two seed.
They're ahead of the Nuggets. And they have the third best best home record in the league.
They're 23 and seven.

Speaker 1 And they're 500 on the road. Oh, they're ridiculous.
The whole first week of the trade, and we talked about it, was

Speaker 1 how are they going to fit? How's LeBron going to like, how is this? There's too many ball handlers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And credit JJ Reddick.

Speaker 1 Like, JJ's, like, people question that higher because, oh, it's LeBron's boy. And I've known JJ forever.
Like, JJ's

Speaker 1 coach's partner. Yeah.
Yeah. Like, JJ could arguably be coach of the year for what he's been able to do with this team.
Now, he's got superstars, I get it, but like for what he's been able to do.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 3 people,

Speaker 1 look,

Speaker 1 I love basketball. I watch these teams.

Speaker 1 People need to start to worry about the Lakers in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 The size clearly may,

Speaker 1 Yokic, yeah, they're going to run into some problems, and that's going to happen. But JJ is obviously a mastermind of just figuring it out.
They have stars everywhere. They have great role players.

Speaker 3 Maybe they don't need a tree. Maybe they don't need a trend.
And LeBron's turned into a two-way player again.

Speaker 1 He's like awesome on defense now.

Speaker 1 And everybody said, oh, they're not going to be able to play defense. Well, like, wrong.
LeBron's playing great defense. Austin Reed.

Speaker 1 I mean, look, they're not great one-on-one defenders, but I don't know. I'm with you, man.
Like, it's exciting again to finally have because the Lakers, the last handful of years,

Speaker 1 they've been in like the, they've just underachieved with AD and LeBron's just the play in tournament, and they barely limp into the playoff, and maybe they win one.

Speaker 1 I know we won it for we won it the COVID year, the bubble year, but it's just been disappointing.

Speaker 1 Now it's like we're the two seed, we're not going to catch OKC, but we're going to be a two or three seed in the playoffs.

Speaker 3 Let me ask you this before we move on to my parental dilemma that I have.

Speaker 1 That is a dilemma, too.

Speaker 3 I got to imagine, though, it is an advantage to have a coach that is so recently retired that he's played against what, 85% of the NBA players right now.

Speaker 1 He played a loop.

Speaker 3 That's what I mean. Like,

Speaker 3 that's got to be an advantage. I don't know.
I just, it makes comment. And I know you can say, look, you go watch film, you can get to know the players the other way.

Speaker 3 I just look at, that has to be, if the guy, if the former player wants to coach and has that analytical part of his brain, and he just played against these guys, that's got to be a big one.

Speaker 1 Well, I think the thing that separates JJ is he's, he's, I mean,

Speaker 1 the X's and O's and the way his, because you, because you heard it on the podcast, it was just like, wow, because he's so, he's a basketball IQ as high as anybody, right? Like LeBron.

Speaker 1 They can just see the game, talk the game, figure it out. And some people were just born to be coaches.
I think JJ was that. I mean, clearly he didn't have to get into coaching.

Speaker 1 He was making a shit ton of money with the pod, doing call-in games, like living a pretty. stress-free life and now he's the head coach of the Lakers.
He's great on forestry.

Speaker 1 The biggest thing in coaching, and we see it in all sports, and I've, I've been a part of this, is in football, it was always, you had, like, you see a lot of these coaches that just stick around forever because people are kind of afraid to like change the norm and adapt.

Speaker 1 And you have coaches who have their boys and like they just it's like like I've been around good coaches, I've been around real shitty coaches at the highest level.

Speaker 1 And it's it's sometimes you want to just see like, gosh, I wish maybe a former player could come in because they see the game different or a younger guy.

Speaker 1 That's why like McVay was so great, just because they're so like they're changing the game, they're, they're adapting, they're figuring out, and that's what I see happening with the Lakers and JJ, and that's what you don't see with a lot of these NBA coaches that are just, look, they've been around a long time.

Speaker 1 And like, but at some point, you need to be able to adapt to today's game or adapt to this generation of player, whether it's just personality-based, like you got to be able to, you know, deal with these players on a personal level, on a level that, you know, like you look at like Popovich and I know Popovich's done the help, but you look at some of these older guys, it's just like.

Speaker 1 It's hard to deal with 19 year old kids, you know what I mean? So I just think JJ's hit it. He's obviously played with all these guys.
As you said, played against all of them.

Speaker 1 And it's paying off, man. He's been terrific.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just think it's going to be really interesting.

Speaker 3 And I love that we have a coach on today because if you look what went on in college football with like Michael Vick and like guys, like guys that you never even really knew wanted to coach, took a job.

Speaker 3 And then by all accounts, I guess JJ has always wanted to coach. I don't know, but the podcast and the commentating seemed like, oh, wow, he's so good at this and it's a natural fit.

Speaker 3 Do we now see a run on this? Like, oh, look who just retired. Do you want a job?

Speaker 1 Do we see a run on that it's interesting we're gonna see more and you look at but you look in basketball it didn't it didn't really work out for steve nash jason kids jason kids been great you know he's coached for a long time but you're seeing it you're seeing it more in football vic deshaun jackson eddie george obviously coach prime like i know i think ray lewis threw his hat in the ring for something ed reed like you're gonna see a lot i'm probably missing guys you're gonna see a lot more and i think it's going to be especially if some of these guys just have a little bit of success because all it takes is a little bit because a lot of these schools i mean i'm around this game i like they they love the fact that a that a coach played at the highest level and can kind of relate to these players so it's going to be curious to see over the next five to ten years how many former athletes are are coaching at the professional ranks all right we're going to do the mailbag later after we talk to coach this would have been my mailbag question to you what's what's up what's up what's up with you over there man you to all of you listening out there too feel free to tweet at us with your responses if you have a heads up for me because i i think i know what to do.

Speaker 3 I'm not quite sure. So, when we were at the Super Bowl doing the live show from the Fanatics Carpet, you know, I got an email

Speaker 3 from my agent saying, Hey, we have this offer for you. And right away, I saw NYX game.
I'm like, okay, what do we got? What is this?

Speaker 3 It's basically, you know, Crocs is doing this collab with Monsters Inc. and Pixar, like they always do.
They've done it with like cars and all those movies.

Speaker 3 And they want you to wear some of the, you know, the Crocs to court side at the the knicks game and i was super into it and i thought oh wow this would be really cool my son who's not even six yet loves monsters ink loves crocs we could make a father son trip out of it this will be like once in a lifetime great so it all happens i take my five-year-old we stay in the city we walk to msg we go through that whole crazy vip experience and now he's sitting courtside with me for the whole and he matt loves loves it he loves basketball he every day he wakes up he says did the knicks win Tell me about the game, all this stuff.

Speaker 3 He's in on basketball. I love it.
And he's only been to one other game before this. We went to a Cavs game and we were lucky.
We sat in someone else's suite.

Speaker 3 By the way, this is not on my dime, so I'm not balling like this. But here's the question.

Speaker 3 And you've been, you must have been through this with Cole, and you're going to go through this with your, with your other three children. Courtside and the suite, that's not real life.

Speaker 3 I did not grow up that way.

Speaker 3 I sat in every seat in Yankee Stadium and Madison Square Garden. And yes, I'm allotted these cool opportunities.
I don't know if that's going to last forever.

Speaker 3 Number one, maybe if throwbacks continue to grow, who knows? If I pop up on TV, but number two,

Speaker 3 I want them to know that this is sacred, this is special, this is not how it goes. So, what do I do here? He's too young to explain it to.

Speaker 3 I told him a million times when we like we were sitting, of course, I'd whisper to him, this isn't real life.

Speaker 1 Let me ask you a question, though. If,

Speaker 1 and this is more about us as parents, if the Knicks call you up and say, hey, Jerry, we are, or, you know, this, we have this collab, whatever, the same situation.

Speaker 1 Same situation, but it's not court side, but it's still free tickets.

Speaker 1 Something tells me that you, Jerry Farrar, say, well, shit, man, I'm not going to take my kid to this if I'm sitting 15 rows up like center court.

Speaker 1 That's, see, that's my dilemma with this because one, you look at it two ways, and I dealt, and I can get into cold, but you look at it two ways.

Speaker 1 It's like, you've built that relationship with the Knicks. That's your baby.
You love it. They take care of you.
You could probably sit in a suite for any calves.

Speaker 1 Like you get taken care of by the sports there for what you've been able to do.

Speaker 3 And you're like, I love sport. I think they're

Speaker 1 how much I love it and appreciate it. And I get, yeah, and I'm this, and you love it.
So like, and I think that's why. Knicks, I think people take care of you because you're a genuine fan.

Speaker 1 And I'm in the same position, I think, with LA Sports. And like, like, I can make a call and probably probably sit in the suite at any game.
And I'm not boasting, I just probably can do that.

Speaker 1 And that's, that's, that's a great, it's great to be able to do that. Now, I can't, I got to be honest with you.

Speaker 1 If the Lakers text me and say, hey, dude, we got two tickets that are like lower bowl, 20 rows up. Uh, you want to take your five-year-old? I'm just not sure how I'm going, dude.

Speaker 1 And that's my, and that's because I have been

Speaker 1 so lucky to like be able to sit, you know what I mean? So, like, that's why I asked ticket snob. We're tickets.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah i mean we're ticket snobs in a little bit a little bit so you'd rather watch it at home than be 20 rubbish it's hard for you as a dad like you're not gonna sit you're not gonna go fly to new york if they take care of you put you up and sit 20 rows up with your boy you're just not gonna do it well you're not gonna here's what i say i i wouldn't do it with him now at five years old because i i need to figure out how much he loves it but i want to keep exposing them because i think it's helped i think him going to two games in a month that's great yeah has helped him like really enjoy basketball and he's playing now.

Speaker 3 I feel like if it was like a year or two and that offer came through and he and I knew like he loved basketball, yes, I would do it. But

Speaker 3 what I'm asking is like, no, I know it's like, should I just like

Speaker 3 not wait for these opportunities where I get these elaborate invites? And I don't, by the way, we go to Guardians games here in Cleveland all the time.

Speaker 3 And going to a game with a five-year-old in general is hard. Okay.

Speaker 3 It's not like that's easy. It's different when if it's like my 16-year-old nephew who would sit anywhere and I would go sit with him.

Speaker 3 I just am worried those are his only two experiences. And like my fear is what if we go sit 20 rows back and he's like, dad, why are we all the way back here? If that happens, that's my biggest fear.

Speaker 1 Look, these kids, I mean, the same thing happened with Cole.

Speaker 1 And, you know, again, very similar, like taking them to stuff. You get, you get, you get behind the scenes, you get to go in the locker room.
Like you just, you just get shit. That's cool.

Speaker 1 They're like, holy shit, like, let's go. Like, I want to bring my son.
And he experienced it. And then it's like, hey, dad, why aren't we doing this? Or why aren't we in the suite?

Speaker 1 Or hey, are we going to meet Kobe again this time? Like, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 No. No, we're like, we're sitting at the second bowl.
All right. I'm going to get you some popcorn.
You're going to shut up. We're going to watch the game.
Right.

Speaker 1 And he became, you know, he had a relationship with the Clippers at a time and all that. Yep.
He just became numb to going to games. I mean, he went to every game.
And so, like,

Speaker 1 yeah, and he's seen it. So it's like, hey, bud, like,

Speaker 1 it's funny. I will say this.
It kind of goes through phases, just like in anything. You have your toddler phase.
You're all about the parents, right? They want to be around you.

Speaker 1 And then you go into middle school and then they become kind of assholes and they go through puberty and they don't want to be around mom and dad anymore. They had their friends over.

Speaker 1 Like there's that phase. And then you, and then you kind of come back and then it's high school and then they become even worse.
And then like. Then it comes back full again.

Speaker 1 And now it's like the other day when we went to the Lakers Mavs game, we ended up sitting in a suite, but Cole, Cole was like, dad, let's go to to the game.

Speaker 1 I could have bought any ticket in the house. He just wanted to be in the arena, which is pretty cool.
And I wasn't about to spend $1,000 to sit in the nosebleeds per ticket to see that game.

Speaker 1 Is that what they were running for? That Lucille game? A thousand a ticket for the

Speaker 1 top section was $700 or $800.

Speaker 1 Damn. The lower bowl was two or three grand or something like just for that game.

Speaker 1 So I'm with you.

Speaker 1 I think it's a balance. I think it's, it's, dude, I, you and I grew up the same way.
I grew up, I went to one, I would go to

Speaker 1 one,

Speaker 1 maybe a Dodgers game, maybe one at the top. We would go to Disneyland, maybe once a year, and I grew up 20 minutes from it.

Speaker 1 We would go to maybe Lakers Showtime, kind of late 80s, early 90s, maybe, like maybe. And that was to get into the door, just to sit at the top.

Speaker 1 Like, I remember going to a Clippers game at the old LA sports arena, and we were like nosebleeds. And it was, I think it was Clippers, Lakers.
And like, that was just, you looked forward to that.

Speaker 1 It was, it was like Christmas. It was like, I can't wait to go to the game with my, my dad or my brother.
And you just enjoyed the experience.

Speaker 3 So it's shit, man.

Speaker 1 I took Cole on a like freaking a private plane extravaganza a couple months ago. Yeah, you went on the arguably the greatest father

Speaker 1 college football trip ever. That was like, that's, that was for me like once in a lifetime.

Speaker 1 And I, and he's, and it was, it was so funny because I think I told you, but we were in the plane and he goes, he was like, dad, this is unbelievable. And you saw,

Speaker 1 I, again, I think you just just appreciate it's just we always say it's like it's not real life it's ages ages and phases man like they just that they appreciate it when they're older when they're younger they're in it they don't know any better so you just i look i just don't think you pass out you can't pass up opportunities though like if you get to experience because then you'll you'll regret it like you get to experience let me ask you a question when you're flying you're not flying are you flying you're just flying economy the whole crew Are you going first class?

Speaker 3 When him and I went to New York or no?

Speaker 1 Well, you probably got flown by them.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying in general because the first class is another thing like i like cole's experience first class before i was like bro we fly coach man we fly the ferraras fly coach

Speaker 3 because number one i think my brie or me like likes to be in the same row as both kids it's easier when you have kids and you're just you know and they're so young yeah um look There's, if there's ever two things I'm ridiculously like uptight.

Speaker 1 Snobbish about. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry, we all have a thing. It's sports tickets and like, look, for long flights, like first class.
Guys, it's just awesome. You know what it is.

Speaker 3 I know it's unaffordable and most of the world can't do it. I get it.
And that's why I would ask anybody else, too.

Speaker 3 If you're getting this amazing invite to take your kids to a Knicks game court, you would take it. No matter who you are, whether you could buy the tickets or you couldn't.

Speaker 3 So I was, that's the discussion I was having with a friend. He's like, you know, you got to just maybe take them to sit in the nosebleeds.
And I'm happy to do it, but what's bullshit, dude?

Speaker 1 You ain't doing it no you're not doing it that's

Speaker 1 no you're not you will never take your boys to the nosebleeds to madison square i sat in the nosebleeds at the old yankee stadium and watched dwight gooden's no hitter and didn't leave yeah no one threw new he's throwing a no hitter it's like there's zero chance bro there's zero chance you're sitting

Speaker 1 bro i'm not even sitting in the nose i'm not gonna do that I just gotta balance it out.

Speaker 3 So when he's like 11 years old and I'm like, hey, son, I got good tickets to the whatever, Cavs, Knicks.

Speaker 1 Like, if he's like court side, if he says court side and i'm gonna i'm gonna probably pull i want i want people watching send us to the mailbag send us a question give us give us an experience that you've had with your kid help us because it's it's definitely we don't want sports spoiled we don't want it yeah but shit that shit's great

Speaker 1 well also i got into

Speaker 3 i got into another here's but here's the twitter argument of the week for me right because you know i only really tweet about the knicks and i went on ian bagley's show the beat reporter for the knicks but he's not he's more than he he's the voice like journalistically for the Knicks that like you want to get real information.

Speaker 3 And I went on his show with someone, with this other amazing content creator, Mill, and this one dude tour was like, this guy, he ain't going to say anything controversial about the Knicks.

Speaker 3 He doesn't want to lose his tickets.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, but first,

Speaker 3 he is wrong.

Speaker 1 No, he's not. Matt, I criticize the Knicks.
You don't think these time. By the way, who's the owner of the Knicks? Dolan?

Speaker 3 No, Dolan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He doesn't like anyone talking shit about his squad.

Speaker 3 I criticize the Knicks all the time, but I don't do it in like a way.

Speaker 1 This fucking team sucks.

Speaker 1 Garbage.

Speaker 3 Like, I don't do it like that.

Speaker 1 You walk the line.

Speaker 3 You walk the line. I make actual points, okay? Instead of, so I'm sorry.
I speak my mind.

Speaker 1 I'm not controlled by my. What would you do if you lost your...

Speaker 1 Would you be heartbroken if you lost your Knicks? connection? Like if they just, if they just said, hey, Jerry, sorry, buddy. We're just, we don't have these tickets for you anymore.

Speaker 1 That would be a sad day of the Ferrari. That's how the voice goes up.

Speaker 3 You know what?

Speaker 3 It would be sad, and I would just say, though, wow, what a run.

Speaker 1 What a run I had.

Speaker 3 What a run. I wasn't supposed to be there anyway.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 3 what a run. But here's what people forget.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 you are so full of shit. You'd be so fucking bummed.

Speaker 3 I would be bummed, but I would stay. The overarching feeling would be like, what a great run.
But you got to remember, I was going to the Knicks games in 06, 07.

Speaker 3 Go look at the Knicks roster in 08. Go ahead.
They won 19 games. They won 19 games.
And I was sitting court.

Speaker 1 You didn't name a player on 08.

Speaker 3 Exactly. Chris Duhan, who I love, by the way, had 20 assists in the game.

Speaker 1 Spreewell? Was Spreewell back in the 90s?

Speaker 3 No, Spreewell was gone, way gone by then.

Speaker 1 It was like the Nate Robinson, David Lee. Oh, David Lee, yeah.
Alan Houston was way older. Never mind.

Speaker 3 Alan Houston finished up around 2002.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was rich.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 anyway, all right, it's time now for our fresh moves of the week brought to you by Wendy's. Go to Wendy's and taste the difference in a hamburger.

Speaker 3 This is where Matt and I point out a fresh move of the week. You're not going to like this one, my friend.
Okay, there's been a lot of chatter with the Giants and this Aaron Rodgers stuff, right?

Speaker 1 Aaron Rodgers, no longer with the Jets, looking for a home.

Speaker 3 Rumors are he was talking to the Giants. Who knows? Of course, the initial reaction is like, wait, why? Why would any both sides want to do this?

Speaker 3 I'm going to give you a potential fresh move of the week. Giants sign Aaron Rodgers to a reasonable number.

Speaker 1 Very, very reasonable number. Which that looks like every number.

Speaker 1 Yes, absolutely. Right.

Speaker 1 They're just going to a one-year deal.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Oh, one-year deal.

Speaker 1 25, 20, 25.

Speaker 3 Maybe even less. Maybe even less.
Who knows? We'll see. Maybe more reasonable than that.
Okay. But somewhere in there.

Speaker 3 And then they take a player at three, whether it's Travis Hunter or an edge rusher. They go maybe defense friendly first

Speaker 1 and just pick a position because they need a million maybe sign a wide receiver in the offseason cooper cup something like that and then if you could pull this off and this is where i need your help i'm i'm pulling up the draft right now the second round how far up would the giants need to trade from their second round spot to be realistically have a shot at jackson dart because he's rising isn't he climbing the boards oh yeah so the the giants will pick third in the second round he'll be third in the second round right okay so he won't be there no he won't so i gotta be honest with you please i think one of the two quarterbacks is gonna be there at three for the giants i don't think i don't think chador and cam are going one and two i think one of them might fall past that i i don't i just i don't i don't know i think it's one of those years where every every year there's always a year where you reach and you take quarterbacks and i think both of those guys are really different and very very talented um i just

Speaker 1 are they walking in and changing the course of a franchise franchise day one? You know, I think that's always the course.

Speaker 3 There's a lot of risk with both of them.

Speaker 1 There's just a lot of, there's, yeah, I just think this one is different.

Speaker 1 And again, like last year's class was ridiculous, right? Like Daniels, like you just, like, all of them played great. Bo Nick's, Drake.
I mean, it was

Speaker 3 like, you got four studs in the first round.

Speaker 1 Peynix ended up starting late. Like, you might have five or six starts, like, you know, McCarthy,

Speaker 1 Sam Donald's not coming back. That is a crazy.
We might be

Speaker 1 crazy. And they all, most of them had all tremendous success as a rookie.

Speaker 1 All that being said, I think the Giants are going to have a chance to get a quarterback at three is what I think is going to happen.

Speaker 1 Now, they might, yeah, and they might, so they might get one of those guys.

Speaker 3 But that's my fresh move. I'm set.
My fresh move is trying to say,

Speaker 3 Cam Ward should do. I do, I agree with you.
One of them might be there, but if you have the chance of getting an elite, whether it's Edge Rusher,

Speaker 3 you know, like DB,

Speaker 3 like if you have a chance to grab that and still get a quarterback that has a lot of upside and you have Rodgers to shepherd it for a year, I just feel like you're left with a better chance of speeding this awful process that the Giants think.

Speaker 1 They need so much.

Speaker 3 I like Tyree. Tracy, think about how.

Speaker 1 At three, you're going to get a three, you can get, I mean, like, Abdul Carter is going to be gone in the top three. You're going to get an elite pass rusher.

Speaker 1 You probably, you can get Travis Hunter, an elite player, athlete. Ashton Genty is going to go in the top 10.
I don't know if he's three for the Giants at running back or you go quarterback.

Speaker 1 To your point, it would be kind of nice if you get Rodgers for a year and then you can get Dart, who kind of very similar to Rodgers, a little bit of gunslinger, can move and Rodgers could run well in his prime.

Speaker 1 I just don't, I think Dart is going to go somewhere in the to mid-first round. I just think so much.
So they might not be able to get there. It's a pretty unique draft.

Speaker 3 You told me Travis Hunter.

Speaker 1 I think the Giants are going to

Speaker 1 pick a QB at three, is what I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they will.

Speaker 3 This draft's going to be awesome. But most importantly, now, we've talked a lot about coaches.
Let's bring on Coach Lindsey Gottlieb.

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Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 I am so excited right now. I have chills.
I almost played our fight zone because on throwbacks this week, we have the Women of Troy USC head basketball coach, Lindsey Gottlieb. What is up, coach?

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having me. This is super exciting.

Speaker 1 First of all, before we dive in to the year that you guys are having, and I know it's not done, and there's, and, and just the state of women's basketball, because I think it's never been at its, it's at its highest peak right now.

Speaker 1 You're from New York and Jerry's from New York. And I, since we've done this podcast, I've learned more about New York Knicks and Yankees than I want to.
So my question to you really quickly is,

Speaker 1 are we a Knicks fan? Are we a Yankees fan? Are we a Mets? Are we a Nets? What are we?

Speaker 2 We are Yankees and Knicks all the way.

Speaker 1 There you go, Jared. There you go.

Speaker 1 Every week we do this podcast, we have, there is something about the Knicks that happens. It's always something.

Speaker 2 As there should be.

Speaker 3 Yeah, if you, you grew up with the same kind of torment as I did, but Matt's on some run, okay? Dodgers win the World Series. Luke is in LA.
And now, you know, USC beats UCLA, number one seat.

Speaker 3 He's on some incredible running. LA in general is on an incredible run right now.

Speaker 3 I would say there's nothing better, like having lived in LA for so long, you know, it's just when the vibes are right and high like this, it is the best city in the world. I really believe that.

Speaker 2 Yes, totally. So as a New Yorker, you never lose those roots of Knicks.
I mean, you were in that Patrick Ewing era as well, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, it was, it was, that's what I grew up with, but I don't feel like my LA kind of.

Speaker 2 my LA grounding now, it doesn't feel as competitive, you know, in the way that you think it might. Like Like my history, my childhood is New York, but now I'm all in.

Speaker 2 You know, it was a little hard this year with the Yankees Dodgers thing, but generally, I feel like I can be both an L.A. sports fan and a New York sports fan most of the time.

Speaker 1 Well, I was at game five. I'm a diehard Dodgers fan, so I was at game five in New York, rubbing it in.

Speaker 1 Jerry does have

Speaker 1 court-side New York Knicks seats. So, and he just took his son a couple weeks ago.
So, Jerry, Jerry's living a good life over there.

Speaker 3 I don't own those seats.

Speaker 1 Coach,

Speaker 1 what, first first regular season title since 94? You know, you kind of see all the stats, 26 and two. The Big Ten tournament starts this week.

Speaker 1 Most likely going to be a number one seed. I want to jump ahead, but you guys are having an incredible year.
Just can you sum up just the season so far? I mean, it is, I've been to a couple games.

Speaker 1 I've felt the buzz around this team.

Speaker 1 Obviously, you have the star in Juju, just but for you, for this team, what makes this year so special?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, first, just to go back a little bit, when I took the job,

Speaker 2 you know what an incredible place USC is, Matt, and what it should be.

Speaker 2 But let's be real, you know, there were 500 people on the stands, and I had recruits saying, Other coaches tell me you'll never get fans here.

Speaker 2 And so now it's never lost on me when I walk in that building and there's 10,000 people and it is buzz.

Speaker 2 And so that's the overarching thing that I'm like, you know, that's really incredible to have been part of that trajectory.

Speaker 2 But for this year in particular, you know, we had Juju returning, you know, her freshman year kind of spoke for itself.

Speaker 2 And then we added the number one recruiting class and the top, you know, portal transfer, Kiki Erie FN, and another really big transfer in TVO.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden, there are these expectations. Like here we are launching from upstarts last year to in the real national conversation.
And we didn't shy away from those expectations.

Speaker 2 But I'll tell you, it was, it has been not harder, but it's been a challenge, right?

Speaker 2 Like to just, you don't throw talent together and all of a sudden be as great great as you're supposed to be and so I think this year really is what I'm most proud of is that the team has committed to figuring out how to have great individual players that become a really

Speaker 2 cohesive team and I think our depth was on display against UCLA I think our star power was on display I think our toughness was on display and so that to me has been the most significant thing that we took a bunch of really good people with high expectations and I hope we've delivered and now you know March is and April is when you know the real stories are told.

Speaker 2 And we hope we can keep it going.

Speaker 3 Yeah. You know, Matt was mentioning like the Knicks court side and all the celebrity.
That game, I mean, there was some people in that building.

Speaker 3 And whether the road team or home team, it doesn't matter. That was such a huge draw.
Did you at any point?

Speaker 3 I mean, I know you're probably so locked in, or did any of the players just look around and go, this game feels a little bit bigger than it's just as important, just feels a little bit bigger.

Speaker 1 It was bigger. There's no doubt.

Speaker 2 It was huge. Last year, when I looked across and LeBron was sitting courtside, I had to remind myself, he's not here to watch me.
He's watching the player.

Speaker 1 Crazy thing.

Speaker 2 Michael B. Jordan came this year earlier and Snoop and we've had a ton of people.
So by the time we got to UCLA this year, I think the players kind of expect that it's crazy.

Speaker 2 Like, I didn't even know until after that, you know, John Legend was there. And obviously, Cheryl and Reggie and Jason Sudeikis comes all the time.

Speaker 2 It's, this sounds crazy, but like, it's kind of now, this is what people expect with LA women's basketball. How cool is that? You know, it's really neat to be a part of it.

Speaker 1 It's, it was, it's actually, I was thinking about this before this interview because it reminds me a little bit of my time back at USC when we were, we were, we weren't very good.

Speaker 1 Then Pete took over and we obviously just catapulted into the national conversation a lot like you guys are doing.

Speaker 1 And we had, you know, we had at that time, Snoop has still been a big USC fan, Will Farrell. It was always just a who's who.
And it became, people always ask me like, it just became normal for us.

Speaker 1 Like at this point, just like we just were like dapping up Snoop on the sideline, just became an everyday thing, which is crazy to say. And you guys are getting that and much deserved.

Speaker 1 And it's so fun. Like when I went to the game this year, well, I was sitting next to I got courtside USC women's basketball, Jerry.
So beat that as you should, as you should.

Speaker 1 Next to Juju's family, who's just hilarious. Like, it's just, it was just, it was just really fun to be there and

Speaker 1 soak that up. And because I remember going, I mean, back in college, you know, I, I, uh, went to a couple of women's games.
Like, I just remember, it's just a different feel.

Speaker 1 For, for the celebrity thing, is there someone that

Speaker 1 I know you're locked in, but that you were like, I would love to see this person across courtside. Is there someone that like you would just love to see at one of your games?

Speaker 2 Serena Williams. That's been, that's been mine where I'd be like, oh my gosh.
And I just saw that she is now an investor in the Toronto Tempo, the new WNBA team, which is so cool.

Speaker 2 I mean, but I think we all have our different ones. I think Juju had one where she said, you know, Sennailaith didn't love a basketball.
And then she came. So that was cool.

Speaker 2 I think Michael B. Jordan was a big one for some of our players.
So that was neat. But for me, well, Serena and the Obamas, that would be my two probably top, top, top.

Speaker 1 We're going to get them there. This podcast is going to get them there.
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 I think was that was that game that you think

Speaker 1 maybe one of the biggest regular season games of all time in women's basketball, if you really think about it? And because the rivalry as well.

Speaker 2 I think so. I mean, look at what was on the line, right? A Big 10 regular season championship we literally had the same record the crosstown rivalry

Speaker 2 you know the national rankings um

Speaker 3 definitely the biggest one that i've been involved in i've been following you for quite some time i have some cleveland roots as well i married a beautiful woman from cleveland we spend a lot of time here now but um I think it was maybe like the Players Tribune piece you wrote, or I don't remember what, but I heard you talk about just how you're like a X's and O's nerd, right?

Speaker 3 And that's awesome. And I love that.
Is it hard to like, I always wonder this with coaching and coaches, like, can you turn that part of your brain off like when you go home, right?

Speaker 3 I know you have kids, you have a family. It's like, or you me, I don't think I would ever be able to turn it off.
I think X's and O's is a fan while I'm here with my kids.

Speaker 3 My kids are like, What are you doing? I'm like, I'm wondering how Brunson's gonna work with Cat. Like, I can only imagine what it's like for a coach who actually does this for a living.

Speaker 3 So, what's that like for you, whether you're going into a big game like UCLA? Like, are you able to do it at work and then come home or is it still something that comes home with you?

Speaker 2 So when I go home and yep, the kids and the chaos, but like if I'm watching a game at home, I'd love to just watch games like a fan.

Speaker 2 So of course you think about what coaching adjustment they made or what's going on, but like my husband will be like

Speaker 2 talking about the coach and being a fan, you know, or like talking about they should have done this or that. I'm like, can you let me just watch? Like I just want to watch and see what happens.

Speaker 2 I don't care about the outcome. It's fun, you know? So I try to shut off the

Speaker 2 analyzing of what was run and how they're defending a screen. You can't totally shut it off.

Speaker 2 Like you're always watching, but I like to be able to watch basketball for fun because it's so different than studying and studying your own team and trying to think about how you can be better or what we could do differently.

Speaker 2 So I like to just try to watch sports as a normal person at home.

Speaker 1 There is zero, I get asked all the time if I would ever coach. I'd get into coaching.
I do love coaching. I love coaching my little kids.

Speaker 1 But when I coached Cole's flag football team, and this is true story, we, you know, you build, youth sports is fun to watch. It's fun to coach at that age.

Speaker 1 And we built, like, we were really good in flag football. We won all these championships.
And then you built, you build rivalries within the league with other teams.

Speaker 1 And when he got to like sixth, seventh, eighth grade before high school, I would, I would watch film of flag football games that would keep me. No, I swear.
I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1 And my wife was like, what? the hell is wrong with you? They're in seventh grade.

Speaker 1 And I was like, and I wasn't like a yeller or screamer, but I was just like, if I'm invested in this, I'm going, like, I'm going to watch.

Speaker 1 I lost, I had sleepless nights coaching my oldest son's flag football team. So it is very hard to turn off.

Speaker 1 I want to ask you, coach, about, you know, Jerry mentioned the X's and O's, and you look at your career in UCSB. You led them to the NCAA tournament.
Cal.

Speaker 1 I remember when you were at Cal and you had a final four run, I think, and then.

Speaker 1 came to USC. So you've built and won everywhere you've been.
Is there

Speaker 1 Pete's number one thing in building was just competition?

Speaker 1 It was like every like relentless pursuit of competing at the highest level and everything you did, which would breed success everywhere, right? From the starters to the backups, all those things.

Speaker 1 Is there an underlying ingredient for you on how to build a championship team?

Speaker 2 I mean, I would almost say if his one word was competition, I would almost say my one word would be relationships. Like you just can't do it anymore in college without having a pulse on the people.

Speaker 2 And so I think it's building relationships within your team, like player to player and respect and,

Speaker 2 you know, how they interact with one another and whether that is competing as well.

Speaker 2 And then within the organization, the assistant coaches and me and the players, I think there has to be an ecosystem of. that piece of it before the X's and O's even matter.

Speaker 2 But then I would say the second thing would be just this

Speaker 2 attempt at excellence and what that looks like. Because, you know, this year we were pretty good.
We were good enough to win even when we weren't at our best.

Speaker 2 And so it became about how do we create a culture where they still want to get better even when we're winning. So maybe that's the competitive part that comes out as well.

Speaker 2 Now, in the NBA, relationships still really matter in the NBA as well. But that's probably the most X's and O's I did because you don't have all the other stuff.

Speaker 2 You're not going to class and you're not recruiting. So there was a lot of just like sitting around and X's and Oing, which was incredible too.

Speaker 2 But college, I think the human relationship piece is just so important.

Speaker 3 I love that you were all locked out before drafting Darius Garland. That was one of my favorite stories I read in a long time.
The Players Tribute.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. You must have been freaking out.

Speaker 2 We couldn't get in the building. I was like, wait, what's going on? It was awesome.
But how about the Cavs now? Are you a Cleveland sports fan at all?

Speaker 3 So, and Matt and I talk about this a lot because our kids are being raised in Cleveland.

Speaker 3 I will never give up the Knicks. I just can't.
So I'm willing to give up, like, if they want it, like the Guardians, I'll let it go. The Browns fought whatever.
Browns are giants.

Speaker 3 They're going to be in sports therapy no matter what. But I just can't, like, the Knicks know, and the Cavs have been insane this year.
Like, really, really crazy.

Speaker 3 That game against Boston down 25 and then still coming back.

Speaker 1 I don't even know how they did that.

Speaker 1 Were you on the staff when Luke was on the staff, Walton? Or no? No. So

Speaker 1 you guys missed.

Speaker 2 We missed.

Speaker 2 But obviously, you know, he's really tight with JB Bickerstaff.

Speaker 2 He brought on Luke, I think, when I left, maybe

Speaker 2 the year after I left.

Speaker 1 So I think

Speaker 1 Luke's in Detroit now.

Speaker 3 I got one more.

Speaker 3 You know, you brought it, because like, I love what Matt was saying, too, about like everywhere you've got, like, you know, how you approach a new, I don't want to call it like a project, but you're at a new place and maybe it's a place that hasn't been winning.

Speaker 3 And then you mentioned even like JB's with the Cavs for a long time. It kind of ran its course.
Then he goes to Detroit, a place that hasn't won in a very long time.

Speaker 3 And JB was now like, oh, he couldn't get the calves. And now they're on this amazing trajectory.

Speaker 3 So,

Speaker 3 I mean, there's so many moving parts when you get to a new job in general. So do you ever find it hard to like, where do I start?

Speaker 3 Or do you always have a clear picture of like, we start here and build out from after this?

Speaker 2 I think you have to, you have to have a clear picture before you start. And for me, when I talk to young coaches or assistants who want to become head coaches, you got to take the right job for you.

Speaker 2 Because I don't know that, you know, when I was in the PAC-12, Scott Ruick went to Oregon State, who was at the bottom, and he built them to be really good.

Speaker 2 I don't know that I could have done that at Oregon State, but I could do it at Cal and I could do it, you know, at USC. I think you have to know what your messaging is going to be.

Speaker 2 You have to know what it's going to entail. You know, is it, is it a culture? you know, fix.
Is it totally starting from the bottom?

Speaker 2 Is it taking, when I got to Cal, it was a group that was talented, but maybe it underperformed and it was saying, we have what we need in this room. Now let's take the next step versus here.

Speaker 2 I had to, you know, really kind of start over a bit in terms of establishing what we want to be. But you got to know what place you're coming to is a good fit for you to recruit to.

Speaker 2 It has to be authentic. And then you come in with a plan.
And then, you know, plans get expedited when you get a juju watkins to walk in the door.

Speaker 1 Well, I was, I was going to ask you, you come to a place and you see all the ladies behind you, Cheryl Miller, Lisa, I mean, some of the absolute greats to play the women's game.

Speaker 1 And then you have one of the greats now and who will be for the next 10 to 15 years.

Speaker 1 When you talk about a superstar, I know you probably, you talk about her ad nauseum and people ask what it's like in this. And she's just incredible.
I've seen her.

Speaker 1 I've told Jerry, I'm like, you have to see her in person. She's ridiculous.
Like she's, she's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 And I think JJ Reddick was at the game the other night and he said, like, she's one of one.

Speaker 1 You're probably running out of adjectives to describe her.

Speaker 1 Who does her game remind you of? Maybe it's a men's game.

Speaker 1 You're around the Cavs. Maybe it's some of the all-time women.
Like, who does she remind you of when she plays basketball?

Speaker 2 I mean, the first one that comes to mind is Kobe. I know that sounds so

Speaker 2 crazy, but it's not, you know, like, I just think about her at her size, right? She's 6'2.

Speaker 1 Strong.

Speaker 2 Strong. She's a natural scorer.
Her body control, the hang in the air, the take the contact.

Speaker 2 She's a killer, right? Like the mamba mentality thing has it.

Speaker 2 And the defensive abilities, I mean, she just was named not only Big Ten Player of the Year, but on the first team all defensive.

Speaker 2 But then on from a female side, I would say maybe some Maya Moore as well.

Speaker 2 Maya was just so smooth and

Speaker 2 utilized the inside-outside game because of the ability to shoot it and play in the post a little bit. But those are the two that I would most like in her too.

Speaker 2 Her game.

Speaker 1 See, I'm a a die-hard Kobe. It's my favorite athlete of all time.

Speaker 3 It was fun when Matt and I shot at USC and we did an,

Speaker 3 you said you watched it. I'm horrified that you watched our three-point shootout, even though that was kind of the point.

Speaker 1 I'm still upset with my

Speaker 1 score because I know I'm a lot better than that, but it's okay. Go ahead, Drew.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, so we were on like a little bit of a break and we went to go get lunch. Now, I didn't go to college, really.
Like I went six months.

Speaker 3 I already was like getting ready to move to LA to pursue acting. I never had that big campus feeling.
So anytime I've gotten that chance to witness that, I always think it's pretty cool.

Speaker 3 So we go to get lunch and, you know, all the kids are, I call them kids, young people. I don't want to sound too old.

Speaker 3 And then like just looking over at this young lady who's like at a backpack and everyone like, oh shoot, there's juju right there, like online to get some kind of salad bowl or something.

Speaker 3 You don't realize. It was so funny.
It was so funny. It was the most routine

Speaker 3 day for them.

Speaker 3 And I'm over here like, oh, no, this is this is one of the best players in the world right now and I forget that just like everyday campus life maybe it's because I didn't experience it but that was pretty cool just to

Speaker 2 see him and and all in in their element just going about their lives it was cool yeah it's I mean I love that for her right like you want them to have the campus life I mean there's so much of her existence now that isn't totally normal but she's 19 you know

Speaker 2 and and I think the other quality about her beyond the basketball talent is sort of the grace with which she handles all of this.

Speaker 2 She's all about LA and her community and the school, and she's completely humble and really a great teammate and beloved by our teammates.

Speaker 2 And then at the same time, she is becoming this really mega star. And, you know, she handles that well too.
Like she's kind of stepping into that greatness and she handles that. Like, hey, I'm, I'm.

Speaker 2 I've earned this. And at the same time is going to get her salad bowl, you know,

Speaker 3 whatever she, yeah, I said South Bowl. I actually don't know what she was eating that day.
I don't want to spread a false story.

Speaker 1 I know she's like LA homegrown and Urban Meyer always tells this funny story when he got Tim Tebow.

Speaker 1 And this was a long time ago and it was signing day and he was in the car and Urban is very, very, very, very intense. And Tebow was like the prize get.

Speaker 1 Like he was close and he was on the phone with him and his phone died right before he was going to, Tim was calling him to say he was going to commit to Florida.

Speaker 1 And this is when I think he probably did it on TV. I don't know, but he was calling him to tell him, Coach, I'm going to be a Gator and it died.
And he, Coach tells a story. He was panicking.

Speaker 1 He was like, I didn't know what to do. Like he was freaking out.
Is there,

Speaker 1 was it an easy recruiting process for Juju? Is there a story?

Speaker 1 I mean, I've talked to Lincoln about just some, I mean, you know, in the NIL world, it's just some of the asks and demands from some kids, and I'm sure maybe more so in football, but like it's kind of wild.

Speaker 1 What was recruiting her like? Was there, is there a funny story or is there a story that you can tell just in recruiting that's just wild?

Speaker 2 Yep. Well, I mean, the first thing is, given all of the stories you hear now with NIL and all of that, for Juju, it was

Speaker 2 unbelievably

Speaker 2 small,

Speaker 2 internal. Like, they didn't put things on social media.
I always tell people, Juju is a hooper who has become a star. She is not a social media star who happened to play basketball, right?

Speaker 2 So she didn't put out a top 15 and then a top eight and then a top five. Like

Speaker 2 no one really knew with the recruiting what they were doing because they didn't publicize it uh it was very authentic and getting to really know her and her parents like the small circle so that part it wasn't like a circus with all of the outside stuff but um it took a long time you know because i think they they really wanted to do the whole thing so um and there was you know now she's got the documentary series that's now out um uh on peacock but that was following it so she visited us all the way back in september and now this thing was stretching on.

Speaker 2 And she did do like a public announcement on ESPN or something. But to her credit, because she's such a just a good person, she said to her parents, like, mom, I need to tell Lindsay.

Speaker 2 I don't want her worried anymore. And I was seven and a half months pregnant.

Speaker 2 You know, eight, maybe eight and a half months pregnant, eight and a half, because my daughter was born on October 14th. And so the announcement came closer to signing day.

Speaker 2 So she said, I need to tell Lindsay. So she, Judy said, can you talk at this time, this day? And I was like, let me go for a walk.
So I'm like waddling around my neighborhood.

Speaker 1 And she said, she's coming.

Speaker 2 And I swear that like at that moment, my water could have broken. I couldn't win.

Speaker 1 You probably burst into tears. You're probably very emotional too.

Speaker 2 What is that? I sure was. There were definitely.

Speaker 2 There was a public announcement maybe a week or two later, but she did let me know at that point. And I think, you know, she and my daughter are pretty close.

Speaker 2 So maybe it's because, you know, my daughter got a little shake in there.

Speaker 1 And you still get her for two more years, too. Isn't that amazing? That's crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 3 It must be pretty wild now, too, because we mentioned like the comfort of like being on campus. And I know like even playing UCLA, it's still a road game, but you're still in LA.

Speaker 3 Going on the road now with this team, you know, everyone's kind of gunning for you.

Speaker 3 Those road games, I don't know if they feel like the most intense that you've been involved in so many, but I imagine traveling with this team is just may feel a little different.

Speaker 3 I'm just guessing here.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, part of it is,

Speaker 2 you know, right, the newness of the traveling with sort of Juju and the team started, but also our first year in the Big Tent. So you're going to these places.

Speaker 2 But I saw some stat recently where whatever someone's average attendance was was like tripled when we were there. So we played in front of, you know, 20,000 in Iowa, 15,000 in Indiana.

Speaker 2 You know, Rutgers averaged like 1,300 and they had 10,000 when we played. Maryland was sold out.
And it's really neat. You're seeing a lot of juju buns and jerseys and other places.

Speaker 2 And you see their fan base come out, you know, right in full force.

Speaker 2 So it's been, um, it's been really neat, you know, to see that and be a part of it it's good for all of our players right I think it's really raised the profile of everybody and and that's kind of why you make the move to the big 10 to allow them to play in these big cities and big markets

Speaker 2 you know in front of incredible fan bases I'm curious coach because

Speaker 1 Caitlin Clark is sort of just help I mean there's a lot of women obviously and this has been last couple years but Caitlin Clark really like has become the face of women's basketball and in a positive way in my opinion and she left last year.

Speaker 1 And in a way, Juju has inherited being the face of women's basketball.

Speaker 3 Have you talked to her about that?

Speaker 1 Did you ever talk to her and just give her perspective? Because Caitlin deals with a lot of scrutiny, which she doesn't deserve. She's a hooper too, I think, and just loves basketball.

Speaker 1 But did you ever have any conversation with Juju on just, hey, you now are going to be the face of women's basketball, whether you like it or not, and how she kind of handles herself?

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I'm with you on it.
I think Caitlin's been amazing. We saw Caitlin at the Wooden Awards last year where Juju was a finalist and Caitlin was winning it.

Speaker 2 And Caitlin made a point to say, I had this sort of public attention for a year and a half, two years. Juju's going to have it for three, three and a half.

Speaker 2 And Caitlin said to me, here's my number. Reach out.
Let me know how I can help. How can I help her navigate? It was really cool because you think about it, who else understands what Juju may be.

Speaker 2 experiencing other than someone like Caitlin. So

Speaker 2 yes, I think, you know, with Juju, I've talked about how can I put things in place to let you be you, to let you, you know, be at your best, but also help you navigate this.

Speaker 2 So we have talked about that,

Speaker 2 you know, we had a moment right after last season where she and I went to a Dodgers thing. It was like the foundation thing, like a big fundraiser, but the team comes.

Speaker 2 And that really hit me where, you know, you have all the Dodgers there and these fans are like screaming Juju's name. You know, she's very recognizable with the bun and everything.
And

Speaker 2 how like this is a city of stars and she's a star within here.

Speaker 2 What's going to happen you know nationally and so i think she's kind of uh seeing her life change a bit with it um but i again i think her her family's put great resources around her just to allow her to be you know a kid but also i think she takes that on and takes the responsibility and understands it comes with being who she is it's a lot like when jerry walks around and they say turtle that's turtle

Speaker 3 it's not not quite you say buddy you still i don't relate no i don't relate to that at all but you know what i did relate with uh after the game when you mentioned that like your husband can't even come to the games?

Speaker 3 A hundred percent that would be me. Like, I have a hard time.
My wife was like a gymnast for a while. I have a hard time if she's doing a cartwheel on the beach.

Speaker 3 I'm like, oh, God, I hope she sticks to it. I hope she,

Speaker 3 I completely, and you mentioned already like when he watches games at home. So I already, I don't, I don't know your husband at all.
I completely relate to him.

Speaker 3 I would never be, I would chew through nail. I would be a mess.

Speaker 1 I would be a mess.

Speaker 2 He's like your more classic sportsman. I mean, Matt, he would probably talk to you for hours about USC football and, you know, this, I mean, everything, right?

Speaker 2 And so you add in like that, now he knows all these officials. He's like, oh, you have this official on the game.

Speaker 1 I'm like, yeah, you. Oh, he's intense.

Speaker 2 He's intense. He's intense.
It's very, it's very fun. So, yes, he's, he's all in.

Speaker 1 I think it's great, Lindsay, because you know, you're, you have two kids, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, two kids. You're married, and just the

Speaker 1 role model that you are for a lot of and I'm just like we like we did a lot with girls flag football with our leagues down in Orange County and I and again I just from an outsider just like I feel a lot of pride in growing that I feel like you

Speaker 1 like should feel a lot of pride in just what you are doing for the women's game and I know nationally and you're coaching and I think you guys are going to win it all this year knock on wood you're going to win a national championship but um do you feel like do you ever kind of take a breath breath and just be like, what you are doing?

Speaker 1 You're obviously, I mean, Juju, talk about Juju, but the team and the recruiting that this is, all of this stuff. I just, I think it's really awesome to see what you're doing.

Speaker 1 Do you ever kind of pinch yourself and just say what your role is in helping women's basketball continue to elevate?

Speaker 2 Well, thank you. I appreciate it.
I think the main thing is,

Speaker 2 you know, trying to

Speaker 2 just be present in all facets of my life, like, you know, to be a wife at a mom at home, to do this job, but also to integrate the two. As you guys know, you don't get to, sports is a lifestyle.

Speaker 2 You don't get to shut it off. My family is involved and they come here.
But if I can

Speaker 2 do anything to show women or women's basketball that you don't have to sacrifice one thing or the other, I certainly have a ton of help. You know, we have child care.

Speaker 2 I have a really supportive administration, but

Speaker 2 I don't think anyone should have to sacrifice, you know, if they, if they want to be a mom and coach or try to integrate, you know, the two worlds.

Speaker 2 And we all have a responsibility, I think, with the the women's game to continue to help grow it because that's the stage that it's at.

Speaker 2 And even, you know, when I was in the NBA, a lot of people asked, like, all I could do was show up as myself, right? And I only had one, only my son, Jordan, at the time, and wouldn't have Reese yet.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I had to try to be the best coach I could be. I wasn't trying to be anyone else in that league.
There was no one really like me, like the guys,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 be who I was and hope that that. opened up some eyes, you know, as well.
But coming back to women's basketball, I think,

Speaker 2 yeah, I take a lot of pride in just trying to do what i do well so that other people believe that they can do it that way and also to help grow the game too

Speaker 3 and wow did you upgrade your winter life going from cleveland

Speaker 1 i'm in it right now it's the worst in the world jerry will send me videos i'm like god you got to get back to la dude i got to get back to la coach i got to get back no no this is hired cleveland ohio but you know there's nothing better than nothing better than la well good luck coach thank you for joining us yes thank you

Speaker 1 obviously you know we met a handful of years ago, but super proud of you and what you've done. And you're going to keep crushing it.
So good luck. Bring home a title.
Bring home a title. No pressure.

Speaker 2 Kind of get like you and your squad, Matt.

Speaker 1 Well, that was long. That was a long time ago.
Yeah. That was a long time ago.

Speaker 3 They live forever.

Speaker 1 That's why Jerry and I, that's why Jerry and I are together because we were roaming the streets of LA at the same time in two different 2003. What a time.

Speaker 2 So crazy. Well, it's definitely a thrill for me to be on with you guys.

Speaker 2 Come out to a game. We will be hosting the first and second round.

Speaker 1 Oh, I'll be there for sure.

Speaker 1 I went to the Kansas. Was that Sweet 16 last year?

Speaker 2 Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 That was a great place. That was fun.
That was fun. That place was buzzing, man.

Speaker 1 I'll be there. I'll be there.
I'd love to come. Love to come.
Great. Great.
All right, coach. Thank you.

Speaker 3 Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 Okay. All right.
Take care.

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Speaker 3 All right, we're going to do the throwbacks mailbag now. Thank you to everybody who sent in some mail.

Speaker 3 Again, you could hit us up at throwbacksh on social media, or you could email us at feedback at throwbackshow.com and let us know. So, we got a few good ones.
We picked out two for today.

Speaker 3 Glenn from Chicago emailed us and said, I saw a report that the next edition of Hard Knocks offseason will actually follow Bill Belichick and the North Carolina Tar Heels football team.

Speaker 3 Matt, would you have been okay with cameras planted all over the USC facility when you were in college? And Jerry, what about on the set of entourage?

Speaker 1 So, we got to clear one quick thing up.

Speaker 3 As of, I think, yesterday, they have now declined they have not been able to work out a deal north carolina and nfl films or whoever does hard eyes so it's actually not happening so someone came to their senses is my thought do we have full we have full editing approval post editing yeah of course yeah then i will say i i think or maybe that's what they were arguing about who knows when i was playing if they went to usc

Speaker 1 We probably Pete would have probably said fuck it. Yeah, let's do it because he loved that shit.
And I would have done the same thing.

Speaker 1 If this gener if this like the way it is now and i was playing in this era of social media i probably would have said absolutely not we did have matt and reggie tv back in the day though what is matt and reggie tv they we had i'm gonna find a clip man i gotta put someone i get the randomest people will send me a clip of the archives from like 04 05

Speaker 1 and we would go around we had microphones and we would go around and like

Speaker 1 it like like like MTV cribs. Oh, here's my apartment at the whatever.
Here's a day in the life of practice. Like we would like kind of like basically a behind the scenes look at the USC football team.

Speaker 1 I have no fucking clue where it lived, dude. I don't know what.
I don't remember back then, but it was like Ryan Khalil would come on. Ryan Khalil was great.

Speaker 1 Like Ryan Khalil has a whole production company now in my center. Like he was super excited.

Speaker 3 Try to find these episodes.

Speaker 1 I know. I'm going to try and, I'm trying.
I've been sent. They've been sent to me from like.

Speaker 1 from now like the the uh the video guys at usc because they go through all the archives like holy shit we just saw matt reggie tv it is is horrible to watch. We did one at um,

Speaker 1 was it Jimmy Kimmel or Jay Leno? We were on the Jay Leno show, so we brought like we did like an episode there.

Speaker 1 And it's again, it was just like probably the old school camera you put on your right, you had some digital video camera. Um, so yeah, back in the day, hell yeah, I would have done that.

Speaker 3 What was what was lying? What was your apartment? What was like your USC apartment like? Did you have like a dope spot, or is this because it was before NIL, you didn't really have a dope spot?

Speaker 1 No, I didn't really have a dope spot. Um, my junior, my junior year, I lived at a place called Cardinal Gardens.

Speaker 3 Off campus. How far off campus?

Speaker 1 Hey, next time you're in LA, we'll go

Speaker 3 to Cardinal Gardens.

Speaker 1 It was like the poor man's Melrose Place. Remember in Melrose Place, you walk in and you had like

Speaker 1 the pool right in the middle? Yeah. And then the apartments kind of like U-shaped around it.
Well, this was Cardinal Gardens.

Speaker 3 Was it all student athletes or students or was it?

Speaker 1 It was small, maybe 40 apartments, maybe more or less 40. And it was two stories.
And like one of my best friends at the time, his frat, most of his frat was living in there.

Speaker 1 So the year I won the Heisman, I was sharing a room. I had a one-bedroom.
I was sharing a room with my boy. We had two beds in our room.
This is my junior year, dude.

Speaker 3 The

Speaker 3 Heisman Award winner.

Speaker 1 Heisman Award winner. This story is hilarious, dude.
Sharing a room. We almost, our best friend was the apartment next to us.
We almost knocked. We were like, fuck it, let's just knock the wall down.

Speaker 3 It wasn't big enough. You could have have just kicked the wall.

Speaker 1 We had,

Speaker 1 no one went in the pool. There were bikes in there.
Lord knows what the fuck was in that pool, dude. It was disgusting.
But it was just,

Speaker 1 it was just, it was college, man. It was freaking fun, dude.
I had my white Ford Ranger. I was living the dream, dude.
Living the dream.

Speaker 3 So if they were going to do, I guess it would be like a behind the scenes of entourage while we were making it.

Speaker 3 I'd say no, only because, not even because of like some crazy, salacious reason, but like you're doing a show and you're mic'd all day and you're on camera all day, when you actually call cut and you have like a 20, 40 minute break, like the last thing you want to do is probably be on camera because you're on camera all day.

Speaker 3 And also, I.

Speaker 3 I find it interesting, but I think making a television show is not nearly as cool and fun as a football team, like behind the scenes.

Speaker 3 Front office.

Speaker 3 I guess if you were going to do like a, hey, we're going to go to the production office of Entourage, like how hard knocks went, you know, into the front office and you would see like Doug with the writing process and casting and see maybe more of those decisions, less with us and more of the production.

Speaker 3 That might be cool.

Speaker 1 I like the behind the scenes stuff of like making the shows and all that. So like I don't know, I would watch it.

Speaker 1 We have another mailbag. I want to ask, I want to read this one because I want to ask you.
Okay, so Brian and Albany said this.

Speaker 1 Kendrick Perkins says, Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, your beloved Knicks, need to stop podcasting and just focus on basketball.

Speaker 1 You guys think something like hosting a podcast can negatively affect their goal of winning a title?

Speaker 1 I want to say that because Paul George just said he stepped away from podcasting to focus on basketball, right?

Speaker 3 Well, no, no, no. He didn't, no, no, no.
And Andrew Dunling, our producer, to focus on his championship run.

Speaker 1 To focus on the fact that they're fucked up.

Speaker 1 Because they're shit right now. So to focus on a championship run.
Okay, so your beloved Nick's, two of your best players, the heartbeats of your team, I mean, great, great players.

Speaker 1 Does it bother you at all that they're podcasting during a season?

Speaker 3 You know, there definitely have been times, especially after losses and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 And then you go watch a podcast and you're like, man, but look, guys, it ain't like they're saying, hey, Tibbs, we're going to be late to practice because we're finishing our podcast with Edie Falco.

Speaker 3 All right.

Speaker 3 They're doing it on their own.

Speaker 1 I love it, Brian. I love it.

Speaker 3 Well, here's what I liked about it most recently, and we'll talk about Kendra Perkins in a second, but on their last episode, Brunson and Hart talked about, because it was coming off the back-to-back Cavs, Celtics blowouts, right?

Speaker 1 Where they got just routed.

Speaker 3 And they talked about it in a very like open, honest way. I thought it was, it's not the media answer that we get when the guys are at the locker room.
Oh, we got to play harder. They were pretty raw.

Speaker 3 Josh Hart said something super interesting. He was out, I think, against the Cavs

Speaker 3 before the Celtic game. And he said, yeah, I watched at home like a fan and I shut it off in the third quarter.
And I'm paraphrasing. He's like, we looked like trash.
I was like, embarrassed.

Speaker 3 I couldn't believe that we got blown out like that. Like, watching it on TV was a whole different experience than when you're playing in the blowout.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 3 you know, I think they talked about it in the right way. So I don't think it could negatively affect their goal of winning.
The only way I could see it doing that is if like.

Speaker 3 guys on the team started getting feeling a certain kind of way about it, you know, like

Speaker 3 in-house stuff.

Speaker 1 For sure. I'm all for it.
I think, I think, for so many years, for

Speaker 1 decades,

Speaker 1 very few athletes have had like a voice outside of what you perfect, great point you make, like locker room. Like, you're going to give the PC, you're going to give the basic answers.

Speaker 3 Yeah, you're not going to get it.

Speaker 1 And you don't want to talk to these media people because they don't really have your best interest anyway.

Speaker 1 So, there's never really been an outlet for players just to share their thoughts, whether it's on their games, whether it's on opposing teams. I mean, Draymond kind of, I think, kind of,

Speaker 1 JJ Reddick was doing that, obviously. Like Draymond, Micah Parsons has the big one in the NFL where he just goes on every week and just talks about other teams, talks about player situation.

Speaker 3 I think it's kind of refreshing, man.

Speaker 1 Like, I think it's refreshing. I love it as a former athlete, but I love, I love the, I love behind the scenes stuff.

Speaker 1 I, I, I do, I've been in a lot of those locker rooms, so I know what it's like, but I love seeing professional athletes who are making $30 million a year talk about how embarrassed they were when they played.

Speaker 1 Like, and like, cause it just gives the fans another way of like, like personalizing with these guys I think on a different level which I love I love it I think and most of these guys who do it are all profit.

Speaker 1 They're professionals man. Like they're not gonna let that get in the way of hey I'm gonna do this instead of like going to get my shots up like you build your schedule.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 I mean in the in the the world where we all kind of say in terms of athlete especially basketball motivation dedication to it you do the what would Kobe do yeah Kobe would probably never do a podcast in season or or whatever while he was still active um

Speaker 3 i just don't know if like if they weren't doing the podcast would they be at the gym i feel like those are off days they're probably doing two or three in a day

Speaker 3 and i really and as long as they're giving us the raw behind the scenes and giving us something that we're not getting from the media i think it's all good you know i mean you talked about reggie and you doing that show, but you guys on the pod back in the, like if pods were around then, oh, we're going to get Reggie.

Speaker 1 No, but I'm saying you two two back then that would have been one of the biggest podcasts in the world you and reggie in season go while you guys are on the run and then like once a week we get a podcast from matt and everybody would have been like i love it and you're going to start getting more college kids are going to do it once they're all these kids are about even in the pros are about you know building a brand however you want to define that these opportunities now are more and more in the podcasting space and just digital space and uh i'm all for it i love it i i i can understand how if you're playing like shit and immediately, like, oh, he's so distracted.

Speaker 1 Like, come on, you're doing that once a week and you're talking ball during that time, you know, for the most part.

Speaker 3 So I will say, as long as they don't start, well, and I guess this is more like retired players, but like recently retired players, as long as you don't start doing the either overly critical or just saying stuff to get, you know, views and stuff like that, which I think could tend to go on.

Speaker 3 Like, just don't do what everyone else is doing. Like, you're a current or former player.
You could give us stuff that no one else, like the Vernon Maxwell story on All the Smoke.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you've seen it when talk about how Lajon slapped the shit out of him halftime. That's what we, that's what we, that's what you guys.

Speaker 1 Dude, the dudes from the 80s and 90s are different. They're, they're, they're built a different way, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Good mail bad stuff, though.
Send more. Keep it coming.
Uh, keep it coming. Again, uh, I want you to take me to a USC women's basketball game.
I want to see Juju in person. And good luck to the

Speaker 3 Trojan women, women of Troy. What do you call women of Troy?

Speaker 1 Women of Troy.

Speaker 1 Big Ten champions Big Ten tournament starts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Good luck. Yeah, we'll see.
It could be probably a number one seed. I mean, it's going to be UCLA.
It's probably going to be them and UCLA in the Big Ten Championship again for the third time.

Speaker 1 So, and UCLA is great too. Like, that would be crazy.
Corey, their coach, friend, she's great. Yeah, they're legit.
Those are two of the best teams in the country. So, all right.

Speaker 1 Have a good week, everybody.

Speaker 3 We'll be back next week.