CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's time for this week's episode of the Terry's Talkin' podcast, featuring cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. Today, we talk about the recent losing streak by the Cavs, and what it means, if anything, in the big picture.
Terry also has a veteran quarterback who might be a consideration for the Browns. Who do you think the Browns should bring in as a veteran free agent this offseason? Send your thoughts in via email to us at [email protected] and put "Terry's Talkin'" in the subject line, and we'll feature the best responses on an upcoming podcast.
If you have a question or a topic you'd like to see included on the podcast, email it to [email protected], and put "Terry's Talkin'" in the subject line.
You can find previous podcasts below. The transcript below was generated by a computer, and so it contains many spelling and grammar errors.
David Campbell (00:31.468)
Hey, we're back for another edition of the Terry's Talkin' podcast. I'm David Campbell, your host. I'm joined by Terry Pluto, as I am every week. What's going on, Terry? How are things?
Terry (00:41.303)
I am doing well. I'm getting ready to do a podcast. How about you?
David Campbell (00:44.686)
So we got a lot to get to. have an idea about relegation like soccer for the end that we got an email about that I want to run past in college sports since we've been talking about Ohio State. hey, let's start with the calves, Terry. This just happened right before we started taping here. Dean Wade is going to be out a couple weeks. Right knee injury, the calves just made it official, but he's going to be out a couple weeks. Bruised right knee and he did miss the
Houston game and the Detroit game the last two games if I remember so anyway that's kind of the news
Terry (01:19.609)
sort of the annual Deanway to injury really. Unfortunately, I don't know how many years in a row it's been, but three or four, because he is a valuable player to them, because he's got size, he could defend. Some days he shoots pretty well, some days he doesn't, but the other two things, I he could guard anybody from the center to even a shooting guard. He moves so well laterally, that's a key part of defense. And there's all these stats to show how the Cavs are so much of a better player.
team with him on the floor. But Chris Fedor had that yesterday, I think it was, that this did not look good for Wade and now we know why today. So was glad about Chris nailing that down really before it came out.
David Campbell (02:02.168)
Yep, and now we have the official prognosis, couple weeks, and I guess if there's anything good about this, Terry, it is that it's not structural. It's just, you know, it's just gonna take some time to heal, so.
No. A couple weeks simply meant they will reevaluate in a couple weeks. That doesn't mean he's going be playing in a couple weeks, just to be... As a guy who's read a lot of these news releases over the years, when I see a couple weeks reevaluated, I'm thinking it's at least a month.
David Campbell (02:29.89)
All right, so they will be plugging in for him. And we saw last night with Max Struce having to take on a big defensive assignment. So we'll see who kind of draws some of these defensive assignments with Gene Wade out of the mix. So, okay, Terry, I kind of wanted to start and get your thoughts about this mini losing streak that the Cavs had. And we did get an email from longtime listener, Tom Byler. Tom lives in Kansas. He says, Hey, Dave and Terry up until their epic win over OKC, the Cavs were a basketball team.
Involved everyone on offense often with six or seven and double figures and played solid sometimes lockdown defense since that fantastic win the Cavs have become a typical NBA team Focus on three or four guys on offense and showing no interest in defense They always did the same thing under JB start good Listen to JB take pride in defense then flip a switch and stop listening to JB blow off defense get selfish on offense Make playoffs, never do as well as they should have
I know they've had injuries, but so does everyone else. Short-handed teams have out hustled and outplayed the Cavs of late. Up through the OKC game, they were all singing from the same songbook and praising Kenny. Kenny even pointed out that a game was a basketball game without the usual NBA junk involved. Now it's starting to be every man for himself in defenses of no interest, clearly tuning out Coach Kenny. In other words, the players have decided to play NBA ball.
This team should have set a franchise record for wins and had a deep playoff run. Both look unlikely now. Yeah, so anyway.
Terry (03:52.821)
Relax relax real now look. I'm the next thing you know, I'm going out the window without a parachute Yes Right
David Campbell (03:59.086)
All right, I do want to say Tom wrote this before last night's game. We're taping this on Tuesday, but the Cavs did beat Detroit 110 to 91. this losing streak was the first time we've seen kind of a continued run of sloppy defense. Evan Mobley was kind of calling guys out a little bit. How did you feel about what we saw and what did we learn about the Cavs with this losing streak and then last night?
Well, you learn how hard it is to play together as a team in the NBA and how when things go bad, the temptation is for the stars, not so much to be selfish, but to say, for us to win this game, I've got to take over. That's one of the things I learned from covering the NBA. Now, some guys, for example, the Cavs had a guy they brought in named Chris Gatling and Gatling played for a whole bunch of teams. And remember Joe Tate was interviewing him.
You just came to the Caz. You've been there few weeks. So Tate said to Gatling, well, do you know all the plays yet? And Gatling, right into the microphone, says, I know all the ones where I shoot. That's not what we're talking about. But when you see, for example, sometimes Michael Jordan or LeBron or whatever would kind of take over the game and dominate the ball, part of it was just their competitiveness of like, this stuff's falling apart.
I can save the day because they have that. He's correct on some of the things breaking down. fact, our pre-prep was that we don't need the guard scoring 60 or 70 points a night because you lose your big men in that, even though Garland and Mitchell certainly can create more shots for themselves than anybody else on the roster.
Now defensively, part of it was, you know, even though Moe really plays some games in January, he was been bothered by this calf muscle thing. And then Dean Way's been out, O'Coral's been out. So some of their guys that are better on defensive simply, and Laverte too, I may add, just have not been playing. And I was glad to see Kenny Atkinson keep, you know, shuffling the deck. I could notice like he played Tyson more minutes.
last night and it was not about Tyson to be in there to score. He was like you mentioned, he was in there really to defend but it's going to be harder for them now and I just think Houston's a bad matchup for them too and we see that there. You know they hit the boards. I mean they're a really good team. There's been a lot of attention on OKC but Houston's got a lot. mean Fred Van Fleet is
Terry (06:41.197)
very tough. just remember how well he played against the Cavs in the playoffs. They would lose at Toronto, but he was just difficult to guard. I believe he's the undrafted player, David, who's got, I don't know how much his contract for, but the biggest contract ever given to an undrafted player went to Van Fleet, I think when he went to Houston.
David Campbell (07:03.17)
Yeah, you know, I get it. Guys like Tom, Cavs fans, when they watch the game, they want to see the Cavs win. But, you know, I think back to, boy, it was the 2017-2018 season. I think it was January of 2018, Terry, with the LeBron Cavs. And that was when they had Dwayne Wade, and the roster was just a mess. And they had a home game in January against OKC, which had Russell Westbrook.
Kevin Durant, that was that OKC team. And OKC waxed the Cavs at home by like 30 points in January. And I got a text from a friend of mine. He's like, well, that's it. This is the end of the run. No more finals. This team is a disaster. And I was like, dude, like the trade deadline hasn't even come yet. Like, it's OK. It's January. It doesn't really matter. And it's hard sometimes when you follow a team to have that perspective. like, this is not.
This three game losing streak is going to be a tiny blip in the road along the way and there's a lot of basketball left and we have a long time till the playoffs. So I know it's hard to keep that perspective, but like you have to do that right as a fan.
Terry (08:05.835)
I mean, right. But to be fair to him, other than the typical NBA team, they always fall apart. stop that stuff because I could show you some seasons where JB teams have finished strong. So it just feels that way, but you kind of hate when the facts get in the way. But in terms of the stuff you're seeing right now, he was correct. The defense fell apart, I think in January.
going into that game at Detroit, they were ranked 28th in defense for the month of January where they were in the top 10 before that. And that is, I think, a product of some blaziness. And also, as I mentioned, certain guys are there to defend, Wade will defend, and even though he was playing some games before that, he just didn't look as good, and probably because he had the bruised knee. O'Coro, shoulder, being out. Laverde is very underrated.
because he can go out, he can guard a small forward, he can guard either anybody in the back court. He's tough enough, he'll take out a power forward. And so they just missed some of those guys that think about defense. Now, Struz has come back and he'll defend. So that has helped them. And I also think Tyson will defend given an opportunity to do so. So Kenny is going deeper into the bag to try and find those guys. So we'll see how it is. But in terms of
What was me to your point? Yeah, it's just way too early. Now 2018, that is when Kobe Altman made some big trades and he did bring in guys that are far more team oriented. It's when he traded for Larry Nance Jr. and he also added, I am forgetting, he's a guard now that was later traded to, he's with Utah. I can't think of his name, that's terrible.
but he was also a player that he liked to score, but he would defend too. And they found more of a way to play that was, and they also, Hill, they brought in Hill to play in the backcourt, but that was not the player I was thinking of, George Hill. But the other guy is a scorer off the bench. Well, he'll come to me. Jordan Clarkson, absolutely, yeah. They changed the whole chemistry there, because it needed to be changed.
I don't think that needs to be changed here. Maybe they make a move, maybe they don't. I think part of it too, just Houston made him look really bad. Even though they go, all right, how do we feel of Garland steps to the line and he makes all those three free throws? It just shouts the light. And also earlier in that game, he went to the line shooting three and missed two.
It's just shocking because the guys like it 90 % for the foul line, but even once in a while I guess they got out of out of whack now the Detroit game what I really liked about it JB came in here and you know what he wanted to do slow it down and play it ugly and That's how he's got his team right now to be at 500 but the calves are able to really handle that Stay with it. I like how they out rebounded Detroit 53 to 45
They were able to hold the pistons now not a particularly good offensive team, but nonetheless 39%. 91 points they held them to. They went after Cade Cunningham with everything they had. I love that. always liked, especially a team that's kind of a younger team that has a star or whatever, take that star out of the game one way or another, even if you're making him force him to take a bunch of bad shots. And whether was Struus was on him sometimes or Mitchell or
He also put Tyson on him. He had different players and they got help too and When Cunningham was watching his teammates brick shots He's then tried to take it over and he just wasn't able to do it so a lot of good things happened in that game and it was needed because of some of the bad habits were We're popping up Ty Jerome was was especially effective against of shoving them around and you know, Jerome is tough. Jerome's just
tough guy. really like his game. I remember they had him mic'd up and towards the end of the third quarter and they were really doing a good job keeping the Pistons under control and I also heard him on the bench, the Cavs are back, the Cavs are back. He just kept saying that to all the players Ty Jerome was because it's like, okay, this is how we play.
David Campbell (12:45.414)
we talked last week, Terry, I pulled some of these numbers. were talking about the stat that Kenny Atkinson wanted to watch about out shooting, having more shots than your opponents. And this is really interesting. So, the last four games, Cavs lose, 109, 108 to the Rockets. The Rockets had 91 shots and the Cavs had 97 shots, even though they lost.
So much yeah, I started looking at it. It's all over the map. Keep going
David Campbell (13:10.05)
Yeah, Sixers 132, Cavs 129, that was the next loss. The Sixers had 87 shots and the Cavs had 90 shots, so they outshot them again and still lost.
Terry (13:20.109)
By the way, that game was an abomination, just the way they played. That was exactly what our... Who was it that sent the email? I'm sorry.
David Campbell (13:31.467)
the one we just read? Yeah, Tom Byler from Kansas, yes.
Terry (13:32.535)
Yes. Yeah, that was exactly the type of game Tom was talking about. Nobody defended, nobody cared, and they'll just go out there and start outscoring them and they give up 130 points to Philadelphia. Yeah, Tyrese Maxey drives to the rim. Yeah, no kidding. I mean, he'll shoot it every time. Go ahead, keep going.
David Campbell (13:51.182)
All right. Yeah, next one rockets 135 calves 131 the Rockets had 82 shots and the calves had 91 shots So they out shot him again and then and then last night the calves won 110 to 91 the calves Had fewer shots than the Pistons the Pistons had 96 and the calves had 91 so Totally the opposite of I think Kenny was driving out there,
Yeah, they had a couple of games there where it was in place. I'm sure the analytics department rolled this in front of Kenny and Kenny thought, well, it makes sense. more you take more shots than the other team or a better shooting team, should play well. But I guess in the end is like, do you make more shots than the other team is kind of how it goes. Now, what would be interesting though to factor in if you want to go deeper is all right, going to the foul line. How many times
was your team fouled taking shots versus the other team.
David Campbell (14:51.374)
OK, so that shows aggressiveness toward the rim, right? And what else are you learning from that?
Terry (14:52.791)
I, by the way, yeah. Yeah, well, first of all, means you are getting off more shots. It's just not showing his field goal attempts because they're leading to free throw attempts. Or we could just bury ourself in all these arcane stats and go back to just make more shots than the other team and play better defense.
David Campbell (15:13.07)
So we're getting into some numbers here, Terry. I thought it was really cool. You were writing over the weekend about how Kenny Atkinson reminds you of Earl Weaver, the Baltimore Orioles manager that you covered in 1979 when you were working for the Baltimore Evening Sun. Can you talk about that and what depth can mean to a team? Because I thought that was really fascinating, the comparison.
Yeah, weaver weaver was always looking at the 162 game schedule and how long it was and he was always looking for his edge and he was like just like cleave on a small market team even back then, know, free agency was just coming into being or whatever, but Baltimore did not draw particularly well that year. Actually they, had a really nice attendance thing, but in general it was not a big market and they
They didn't spend a ton of money. They did a good job of keeping their stars. It was fascinating. It was also in the early days of agents. And Mark Shapiro's father, Ron Shapiro, was a Baltimore lawyer. And I forgot who he became friends with, one or two guys in the Orioles, and he just started becoming an agent. And the next thing, like when I was there, I think he had more than half of the players on the team. And yeah.
because a lot of them didn't have agents or they had their friend who was a small town lawyer or something.
David Campbell (16:36.046)
I mean, we're not that far past the Kurt Flood case and everything when you think about it, were we? Yeah.
Terry (16:38.035)
No, no, no. And right, and Ed Keating in Cleveland was another guy. He came out and he had a bunch of guys on the tribe. So he had all those guys to keep them there. but we've realized that, you know, he needed the full roster and also for your roster to be good guys are going to get hurt. The guys had to play. Now, Kenny sees the same thing. Earl used to call it deep depth. You got to have deep depth.
And D E E P D E P T H I'm good. I was hoping I spelled that right. I didn't want to be like the poor mayor of Philadelphia to hear that trying to spell Eagles She's up there. eagle. I believe it's a she goes Eagles e l No, wait a minute e l a e no, it's like I Can understand you're friend of a bunch of people you're excited
and you mess it up. Finally, he just yelled, let's go birds and got them all chanting that. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I'm sure it's online somewhere. I just roared when I heard it, but I actually have some sympathy because I have spoken in front of big groups and once in a while when he starts out, let's spill this out. All of a sudden you can't remember anything. So Weaver believed in playing all these guys and he had, he was the guy who invented stats of
David Campbell (17:38.606)
It's like the Snickers commercial where they put chefs instead of chiefs in the end zone.
Terry (18:03.587)
How a certain hitter did against a certain pitcher until then it was basically kind of platoon the lefty righty thing and it began because he noticed that Mark Blander very weak hitting shortstop just seemed to keep getting hits off of Nolan Ryan So he asked them just kind of look and see what Blander has been doing and it was something like he was six for 17 against Nolan Ryan and like two for 20 against the rest of the world which then led him to have their PR guys to
work on index cards and put together stats of who was coming in and he kept all those cards in a cigar box on top of his desk and he would show us the cards. This is a whole different era when he came in and why his lineup would look the way it was, but he kept stressing, if you want these guys to be ready, you have to play them some. And this is what Kenny came in. Remember he came in talking about playing 10 or 11 guys and he said, you have to resist the temptation to
As he said, ride the wave with the guys that are there. Sometimes after five, six, you gotta just pull them. And actually it's for moments like this where he's going to need Kevin Porter Jr., Craig Porter Jr. And he's going to need Tyson and he's gonna need these other guys because injuries are coming. So that was a really long stuff with a bunch of details that probably nobody cares about, including you can't spell Eagles.
David Campbell (19:25.806)
Well, no, I love that. It's like you've got today where teams like the Guardians are the Cavs. The NBA keeps track of how close a defender is when you shoot, right? And Earl Weaver had it all in a cigar box and was doing it. It's just crazy.
Terry (19:35.119)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he did this, that. Right. That was it. was just, that was it. He was like, we'd be sitting there and I think of, well, why do you have, they had like a backup intro, Kiko Garcia. Why is he batting second today? You know, cause he would just have like the three beat guys in there. In fact, there's a pretty interesting group of, or four. Two of them are in the hall of fame now. Tom Boswell was one who just barely beat out Paul Hoynes in his last election. And the other,
was Dan Shaughnessy and myself and then a guy named Kenny Nigro, an older writer. And he would, well, why is he batting second? And he like just opened the cigar box, pull out Kiko's card, like he'd flip it to us. He goes, well, where would you bat him with those numbers? And, you know, he's like, you know, seven for 13 against, you know, Rick Sutcliffe or something. It's like, well, that's why he's batting second. And he goes, why is this guy not playing? He goes, I'll just tell you what I told Terry Crowley as a backup.
When you finally get a hit off this guy, you're 0 for 11, I might play you, but I'm not going to give you a chance today because you're 0 for 11. And it was a tremendous competitive advantage for him at the time to make the story on a sad note. So then in 80, I come to cover the tribe and Dave Garcia is the manager and Gabe Paul and Phil Segui are running the team. And I knew they liked Weaver. So I'm telling them, like, this is what he does.
These are the stats. He showed them to us. This is not a big secret. you know, you can't tell much when eight, 10, 12 at bats against a certain pitcher or whatever. I said, well, if he's five for eight, you can. Or if he's 0 for nine with six strikeouts, you can. I was just repeating what Weaver said. They were not interested.
All right, come a long way from cigar boxes and yeah.
Terry (21:30.703)
So, but Kenny, don't think Kenny's got his stats in the cigar box, but he is watching those minutes and he is running those guys in there. And when you see Tyson and Porter come in there and play, Tristan Thompson, you can get mileage out of these guys. You're gonna need them.
Yeah, I think you had this in your column where the week interior the Cavs coming into the weekend. They're playing their bench about 97 minutes a game, which I think, yeah, Memphis and Golden State were the only teams that had more. And the Cavs bench was scoring 38 points a game, which was number six in the NBA. like, listen, this is what it's all about, right? Somebody goes down in the playoffs and you're putting in guys that have been playing and are used to playing 10, 15 minutes.
because they've been doing it during the season. It's all about, like you said, Terry, getting guys ready for April, May, June and having them be prepared.
Terry (22:25.539)
I'll tell you one thing, and I know this, this was a, and I was a bad athlete or whatever, know, at Benedictine, I was on teams and things, when you, there was a basketball junior high, or junior varsity basketball game, all of a sudden, I've always just played garbage time, the coach went and threw me in the second quarter, I was not ready. I was shocked. And I played like I wasn't ready, and I never played the second quarter again.
Even these guys who are pros, if you just feel like you're never going to be in any meaningful situations and then you get one, it takes you in a bad spot. Now they can recover. Corley, got to a level because they have a lot of ability in that. whereas when you see that he's liable to go to anybody, that was the thing. I sometimes I know, and I wonder if Kenny does this.
Sometimes when Weaver would make out his lineup, but a guy isn't in it But he likes the stats maybe of this guy against a certain pitcher. He would go to him before he goes You know if I hey Smith gets in the game If I were you I would be ready because you could pinch it You know that in that words he would he would do stuff like that or sometimes if a guy was struggling But he was playing he would go up and tell him
I know you're having a rough time right now, but you're 5 for 10 against this guy, so just relax.
David Campbell (23:55.15)
You know, what's every, I think every backup quarterback, the Browns have signed over the last 10 years in their introductory talk with reporters, they always say, stay ready so you don't have to get ready, right? That's their mantra, so.
Terry (24:05.551)
Yeah, exactly. that's a tough thing in football. See, in football, too, you've been sitting there and you haven't played any meaningful minutes and you get out there and how fast and violent that game is. And basketball, you get out there and you go out there in the last three minutes of the game when it's over. Guys, first of all, some teams don't even want to shoot and they're just kind of jockeying up and down the floor. You go out there in the second quarter with the Rockets and the 14 guys to the board, sort of feels like it.
It's like, whoa, I am not ready for this right now. I gotta get myself together.
David Campbell (24:40.76)
Yeah, mean, you're playing the Celtics in a seven game series in the playoffs. It really helps if you were able to play 15 minutes against a guy twice during the regular season. It's huge. So anyway, you can't replace that experience. And I think that's what they're trying to do,
Yeah, they are. And I give Kenny credit because the temptation is to try to win every game all the time. And they keep telling you, know, the thing is to be ready for the win enough games to have a real good playoff seed. And then also just to be ready for that so that you don't run into a situation like last year where a lot of those guys, you know, I mean, already this year, the Cavs core four.
The last stat I saw, they've played 32 games. Last year, they only played 28 games all year. So that was the other thing JB dealt with was a lot of injuries early, especially with Garland. Yeah. Yeah, this is when they just put the ball in Donovan Mitchell's hands. was Mitchell and Allen just carried them. I think they won like 19 to 22 at one point. They caught a real soft spot of the schedule and they had Mitchell running the point with Struce and LaVert and
David Campbell (25:31.948)
Yeah, right around this time of the season. Yeah, it was really bad. Yep.
All right, Terry, let's move to the All-Star game a little bit. The reserves are going to be named on Thursday. Just real quick, the Cavs reporters, Ethan Sands, Chris Fetor, who you mentioned, Jimmy Watkins, they had a podcast last week. They were kind of debating how many Cavs should make it. It was really good if you can check it out. But it's got to be Mitchell, Garland, Mobley, right? Those will be the three.
Jared Allen doesn't make the cut. What's fair in your mind? We don't need to run through the whole Eastern Conference, but...
Terry (26:24.011)
That's probably it. That's probably it. Although, boy, those stats on what Jared Allen means to winning to me are really impressive,
Terry (26:38.415)
By the way, I told him still don't think Mobley's moving very well since he came back in after this calf strain. He just doesn't look, I mean, he's trying, I'm not saying that, but it just looks like he doesn't have the same lift. He's not as aggressive going to the hoop. Calf muscles are really annoying and nagging. So that's a side thing. But those are, yeah, probably if you were to rank the core four, you've got Mitchell one, Garland two, Mobley three, and Allen four.
David Campbell (27:07.202)
Yeah, and the kind of analytics you're talking about with Jared Allen don't translate to fan votes and media votes sometimes. So I think that's where it's going to end up. But again, the reserves will come out on Thursday night and we will know the full All-Star team. Kenny Atkinson will be coaching, which will be fun for Kev's fans to see.
Yeah, and also Garland's season has just been one to marvel at. I never saw this coming. I just never did. The confidence, the poise, the toughness. There were a couple times when he ended up getting switched on Cade Cunningham and Cunningham took him under the rim. A couple times he scored, a couple times he didn't, but Garland fought him. He really did. He probably should have been called for a foul a couple of times, but he was right up on him. And I give him credit for that.
Yeah, you made me think of this Terry. I just mentioned Ethan Sands who works with Chris Fiedler on the Cavsbeat. Ethan, yay.
Terry (27:57.717)
Mm-hmm. He doesn't by the way Ethan is really good for this young guy. He's got a chance to be terrific He reminds me a little bit of like when Brian Winters was kind of my protege back when and the all days at the Beacon Journal and that I think Ethan's future He's so bright is gonna be wearing shades, you know two pairs of sunglasses. He's really good
But I wanted to mention Ethan's story yesterday. He's kind of making a case. Can Darius Garland be the next, not Steph Curry in terms of impact on the lead, but kind of that kind of player who hits long shots, dynamic, small guard, who's got some personality and check it out. It's an, makes an interesting case that Darius Garland is the NBA looks for a new generation of stars, whether Darius Garland could be one of those faces. So check that out on cleveland.com slash calves. So.
Alright, anything else on the cabs, Jerry? We covered a lot there.
All right, calves have Miami on the road Wednesday night, then they're back home. Yeah.
Terry (28:55.533)
I don't want to hear anything about Jimmy Butler. Don't send me emails about Jimmy Butler, not please. Yeah, right, Jimmy Butler, please. I mean, I know he's doing everything to get traded, but no. You know, one thing about these guys, they've been together all year. You don't bring that guy into here. So, okay, enough of that. Okay.
David Campbell (28:58.702)
I thought we would do 20 minutes on it right now. want to?
David Campbell (29:16.686)
All right, well that addresses that. So after the Miami game, the Cavs have the second part of a back-to-back at home against Atlanta. Then Sunday, the Cavs are home against Dallas. And then next Tuesday, a Boston game. 7.30 down at the Fieldhouse a week from today, which is, man, it's going to be February already. Next week, it's going to be February 4th. So that'll be a fun one to watch. All right, Terry, let's take a break here. When we come back, you have a quarterback, a Browns quarterback candidate you want to get into. So we'll talk about that.
and little bit of Joel Bittonio's Pro Bowl, what that means. We've also got some Guardians to get into and a lot more when we return. Terry's talking.
David Campbell (34:39.403)
Hey, Rebecca and Terry's talking. Just want to do a quick reminder of a couple things. First of all, Terry's newsletter comes out every Wednesday at noon. You should check it out. You get a two week free trial. Go to cleveland.com slash Pluto. There's a blue bar at the top. Click on that and you can subscribe there. All kinds of great stories, behind the scenes stuff, interesting stats, contract stuff. Terry gets into all of it there. So check that out. And Terry, I do want to mention you have a couple of appearances coming up on February 13th, which is coming up really fast.
That is a Thursday, you're going to be at Kingsville Board of Disabilities at 6 p.m. Sponsored by the library down there, right?
Terry (35:11.777)
Yes, right, yeah, it's 6 p.m. I've never been there, so I'll find out how that goes. I think they switched it there, had to do with having a bigger room and that. So hopefully somebody wants to come out after they've gone to that.
And then February 19th, you're at the Tuscarawas Library in New Philadelphia at 6 PM. And February 19th is a Wednesday night. And you're going to be there. think Amanda Rabinowitz is going to be there with you.
Terry (35:37.953)
Natalie Benimus, that's her home court. Yeah, they love us and Dover has us in them and then New Philly. They almost have us every year. So that's a lot of fun. And that's where Amanda, my partner on WKSU, we even do like weekly commentaries, like for 17 years or something like that. And so that's where she grew up and where she started. In the middle, she was still at Ohio U. She walked into the radio station there in New Philly and begged for a job and got one.
And yeah, was minimum weight. She also had to sweep up and do some other things, but that was when she was still at Ohio U. All right.
David Campbell (36:16.75)
It's a, you gotta start like wherever you can start. I don't know if you've ever seen the Ken Burns doc. I know you've probably seen the Civil War one, Terry, but I watched the country music one by Ken Burns, the documentary. And yeah, Chris Christopherson grew up in a military family and his father really wanted him to be an officer like he was. And he's like, no, I want to be a musician. And he moved to Nashville and showed up, I think at the RCA studios and said, can I sweep your floors? And.
Then he was just hanging out, got to know people, and one day he was sitting there playing his guitar, and I think he tried to play Sunday morning coming down for one of the producers, and man, so you never know. It's like you just have to get your foot in the door and things will go from there. So it just reminded me of that.
I hope I get this story right, but Jimmy Buffett, he wanted to sing and was there, and he went to Nashville also, but he got a job, I believe it was with Billboard Magazine, where he would do some reviewing and he got to know musicians and that through, that was his entree in. It wasn't even a full-time job, it was just kind of reviewing and doing features.
And that got him some attention. And then I think he made some friends and they listened to him sing. And then he also wrote the Margaritaville, he said, in eight minutes sitting in traffic stuck on one of those long bridges on the way down to Key West. Because he had been at a place and he had done a show in Austin, Texas at some place where they claimed to have the words greatest margarita. he just, and he said something like, so this is Margaritaville, huh?
The guy said, yeah, you could call it that. And he goes, just kind of hung in his mind. So you never know.
David Campbell (38:04.206)
Huh, that's right, that's right. All right, well check out those library things. I think you can just go to the Kingsville Library and the Tuskegee Library, New Philadelphia, and there's links there where you can sign up. But we'll try and get those links maybe for next week in case people can make it there. So, all right, well speaking of sweeping up, Terry, the Browns are looking for at least one veteran quarterback to come in and help them sweep up some of this mess from the three and 14 season.
And you've got a name that you want to kind of throw out there as someone to consider. Fire away.
Terry (38:35.535)
Yeah, in fact, get it. And by the way, you could send us some thoughts too. Each week, think we'll kind of, think Jimmy Watkins is doing that, picking a quarterback and we'll do one too. So a guy I wanted to look at, cause I don't have a real strong opinion one way or the other in terms of an enriched quarterback was Daniel Jones, who ended up getting released by the Giants this year. What's your thought David?
David Campbell (38:59.662)
I think the Browns could do worse. do. Here's a guy, he's going to be what, 28 next season? He has shown he can scramble. He has shown he can run. He has shown, like he's a serviceable NFL quarterback. And Jimmy was writing about cousins today. Like the Browns don't need a guy for five years. And Jimmy made a point about cousins. Like the Browns would need cousins to do in Cleveland what he did in Atlanta, which is.
maybe get him through the first half of the season until somebody else younger and with more ceiling can take over. So I think he'd be okay. That's just my initial reaction. What do you think?
Terry (39:37.549)
Yeah, well first of all, I'm very, very guarded on Cousins. His last five games he threw one touchdown pass and nine interceptions. That led to them benching him, because believe me, they gave him a, was it 100 million for three years or something like that, and most of it guaranteed. I don't think they really wanted to bail out of him that quick, but performance and the torn Achilles led to that. All right, Cousins this year.
Started 10 games. He was 2 and 8. Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. Yes Jones was 2 and 8 and 8 touchdown 7 interception 63 % and seemed like it just went really bad for him there in New York They ended up I forgot I think he might push to be released So is he any good and that's the thing I have I mean his best year you and I were talking about right before we came on the air was 22
And that got him a nice extension. He started 16 games. went nine, six and one. I believe the Giants made the playoffs. Brian Dable was the coach. I think it got him a new contract. In those 16 games, threw 15 touchdowns, five interceptions. He could run the ball some. He rushed for 708 yards and 17 Ds that year. So would this be the kind of guy that...
would work for Stefanski in his offense. And as you mentioned, a younger guy. I think it's at least a maybe. I know they're looking at him.
David Campbell (41:12.972)
Yeah, I'm very big on this, Terry, but quarterbacks are a function of the people around them. And the Giants have been such a disaster for the last several years. mean, you can see Saquon Barkley playing for the Eagles in a couple of weeks, right? And the team that drafted him, like, is in the, like, there was a lot of dysfunction there, a lot of coaching upheaval, GM uncertainty. It's, it's just, think a guy like Daniel Jones, if you gave him a fresh start in Cleveland.
I think he could be okay. I think it could work out. It's an interesting name that you bring up and yeah.
Terry (41:47.309)
Yeah, it's different rather than, we talked some of our Flacco, lash last week versus, cousins and Flacco actually had a much better year than cousins, least statistically. But if you were to look at, know, Daniel Jones, you know, the possible upside there with him and he, you know, it'd be a one year contract. you know, can he be like Sam Darnold? He finally gets a chance to play and does well. Maybe.
I mean, there's a lot of reclamation projects that have done well, Baker's one. And so was, Jared golf. That's, as you said, a lot of times it is a, it's almost like a restaurant sometimes it's a, it's has to do with the location, location, location, you know, where you are. I'm, you know, I'm not going wild about this, but it's not a guy that I spent much time thinking about till this morning when I was.
putting together what we could talk about. So what we're gonna do and then later on as the draft approaches, I'm not ready to go down that road now, but we'll start, we'll have a segment on each of the possible rookie quarterbacks, the guys in the draft. We'll pick three or four of those guys and spend a few minutes talking about them. I don't know what kind of guy Jones is. Did you hear anything? I mean, this sure sounded like he was pouting and everything else, but I don't know if that's.
his general demeanor or things just went totally haywire this year.
David Campbell (43:18.23)
No, it's a great question, Terry. And I think the Browns, if they're going to bring in Daniel Jones, really need to do their homework and find out what he's like in the locker room. Because more important than whoever they bring in can do on the field is you need somebody to show the young quarterback or quarterbacks how to be a pro, how to prepare, how to watch film, how to do this in the NFL. And Daniel Jones, at what, he's played 70 games in the NFL.
And he started almost all of those. Like he knows the routine. He knows what preparation is. He's so they need to find out if he's going to be a good locker room guy and, able to work with this. So.
Yeah. Would he be, would he be willing to help the younger guy while he's trying to save his own career? That's a, you know, that's a question. I've seen it. Mm hmm. Well, that's why, for example, that's one of the reasons I really liked the Flacco idea. We know what Joe can do. We know that he is a great teammate and we know he can get in there and run Stefanski's offense.
David Campbell (44:03.116)
Yeah, and we've seen that work and we've seen that not work in a lot of different situations. So big question.
Terry (44:22.351)
And we know that he is in one great shape for the age of 40 because at the age of 39, he walks into Cleveland having not played for months. And, Oh, Joe, here you go. Throw 40 passes. Remember that? Your brother. Yeah, of course. You know, Oh, I was on my couch, this and that. And then finally he opened up and admitted he had a personal trainer. He was at the health club between five, 30 and six every morning, like five or six days a week.
This beating his body to stay in shape. And that is hard when you're a veteran player and months go by and that phone doesn't ring. I mean, you really, that takes self-discipline. And that's a story right there. Flacco could tell these guys, you know, he's a living embodiment of that. So that's Daniel Jones. you have any folks, if you got any thoughts on, Any thoughts on, yeah, Daniel Jones. And then maybe quarterbacks you want us to look at too.
David Campbell (45:11.918)
Yeah, I think you have a good idea Terry. Yeah, let's have people write in.
David Campbell (45:20.044)
Yeah, so send in your thoughts on Daniel Jones. Sports at cleveland.com is our email address. should put Terry's talk in the subject line and we'll try and run back some Daniel Jones emails from listeners next week. We do have one, we talked a lot last week about Kirk Cousins last week, Terry, and we did get an email from David Coulter from Georgia, and he says, hey Terry, from a Cleveland fan who lives in the ATL, hell to the no on any thought of pursuing Kirk Cousins. He was awful for the Falcons this past season.
Stefanski let his franchise QB walk away with the Watson deal and now they're fishing in the shallow end of the QB pool so to speak. I'd personally like to see them draft and develop Will Howard. Guy's got amazing skill sets and size and toughness to go along with the package. Please know Kirk Cousins and that's again from David Coulter who says he's a former Eastsider, Euclid Wycliffe alum, Willoughby Hills resident and Ohio U alum. So thanks for that
David Campbell (47:51.576)
All right, Terry, speaking of quarterbacks, I know you've been watching the games and Josh Allen of the Bills after losing to Kansas City the other day reminded you of a Cleveland quarterback. Do you want to kind of explain that? I want hear where you're going with this. It's interesting.
Terry (48:04.813)
Yeah, I just, you know, there's Alan with Alan and Bernie are different style of quarterbacks, obviously, but Bernie Coes are, you know, kept trying to pound on, get that fan base in Cleveland, get them to the super bowl, you know, get through the championship games and, know, it kept running into, you know, to, the Denver and everything there. Well,
All of a sudden, think Josh Allen is in that same situation, a great fan base in Buffalo and keeps running into Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. It's frustrating for them all the way around. But it just kind of struck me to the Marcus or football avid and in another time, another place, they would have been in the Super Bowl. But you ran into two legendary quarterbacks that knocked you off.
David Campbell (49:00.312)
So you think the Josh Allen and Bernie Kozar comparison is in your head. I'm kind of thinking a little bit differently. I'm thinking about Josh Allen and John Elway. And this could go either way. It could go the Bernie Kozar way with the Browns, or it could go the John Elway way, where at the end, Josh Allen and the Bills finally get over the top. mean, they should have won that game a couple years ago when they had the lead with, man.
Less than a minute to go and they just let the chiefs march down the field. And that was just mal coaching malpractice. But we just saw this with Ohio state, Terry, like you can go from the depths of despair to being a champion. In a few small steps. So that's going to be one of the cool narratives to watch in the NFL is like, where does Josh Allen end up in his career more like Bernie or more like John Elway? Cause everybody wrote off John Elway, if you remember that he could never win the big one and everything. So.
Yeah, they did. Then all of sudden, yeah, you can't win the big one, then you can't beat them in a big one. That's where it went. And that's possible. But I just, I really was pulling for Buffalo. I kind of liked the Bills. I have those sort of teams that I pull for. And the Bills are one of them. The Bills, Mafia and all that. Their weather's worse than ours. So that was my thought in that area. Musgrave is an interesting hire.
just because they're keeping everything in house. This clearly is Musgrave and Stefanski go way back to Minnesota or something. Musgrave, I believe, has been an offensive coordinator for something like six different NFL teams. But he's there just as quarterback coach to, they're rebuilding the whole fort of the Stefanski offense with the coaching staff.
David Campbell (50:49.518)
Yeah, and we've seen them do this before where they kind of layer the ages a little bit. And I think Musgrave 57 and Tommy Reese not that old, right? So it's kind of a good, you've got kind of a veteran underneath. It's good stacking as we would call it. So, all right, anything else on the bronze, Terry?
No, I think Plutonio is going to play next year. What about you? Yeah, I did too.
David Campbell (51:10.646)
I do too. Yeah. And, and he has earned his seventh straight pro bowl this week. He's going to join Miles Garrett, Denzel Ward and Jerry Judy down playing dodgeball and whatever else they do down in Orlando for the pro bowl now. and I think he's fourth now all time in most pro bowls on the Browns all time list behind Joe Thomas, had 10, Jim Brown and Lou Groza who both had nine. So that's quite an accomplishment.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we'll do college quarterbacks, all this stuff as time goes on.
David Campbell (51:48.354)
Yes, yeah, and again write us at sports at cleveland.com and let us know your thoughts on Daniel Jones or any other quarterback. So, okay, Terry the Guardians, Stephen Vogt on Monday met with the Beatwriters for some Q &A and there was some interesting stuff in there. He did talk about Paul Seawall, the new reliever they've signed. What did you think of that signing? And I don't know, just kind of the state of the bullpen at this point, I guess is a good place to go here.
Yeah, I actually was the one that asked him about Seawald. I, cause I just realized he had been the bullpen coach in Seattle when Seawald was there in 23. And he mentioned that Seawald could get, you know, pitching high level leverage situations. He's, you know, great with the other, what the other relievers he mentioned, even though Barlow last year kind of faded towards the end, he thought Barlow served a purpose in a young bullpen of helping those guys to be ready.
Reinforcing what the bullpen coach said and that Seawald could do the same, you Seawald had some injuries last year some fans are Worked up about that, but you got to understand the Guardians do business They'll throw a one-year contract at a guy Hoping that he will be able to come back from an injury because he's good before I mean last year if you just didn't touch a guy who was hurt Well, you never would have had Matthew Boyd because you also got Alex Cole who did I mean Alex? Cobb who didn't come through
But this is another situation like that. It's a one year deal. It never bothers me when they do that. And there's pretty good upside with it with almost zero downside. So that was where he was on that. The other thing he just said in passing to me there, I forgot you asked about managing and what you didn't know. And then he just goes, I love this job. I love managing this team. And we were talking about small market.
big market and he said, I've spent most of my life in small market, Tampa Bay, Oakland, or two places. And I know he was also in Seattle. think he played in Seattle, but there was somewhere else too. And he just said he likes the kind of scrappy underdog mode and, you know, recreating the team. He's, he's very poised. He and I chatted on the way out and he mentioned during the press conference about, you know, New York.
the New York media and that. He goes, they don't really ask questions. They just kind of shout things out. I said, well, actually some of our guys do too. And one of the things I tell younger reporters and that when you're actually ask a question, even as if you can elaborate on why you signed Seawall, you know, like that was one of mine, but something don't just like throw out some harsh statement and like comment on that.
Yeah. Well, it's like a stock, the old stock market pit where you got a bunch of guys holding the pens and paper yelling over each other in New York. So yeah. And the, uh, the Seawall deal is a, it's one year, but it also has a mutual option for 2026. think. Yeah.
which rarely, I don't know when was the last time I've ever seen a mutual option get picked.
David Campbell (54:58.446)
So we'll see on that, again, Guardians hoping, I think he was 11 for 11 on saves before he got hurt last year, and that's what the Guardians have seen.
Terry (55:04.395)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, he had a neck injury and something else. I forgot what it was. So we'll see. He's 34.
David Campbell (55:12.488)
Alright, alright Terry, let's see, I know you have a book of the week you want to mention here before we wrap up and it's not something new, it's something you went back and found.
Terry (55:17.709)
Yeah, it's one. No, it's something you probably, I'm not a huge John Grisham fan, but I've written most of his novels, but I picked this one up for a dollar at a library sale at the Fairloon library. cause I realized I didn't even know it was called the racketeer. And, what happened there was, why I like when Grisham's at his best, when he kind of takes you places that you normally don't go. For example, you want to think King of the Torts.
And you see always those things on TV where, you know, did you have round up weed killer, you know, call this number or were you at Camp Lejeune and the whole thing and how they do these tort cases and everything else. But this case that in the racketeer, it's about a guy who went into the witness protection program and how that works. so that was pretty cool. And the FBI and they're almost done with it. You know, Grisham's a really good storyteller.
And I remember one person said to me about this while I was younger. So, you know, if I had time, I could probably write those things like John Grisham. said, no, you couldn't. I said, first of all, if you wanted to, Grisham wrote his first couple of novels while he was still a small town lawyer. He got up at four in the morning and wrote them. Secondly, he makes it looks easy, but it's very hard. And as someone who's tried to write some novels as in me, and it's getting a...
A plot that moves and is interesting but not wildly off the wall is very difficult to do. And yeah, yeah, like I basically what I discovered is I'm like a guy you give me a picture like with the drawing on it and I could color within the lines and make it kind of there. But in terms of here's a blank page just create
create a novel I really struggled. I really struggled with that.
David Campbell (57:17.4)
Yeah, the great ones make it look easy, just like sports, don't they? Yeah. Okay, so I promised at the end, we have a quick thing we can get to here. We got a couple minutes. We have an email here from Max and Max says, hey, Dave and Terry, I've been listening to you. I've been listening to y'all since you started. It's become part of my Wednesday morning routine. I love the nuanced and thoughtful perspective you bring to Cleveland sports. Thanks.
Okay, hear me out. Given the changes in college football over the last few years, what do you think about taking a page out of our neighbors across the pond, their book, and implementing a relegation system? Put all the teams into conferences based not on geography, but on how good they are, which is already happening, and then install a promotion demotion system where winners of conferences can advance to upper ones and losers fall into lower ones. I appreciate that the powers that be and their money would probably be aghast and fight this tooth and nail.
But wouldn't it make it more fun for the fans? What are your thoughts? All the best, Max. Thanks for the kind words, Max. Yeah.
Terry (58:17.243)
I suppose it would, but whatever your, know, what if Auburn has a couple bad years and then it can't play in the same conference as Alabama? See, those are the kind of, those are things that would probably come into play. I don't know. Actually, it's more deserving for the pros than this because as you mentioned, it's almost like happening on its own. I am more concerned with just how the mid-majors are just gonna get wiped out.
Like we mentioned, I wrote about, you know, Cleveland State having to shut down three sports and that's just the start of what's gonna happen across that whole landscape.
David Campbell (58:59.662)
Yeah. And the thing about the big 10 that the big 10 loves is they love being big 10 schools, right? Like there's the academic part of it and the big 10 network. When it started, they wanted to make sure the mission of the each team was rep of each university was represented and here's research and it's a, it's a thing and they don't want it to be a sports league. They want it to be a group of schools that have common interests, common academics that have a common mission. So I liked the idea, max. I think maybe something like that could work with the mid-majors. I don't know.
All right, so Max's idea, European soccer, like it's kind of sad because only 10 teams can win the Premier League every year and all the other teams have no chance because of the money. But Max has me thinking, and I wanted to get your thoughts on this because I know you've covered a lot of mid-major basketball.
Remember the old ESPN bracket busters event, you know, 10 years ago where they used to help try and help mid major teams make the NCAA tournament. They would have Kent State play St. Mary's or, you know, I'm saying where they would match up teams. I'm wondering if some kind of a relegation thing could work for mid major basketball where you kind of look at how each team is going to be every year and
Football is really hard because the schedules are done so far ahead of time, but I'm wondering if some kind of a thing in basketball where they could take Max's idea and use that to group like the best mid-major teams in one conference for a season and then like you move up or down. I don't know. What do you think of it? Could something like that work or is it too weird?
Terry (01:11.35)
Either that or, well, of course they have sort of the NIT thing, you know, that it's supposed to be if you didn't make it, get into there. But, you know, there's that poll, mid-major top 25, that's out. Even though it's fun to watch the mid-majors, they'll knock off somebody in the first round or second round, rarely do they get to the final four.
So we'd be talking about taking like, you know, I don't know, I don't want to keep pulling St. Mary's, but like you take the top three teams in the Mac and the top three teams in the West Coast Conference, although Gonzaga would want to be its own thing. But you know what saying? You kind of go around the country and take the top two or three teams and you make a league out of that because basketball travel is a lot easier. I don't know. It's an interesting idea that Mac springs up. just, football would be very hard to do. And it's like Mac says, it's kind of devolved into that as it is with the haves and the have nots, but I don't know.
Yeah, or else it just somehow, they get their own tournament. Because really right now, I think the last time the Mac had a,
guy that gets in the tournament that didn't win the Mac tournament was I believe like something like 1999. And it might have been when Wally Zurbjack was at Miami. That sort of sticks in my head. Yeah, but that... Right, but what I meant is they got into the tournament to begin with without having won the conference tournament. Yeah, because see that's the tough thing. You can go 18 and 0 in the conference.
David Campbell (02:37.199)
They made the Elite Eight. And there were a couple of Kent State teams that made the Sweet 16 or the Elite Eight somewhere in there too.
get knocked off in the second round. You're not going. They're not taking you. They haven't done it. The last Horizon League team, I believe to make it that didn't win the tournament was Butler in 2009 when Cleveland State knocked off Butler in the conference tournament finals. And Butler was like only lost three or four games that year. And they went to the tournament also.
I'm just using the two conferences that are nearby that I've paid attention to. I don't know. just...
I've always liked the fact that you would get rewarded some for the regular season. I think they've even pulled the rug out of like, can go to, for a while there was a rule that if you won your conference but didn't go to, but didn't win your conference tournament, you get an automatic bid to the NIT. I think that's even gone. I'm not positive on that, but pretty sure.
David Campbell (03:54.575)
All right, well, thanks for that, Max. And we appreciate the idea. It's something to think about. don't know if basketball would be a better fit or not, but yeah, there's a lot of people that propose relegation when they watch their baseball team or their basketball team be bad for a long time. So we should spend a couple of minutes talking about Cleveland State's basketball team. Terry, you wrote about the Cleveland State men today, a 12 game winning streak, which is one of the longest in the country. And talk about the culture they have there and why it's working while we have a couple of minutes.
And this has been a big surprise to me because when Daniel Robinson took over as head coach, he brought with him Tristan Inaruna, who had began his career at Kansas and then later played at Iowa State. So this was a guy who was a big time top 100 recruit at one point. a lot of time, and he was also like a really smart guy. In fact, he basically went to grad school a couple of years at Cleveland State.
And he came in and said, you kind of had a guy that thought there was going to be a star in the horizon league. And he was. So that was something to build around, but Anna Runa graduated and he had brought in another junior college player named Tay Williams. Who's also like Anna Runa. Both of them are playing in the NBA G league. So they lost like 70 % of their scoring, but it isn't as if I was looking at who he was signing that he brought in somebody and he'd go, boy. you know, what now?
They're have this guy come in from Ohio State or come now they basically have some junior college kids and a couple of lesser transfers and And two freshmen and it's turned around and they have the second longest winning streak in the country for among division one schools right now active I mean this is You know Daniel Robinson stresses to me. We don't run a boot camp here or whatever
But I'll you, he's strict. mean, have practices started at eight. You show up at the gym at eight in the morning. You have breakfast. They have kind of a meeting time. Then they practice in the middle of the morning. Afterwards, they go and lift weights. And then afternoon is when you take your classes, done with the classes early at late afternoon, their study hall and maybe a team meeting. Then they have the team dinner and then, you know, you're free the rest of the night. And I said, well, what do you do? They goes one is he gets everybody up, get them going.
And then routine, okay, you we get up, we have breakfast, we practice, we go to class. Then you come back and you can eat again. you work on guys that need study hall work, work in a study hall. And, he says, hopefully they go to bed at least somewhat early. That's the plan. And you know, they've had really strong academics that are going back to when, well, first of all, Gary, Gary Waters had great academics when he was there for 11 years. And then it fell apart when the, Dennis Felton took over.
Terry (06:50.53)
And then it got back on track by talking like, you know, graduation rates in the high 80 % and that kind of stuff. and then it, it, took over, it came back with Dennis Gates took over and now Daniel Robinson. So this year they got their GPA up to a 3.4 and you could say, well, we're in a great inflated age and that, that's true. But the last year of Dennis Felton before, it switched over to Dennis Gates.
I think the GPA was 2.2. It was bad. They had problems. So if you don't keep an eye on it and set things up, these kids are not gonna do as well. Then on top of that, you have to keep your locker clean, David. No throwing your shoes around, no socks on the floor, we line stuff upright, how you do little things as a big thing and how you do big things. And also I really believe Danielle feels that...
part of his job is to prepare these young men for the land of work. You know, most of them are not going to play pro basketball. They're going to have to go get jobs or they're going to be come teachers or whatever they're going to do. Yeah. Going to business. And that means you got to, know, you got to be on time. You got to do things a certain way and they are required to do that. I mean, they chant, we play hard. That's one of their chances. Other line is no excuses. And, and by he
By that he means that when you're late, you're late. You just say it, that kind of stuff. So he's got a culture there. The kids clearly like him. And I think he communicates with him. If you look at him, he's six foot six. He's a big guy. He looks like a former power forward in the mid-majors. And that's what he was at Arkansas Little Rock.
And he coached for 22 years in six different schools before Scott Garrett hired him. And he came in and he won 21 games the last two years. And right now they're 10 and one in the horizon. don't know, 15 and six or something like that overall. They play Fort Wayne Thursday night on ESPNU at nine o'clock. So that could be kind of fun to watch. Fort Wayne's in second place in the horizon.
David Campbell (09:07.023)
Yeah, Cleveland State's 10-1, and Fort Wayne is 8-3, so they're tied for second place. That'll be on Thursday night. So it's a two-game road swing for Cleveland State. They play at Northern Kentucky next Wednesday, February 5th. So that'll be a tough game at Purdue-Fort Wayne to keep that win streak going. But I love this little detail, If they don't keep the locker room clean, push-ups, right? The whole team does push-ups.
Terry (09:29.482)
Everybody, yeah. So they have a couple of the seniors, think Dylan Arnett and Breida Buday and a few others, they are policing the place to make sure everybody did their part. Another interesting part of the story there is Daniel Robinson's son, Reese Robinson, played at St. Ignatius, good player there, was playing for his dad and how the assistant coaches had to force Danielle to put the
He's a power forward also, by the way. Will you put your kid in the starting lineup already? You know, he's rebounds, he's tough, he's kind of what they want to all be about. And finally they did and he was Horizon League Player of the Week. He's got a chance to be very good in that conference.
David Campbell (10:19.107)
Yeah, and the push-up thing, it's right out of your Eric Mangini school of no pre-snap penalties on the CSU Vikings basketball team.
Right, yeah, sort of there, you know, the old line you get which is stress. And they stress the right stuff and, you know, they have not had, maybe they've had some off-court problems, but man, I haven't heard about any of those for years. And I do know that all nine of the seniors that Robinson had have graduated. So that's, you you've got to do it in two parts. In other words, you know what we're talking about? College sports.
We're not talking about NIL, we're talking about graduation rates and we're talking about academics and we're talking about this kind of stuff, know, prepare for something else and talking about really good basketball to watch. mean, they're number one in steals, the number one enforcing turnovers. They're number one in fewest points allowed and they're number two in opponents free throw field goal percentage. They don't play real pretty basketball. They just win.
David Campbell (11:25.699)
And I know you've been over there with Roberta to watch some of the games. The next home game is February 8th at three o'clock against Milwaukee. I think that's a women men's double header if I remember, but February 8t