The Coogs beat Duke in the Final Four. The Rockets beat the Oklahoma City Thunder and Golden State Warriors. The Astros handled business on the road against the Minnesota Twins. It was a good weekend in Houston sports.
Payne and Pendergast discuss it here.
Payne and Pendergast discuss it here.
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SportsTranscript
00:00All right, we got a lot to get into here in headlines because it was a good weekend for
00:04Houstonians. Let's start with the Cougs and the win on Saturday night, an historic win
00:0970 to 67 over the Duke Blue Devils. Here are the various times that the Cougs were trailing
00:19by certain amounts in this game. Duke led by 14 with eight minutes and three seconds
00:23left in the game. At that point, there was a 98.5% chance that Duke was going to win
00:28that game. According to the wind probability charts, Duke led by nine with a little over
00:33two minutes to go. They led by three with 25 seconds left. They led by one with 19 seconds
00:42left. They led by negative three when the buzzer sounded at the end, 70 to 67, the final
00:48score and Seth, the fact that there's so many things to dig into that Juwan Roberts is the
00:52one knocking down those free throws a one in one, by the way, like that he knocked down
00:57the two free throws after he got, he got fouled by Cooper flag. Cooper flag went over
01:01the back marginal call, but we'll take it. Duke gets plenty of calls. They can't complain
01:05about anything. And he was like, he went over the back. Do you call it? Don't call it whatever
01:09it was. It scores some damn points. Okay. You want to really complain. And I've seen
01:13to their credit. I've seen a lot of Duke fans say like, all right, people like settle the
01:18hell down. All right, we don't get every call and you got to score some points. 63% free
01:23throw shooter calmly steps to the line and just drains them both. No, no hit the front
01:29rim, hit the backboard, rolls it like he knocked them both down. And it was, it was everything
01:34that you would hope in terms of just Juwan Roberts in the second half being left alone
01:39with Cooper flag. And you don't have to shut them down. Cooper flag still scores 27 points
01:44on the night, but he did it inefficiently. And the final shot Cooper flag gets it. And
01:50it's not an easy shot because Juwan Roberts has his hands up and, and, and Cooper flag's
01:55got a history of kind of shrinking in the last final moments of some of these close
02:00games with Duke. And that's what he did in this one. Yeah. It was great because there
02:05were, there were like the mistakes that were being made by Duke were across the board,
02:11you know, can Nipple getting that layup blocked by, by Jojo Tugler with under a minute to
02:17Cooper flag, not being able to do anything down the stretch in that game. Procter dribbling
02:21a ball off his leg to turn the ball over, like to help keep the Cougs in the game. And
02:26on the flip side, you had LJ Cryer who will get acknowledged at seven 20 today. Cause
02:31his, it was his shooting efforts when this game was kind of out of hand, that kind of
02:35kept the Cougs within shouting distance. He was six of nine from three point land in this
02:40game, Emmanuel sharps, three pointer with, with under 30 with about 30 seconds left to
02:45cut it to three and not, not just that was sharp. I mean, sharp had some strong takes
02:49to the hole down the stretch. Emmanuel sharp is a tough kid. Tugler's block shot. Juwan
02:53Roberts knocking down the free throws. Like everybody was in on the act with this game.
02:58And then the, I mean the three threes that they hit at the end of the first half, that's,
03:05that was a vital, vital life. Like that kept them afloat at the very least. Well, that's
03:09the thing. Kelvin Sampson said after the game is, you know, I think somebody, whatever interview
03:13I can't remember, it was the press conference or Tracy Wolfson or whoever, but somebody
03:17asked him like, what was the mood in the locker room at halftime? He said, the mood in the
03:19locker room was like, we played like crap and we're down six to Duke, you know? Yeah.
03:24So they were upbeat about their chances going into the second half. And it was, you know,
03:28we talked about it last week that for them to win the game, it'd probably have to be
03:32a game that was in the sixties and it was, it wasn't that game for the first, you know,
03:39until the final several minutes, it was a game that was going to be played in the seventies
03:42and ultimately it ends up, you know, one foot in one foot out there, but very good.
03:47They, they played their game extremely well and made Duke look like a team that had never
03:51seen a press before. That's right. That's right. They were like, Hey, what's this? Is
03:55this legal? Yeah. Is this a torpedo bat? Speaking of which running basketball, this is full
04:03court press. What's up with all these athletes out here playing aggressively in the final
04:07minutes of a game where Duke that's right. The Astros yesterday, we haven't talked about
04:13the Strohs yet. We'll get to them as well in the seven o'clock hour and in acknowledge
04:16me, but huge comeback win over the twins. There's some good and some bad to get to from
04:21the Astros this weekend. We'll start with the good, this, the big question, Seth, will
04:27that your Don Alvarez home run be the enema that unclogs his hitting efforts right now?
04:33You know, like, is this, we've, we've seen that with we've, we've seen that. I know it's
04:37a graphic and I wish he hadn't put it that way. Sorry about that. Will this be the Drano
04:42that unclogs the sink that is your Don Alvarez? But he, he hits the home run first pitch ninth
04:49inning to tie the game up yesterday at seven to run Homer. I mean, and he, it was a classic
04:54your Don Homer, like second deck first pitch. You knew it as you knew it from the sound
05:00with which it hit the bat, that that thing was gone. And this is what we typically see
05:03with your Don. When he gets in one of these mini slumps, he hits a home run and then it's
05:07like, okay, that's the warning label for the rest of the league is we're, we're about to
05:11see some, we're about to see some classic your Don and they, they need that, right?
05:15That they're four and five right now. And they're getting such a horrible offensive
05:19performance from so many people. I feel like the, I feel okay. Okay. About where the Astros
05:25are right now. You're done. This is where with your Don there's, there's almost, I would
05:31say there's zero chance that he's going to be, you know, as bad as he's been over the
05:34first couple of weeks. When I was nerding up and going on baseball, Savant and looking
05:41at his, his ex Woburn and all that, this is the worst stretch he's had in his career in
05:46terms of extended, really bad play. So was that the moment where he turns it around?
05:52Perhaps I'm just not overly concerned about him. I think the thing that I was most excited
05:56about this weekend was to see parade ACE and to see Rogers, Brendan Rogers, really get
06:03it going and to see L2, they continue to do what he's been doing. He's been hitting very
06:08well. He had his first official error on Saturday and it was a bad one. And yet the, like the,
06:17the vast majority of playing in the outfield has been good with L2, tracking the ball.
06:23Some of the plays he's made in the gap, all of that has been very good. The one simple
06:27thing that he's having a hard time doing is taking his ball out of the glove. And in his
06:31transition to throwing that big glove and some of the unfamiliarity of having to hurry
06:36throws in critical situations, or sometimes even on Saturday, it didn't need to be a critical
06:42situation.
06:43He's trying to take the ball out of his glove to throw to third for a play that he wasn't
06:46going to make. And he drops it and you end up scoring a run. But by and large, he's been
06:50pretty good. That's his first official error. I think there was one that could have been
06:54chalked up an error in the giant series, but still I'm, I'm feeling okay with it, especially
06:59cause he's hitting well. Like so far the experiments working out. All right. If what you're trying
07:03to do is take a load off L2 Bay and allow him to still hit, then there you go.
07:08Yeah. If he's going to hit three 40 or whatever he's hitting right now, then yeah, you got
07:11to find a way to keep him in the lineup. The one scary one. Okay. Yeah. And then we
07:16got to get there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there were two, two scary things with L2 Bay yesterday.
07:22The first one was the ball that he looked like he was losing in the sun. Yeah. And it
07:26hit, thank God he had a big glove on. Cause it hit like the last two fingers of the finger
07:31part of the glove and just landed in his mitt. Like that was, that was very fortunate. It
07:36was, that was dicey all this entire series. There are so many high pop-ups and fly balls
07:42where guys are having a hard time managing the sun. What the hell was he doing? An extra,
07:46an extra innings. So on the extra innings, let me, let me paint a picture for everybody.
07:52Paredes is up. The Astros have a two run lead and a Paredes who's four for five on the day.
07:59You got L2 Bay at second, nobody on first, right? No real reason whatsoever for L2 Bay
08:05to try to steal. And yet attempt to steal, he did. It was thrown out easily. Well, the
08:12only thing I could think of, there was one out at the time and maybe he's trying to get
08:16to, if he gets to third, then a fly ball brings you home. That kind of thing. You just smoke
08:19them if you got them. But, but, but your, but your first point was a good one, Seth,
08:23which is this guy's four for five. Let Paredes, you know, let, and you got Jordan coming up
08:27after him. Don't get it out. Like the worst. And they're hitting this reliever. They're,
08:32they're crushing this reliever in this inning. So would you rather just have two cracks at
08:36L2 Bay coming home from second with the two hottest hitters in the lineup? Cause I'll
08:41remind you that your Don's at bat before the home run, he hit a line drive to left field
08:46that Bader had to make a diving catch on, or else that would have been a two RBI or
08:50at least a one RBI hit. And so you've got your two, you know, you got your two best
08:57hit a coming up with, with you on second, but the better option was to try to steal
09:03third before the pitcher even made a move to home plate.
09:06I, the thing is where I give him a little bit of a pass is the aggressive base running
09:10paid off for him earlier. He tagged up from third on a play that was a super, super aggressive
09:15play and it worked out for him by the skin of his teeth. And I, I think it emboldened
09:20him just a little too much. Win some, lose some. Yeah. He's also his, you know, going
09:26on the nerd site on baseball, Savant, he's running a slower than he has in a long time.
09:32I'll do that. Yeah. His actual sprint speed so far this year, he's showing his age. He
09:39just looked kind of rough this entire series. His, his hair was always disheveled. He just
09:45looked at, he's always got a five o'clock shadow, but it looks almost like a, just like
09:49a haggard five o'clock shadow and that he's wearing shades all the time now cause he's
09:53in the outfield. I think that adds to it as well. Now that you mentioned it, uh, all
10:01right. Headlines real quick. We, we dug deep into the Rockets in the previous segment.
10:04If you want to listen, we've got the rewind feature for you. They beat two good teams
10:07over the weekend. They beat the best team in the West by 13 at home on Friday. They
10:11beat the hated warriors who could may or may not be a playoff opponent. We'll see the wet
10:15wall to touch on that. The Western conference playoff picture beneath the Rockets is super
10:20intriguing this last week of games coming up here and it matters to the Rockets. We
10:25will, we'll get to that a little later in the show. Um, but they beat the warriors last
10:29night, one Oh six to 90. So NFL stuff we'll get to a little later. Colorado's pro day
10:34was this weekend. A lot of people talking about Travis now might have a sure fireplace.
10:40He's on his way to in Cleveland. They're talking about that. And last thing, Seth, the favorite
10:45for the chargers opponent in Brazil in the opening weekend of the season is Kansas city
10:50chiefs. I know I wanted you, I wanted you and I to make that road trip to Sao Paulo.
10:55I'm stopping. I'm not brushing up my Portuguese until no, I find out for sure. Yup. That'll
11:00be scheduled to coming out soon, man. What's today, April 7th, like a month from now, we're
11:04going to find out the schedule. It's flying by. There's teams that are starting their
11:07off season workout program today. If you have a new head coach, you can start your off season
11:12workout program a week ahead of time. This off season just flew by man, a draft coming
11:17up two weeks from Thursday. So we got that as well. All right. Those are your headlines
11:20for today.