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Chapter 1: What insights do Maggie and Jack share about their experiences covering UK Basketball?
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Chapter 2: What are the highlights from Maggie's interview with assistant coach Mikael McLean?
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This is Kentucky Sports Radio presented by Stockton Mortgage and the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety Safe Summer Driving Tour. Now, here's Matt Jones.
Welcome back into the show. Still not Matt Jones, but I'm Maggie Davis hanging out with you for another hour today alongside my good buddy Jack Pilgrim, two people who used to just be little baby interns covering the Wildcats. We can share a little intern scoop here, can't we? Sure. Sure. Well, mainly I just want to say, like, we used to only work on Sundays.
What a life we lived.
That was the old, I don't know how you all do it now, but when I was an intern, like you said, we got hired in 2016. We only worked on Sundays. We'd get like a shift. We had like four hours where we had to fill, you know, enough time and be available if anything crazy happened and work with everybody and make sure stuff was getting covered. But then we'd pretty much log off for the week.
And I don't think we enjoy that enough anymore.
Yeah, now I work Sundays and every other day of the week.
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Chapter 3: How does the new athletics director's contract impact Kentucky sports?
I wouldn't have it any other way. I didn't cover the basketball team my first three years with KSR. So I got started, like I said, doing just the Sunday shift. I lived on campus, so I volunteered to start going to some women's basketball stuff because I could walk to Memorial. And everybody knows it's a pain to park at Memorial Coliseum.
So I think everyone was just happy they wouldn't have to drive over. They could just let baby intern Maggie walk over from my dorm or my sorority house. So that's how I got my start covering the women's team for a year or two during the Matthew Mitchell era. Then I added football the next year, and then I added men's basketball my junior year. I guess that would have been your senior year.
Yes, you're older than me. Just want to make sure everybody knows that.
Yep. Remember the Coach Cal Fantasy Camp when we were the media ā
you know back when the that relationship was just awesome and fun and everybody was fun everybody loved it we also didn't know anything and we covered uh the 50 year old men playing fantasy league and we and we had to write like post-game articles of of how they played and stuff yes he'd go two for 15 from the field and ends with one point and four fouls he pulled his hamstring and broke his back and unfortunately he is out forever um but it
It was a great experience, and we got to write a bunch of game articles in a time of our life where we weren't actually old or experienced enough to cover any games. Now we get to be around these guys, and so this is my segue into the fact that I was lucky enough to sit down with assistant coach Mikael McLean yesterday.
He was kind enough to give me about 20 minutes talking all things Kentucky basketball. Can't play that whole thing for you, but I got about seven minutes. First, we're going to talk about his new job with the Bahamas national team, and then we're going to go ā and get into this year's team. We'll get Jack's take on all the scoop after this, but here we go. Here it is.
Mikkel McLean talking Bahamas.
For anyone that might not know, born and raised in Nassau, Bahamas. Moved to Houston, Texas when I was 14. Played for the junior national team growing up. And it's just something that, you know, I always wanted to play for the senior national team, but I had a lot of injuries throughout my college career.
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Chapter 4: What are the expectations for the upcoming basketball season?
So that's the plan.
Can I talk about this year's team a little bit? Let's do it. Because we're, what, about a weekend?
We're about a weekend. Yeah, we're about a weekend. Guys moved in last Saturday. It was just really cool, you know, for people that don't understand. Like, a lot of these kids might not even take an official visit, so we're doing everything through Zoom calls, FaceTime, phone calls.
We might get to fly out and see them, but just getting to see the joy on the kids and the families' faces moving their kids and, like, you know...
outside perspective they don't understand they're still kids at the end of the day the parents are still really emotional dropping them off like it's the first day even though it might not be their first day of college but getting dropped off to kentucky is different than anywhere else so it's just been it's been really joyful experience with these guys we've got a really fun group you guys a good chance to see
Yeah. For guys who get here and they didn't get the chance to take an official visit, they haven't seen campus or anything like that yet. What's your favorite part of the tour or favorite part of town to show these guys and see their reaction to?
So like everybody took an official visit, but like they're like one day visits, like half day visits, like a day and a half. So like they don't really get to see everything. But like when they actually come in, like. We walk them through the gym. We walk them through everything.
When they actually get their first workout in Joe Craft Center in the weight room on the court, when they get to go and rub for the first time, not as like a visitor, but like this is my home, like that enough is like everything. And the thing that everyone's been blowing away was all the great food options, you know, in Lexington.
A lot of good food options for sure. Now, I know you get to know these guys really well during the recruiting process. Like you're pounding the pavement, you're making phone calls, all that stuff. but to actually get them all on campus and see them all, not just playing even, but even just interacting with each other. Has anything surprised you about any of these guys? The chemistry.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do the hosts face while covering sports news?
He's humble enough to accept who he is as a person, and he gasses and encourages everybody to be the best version of themselves, and that's how he gets the best version of himself. So, you know, just the way he does it, the way he brings guys together off the court, the way they do stuff like that's just kind of like just in a short time of knowing him in person.
That's the evaluation we got beforehand. But it's real. He does a he does a really good job. Him and Malachi are connectors for sure.
You talk about the shooting. 30 is a number that got thrown out in Pope's first year. He got closer to it in year one. Year two, a little step back. Is 30 still a number this staff has circled?
I would be, if it didn't happen this year, I'd be really surprised. I mean, just, I don't want to give too much information, but like just our last two practices, like the way we kind of moved the ball and the way the floor space, we got so many guys that can make a three. So you have to guard everybody outside of the paint.
And, I mean, I want to say we got seven or eight guys that you have to guard. Like, you can't not guard them. And just to have that impact, it allows Malachi to do what he does as a passer, Zoom, Reese, all of our guys that are like Alex Wilkins. That's a really good shooter as well. Like, we got so many different guys that are creators.
That's kind of what we tried to build our roster with creators. And Coach Pope and our staff did a really good job of it.
How does Milan fit into that?
I mean, don't get me started on him. I mean, he's an unbelievable shooter. It's like he came in and we're like, OK, teach us what you do. Like, we're not going to tell you how to run your workouts and all this stuff. Like, let's learn from you. Let's figure out where we can tweak it. So we kind of we're not tweaking anything because he's the best shooter in America. Right. But.
We have so many different guys that are just hard workers with him being one of them at the top of the chart. So to have that many guys that are gym rats that they're dragging each other in there, they're leaving together, they're coming back three, four times on their own outside of practice is like, dang, it's contagious, you know? So I don't want to give too much on V-Line.
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Chapter 6: What are the hosts' favorite SEC road trip experiences?
That's an unbelievable question, Maggie. I think by the end of the summer, we want to be able to impact both sides of the ball with our length. We feel as though our length, our wingspan, our length, our height is our strength this year.
So finding a way to use that to impact both ends of the ball, whether that's defensively with deflections, contesting shots, offensively wedge rebounding, getting offensive rebounds, making extra plays for teammates like I think by the end of the summer, figuring out a way to utilize everything that we have lengthwise is probably our biggest priority.
I know Malachi took big, huge steps in that department through SEC play especially, and he's fired up for another year. What excites you about sophomore Malachi?
I think he has a different swagger and a demeanor like last year he was fitting I think he was just trying to fit in and I think this year he's planning to stand out he's emerged as a leader he wanted to be a leader last year he picked his spots where he could be a leader but like he knows he's a leader so when you know you're a leader it's like being like you know your first year on varsity in high school versus your senior year like you just have a different confidence that
I know everything that we do already. It's my, it's in my world and my favorite to kind of handle it. Do I want to handle it? And he's going to take a big leap because he's just that much more confident. He knows everything we do on both sides of the floor. He knows his personnel and he has a lot more space to operate the way he wants to. So it'd be great.
If you could tell BBN one thing that they don't know yet about this team, what should they know?
You got some good questions. Let me let me let me let me think that one, too. I think BBN thinks they know how good Braden Hawthorne and Cam Williams are. But I mean, like, it's just the way we're playing this year with kind of where we built the roster. Both of those guys, especially Braden, I think they're going to take the country by storm.
And no one really understands how good Reese Potter is as a playmaker and as a three-point shooter, but he's put on 25 pounds since he got there. He's like 242 today. And he's someone, along with Frank, that will really help us in the front line.
Oh, I'm excited to meet Frank. His story is awesome.
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Chapter 7: How do the hosts feel about the current state of UK Basketball recruiting?
Yeah, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? I know a lot of people have talked about this, but I found it a little surprising that the big takeaway at the end that he thought might surprise Big Blue Nation is Braden Hawthorne, a name that keeps coming up as someone who might surprise us this year. What are your expectations? Because I'm having trouble picturing it.
I think that is one where he is just a piece of clay. He was a late bloomer in high school. He finishes a top 40 recruit, but real thin and needs some serious, serious strength and conditioning work before you see those flashes where you go, that guy has theā¦
tools to be a legitimate superstar at some point but is he going to be ready to do it this year you know the intel i've gotten on my end is that he's still a work in progress and it's you know a couple of first days of practice it's still you know he's still looking rusty still looking like the project guy that uh he kind of was this past season when he'd spent a lot of team on on you know time on the scout team you know he spent a lot of time he was the uh the caleb wilson scout whenever you know hey we're going up against this freak of nature lottery pick
Pretend to be him. You go act like him, and we have to guard you. So he's been kind of the unique specialty guy up to this point, but when is he going to be ready to take that leap to actual production? I don't know how early it's going to be. It's going to happen at some point, but still in wait-and-see mode with Braden Hawthorne.
Yeah, and along those lines, the other guy that Coach McLean brought up there at the end was Cam Williams, someone who I think almost gets lost a little bit because we talk so much about Malachi coming back and then all these new pieces.
Well, I think Cam is a big returner, and sometimes the best addition is retention, and getting him for another year to develop in the SEC and at this level playing at this caliber I think could be huge, even on the defensive end. We talk a lot about shooting. He was a great defender for Kentucky down the stretch. Post-injury.
And pre-injury, he was just starting to put it all together. He struggled to start his Kentucky career and kind of worked his way in and out of the rotation. And you could just see it start to finally come together for him. And then he breaks his foot. It's just like, dang it, man. He was so close. He comes back. What a warrior to come back when he did. And, you know.
probably sacrificed some, some, he's in a boot right now and they're holding him out of practice because he made the decision to return too soon to try to compete and win a championship with his teammates. Like that's an admirable thing.
That was probably a, you know, a setback in the short term before, you know, being totally at a hundred percent this upcoming season, but there's so much to like about him. And again, he's a toolsy guy. There's, there's, you know, there's, there's a gem in there somewhere that we haven't seen quite yet, but again, We've at least seen it with our own two eyes.
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Chapter 8: What final thoughts do Maggie and Jack share before wrapping up the episode?
We've got to get a lot in. We've still got to wrap up some stuff. We've got to talk this J-BAT contract. Kentucky's new athletics director in town and making some good money. We're going to talk our favorite road trips. And, of course, take your calls, 859-280-2287. Got to hit a quick break. We'll be right back after this. Welcome back into Kentucky sports radio.
So happy to be back with you today. Switching gears. We did a T-swift in the first hour. We're doing my other faves in the second hour. It's the killers sitting alongside Jack Pilgrim. You know, I've been killers die hard since day one.
It reminds me of college with the good old days.
Jaden, you got something else for us?
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Thanks, Shannon. I'm going to actually go back to you. Do we have a call? Do we have Miss Peggy on the line?
Yes, we do. Peggy has been patiently waiting, so Peggy's on.
Oh, Peggy, thanks for waiting on us. Sorry we made you wait. How are you today?
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