- 2 days ago
Gopowercat.com's Tim Fitzgerald drops in to discuss the anticipation the off season brings and his TBT outlook.
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00:00on kfh
00:04and now digging deeper with the teams you follow it's another sports daily insider interview on
00:11kfh and that insider is publisher go powercat.com at life of fits on x tim fitzgerald our k-state
00:19insider fits how are you this morning i am hold on i'm good you're good that what are you doing
00:26july 16th now media days behind us we're we're over here talking about hot dog eating contests
00:34yep grammar yeah um that ain't bad it's an adventure this time of year i know i feel you i
00:42feel you um
00:44i picked a good time to start going undergoing some more treatments so that i can make my guys
00:49try to come up with stuff to do because i'm busy that was pretty sneaky timing of you
00:56oh i need more trouble we can do uh you know we could do like mid-july
01:01you know for me this is the worst part of the off-season because it's like the dinner is cooking
01:10and it smells delicious and you're optimistic that it's going to taste delicious
01:17but it's not ready you can't have it yet and you just got to suffer until it's time
01:22that's my fat man metaphor for mid-july uh fitz let's start here why not uh wichita
01:30got march madness did you see that headline yeah opening the expanded opening round and it has come
01:36with the discussion the debate across the entire city is it is it better to have it the expanded
01:43play in every year or have a round of 64 every five or six years what's your take
01:49well i i find it intriguing i've made fun of dayton quite a bit um because you know what a
01:57what an
01:58honor to go to dayton uh because you got in the field but uh wichita would be far more desirable
02:04at least in my midwest eyes than dayton i think it's better to have this to be honest it gives
02:10you
02:10a little something every year a little feel you're going to be included in the bracket but here's the
02:17thing if you're wichita not as a sports fan but if you're marketing wichita your name's going to be
02:24associated with the tournament every year yeah and there's only one other town that can say that
02:31and you're better than that town so you win yeah i i i'm man i'm so 50 50 on this
02:38i really am like
02:40it's hard because like the magnitude of 64 and 32 and the way wichita's nailed it the two times
02:46recently that they've had it it's hard to say anything is going to be better than that this
02:51opening round is not going to be better than that but it's going to be here every year right i
02:56can't
02:57i can't make the call it's exciting either way though we get at the next two we know that they
03:00haven't even been guaranteed anything we just know we have at the next two but we talked to andy
03:04cats yesterday who brought up a good point like team like k-state i'll be fired up for this k
03:10-state's
03:11right in that kind of play-in opening round best case scenario wheelhouse now to think that they could
03:17potentially get that game in wichita and and and i got the impression from him and i didn't ask him
03:22this directly but i got the impression from him for a team like k-state like they're sending you to
03:27wichita because the travel's easier and it makes more sense it does make sense it also makes sense
03:34uh one year kansas state went to dayton and then played two days later in sacramento and that made
03:40no sense and granted with air flight what's it cut off from dayton an hour and a half maybe two
03:46hours
03:46but still it gives you a little bit more centered location to get to all the other uh sites i
03:54think
03:54that's a great point that's why andy katz is a professional and i'm me um it does it's it's a
04:01great opportunity for a kansas state or a wichita state that might sneak into the tournament now that
04:05it's expanded in a way that it wouldn't have done in the past and gives you life um i i
04:12think
04:13look let's be honest here the teams getting into these first four first whatever it is now eight
04:18what is it eight um aren't the great teams especially now with the expanded bracket but
04:25the game should be really competitive and if a team like let's just say hypothetically kansas
04:30state and wichita state sneak in and they play each other that's going to have incredible value
04:35there's there there could be some real opportunities here for wichita to see some
04:39really competitive games in which teams are fighting for their lives uh fits we have a tournament
04:45coming up in like four days it's coming to wichita as well the tbt and it's also coming to manhattan
04:51uh will you be at the tbt games will you be going to watch michael beasley uh and and what's
04:56your
04:56level of interest that's the other kind of debate that's been forever in wichita is how cool is the
05:01tbt i think it's really cool for mid-july but i also think it is kind of cool i i
05:07am not into
05:08the tbt in any way because every year uh i get amped up to you know maybe k-state's going
05:15to do
05:16something they fall on their face on wichita state's had some success um but it's been disappointing
05:22i am very fired up to see michael beasley and jacob pull and play together
05:27and against mario chalmers it's going to be incredible guys it really will be um this is what
05:34this tournament should be not a collection of some players from your school and a bunch of guys you
05:39never heard of that are wearing your purple i don't know if there'll be some of that but most
05:43of this team is going to be k-state driven um so yeah i'm excited to see michael beasley play
05:48he is
05:49not even it's not even close best college player i've ever covered and i've covered a lot of great
05:54ones including many at kansas but he's just so natural smooth the only one i could compare that
05:59i've covered on a regular basis would be paul pierce just makes it look easy you know it's sad that
06:04his pro-life came unhinged the way it did um his opportunity there i knew as soon as he was
06:10drafted by miami we had a problem and it turned out to be true well that's that's too bad i
06:16was about
06:16to introduce you now as noted fun hater when you said you didn't like the tbt but you you redeemed
06:21yourself i am i am a noted fun hater though in fact i'd like a t-shirt with that um
06:26we are coming off
06:28of media days we we've talked since media days but i keep just going back to with k-state
06:34it does feel like in football there is an opportunity for the cats to to prove everybody
06:41wrong i don't know what kind of pressure avery johnson's feeling but it's got to be immense
06:48because it does feel like they're a great season from him away from being good enough to win the big
06:5312th i agree with all that if avery turns it up like we think he can all of us who've
07:01covered him
07:02have seen glimpses of absolute brilliance having his coach back i think his confidence is sky high
07:09i don't think he feels his pressure i think he's just excited now when the game start maybe that'll
07:14become apparent that it's not as easy as he hoped or whatever but um i think colin has instilled this
07:21team with a great deal of confidence and belief that this hard work because they're going through
07:27it now they're he's he's getting after him in the summer here with his strength conditioning staff
07:32that they've earned any success they have and i think this is this is the time of year when you
07:38win
07:38those close games in the fall and if they can win close games they're going to be highly successful
07:43because their schedule is very very accepting to victory is that a way to good way to put easy
07:51it's it's not 100 easy but boy not playing tech utah or byu certainly helps out your cause and
07:59playing what are perceived maybe as the three worst teams in the conference on the road certainly gives
08:06you opportunities to steal road wins which is vital to being successful so i think optimism is high for
08:12a good reason and we'll see if it all plays out fitz we asked uh shreya's about this yesterday going
08:17back to big 12 media they talked you weren't there but i i guarantee you've got an opinion on this
08:22the monster energy big 12 conference what do you think about that i i think people overreacted to it
08:28um some i don't think it's particularly enough money but i guess i need more information because
08:35apparently monster is supposed to be promoting the big 12 it's not just a one-way thing where they're
08:41slapping their logo on big 12 stuff we over i overreacted to the patch thing thinking it was a
08:46whole nother patch but it's just the big 12 patch with some monster branding so there's a patch already
08:51there but i i want to wait and see um i i don't know why people are crying it's not
08:58a good fit like
08:59all state was i mean like henry you know some investment banking i don't understand what is a good fit
09:07beer and uh caffeine the bush light big 12 conference i i'd take it i'd take it i'd take
09:14the keystone big 12 that's my guy right there keystone light for life baby yeah um i just want
09:20to know now i will say yesterday we were talking with shreya slata and i maybe i was misinformed i
09:27thought it was 20 million to the league and 1 million per school it sounds like it might just be
09:34like a 20 million split that does seem low but i will also say it's more than zero and i
09:42kind of
09:42want to know how many years is this the big 12 caught a lot of heat early on for expanding
09:50and adding
09:51some of the teams that they added and maybe you know racing to the finish line on their first tv
09:56deal
09:56and we all think that stuff those were good decisions and they'll get there how many years is this
10:02what if this is just a few years like somebody's got to go first right yeah maybe the sec gets
10:07a
10:07bigger one right out of the gate and then maybe in three years the big 12 tops the deal they
10:12just
10:12signed well a couple thoughts here it's not like he had offers for five million per team and turned
10:18it down because he loved monster this was the best deal he could have and don't don't ever believe
10:23that brett yormark was like oh you want okay we'll just take that and not look around believe me
10:28that they looked around and the sad truth is this is what the conference was valued at by
10:34an advertiser um and probably it was the highest bid so that's a reality that all of us associated
10:42the big 12 may not want to accept but it's there uh also i think this will run right up
10:49to the next
10:49deal the next tv media rights deal that's coming up pretty fast now in in 2030 or so um
10:57uh so i think this is just a stopgap to get them to that point and roll it all into
11:02a bigger deal
11:03we'll find out um but if someone wants to give you a million dollars and nobody else wants to give
11:09you a million dollars that person becomes your friend and that person's named monster um and that's
11:15exactly what he did but i i think this is just a little little shot in the arm for the
11:20conference as
11:21they get closer to a new media deal fits uh how much would the deal have to be for you
11:26to rename it
11:27uh the monster energy go power cat.com oh well i wouldn't accept my i'm i'm a five hour guy
11:36i will
11:36only accept energy drink endorsements from five hour um and that's kind of fitting because i might put in
11:44five hours in a day um and uh that that's kind of a brand for me but no i i
11:52would i would just accept
11:53free product because uh daddy needs to eat in this case that means drink caffeine so some barbecue
12:01joint out there if you're listening um go power cat is for sale open for business that's right
12:08this is a fun one i think i saw that gene told uh white wheeler that there is a patch
12:14that's on
12:14the way or tell us uh excuse me a patch is on the way what's the best patch that it
12:20could be for
12:21k-state i don't know if we've asked you this or not before what's the best cultural you know we
12:24talked about culver's in wisconsin was a good one what's the best one it could be for k-state
12:30well hopefully it's um something ag-related which you know some of you don't make fun of but that's
12:35that's the soul and culture of this university um and i don't think anyone should ever be ashamed
12:42for feeding people and i think k-state's proud of that background so hopefully it's something
12:47ag-related i fear uh it'll be coke you know just because that's the big money brand in this area
12:55and it's already affiliated with kansas state sports with uh they're on the backdrop and other things
13:00and the only reason i fear that is it's kind of polarizing uh but you know what we're in the
13:07reality of money's money and if someone wants to come in and give you the price you want and they're
13:14the only ones you're probably accepting it unless it's something horrible yeah i don't yeah they'll
13:19be safe there they'll be safe uh fitz what do you guys have going for us in this slow time
13:24what are
13:24you making your guys create in the downtime here well they're just trying to keep up with you know
13:30recruiting things out there and um we've got some expansion nonsense warming up that i've ignored so
13:36far um ryan gilbert did the daily delivery this morning uh and he's taking a fresh look at things
13:43it's kind of nice because he's he's doing topics that i never would have thought of doing
13:47but the boys will be covering for me for a while until i settle into these it's basically a almost
13:53a
13:54five-hour commitment every day and i'll carry into football season so i'm going to be a little bit
13:59stressed for time and energy but i got a great team guys they're just amazing you do we concur
14:06godspeed on those treatments fits we're always pulling for you thank you boys glad to be your
14:11relief from it uh and uh and we'll talk again soon thank you gentlemen good to talk to you
14:17there goes tim fitzgerald publisher gopowercat.com they are navigating it just like we're navigating
14:23it did you hit that tbt thing yeah i don't know but man i'm excited to see poland and beasley
14:30this will be i don't know how i feel about like the three game series thing it's kind of weird
14:34but
14:35but the rule of changing it to say that you can only have four non-alumnis is the best thing
14:40that
14:40they'll ever do i i agree i agree i that didn't bother me as much as others but if you
14:45can make
14:46it so like if you can make it work and you know that you can get the players then yeah
14:51it's going
14:51to be more fun for sure i agree with that does it give you the best chance to win probably
14:56not but i
14:56don't care about that anymore because the aftershocks finally got it done anyway so now we go to that
14:59that's that's a good change for me i'm good with it we'll talk to zach bush next week ahead of
15:03that
15:03that game they'll play monday the aftershocks will uh we'll come back
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