Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag is a podcast/radio show aiming at bringing you Wisconsin sports news and opinions! Find the show Wednesdays from 7-9 on Sports radio 92.3 WOSQ or here next day!
Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trag
June 4 Addition: The Brewers' Hot Streak, Badger Talk, Packers and more!
this is wisconsin sports on the go with trade your place for all things wisconsin sports now your host trade how we doing everybody and welcome into wisconsin sports on the Go with Trage.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, trage coming back for the June 4th edition of the show here and coming back on this Wednesday. I hope everybody enjoyed their weekend. I hope you are having a fantastic week. As it stands right now. A little bit of rain yesterday, right, a little bit of rain moved through the area, but hey, it looks like that's going to clear out. Possibly there's chances of rain here and there, but I mean, at the end of the day it waters my garden for me, so I don't have to. So I mean I can complain or I can just get over it. Right, we can just get over it. So we got lots to get into today. So I hope you're ready. I hope you're ready today. Oh goodness, we got lots to get into.
Speaker 2:Brewer talk to you too, because who would have thought I mean honestly, who would have thought, coming off that weekend, going to Philly, I was. I want to be honest with you and I don't. I don't want to hear this fair weather fan bullcrap. Somebody's going to call me a fair weather fan. I got called a fair weather fan a couple of times and I was like you know what. No, I'm going to tell you how it is. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, right? I see too many fans and you know you can have favorite players and you want to back your favorite players and I get that, I do. But my fandom it's the. I'm loyal to my team. I'm going to cheer for the Brewers the whole way through, but I also am going to be a realist when it comes to the Brewers.
Speaker 2:So if somebody's sucking, I'm going to tell you straight up they're sucking. Joey Ortiz he's been sucking, but guess what, he's been hitting better, as of late. Christian Yelich has been sucking, but guess what, as of late here, he's been hitting better. I mean, that's the way I roll with it. So I get everybody who, oh well, I was with him from the beginning, I was with him from the beginning. Okay, that's fine, fine, I don't care. But I, I'm not gonna sit here and pretend like, oh, I'm just supposed to the whole time say, oh well, he'll eventually snap out of this slump. No, no, I'm gonna try and find reasons and try and find ways to what I think could fix it, what I think could be a problem, what move I would make. Right, that's, that's what we all do. We all make those speculations. That's what. That's what fandom is. So I fair weather fan. I got called that so many times.
Speaker 2:But I mean back to what I was saying the Brewers heck of a run, holy crap, heck of a run. We're going to talk about it because there's guys getting hot. This pitching staff is starting to ball out for them right now. Pat Murphy is making the moves. Now, right, making better moves, not wasting the bullpen, and I mean part of that's being the starters have been pitching well. I mean we talk about two games against the Phillies where we're going to get into that series and talk about what we saw in Philadelphia over the weekend there. But I mean watching this pitching staff over the weekend and the starters go deep and the starters give good, meaningful innings, even the openers right, they had a couple nights of openers there who pitched really well and I just want to talk about that today. So Brewers, get hot. We're going to check in with the Brewers. I told you guys last week we didn't get to our Memorial Day check-in, right, that's what everybody says On Memorial Day. You can look and see in the standings where everybody's standing right now. So we're going to do our Memorial Day check-in today. We're going to look around the league to see what everybody else is looking like right now, what the division standings are, what our thoughts are across the league there, so we're going to talk about that today.
Speaker 2:I got a big Badger athletics question. I saw this one Scary good friend of the show there, scary Alvarez. He made a video out there and I want to answer his question here on the radio because I thought it was a great question. So we're going to get into that today. I want to talk a little Badgers. We're going to have some Packer talk. Umber's going to be stopping by. We're going to talk Packers today. We're going to talk we got, I mean, bucks talk today. I want to get into it a little bit today here on the show with Kyle and then we're going to talk NBA finals. Can't wait to get into that. What's grinding my gears? Because there's always stuff grinding my gears and we we got a loaded show. We got a loaded show, so make sure you're sticking around for the full two hours here. So as we start every wednesday here on the show, we are going to start with what is grinding my gears. So off this weekend. We, uh, we had a great. It was a great weekend.
Speaker 2:We went over to to Marshfield to the Mayor's Breakfast I believe that's what they call it over there Mayor's Breakfast, I believe and Marshfield was gods in there and they honored my grandpa for Lifetime Achievement. He passed away, as everybody knows, but they honored him with the Lifetime Achievement Award and everything. So when we were there, I got this alert from Festival Foods, right, and I was at Meat Sale. They're having a meat sale over at Festival Foods this weekend. So I was like Grandma, we got to go right. So Grandma, she's going to come with me over to Festival Foods. So we go in there. And I got a lot right. I got the ribs, everything in between, made some ribs this weekend. Fantastic on the Traeger there, made a whole chicken on the Traeger. Tiger was cooking all weekend. Let's go with that.
Speaker 2:So go to Festival Foods and we go through them stinking self-checkouts. And I tell you what, if there's one thing that Festival Foods has not figured out yet, it's the self-checkouts. They've gotten better since the first time I went in there with them self-checkouts. I don't go to. Okay, I should start out with this. I don't go to Festival Foods daily, right, but I go every once in a while and I go for the meat sale and the seafood sale, Less the seafood sale, but a meat sale is going on. But these self checkouts, it's you know place item in the bagging area and then you place it in. It's like place item, it's like I did I already put it in there. It's yelling at you to do all this stuff and it's like and then you remove it too early and it goes berserk on you and it's like oh my good, like, oh, the self checkouts at festival foods, they, they grind my gears. They, they definitely grind my gears.
Speaker 2:I saw I don't know what it is across Twitter right now, but people are hating on the show friends. I don't get that. What's the what's up with everybody's hate of the world of the show Friends? I don't get that right now. I just saw that the other day I was scrolling through Twitter and I seen a whole bunch of people. I saw this post about somebody's disliked Friends and then the comment section was following up about how much they disliked it. I'm like, what is your guys' problem? It was a great show. It was a great show. No, stop it, just stop it Next up.
Speaker 2:I tell you guys this, and you guys are probably so sick of this too the Giannis, the Giannis, rumors, right, oh, he's going here. No, he's going here. No, he's going here. And it's ESPN experts that the only sporting news that they could find is rumors, right? So if the best we can come up with is rumors, right now to talk about man oh man, we need to find something else. Man oh man, espn, or whoever, you guys got to go somewhere else to make the big mothership, right, as Dan Patrick would say, the mothership, they, they got to steer the boat somewhere else, because this is exhausting. I mean now, now he's going to the Raptors. Now he's I'm gonna talk to Kyle about that later on the show but now he's going to the Raptors. Out of all the teams he's going to, he's going to pull a Kawhi Leonard and go out to the Raptors. What, just what? I mean come on.
Speaker 2:Come on If he goes, if his best bet is to, oh, I'm going to go to the Raptors because that's going to. I'm not going to be able to win championships in Milwaukee, but me going to the Raptors, that's going to be the fix. That's going to be my best chance to win a championship is leaving and going away from what I said, which you know and everybody loves him for, is his loyal, how loyal he is to the Bucs. Instead, I'm going to go to the Raptors and that's going to take me over to the top. No, no, no. So I saw that. I, I think it was the fan maybe and you know a lot of people say don't listen to the fan and everything like that but I think it was the fan that was saying it and I, I got, I commented on their post. I was like they said you know why? Why are the raptors all of a sudden the favorites to land him? And I said because and I literally commented this on the post I said because somebody at espn made up another rumor. That's it, yannis, doesn't it? When yannis comes out and says I want to leave when the bucks came, come out and say, hey, yannis wants to leave. We need to find and it comes up in those kinds of stories okay, let's run with it. But if the best news you guys encompass stirring the pot, making clickbait and being like, oh, just click this, click this fake sporting news, that's the best you can come up with right now about Giannis and the Bucs, okay, great, it's exhausting. It really is. I've seen this so many, day after day, and people saying the same darn crap. It's like he's going here now.
Speaker 2:Oh, what can the Knicks do? Right, that was the biggest question. What can the Knicks do now? Nothing. They don't have, they have no cap space for him. Giannis is not. Giannis is not taking a pay cut to go to the Knicks. No, yeah, would they be closer with Giannis? Sure, would Jalen Brunson, carl Anthony, town closer? They'd have to unload everybody to get them. And what? The Bucs are going to? Let them walk for free. No, you know what, at the end of the day, if they do trade him, if they do trade him, they're going for blood. They're going to say what can I get? And they're going to look and say Rudy Gobert, I'm pretty sure, if I'm not mistaken, got five first round picks for Rudy. Rudy Gobert, I'm pretty sure, if I'm not mistaken, got five first-round picks for Rudy, five for Rudy Gobert. Last time I checked, giannis is better than Rudy Gobert. So yeah, the Bucs are not just good.
Speaker 2:Unless if the Bucs unless if Milwaukee Horst everybody want to get fired for I mean just completely destroying the future of Milwaukee basketball. They're not going to let Giannis go for anything cheap. Not at all. There's, realistically maybe a couple teams which I see the Bucs possibly dealing with for Giannis the Spurs. Spurs have young talent picks, okc young talent picks, houston Rockets young talent picks. Outside of that, they're not going to just let them walk out the door. No, no, they're smarter than that. I hope they're smarter than that and they're going to make the move.
Speaker 2:And I would hope that Giannis would say I, I don't want to go. He could try to force himself to the knicks, but you're gonna have to get a three-team deal and a lot of picks coming back to milwaukee, a lot of good talent coming back to milwaukee, young talent, should I say, coming back to milwaukee, there's no way. No way the bucks, or yannis, if I'm, if yannis is at least somewhat loyal to the Bucs, he shouldn't say I want to go here no matter what and no matter what you guys get. If Giannis is loyal to the Bucs in any way, shape or form, or at least likes Milwaukee or likes the fans, or wants to see the Bucs succeed for years to come, he's going to say I want to go somewhere where you guys are going to benefit and I'm going to benefit, I fit and I'm going to benefit. I would think OKC would be that the Spurs maybe soon, rockets possibly, but the Raptors, you're not getting anything back. No, the Knicks nothing, unless you swing three team deals. It's just these analysts and these rumors and all this bull crap. I'm just done with it. Fake sporting news I'm just done with it. Just clickbait, that's all it is. It's just clickbait. It's like Stephen A Smith, just clickbait half-time. So that's where I'm at with that whole thing.
Speaker 2:I had a couple more things. Another one my computer all of a sudden is crackling like sizzling bacon on a stove right now. I don't know what I, what I. I gotta figure that one out. So that's gonna be probably after the show figuring that one out why it's crackling at times, like I got bacon cooking. I have no idea. I started doing it last week and then it stopped. So I got over it and then I started doing it again. As much as I love bacon which I do, I absolutely love bacon I I don't love it right now. No, because I got to figure out what's wrong with my computer, and if I can't fix it, then I got to take it into somebody. So that's why we got to wait until the end of the show to be able to fix it, because if I tear it apart, if I tear it apart and can't get it back together, I got to take it somewhere. So we got to wait for that one. So my sizzling computer right now is definitely I got it Electrical fire and water, those mix right, you have an electrician right now.
Speaker 2:I just can't believe I said that you have an electrician right now telling you about water and electrical fire. That's the way to. That's the way to no, don't, don't, don't, no. That's bad choice of words by the guy who is the electrician here. So, anyways, anyways.
Speaker 2:One last thing. That's just been grinding my gears for a while. It's been grinding my gears for a while, and I bet you there's a lot of the same folks out there who think the same way Kids and parents so worried about their kids throwing hard. Okay, so we're talking baseball. Talking baseball, I mean you can talk softball. I, I guess you can talk softball with this, but throwing and you could, I mean you could go all sports with this kind of thing. I mean you could go basketball with shooting threes, you could go, uh, bowl I don't know how to even compare this to bowling. Um, yeah, we're not going to compare it to bowling, but either way, you know, my point was kids so worried about throwing hard or throwing breaking balls that no one's actually teaching them the fundamentals of pitching.
Speaker 2:I see this so much now and I see that a lot of my kids and they'll come up to me and they're like oh, you know, right, first day of practice they tell me oh, I learned how to throw a curveball and I learned how to throw. So I'm like throw a fastball, throw a fastball first. Because then I see in games and they're like they go, it's like a uh oh, like a 2-0 count or something. They can't get the fastball across. All of a sudden they're trying to throw a change up or they're trying to throw a curveball or slider right and it's like you stop, stop trying that, stop trying that, throw a fastball. Let's get your fundamentals down first. Let's get you looking right when you throw a fastball, and then let's try to get everything else going.
Speaker 2:Because I mean these hitter, these kids they face, I mean other young kids, but when you get to your older ages, these kids who throw a curveball wrong or throw this wrong, they don't hide what they're pitching, so then it's easy to pick up on and you watch hitters pick up on it. They're like, oh, you know, this kid's throwing a curveball because he reaches his arm way out here to throw it and everything else is over the top. But he's right out here with this breaking ball and it's like, yeah, it's so easy to tell what he's throwing because they never taught him how to throw fundamentally. Fundamentally, it was never taught to him how to throw things correctly and how to even start with just throwing a fastball and then work in your changeup and then get a curveball and then, if you get crazy, get a slider and then, if you get really crazy, get a screwball mixed in there and then you get I mean, you got knuckleball.
Speaker 2:You get down the laundry list of things, but start with the fundamentals of the game. First, man you got so many parents worried about their kids. All this crap today about you know speed, it's got to be who throws the fastest and who's got the most RPMs and who's got the most spin. It's like I don't care at this moment, because you look like garbage when you throw and your arm's going to be blown out and you're going to have to. You see these guys having Tommy John surgery already because instead of just correcting the throwing motion or correcting anything like that, they just, you know, oh well, let's just go get Tommy John surgery because that's going to fix it. We can't hit the strike zone consistently, but we can throw 101. That's awesome. Oh, let's see if it works.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of guys out there who throw really hard, who just don't make it. But why? Because fundamentally it's not there. Look at Abner Uribe throw a baseball right now. Fundamentally it's not there. Look at Abner Uribe throw a baseball right now. Now, that's a guy who not only has heat but he has a darn good slider to go with it. But you will see some of these guys who come up and they're just throw hard but that's it. They throw hard but they can't do anything with it. They never adjust, they never get better Fundamentally. They look off through the years and then once they reach that high school age they become another guy. I am so sick of watching kids where it's so oh, I got to throw harder in the next kid. Or I got to throw more breaking balls in the next kid, oh yeah, if my curveball works, I don't care. I want to see good fundamentals in the game. That will transpire too Throwing harder, throwing correctly, throwing better, breaking balls, everything else. So, yeah, that's where I'm kind of at right now with what's grinding my gears for the week here, between the Bucks and Giannis, between the breaking balls and everything else, between my computer sizzling right now. Now that's what's grinding my gears for the week.
Speaker 2:So we got lots to get to today. Here we're gonna. We got brewer talk, we got badger talk, we got nba talk, we got packers, we got everything today. Two hours of wisconsin sports on the go with trage is just getting going here. We'll be right back here after this quick commercial break. Welcome back to wisconsin sports on the go with trade. I'm your host trades coming back on this wednesday. And hey, this next segment of the show here, the badger talk. We got a little badger talk coming up today here. Nothing crazy, just some badger talk coming up.
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Speaker 2:Badgers, I got that question that I heard scary, scary over us. Make sure you're checking them out there over on youtube. I love his stuff, absolutely love. His stuff always makes me think when I look into him on youtube. There I'll. But I want to get to his question.
Speaker 2:But before we get there, some Badger basketball, men's basketball tidbits. Villanova and Wisconsin are set to meet in a home-and-home battle there at the Pfizer. I thought that was interesting. Right, marquette, they stink, they can't fill up the Pfizer. Right, taking shots at Marquette. That's what we do, right? If you're a Badger fan, you just got to take shots at Marquette, because they try to take shots at us. I don't know why, but that's what they do.
Speaker 2:Badgers Villanova they're going to meet at the Pfizer next season, so that's going to be cool to see there. Also, oklahoma they're going to be taking on the Badgers. They game there on October 24th and then Badgers got scheduled with BYU a little rematch from this last tournament. They're going to be taking on BYU coming up here. So that's going to be a couple of, I mean, interesting matchups for this Badger team. That I mean I kind of like it, I kind of love it. I'm going to be honest with you. I kind of actually love it. So, yeah, we're going to see that take on. We're going to see the Badgers take on a couple good opponents coming up this next year.
Speaker 2:And great news coming along with that John Blackwell is returning. He announced it. He said I'm going to go to the draft or I'm going to come back to Madison. There is no in between. I'm a Badger, I'm coming back here or I'm going to go pro. And he wasn't invited to the Combine. So we assumed, right, but assuming makes a butt out of you and me, right? You know what I'm saying. So we didn't assume we're like okay, we'll wait.
Speaker 2:Well, john Blackwell announced his return, which just amplifies and excites what it is about Badger basketball. So I am through, I'm ecstatic. I'm ecstatic now. I can't wait for Badger basketball to be back. I just in some way, you know, badger basketball just has a different place in my heart. So that's why it gets so exciting for me. But now I can't wait because I love the outlook of this team. I love the outlook of John Blackwell being in that backcourt now, you know, bringing Nolan Winter in there, you got a young cast of characters coming in. Jackson Nicky's probably going to take a bigger, bigger role going into this next season, but I absolutely love the outlook and where this team is trending.
Speaker 2:They lost some key pieces in this last season. So I'm not going to say like I don't want to say, oh well, they just. I mean I don't want to say, well, they're going to be a thousand times better than last year. I don't want to. I don't want to like speculate that at this point, because John Donjett came on and he was unreal. Right, he was unreal.
Speaker 2:But I look at what they brought in. I look at a guy like Andrew Rode coming in from Virginia. I look at a guy like Nick Boyd coming in from San Diego State. And then I look at Austin Rapp from Portland there, the big fella who could shoot it from three. And I look at those three guys and I'm like your offensive output got replaced right. I don't know if those guys are gonna be John Tonje good, you hope so. Right, andrew Road coming in. You're like I hope he can be a John Tonje again. Like AJ Storr came in was fantastic, johnny Davis was fantastic before him, and now you bring in a guy. You brought in John Tonje. Now maybe a guy like Andrew Road comes in and just right guard in this Kirk Penney in the offense. They know how to utilize them.
Speaker 2:I love the additions that they brought into this team with the returning guys that will be coming back on that bench. Uh, for you mean you look at guys jack jenicki, you got jack robinson, you got greppy. You're gonna have the freshman there from overseas. I don't even know how to say his name. It's like bill laucus, so that's gonna be a crazy name for me to figure out how to say. So I can't wait to see him. And they got kingser and garlic and jones coming in the young guys. But I love the outlook of this team so I'm excited, I'm ecstatic for this team coming up next year. So we got that. And then we have the Badgers.
Speaker 2:The Badgers are also in football. They're set to play in Lambeau in 2026. They're set to play Notre Dame in Lambeau. That's. I mean, that's exciting.
Speaker 2:I just my question was and I guess I was asked this question do we have a problem? Do Badger fans do I, I guess have a problem with because it's going to be on a Sunday? It's kind of weird they're going to. Actually they're going. Problem with because it's going to be on a Sunday. It's kind of weird. They're going to. Actually they're going to play their season opener at Lambeau on a Sunday, sunday, september 6th 2026. The game is originally scheduled for October 3rd 2020, but was postponed due to COVID, and it'll be the first college game at Lambeau in a decade. So that's kind of the whole outlook of it from what I read.
Speaker 2:But I look at that it's like, okay, does anyone because this was the question I was asked does anyone have a problem with the badgers having big games like this? Not at camp randall, because it's a big game. I mean, you have notre dame historic program in notre dame. They're going to be coming to wisconsin to take on the badgers, but it's not going to be in madison. It's not going to be in mad. They're going to be coming to Wisconsin to take on the Badgers, but it's not going to be in Madison. It's not going to be in Madtown, it's going to be in Lambeau. Does anybody have a problem with that?
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I got to be honest with you. In some facets you could say, yes, right, Because you want to have it on campus, you want to have the student section, you want to have students to easily go outside tailgate. They all get fired up in the streets and everything. Then they come in. They're rowdy, they get excited, jump around, everything like that. You want the atmosphere, you want Camp Randall it's exciting. I get that factor. But then you take in the factor of this is Lambeau Field. This is iconic, this is big, this is big moment. You're going to probably have big.
Speaker 2:I don't know what time the kickoff's going to be. You know they don't have that schedule. It's in 2026. But you're going to have, most likely, a big-time kickoff time for this year. You're going to have a lot of publicity. You're going to make a lot of money off it. So you got to look at those factors too. So I can see where fans maybe would say, yeah, it'd be nicer if it was in Madison. Sure, maybe, but I could see it from both sides. So I'm going to say I don't have a problem with it, as long as they don't get crazy with it, right, and all the games are away. It'd be like if the Badgers, if the men's basketball team we were talking about playing at the Pfizer before right, they're going to play Villanova there. It'd be like if the Badgers just all of a sudden started playing a lot of big games at the Pfizer and just went away from the Kohl.
Speaker 2:Center. I'd be a little upset with that because I think the Kohl Center, the atmosphere, everything in between, I think it gets huge in there, and I think the same thing at Camp Randall. So I don't want to get crazy with it, get too trigger happy. But at Lambeau, that's awesome, I'll attend. So, yeah, I'll attend. That's probably going to be. I'll take my boy. I'll take my boy, That'll probably be. Oh, I'm not going to math, but he's going to be probably about one and a half, maybe two, by then. He's going to get close, right. So maybe he can get out and about, maybe the wife will come with, maybe she'll yell at us, but I don't know, maybe we'll see. Maybe she'll want to come with, maybe she won't, maybe she'll be like this could be my time to stay at home. You two go to the badge game. That'd be okay too. We'll get over it, right. So that's what we got right now. Badgers got that scheduled up there. They also got some time releases, uh, for these for the upcoming season not looking way too far ahead, right, but for this upcoming season here. And they are going to be taking on.
Speaker 2:And this was the, I guess, the question that I was given, or the question that I saw given across social media and then I guess it came across my feed. There Was this Badger and Alabama game and I didn't really think that there'd be many questions coming out of Wisconsin and Alabama, but there was a question. So Wisconsin and Alabama is scheduled for 11 o'clock in Tuscaloosa and a lot of people were like, oh well, I thought it'd be a more of a primetime game. Well, college football technically because how many times have we watched Michigan, as the number two team in the country, take on Ohio state as the number four team in the country and the game kicks off at noon. And it's like why? Why is it not the night game? The night game's like Nebraska versus Wisconsin, and it's like I'm taking a shot at Wisconsin myself there. But it's like why is this the game right now, wisconsin taking on Alabama for an 11 o'clock kick, third game of the season there September 13th? I saw a lot of people talking about it. Why is this game at this time and everything? Why is it in the prime time?
Speaker 2:I got to be completely real. Why would I want to sit around all day right, lounge around and just wait and wait and wait and wait, and then, at about 6 o'clock, watch the Badgers go to Tuscaloosa and, you're hoping, win, right. But at the same time, why would I want to watch them go to Tuscaloosa and play a night game, wait all day to watch it? Why can't I just watch it at noon? Well, what's going to be the difference for me? Honestly, end of the day. What's going to be the difference? Probably nothing except end of the day. What's going to be the difference? Probably nothing, except for the fact I gotta wait around all day to watch badge play. That's it. So I'd rather get it out of the way, have the rest of my day to sulk or whatever I gotta do, you know? Or maybe cheer, right, if they win, wow, it's gonna be hot, no matter what, right, it's tuscaloosa, it's september 13th.
Speaker 2:I saw some people. They're like oh, if you play a night game, it might, might not be so hot down there. It is, it's September. In Tuscaloosa it is hot, no matter what time of day. It's going to be sticky, it's going to be humid, it's going to be hot. That's Alabama. So it's just boys, drink your water, you'll be fine, get over it. This is the temps. We're playing in. Attempts were playing and suck it up. That's about it.
Speaker 2:It's an 11 o'clock kick. I'm good with that. I don't know. I've seen a lot of people who are like, oh, why is it not a prime time, everything? And it's like I don't know if I really want a prime time with Alabama In Alabama. I'm good. I'm good At this point. I'm good, I'll take an 11 o'clock kick. I'll get it over with. I'll watch it. I remember last year watching it I shut it off at halftime. It does not help that your starting quarterback got hurt, but I shut it off at halftime. I shut off a lot of games at halftime in Wisconsin last year, so that's besides the point. But yeah, I'm good with the 11 o'clock kickoff. That with the 11 o'clock kickoff. That way I have the rest of my day to do what I want. I don't have to wait until 7 o'clock at night, turn it on and then shut it off, go to bed upset. I can just be upset the rest of the day and then maybe go drink the night away. I don't know, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens with that.
Speaker 2:So, badgers, 11 o'clock kick for that Alabama game, the MTSU, a 3 o'clock kick there on the 6th and then opening game for the Badgers against Miami Ohio will be at 8 o'clock at night. I don't understand. They've been playing the last couple years Because last year wasn't. It was it Western Michigan that they had last year, and that was also, I think. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that game last year was also a really early kick against Western Michigan. Yeah, I believe that was also an 8 o'clock kick or something like that. It was on a Friday night, that's right, it was on a Friday night. That's why it was so darn late, because it was on a Friday night.
Speaker 2:And this year's game on August 28th opens up on a Thursday. We can't even open up the season on a Saturday anymore. Wow, and we fell off that far. Is that what it is? We've fallen off that far. We can't even open on a Saturday anymore. We open up on Thursday. We're one of those Thursday games where they're like we're just going to throw you on a Thursday and get over it. Is that what it is? Because, wow, I didn't know we fell off that far. But I guess, I guess that's fine. Right, that's fine, let's see the Thursday games. Is there any like decent Thursday games? I was just trying to try to look if there's any decent Thursday games. I really don't think so. I mean we're playing on the same day as Stony Brooks taking on Boise state. I don't know. Stony Brooks taking on San Diego state, boise state's playing South Florida. I mean Rutgers plays on that day. I mean Nebraska plays too. Wow, wow, we have fallen off. All right.
Speaker 2:All right, that's going to lead up into our question. That's going to lead up into our question of the day which Wisconsin sports? This is the question that Scary had right, so I was. If you haven't watched his videos or you watch his videos, maybe go on YouTube, watch the video. He said which wisconsin sports program has the most pressure to win a title? Or and I'm gonna, I'm gonna alternate his question a little bit or make a title run. At least make a run right. And I put this into football men's hoops, women's hoops, women's. Women's hockey. Men's hockey, volleyball and my immediate is I'm taking out volleyball. They've done it. They've been consistently getting me places. Women's hockey just did it, so I don't have to talk about them. Women's basketball Okay, when I heard his question, I was like, okay, think about this one.
Speaker 2:Which program could benefit the most from at least a deep run. And I don't want to make it because the hockey programs in Madison have probably been, if not more, successful than just about any other program. So I don't want to discredit them or make it seem like I'm not giving them credit or giving them their flowers, because they deserve it. But I'm going to say, in the majority of the fans' perspective, the hockey programs, I'm taking them out because when I look at these, when I look at okay, when I say which two programs in Madison have the most consistent fans Constantly watching them, constantly talking about them, constantly bickering about them Football, men's basketball those are the two big ones, those are two big ones down there. So which one of those programs could benefit the most from a title or at least a deep run in a tournament or getting into a playoff At this very moment? I would say the expectations for Wisconsin football are they're like out the window at this point here.
Speaker 2:So you could argue the point of Wisconsin basketball, men's basketball. Why? Because Greg Gard has consistently put good teams together, had good regular seasons last couple years, had good Big Ten tournaments and gets into the big NCAA tournament and just falls apart. His teams just fall apart. So you could say the men's basketball team could benefit the most. Greg Gard could benefit the most from an Elite Eight Final Four run. Yeah, I completely agree with that one. If you were to say Greg Gard and this men's basketball team have to make a deep run here pretty darn soon, otherwise I don't trust in Gard to be ever able to get them over the hump, I could see that. I could also see where somebody could say this Magic football team has and in many eyes I was listening to I believe it maybe was out of ESPN Madison or ESPN Waukee, I don't know who it was, whatever site I think Ben Rust is a part of, but I was listening to one of their talks or one of their guys talking, and he's talking about how Wisconsin football has basically become the equivalent to like a Boston College or a Rutgers.
Speaker 2:Their relevancy has gone away. Yeah, they're playing on a Thursday to open up the season against Miami of Ohio. It's not like they're playing a big-time matchup. Not at all, Not even in the slightest. You got a big-time matchup, not at all, not even in the slightest. You got a big-time matchup, I guess, against Alabama, but it's not like it's huge.
Speaker 2:Wisconsin football has kind of fell off relevancy. Nobody fears Wisconsin football. I don't think they ever really feared them, but they were a consistent program. They were talked about. Now I don't think anybody really fears them but there's not really talked about either outside of the walls of camp randall or outside of the the listening ears of wisconsin fans who are bickering or upset at luke fickle or saying this program's sinking or, you know, maybe they're on the Luke Fickle fan bus, I don't know. Outside of those fans there's, I mean, a select few, but outside of the fans of Wisconsin nobody really is talking about the Badgers as a threat or as a consistent program anymore. They weren't consistent, that went away. They weren't consistent, that went away. I would say Wisconsin football, that would be like a lightning in a bottle. At this point I think Wisconsin football has to come back to relevancy first, where they're relevant to the world, where they're like.
Speaker 2:This team was in games. Maybe they lost a couple, but they were in them. They were in a game against Oregon. They were in a game against Ohio State. They just ended up losing that game and they finished the season with seven wins and it was pretty darn good season. I mean, this season finished with seven wins, it's pretty darn good season. I think that's where Wisconsin football has to get to.
Speaker 2:When I look at Wisconsin basketball, I say they've shown consistency over the years. It's just consistency in the NCAA tournament and finding a way to win games. When it comes to that, that's where I would say so, for me, I would say the team that could benefit the most not the most pressure, but the team that could benefit the most, or the coach that could at least benefit the most, will be Greg Gard and this Badger basketball team getting over that hump because he's shown the consistency to win the regular season. I think Luke Fickle could benefit the most from winning in the regular season, winning a big game. Then we can talk about winning a title. I got to start with a big game, then we can win a title.
Speaker 2:Greg Gard has won big games. He's won a lot of big games Arizona last year, purdue last year, illinois. He's won a lot of big games. It's just winning big games in the big moments in the NCAA tournament that have failed him and that's where I think Greg guard and this badge of basketball team is the one with the most pressure to make a run. So that would be mine. Who has the most pressure to make a title run or to at least win a title or go on a title run. I would say Greg guard and the Wisconsin men's basketball team. So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at.
Speaker 2:I want to hear what you guys think who, to you, has the most pressure to win or at least make a title run? I'd love to hear what you got to say. Who has got the most pressure to make a title run? Let me know. Let me know what you're thinking and I'd love to hear it. So, with that, that's about all we got for this segment here and, like I said, if you want to let me know, let me know what you're thinking. There's 715-990-4914. There's 715-990-4914. Text into the show. Let me know what you're thinking. Which Wisconsin sports program has the most pressure to win a title or at least make a title run? I'd love to hear what you're thinking on that one there.
Speaker 2:So we're going to come back here. We we're going to come back here. We're going to jump around a little bit. We've got a little bit of Brewer talk here for just a tidbit. Then we're going to get over to Ummer. He's going to be coming out. We're going to talk Packers. We've got Kyle coming out. We're going to talk NBA playoffs. We're going to talk maybe a little Bucs talk. Maybe Kyle's got some interesting stuff to talk about with the Giannis situation and everything like here. We'll be right back here on the backside of this ad break.
Speaker 2:Welcome back into Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trage. I'm your host, trage coming back on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment of the show. We're going to talk a little Brewers here. We're going to bounce around, we've got some Brewer talk to get to. Then we're going to have Kyle coming by. We're going to talk back into the brewers here later on in the show.
Speaker 2:But this next segment, this brewer talk, is brought to you by sport and spine clinic of greenwood, wisconsin. Their expert traditional physical therapy and structural integration programming. Call for flexible scheduling and evaluations, just call 715-267-4583. Call chad down there at sport and spine clinic of greenwood. Don't trust anyone else with your physical therapy needs. Trust chad at sport and spine clinic of greenwood w. So we're talking Badgers there a little bit and I hope I would love to hear you guys answer on that last question I had about this Badger, a Badger athletic program, and which program, which? Which program could benefit the most from a title, from a title title run? Is it the men's basketball team? Is the football team? Is it the hockey teams? Which one is it? I said men's basketball. Which one do you guys think? I'd love to hear it there and if you missed that talk, if you missed any of the talk that we've had so far today, make sure you're checking out the podcast next day. So you search wisconsin sports on the go with trades, you can find us next day across all podcast platforms on Apple, spotify, youtube wherever you get podcasts, you can find us. You can also find us across social media Facebook, twitter, tiktok, youtube and Twitch. Just search Twitter, twitch and TikTok. Search Wisco Sports on the go. Facebook and YouTube. Search Wisco Sports on the go with Trace. And if you want to text us at any time of the show, you want to let me know what you're thinking. Anything like that. Comments concerns anything in between. Make sure you're doing it. 715-990-4914. That's 715-990-4914. So I want to talk a little Brewers here. I want to talk a little baseball and then we're going to get over into the NBA a little bit, get to the Packers, then come back to the baseball talk. So you know I was looking over social media and I didn't get to talk about this one yet.
Speaker 2:Darren Ruff I don't know if anybody remembers Darren Ruff. Really for his time in Milwaukee he was kind of that odd first baseman. You know he had a weird period with the Brewers. It was back. Was it 2022 already that he was with or 2023? It was sometime in there. It was just 2023. Was the last season. Why it was a career-ending injury is what happened with in 2023. So he was with the San Francisco Giants that season.
Speaker 2:Then he came to Milwaukee and in Milwaukee he played in 11 games. He had I mean 11 games 26 at-bats in total. There he was batting 192. It's not like it was anything crazy. When he came in, he actually I mean career. He was 239. Not a crazy hitter by any means. He was just a guy. He was just a dude. That's it. He was just a dude. He wasn't a star, he was a dude. But either way, if you remember, back the Brewers were playing the Reds and the Brewers were playing the Reds and Darren Ruff was playing first base for the Brewers. I'm pretty sure, if I'm not mistaken, corbin Burns was pitching in that game. Brewers are winning.
Speaker 2:Darren Ruff goes after a fly ball and follow territory and there's the tarp right. The tarp for the field is sitting down there. This is how he tells us how old it is. Owen Miller was playing in the field is sitting down there, and this is how he tells us how old that is. Owen Miller was playing in the field and Darren Ruff goes basically full bore into that tarp and now so we all saw his laceration in the Brewers. He was out for a while. I think he might have got put on the 60-day IL, but either way he was sent to the IL. He was out for a while and then the Brewers ended up. Basically he never came back.
Speaker 2:He never came back to baseball as we see, it was a career-ending injury is what he said, and the roller at Great American Ballpark was uncovered. It was an uncovered tarp roller is what he ran into. So now he is suing the Cincinnati Reds for the damages to his leg and a lot of people are like, well, you know, how can he do that? Everything like that. They're like you know, this guy commented I mean, he's like when you play when you, I mean, he's like when you play when you, I mean when you sign a contract to play in a sports stadium that assigns liability to you, right, and all this kind of stuff. It looks covered. He ain't winning that, everything like that. I thought it was. When I hear it, I'm like I don't think he could win. I, I don't think he could win. I don't think he's going to win the court case. But when I look at the, you know why is there an open tarp roller there? I mean, yes, it's a, a blue moon. It's going to happen once in a blue moon. It's crazy that it happened. Anyways, I get that, but it's just it happened. Why was it uncovered? I don't get that why. Why was there? You would think that the roller for the tarp would be the size of the tarp, maybe a little bit longer, not as long as what it seems like that one was, and I could be wrong. I'm in saying that, but just watching the video it just it seems like it's a little bit. It's covered by like a plastic, but the roller piece I don't think was covered. I don't think you lacerate or, you know, do that to your leg if you don't run into something sharp or something that can do it Like you didn't just run into a tarp. We've seen guys run into a tarp before. He didn't just run into a tarp, he ran into, I'm guessing, the log rule or whatever you want to call it, in the middle. There he had to have hit. That is what my guess was. So I mean, just an interesting thing, just an interesting thing that I saw on the weekend there. It might be old news, this might have been a couple. I mean it was at least a week ago. I think that this whole thing came out with this. But I mean we haven't had talk in a week, right, we talk every Wednesday. So we didn't have talk in a week. So I thought that was interesting. So we'll see what happens with Darren Ruff and the whole thing. I mean it sucks, right, because it was a career-ending injury for him. I don't know if he was career-ending because of that. I have no idea heard much about Darren Ruff since then. All I know is that he claims that this was career ending and everything else. So I mean, hopefully it's getting better, hopefully the leg's getting better, hopefully he can move around. Well, that's what I'm hoping for at the end of the day, and I mean it stinks, it really does, and we'll see what happens with the court case. Maybe they just pay to go away. I have no idea. I have no idea what you would even sue for, what you can even get out of that. So we'll see what kind of happens there. So former brewer darren ruff is suing the reds about that tarp. So we'll see what kind of happens there.
Speaker 2:So the brewers wow, I mean we talk about this brewer team, as you guys know, pre-recorded, right? So I I don't know what else to say besides. I'm pre-recorded. So when I give you guys stats or anything like that, sometimes they're a day ahead, right, because I have the stat that the Brewers are on a eight-game winning streak, most consecutive streak in years I think it's been 2020, 23 since the last time they went on kind of a burner streak like this. I mean, there's just a boatload of stats you could go with right now with this team. It's been a run to talk about and awesome.
Speaker 2:I mean, the Brewers are probably would I mean you would say one of the hottest teams in the game. You definitely would You'd say one of the hottest teams in the game in my opinion. So why? There's some fans? It's split right, right now, for me it's split. You have fans who are on one side of this fence, where it's I told you so I told you they would be fine. Then you have the fans on the other side who are on one side of this fence where it's I told you, so I told you they would be fine. And then you have the fans on the other side who are like, ah, it's just a fluke. And then you have the fans in the middle. I'm in the middle right At this very moment.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to sit here and tell you that what we've seen, because we've seen, I mean, the Brewers swept the Phillies for the first time since 2015. That the Brewers swept the Phillies for the first time since 2015. That's been a while. So that's a stat to talk about. We're seeing stats. They've won. What do we got here? All of a sudden, 32-28 on the season here Jackson Churrio has been 8-27 with two home runs and seven RBIs. Christian Yelich all of a sudden wins NL Player of the Week. He's been playing well. So you look across this. You're like all the pieces are starting to form each other right.
Speaker 2:We went into the season. We said Christian Yelich has got to be the guy because Willie Adamas is gone. Christian Yelich finally shows up and the Brewers start winning games. Coincidence? I don't think so. Jackson Churio finally starts hitting the ball again.
Speaker 2:Jackson Churio Jackson Churrio in 2025 is streaky hot. He's a streaky hitter. He gets hot and he gets hot. When I say hot, I'm talking three for five, I'm talking four for five. That's the Jackson Churrio they should get when he's hot right now, but when he's cold, oh baby, is he cold?
Speaker 2:And that's what we saw with the Brewers when they were losing games. It was like everything was wrong. The defense looked like crap. The pitching was terrible. We had weird Pat Murphy's trying to make moves that aren't even there. Christian Yelich is off, the hitting's off, can't score runs. It's like everything was just unraveling and then all of a sudden they went on this streak.
Speaker 2:And why Well, christian Yelich got hot. Everybody's feeling it now in this lineup. It was like Sal was there, terang started out hot, you had guys starting out hot, it was just who needed to come yet who needed to join the party. We see it now. We see the guys. Christian Yelich is the main cog. As he goes, the offense goes, the main cog as he goes to, offense goes. So I got this question.
Speaker 2:People said to me you know, you complain so much about yelich that's what they tell me you complain so much about yelich. Was I wrong? And I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna ask myself the question was I wrong to complain about yelich not producing? No, no, I wasn't. Because as this team goes, as he goes look what's going on right now christian yelich gets hot and the team gets hot. Now can you completely rely on Christian Yelich to do everything for you? No, you can't. But when he is a hole in the lineup it's a lot easier to pitch to this team. But when he's hot you have to pitch to Jackson Churrio because you don't want to have him get on to get to Yelich. You have to pitch to Terang, it's not as easy to pitch to the guys in front of him and it's not as easy to pitch to guys behind him because when he gets on he's also a threat to run. So Christian Yelich is a mainstay because he's a top of the lineup guy.
Speaker 2:So everybody who was complaining about him in the right sense, saying he needs to be better and you need to find a way to implement him, and like I was saying last week, I said maybe get him out of the DH role, maybe put him in the L field a little bit more, try to get his feet. You know, keep him into the game, keep him, you know, focused everything like that on the game. I wasn't saying it as much as we're complaining about it. I'm not trying to complain about the guy because if I want to complain about him he sucks, he stinks, whatever. I'm not going to sit here and say that. I'm going to tell you why I think because I wouldn't complain. I shouldn't say complain but I wouldn't criticize, because I think, well, it's just going to be, that's going to help. It's not going to help.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes when I criticize him he actually hits home runs. So maybe me criticizing him, maybe being his doubter is his motivator, I have no idea. But when I watch him and I see when he goes on these runs and the Brewers go on these runs, I'm like this is the main reason why you were given that big contract and that's a big reason too why you would get upset. Nobody makes that kind of money in this lineup, except for Christian Yelich. And when he's not producing you sit there and you wonder to yourself why did we give you this big deal? We can't really afford anybody else because we Mark Ananasio's cheap, right, that's what we're told. Mark Ananasio's cheap, he doesn't have money. We're a small market team so we can't go get anybody else. But we gave you this big contract, but now you're not producing, right. And then it's oh, it's a back problem, oh, it's this, it's that. Okay, now the back's fixed. So now what's the deal? Right, and he may be slowly coming around.
Speaker 2:We talked about it last week. Kyle and I were talking about it and I said it there. I said sometimes it takes a minute to fill into a DH role, to change your role on a team like a Rafael Devers had to do didn't start out the year well. Now he's hitting well. Maybe Yelich is turning that corner, and if Yelich turns that corner, this whole team is going to turn that corner.
Speaker 2:And if that happens, watch out, because this pitching staff is only getting healthier. You have Freddie, you have Chad Patrick, you have Logan Henderson just sitting in the AAA right now. He's just dogging everybody down there and then he comes up and he pitches like an ace up here too. So you have that in your arsenal. You got Woodruff coming back. You got Quintana back. You're going to have arms going. You have Savali back. He pitched well against the Reds there on Monday night. You have a lot of weapons. Dl Hall pitched fantastic. Quinn Priester's been better since coming to Milwaukee. The bullpen's been rested because guys have been able to go longer. You have long relief guys. Now You're going to have returning pieces and this team is only getting healthier and you still don't have guys like Gary Mitchell and those guys back yet. When you get those guys back, man oh man, this team could take off.
Speaker 2:But there's two directions, right, there's two directions, and right now we're kind of figuring out. Is this a fluke of a run? What team is the real Brewers right? Is it part of what we see now, because it's not like they're going to stay hot like this forever, but it's. Can they find some consistency? Can they win four games in a week on some weeks and then five games the next week? Can they do that? Can they get on a winning? You have to. You want to be. If you want to end the season on a winning note, you have to be 500 on the road and about just around 700 at home. I would say 700, 750 somewhere on that at home. You got to be in that boat. If you have a losing road record, it's probably not going to season, not going to look very well, very good for you. Right now the cubs are having pretty high up there.
Speaker 2:So we got a lot more to get to here. We got I mean, we got more brewer talk. Coming up later we're gonna talk more brewers, memorial day, check-in, everything in between. So I want to talk about that. I want to get into a little bit mob talk later on today. So I can't wait to talk about that here.
Speaker 2:But coming up next we're going to wrap up the hour here. So we're going to wrap it up real quick and then Kyle's going to be coming on. We're going to talk a little bit of NBA playoffs and then we're going to have Ummer stopping by. We're going to talk a little Packers see what he's got to update us with the Packers here. And then we're going to talk Brewers later on, his show getting rolling here. We got a whole another hour of Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trace coming up just after this next commercial break here. So we'll be right back here after the quick commercial break. Welcome back as we wrap up the hour here on Wisconsin Sports on the Go with Trace. Don't worry, we're coming back. We got another hour of the show coming up here. We're going to talk with Kyle, we're going to talk with Elmer, we're going to get to a little bit more brewer. So let's make sure you were coming back here in the next hour of the show.
Speaker 2:But hey, this little last segment here is brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the half mile paved track just three miles west of Marshfield on County Road H. Find upcoming events and races at marshfieldspeedwaycom. That is marshfieldspeedwaycom there. If you want to find us across social media, make sure you're doing it Facebook, twitter, tiktok, youtube and Twitch. If you want to find us on Twitter, twitch and TikTok, search Wisco Sports on the go. If you want to find us on Facebook and YouTube, search Wisco Sports on the go with Trage. You can also email us if you're looking to sponsor a show, if you're looking like to get WiscoSportsOnTheGo at gmailcom that is WiscoSportsOnTheGo at gmailcom or reach out to us on any one of those social media platforms. You can also, at any point in the show, make sure you're texting in to the show here 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914.
Speaker 2:So in the next hour of the show we got Kyle stopping by. Next we're going to talk NBA playoffs. We got Am stopping by. Next we're gonna talk nba playoffs. We got I'm coming up later. We got brewer talk to get to, so make sure you're coming back here two hours. We are one hour down. Next hour to go. We got one more hour to go here on the show, so make sure you come back here for the next hour of wisconsin sports talk with trades. Here on wisconsin sports on the go trades. We'll be right back. Welcome back to our number two of wisconsin sports on the go with trades. I I'm your host, trage coming back on this Wednesday. And hey, this next segment of the show here Kyle's on. We're going to be talking NBA.
Speaker 2:This next segment of the show is brought to you by Marshfield Motor Speedway, the half-mile paved track just three miles west of Marshfield on County Road H. Find upcoming events and races at marshfieldspeedwaycom that is marshfieldspeedwaycom there. Marshfieldspeedwaycom that is marshfield speedwaycom there. So kyle's on tonight, kyle, how are we doing on this wednesday? I mean the weather it's been raining in wisconsin. How's it going out? How's it going down there in georgia, how's it going?
Speaker 3:I mean it's going well. Uh, we actually went through like a week and a half spell of rain like every day, not so much. Right now it's, you know, a little warmer. So, yeah, nothing, nothing to complain about. Like you said, I know we're getting into some good nba talk.
Speaker 2:The season is winding down it is, but it's, it's like it's winding down. But then we get the rumors and we get you know all of that silliness, so we're going to talk about that today. We're going to talk about some of these rumors I talked about in what's grinding my gears earlier on. It's joe, if you missed that. Make sure you check them back on the podcast tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Wisco sports on the go with trade. Find it anywhere. You find podcasts, but I was talking about earlier with the yannis and everything like that. So before we get there, kyle always comes on and we always do the mellow yellow minute with kyle here on the show. The trivia hour, right, the trivia hour dedicated to my grandpa. So today's trivia. So if you got your favorite beverage, make sure you're cracking it out there, right, make. If you got your favorite beverage, make sure you're cracking it out there, right, make sure you crack your favorite beverage right now.
Speaker 2:The trivia question for the day is what is Trage's top barbecue foods? So I got my top six. We're going to see if Kyle can guess at least three of them. We're going to see if he can guess three of them. So, kyle, what do we got Trage's top barbecue foods. Let's go. I'm going to go. Brisket Brisket is on there. Brisket is on there. It's on there at number five. Brisket is on there at number five. Brisket's like a southerner kind of backyard barbecue kind of thing. It's more of a southern kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, I learned that moving down from Boston, that, yes, southerners love their brisket.
Speaker 2:Now think midwest kyle. Now think midwest. What would a midwest guy have at?
Speaker 3:it. I was about to say you got to go traditionals now, so no midwest usually a brat there.
Speaker 2:It is number one. We got brats on the list. Using us right, we got to get a Eusingers brat there for the Ukes, so we got brats at number one.
Speaker 3:Okay. So then I'm going to say how about a nice rib?
Speaker 2:I did not have ribs on there, but ribs I mean they're good. See, you got all the Georgia stuff, but you got the southern stuff going on right now. Real backyard barbecue right now and I'm like, oh, I'm tailgating in my yard. Kind of thought process, I guess at this point here.
Speaker 3:Okay, I gotta think a little, okay. Well, I mean, I feel like this one's universal gotta be a burger burger.
Speaker 2:I got a burger there at number two on my list. I did throw a burger out there. Nothing beats a good burger in a bra. Yeah, absolutely this. Okay, number three on my list. I'll see if you can get this one quick. It's a side dish.
Speaker 3:I figured the next couple might be side dishes, so I was going to say probably a potato salad.
Speaker 2:Potato salad, boom, but no onions, no onions, no celery. I'm not dealing with that bull crap. I'm not dealing with that. Okay, I just want some potatoes and maybe some eggs up in there. I just don't want no celery and I don't want no onions up in there. Yeah, potato salad you got brats, burgers and potato salad you got the brisket on there. I had taco salad. I got part of my family that make taco salad. It is absolutely fantastic. Then crab salad my grandma makes this great crab salad. What's that? Wow, yeah, wow, great crab salad, wow, wow. So, yeah, I got. And I had pickles. I put pickles as number seven because you can't go around with a good pickle. I mean, you have a burger, you have pickle on the side. That's just the way it's got to be right. That's just the way it's got to be right now exactly exactly kyle.
Speaker 2:So we want to get we got a lot to get into kyle. I was talking about it off the top of the show. What's grinding my gears for the week here? Why does the nba want so badly for yannis to just leave milwaukee? Why do they? It's like that is what their goal is right now. You look at all these analysts and you look at, you know, all these experts right, and they're oh, yannis is going here. Oh, he's going here. Windhorse will tell me he's going here. And then, all of a sudden, he's going to the raptors and they don't even have the capital to get him. But he's going here. And then, all of a sudden, he's going to the Raptors and they don't even have the capital to get him. But he's going to the Raptors and he's going to the Knicks. They don't have the guys to get him either, but he's going to the Knicks now. And it's like when are we going to be done with the fake news here and we're just going to report what's actually happening out there?
Speaker 3:So I mean Kyle, okay, because the media has this crazy thinking that because Giannis is in a smaller market in Milwaukee, he won his title a couple years ago. He's now no longer beholden to Milwaukee and a guy of his stature should be on a bigger market for commercials or whatever, even though, if you look at it, he's pretty marketable even in Milwaukee because he's a global name. That should be good enough. I feel like the media should kind of start getting alongside with Silver. Silver would love nothing more than for Giannis to stay in Milwaukee, because Silver's job is to make it that each team feels like they have a chance of landing big name guys like Giannis and keeping them. Yeah, so if Giannis just bolts, then we get the same cycle where you know you draft these guys, you hope to get a title out of them and then they just bolt for a bigger city. But I think what these analysts aren't understanding is that I don't know if Giannis is that type of personality where he needs to be on the stage of New York. I think Giannis just wants to be somewhere where he can win. He doesn't care where that is. I know you brought Toronto. From what I've learned, the Toronto connection is more about keep butchering his last name, majiri, in the front office. I think he and Giannis have a bit of a connection. That's the connection to Toronto.
Speaker 3:I also get where you're saying that in terms of assets from Toronto it's kind of tough to see how you make that happen, like I've worked trade machines and I found trades that make sense but then they kind of don't make sense from Milwaukee's perspective. Because one thing Toronto could do is like they could package like a Brandon Ingram, jakob Pertl, the number nine pick and maybe some more picks on top of that, and maybe some more picks on top of that. Which Ingram is a guy who can score when he's healthy. Perto would kind of give you a big man, but he's not really a. He's like an undersized big man. So I just don't know how Milwaukee really takes that as a package. Maybe they throw a bunch of picks on it that make it more enticing, but yeah, I just don't see how Toronto gets it done. Maybe with a third team, maybe, but yeah, I don't know what to think about that rumor. I think he ultimately stays.
Speaker 2:I do too. You'd have to bring in a third team. And I agree, you know you look at what Adam Silver and what he wants and what these analysts and everything should want, is a league where you can look one through five and you can say any one of these five teams could go to the finals. And that's what we kind of saw this year with the Pacers. They could. I mean, it came out of not really out of nowhere to some, but to others it was out of nowhere. The Celtics were the favorite, it was the Knicks it was. You know the calves were going to do. It was expected, but still they put it together and found a way. So I mean, yeah, I I'm at the point where I'm looking at two and I'm saying why would, yannis, honestly, it's a lateral move to go to toronto, lateral, like you want to stay in more. You could win probably just as much in milwaukee as you can in toronto, and if that's if you win more, I I guess. But if they lose the number one to nine pick, they're also not getting better in that sense too. So we'll see what happens. I don't see anything happen, but we'll see what happens there.
Speaker 2:Other news coming out of the NBA. So Tyrese Halbert is dead. We saw the whole thing with Giannis. This ties into Giannis too. We saw the whole thing with Giannis there at the end of that series getting in his face on the court. Never should happen. I don't care who you are, whose parent you are, whose family you are If you get, I am Giannis should be somewhat protected from having to deal with a fan of anybody coming and getting in his face, and I don't care what anybody says. You watch the replays and the side views of all that crap going on. He did. He got in his face. He said the first thing to Giannis Giannis was not looking to pick a fight with Tyrese Halliburton's dad. Tyrese it, he got in his face. He said the first thing to yannis yannis was not looking to pick a fight with tyrese halberd's dad. Tyrese halberd's dad was looking to pick a fight with yannis and he got it. And he's lucky that yannis did not all of a sudden just come unglued, because maybe he's a ticking time bomb, we don't know. But anyways, tyrese halberd's dad was suspended from going to games. Well, that's been lifted already now.
Speaker 2:Kyle, kyle, I think to me and you know I don't like the Pacers. Everybody knows I don't like the Pacers and I don't like Tyrese Halliburton, so I guess his dad goes along with that. But to me, this upsets me in a different way, because if I did that, if you did that, if any normal person did that, got into Giannis' face on the court, we'd be suspended for life, not just a couple games, We'd be life. See you later, we'll watch you from home, but we're never going to be welcome back to the stadium. We'll have a poster of us on the front door of the stadium saying don't let these guys in. That's what we would be. He's just oh, yeah. Well, it's been a couple games now and now we're in the finals so you can come back in.
Speaker 2:I think it's a terrible. It's a terrible example. I really do. It's a terrible example just because the, the penalty wasn't really anything. It was nothing. It was oh, you got some bad cred, that was it, but nobody really batted an eye because he wasn't like tyrese albern, was this big thing, or the thing was a big thing, or anything like that. It just got over it. So, kyle, I mean, is this a little bothersome to you too, just looking on the outside, looking in?
Speaker 3:I think the best thing that probably happened with Halliburton's dad was the fact that Giannis didn't like overreact or anything, because it was just an instance where he got in Giannis' face and then that's kind of it. I think that worked in Halliburton's dad's favor, because I think Halliburton's dad just got caught up in the emotions of it, because you see it every time they show him during the games. Now he's up there, he's just having the time of his life and I feel like you can kind of not sympathize but empathize with him in that instance, because you're watching your kid be great in front of you. I think in that moment he just lost his head in front of himself out on the court and was like oh yeah, I'm in front of Giannis, I'm going to do something. Like if it turned into you know, mouse of the palace where we had fans get on the court like trying to fight players, that's a whole other thing. But this was just him out there.
Speaker 3:Yannis. Gotta give yannis a lot of credit for not, you know, knocking this guy out or anything like that. I think that's the only reason why he's back right now. So I get where you're saying. It's like if you or I did. It wouldn't happen that way. More likely, if you or I or an average fan had done it, they probably been drunk when they did it and gone out there and done something stupid.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So Halliburton's daddy I give him some credit for not being stupid. It was stupid for him to walk out there, but he didn't really do much of anything, so I feel like it's okay that he's back now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just think they got to police it a little bit better. Right, they got to control that, because there will come a time where yannis is a pretty goofy, level-headed dude where he's got his kids there, he knows how far he can take things. He's not gonna take things too far. We don't see yannis fight people like that's not yannis, but you get in front of the wrong guy and do that. Now we have a not a probably not a full-blown malice in the palace or anything like that, but we probably have a version of it that we don't want to see and it's going to be caught on live tv and it's gonna be caught on videos and then it's gonna lead to well, how do we police it now? Because we let it get to this point, because my thing with it is, and my worry, I guess, is that, okay, now that we saw tyrus halbern's dad do it. Well, now what's gonna stop somebody else from going on the court? And oh, we're gonna talk trash, and it's fine. People talk trash on the sides of the court all game long, it's fine, it's when you're on the court and after the game's done and Giannis is kind of just standing there like, oh crap, we just lost and now he's got a guy screaming into his face it changes, it changes. So, yeah, yeah, that's, I can see what you're saying, right, he gets very into the games, everything like that, and he's supporting his kid. I love that. But also at the same time, it's got to be policed, right. So that's where I guess, coming back so soon after we're like, oh, it's a lifetime ban, right, and then coming back so soon it's like I, I don't know but okay, okay, right end of the day, we get over it.
Speaker 2:So we look at the nba. Now we look at the nba finals. We saw these conference finals. Really, kyle, they kind of, to me, were what the rest of the playoffs have looked like. I mean, just not a whole lot to them. It was, I mean, thunder won four games to one, the Pacers won four to two. It didn't really ever seem like it was much of a series between any of these teams. So I mean, kyle, was there the takeaway? I mean, give me your takeaways from both series. Was there really a takeaway where you said like this is, I mean, a big takeaway they had?
Speaker 3:I think the takeaway was that the Wolves and the Knicks just ran into terrible matchups. You know, the Thunder were too deep for the Wolves to really contend. The Wolves had too many guys who didn't step up. You know, ant kind of played below average. Nas Reed was horrible. Randall started off the series well but he faded off and if that's the way you're going to play against the Thunder, you're going to lose in five games.
Speaker 3:Knicks Pacers. If you look at that series game one really shifted that series to the Thunder I mean to the Pacers' favor, because remember, the Knicks had the lead. It came down to the final second shot from Halliburton where his foot was on the line, sending it to overtime instead of winning it, and then the Pacers went in overtime. Yeah, it probably would be an interesting. What if that game goes the other way and the Knicks win it? How does that series turn out? It probably turns into a seven-game series and is a more, I guess, interesting outcome. But I just think the main thing was the Knicks couldn't handle the pace that the Pacers play at, especially when the Knicks don't have a deep team. Now the interesting thing is the Pacers like to play fast, the Thunder like to play fast and both teams are deep teams, so now it's kind of more of an even matchup, except for the Thunder just a better team at it than the Pacers are.
Speaker 2:This might be the best finals we could have had.
Speaker 2:I guess I could have said, if the Timberwolves and Knicks made it, it would have been fine because you would have had two slower-paced teams. I agree 100%. Both teams ran into this team's faster than us. They play faster. We can't keep up with them. They can shoot at the lights out of a building. They just couldn't keep up and that's what we saw there. Now, out of a bill, like they just couldn't keep up, and that's what we saw there.
Speaker 2:And now we're going to get, like you said, the opposite in this series where it's gonna be two high flying offenses with a lot of depth. They're going to be able to run back and forth. I this could be the best. I mean, this will probably it's supposed to be the best of the fine or of this. You know playoffs, but usually sometimes it doesn't end up being the best of the uh of the playoffs. But I think this is going to end up being the best series that we'll watch throughout the playoffs here. So I mean, give us a little preview here. We got a little preview of the game coming up. It's going to be Thursday, I believe is the opening game there. So give us a little preview of what you're seeing, who you're thinking in this series here OKC and Indiana. We'll check back in next week here when we come back here, hopefully, hopefully we got seven games in this series, because I can't handle four games and done. I mean, I can't handle the offseason already.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, no, I definitely see that. I think with this series what you have to look at because both teams play fast the Thunder are better at protecting the ball than the Pacers are. The Pacers are going to have to make sure they don't give away possessions because the Thunder like to get out and run and that's how the Thunder turns 6-0 runs into like 12, 15-0 runs and then the game kind of gets away from you. The Pacers have to guard against that. You know Halliburton's going to have to. You know Halliburton's having a great postseason run, he's going to have to turn his game up a level against this Thunder team. He may have to look to score a little bit more because we know he likes to facilitate a lot, which is not something you want to take away from him. But I think he's got to score more to hang with this Thunder team. And then for the Thunder it's like SGA just kind their ability to guard on the wings with SGA Caruso.
Speaker 3:You know Chet can switch out there. You know Hartenstein can. Can, you know, switch out as well? You got Case and Wallace on the bench. You have Jalen Williams like that's going to be interesting to see because the Pacers where they killed the Knicks was a lot of their wing play and the Knicks just couldn't match up. The Thunder can match up more than enough. So that's going to be the interesting part for me. I think the series goes six games. I think we get Thunder in six. I think, worst case, it's Thunder in five, and that would only be a situation where the Thunder blow up the Pacers the first two games at home. You go to Indiana, they steal a game in Indiana. You go back to Oklahoma three one and I don't think the paces can can hang in that situation, but I think it's Thunder and six.
Speaker 2:I, I, I can live with six, I can't live with five, fives too soon. These playoffs, I mean I live with five, fives too soon. These playoffs, I mean I try to get, as people know, I'm not the biggest nba fan, I'm more of a college basketball fan, but I've tried to get into this playoff series, these playoffs, and I'm watching these series and it's like I'm rooting for the underdog here, but they ain't giving up a fight. I mean I'm watching root for the calves against the pacers to come back and it's disastrous. I'm all rooting for, you know, the warriors and steph curry goes out, and it's like I'm rooting for the Warriors and Steph Curry goes out and it's like I can't root for anybody here. And it's like same with Tibbs. I mean, okay, I want to talk about that here.
Speaker 2:What gives? Why do the Knicks? They fire Tibbs. He takes them to the Eastern Conference Finals and they fall apart. They don't really come away with anything. It was basically I guess finals are bust and Tibbs. I guess finals are bust and tibbs gets fired. Doc rivers is still employed by the milwaukee bucks right now. So I mean, explain that one to me. What? What is tibbs? I don't think tibbs has done a terrible job with what he's been given in new york, yes, and the personalities he's got to deal with. So I mean, what? What gives with that kyle? What's going on there?
Speaker 3:unfortunately for Tibbs, the minute the Knicks beat the Celtics, that was kind of the worst thing that happened, because the expectations with this team was that they were going to the finals because they're better than the Pacers. You know, they have Jalen Brunson, they have Kat, they have OG Ananobi, they have Mikael Bridges like they have better guys than the Pacers. So we should make the finals, which would have been their first finals appearance since 99, where they lost to the Spurs. But what we failed to realize was the Pacers made the conference finals last year, even though nobody wanted to give them credit for that. We should have seen that was the beginning of that team really coming together and becoming a top team in the East.
Speaker 3:So I think, unfortunately for Thibodeau, all the attention on his lack of rotations and everything like that was just too much for him. And because of the city of New York, those Knicks fans, whenever they get a glimpse of a team that could possibly make the finals, they go crazy. And I just think that with the way that they went out against the Pacers, it had been tough to convince Knicks fans that Thibodeau was going to be the coach again next season. So I feel bad for him because, look, I love Thibodeau. He was on darker risk staff for the southern one, the title. I know how good of a coach he is. It's just that, with everything going on, I I just couldn't see him coming back to new york next he matches the personalities of the knicks.
Speaker 2:I mean, you look at a guy like art, michael bridges, og and anobi.
Speaker 2:The defensive side of it, right, that's that's where I was. Like this, the way that he coaches, the style that he wants to coach with just it matches this team so well. Yeah, and it's just, they ran into a team that just ran circles on them. That's all that happened. And, like you said, if they don't blow game one and they win that game, we're talking about a whole different series. But now your back's against the wall and then you got to try to try to win game two. You fail, you go back to Indiana. You try to win in Indiana. That's tough to do already, right? So I mean, it's just, the series did not set up well for them and, like you said, after game one it was just a disaster. So, yeah, so Tibbs gets fired. Kind of stinks to see there. Let's get rid of them.
Speaker 2:Some Buck fans are like, hey, let's move Doc because they think he's going to the upper management role. They're like, oh, let's move Doc up there and hire Tibbs. Now, I don't know if I'd hate that. I don't know if I'd hate that move at all. Doc Rivers, maybe they want to keep him in management, I guess. And then you bring in a guy like Tibbs to be your head coach of a team where he's supposed to be a gap year guy or you know, I'm going to build this team from the ground up a rebuild guy. I don't hate that move by Milwaukee either way. So we'll see what kind of happens there in the offseason as we get there. But we got the NBA Finals first. That's coming up Thursday. We're going to talk about it next week here. Hopefully Kyle and I are talking about a series that's still going on and not a series that's basically wrapping up. So hopefully we got that going on. But, kyle, let the people know where to find you out there across social media.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can find me. You know chopping at the bit on Facebook, youtube, kind of anywhere you listen to podcasts as well. You'll Spotify some audio versions. Find me even on Tumblr with a like a blog. So yeah, just come find me.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to search Tumblr. Now I have no idea. I thought Tumblr was like a drink cup or something, but now I have no idea.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to have to search Tumblr. I just use it for little blog article type things.
Speaker 2:I have read some of his links to his blogs Great stuff. So make sure you are searching up Kyle out there on Facebook, on Twitter, wherever you guys have social media, wherever you can search him up there. Search him up, find his show. He is great. He's going to tell you all about this series coming up. He's going to give you recaps of those. Can't wait to watch those because we're going to be talking about it next week when we come back here. So, kyle, thank you.
Speaker 2:As always, we'll be back here talking MLB. We're going to wait and see if Umber can make it on quick or he's going to be out later in the show. Either way, we're going to get Packers. We got Brewer talking to you too, so make sure you're coming back here on a quick ad break here We'll come back. We're going to talk more Wisconsin sports on the backside here.
Speaker 2:Welcome back into Wisconsin sports on the go with Trage. I'm your host. Trage back on this Wednesday. And hey, before Umber starts up here, starts up here. We got our sponsor of this next segment. A little bit packer's talk here. We got foreman's hardware there.
Speaker 2:In loyal wisconsin they offer you everything from well. Loyal kobe and medford wisconsin. Sorry, loyal kobe and medford, wisconsin. There they offer you everything from home essentials to farm supplies, house to farm grills to drills. Foreman hardware has got you covered. You got to visit up down there in loyal kobe or medford w. Tell them Trade sent, you Get 5% off. Landscaping grills. You need a Traeger they got it. Pellets, seasonings we got a new sponsor coming on, one of the seasoning companies that work with the hardware store down there. They're going to be sponsoring the show here. So I mean I already use all their seasonings. They're going to be coming on. Make sure you are getting down to four minutes. Tell them trade sent, you, get 5% off. Can't think of a better deal. So we got Umber on tonight. Umber, how we doing. It's Wednesday, it's middle of the week. Right, we're getting through it, we're persevering. Right, we're persevering through the week.
Speaker 1:Good man, I'm good man, I can't complain. Man, we're halfway there, uh, got ota updates and, um, honestly, just I'm really looking forward for the season to start hearing comments from the coaching staff, from the players, um, and man, it just feels good man, I'm just looking forward to just seeing jordan throwing some nice balls out there. Uh, and just, really, just, I'm just getting hype and I'm just really getting hyped for this season coming up I it, it really is.
Speaker 2:It just feels like, with all these additions and guys coming back, right, you have like a second-year draft class coming in with Morgan and then you got Lloyd hopefully right, lloyd coming back.
Speaker 2:You got all them guys. It's an exciting time. It really is an exciting time. So I wanted to talk a little bit. So Kenny Clark. It comes out about him there that he was battling a foot injury last season after that game against the Eagles. So apparently a lot more people got hurt down in Brazil than we thought. Kenny Clark apparently had a foot injury, persevered, played throughout the season, right, persevered, like we're doing through the week right now. He persevered through the rest of the season there, had surgery on it and now it's repair. Interesting, right. I hate when they do this, it and now it's repair. Interesting, right, I hate when they do this. It's like a hot it's. It's almost not not as bad, right. You get those hockey guys who are like, yeah, I broke my tibia but I still played the rest of the season. It's like, how are you skating around on a broken tip? Like some of that crap they come out with is absolutely crazy. But kenny clark, I mean, could this be the reason? The lack of production? Right?
Speaker 1:you're hoping so, right I mean honestly, yeah, I think like if he hurt his foot week one, he played through it all year and on the injury report he did have a toe injury all year.
Speaker 1:And if he had a really bad turf toe, um, he did say he had bunions, he had a toe injury and he also had to get foot surgery.
Speaker 1:Didn't really go in too much detail about it, but you can definitely tell like his production went way off and a lot of people there's a reason why he was extended was because they're expecting big things from him in this new scheme and I really think, like he was, let's just say that he was even like being apprehensive about talking about the field conditions in brazil, because last time he said he did, the brazilians got all over him, right, yeah, and I think, as you can tell, jordan got hurt and that really kind of. There's a lot of talk of regression, no regression, but let's just say that that injury did impact his season. Sam theocaine clark and, if you think about it, those are probably two of the most important players on both sides of the field and to see them have the debilitating injuries that they did, that impact them all year, kind of plays into the fact that they had such a disjointed offense and a little bit of disjointed defense and for them to come out with 11 wins still.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty, you know, I I'm pretty amazed by that yeah, and it's a big boost, you would say, getting a healthy kenny clark back you're hoping that it's full go now.
Speaker 2:Right, rishon gary was the second year back from his injury. You're like, okay, maybe it's full go now. Maybe you get that with kenny cl here he's been in the news a lot more. I mean the Packers, apparently defensive line. That group has been meeting up at Kenny Clark's house for film sessions. So that's huge. And if you can't make it, you're going to zoom in. I love that accountability that they're holding with that too. If you can't make it, you're zooming in. You're not going to miss this. Get to the house, I love that.
Speaker 2:There we see, also on that defensive line, lucas van ness. So another injury last season. Right, you're talking about the broken thumb. He had that cast on, then he got it off. Then he says there was a mental block in the way. I think it was. Yes, his own head was in his own way. Yes, probably it's all with the hands, is what he said. I agree. I just think there's a lot more to that than just oh, my cast came off. Now I gotta figure out how to use my hands again anyways. So the floor comes out and he says, all right, well, talking about lucas van ness, we're gonna talk about him taking some snaps on the inside. Playing that defensive tackle role. He's got the size. I mean he definitely has a size. I like the versatility that that would bring. What do you think about that lucas van ness sliding in? Maybe he doesn't have the production on the outside, but maybe being a run stopper up the middle, maybe that fits his fold I mean, honestly, lucas vaness has athletic profile to play and sign out.
Speaker 1:I mean he did do that in iowa as well, too, as a part-time player. I feel like, uh, it reminds you when clay matthews broke his thumb and he had a bennett fracture and he was telling me, like how, the simplest things that you would do with a with your thumb, you couldn't do like you couldn't even button shirts, and just how debilitating that was. Right, another debilitated injury, and it was funny like he hurt at week 10 but it definitely must have impacted for the remainder of the year because he just wasn't himself. Like there's parts of the way his pass rusher was going, you could definitely tell, even based on grading and just the way he was attacking some of these offensive linemen, that that he just wasn't getting the same kind of oomph and maybe that was what was holding him back. I mean, I feel like if you and Rashawn even was in his defending until he goes, think about us trying to move 300 and 350-pound linemen and we don't know what to do with our hands because our hands are all banged up, so you know what it could.
Speaker 1:The thing is, I knew he had the injury. We all saw the cast right and when the cast came off he had like a soft cast on that. He played for a remainder of the year. Again, he didn't talk very much to the press during the season after the injury. So this coming out now, like you just said, sometimes it kind of sucks after a fact, carrying like this person had a down season. Then you come to the final. They had an injury that they played with, um, but for me, any way you can get your best players on the field and put them in positions to succeed. I'm all for it. And again, you want think about you got devonta, wyatt, lucas, van ness, kenny clark and brinson or stackhouse on that line.
Speaker 2:Hey, I think we're cooking with gas at that point yeah, no, I like I I'm hoping I don't want to say that I thought you you know Lucas Van Ness. It was all in his head at times.
Speaker 1:But you know.
Speaker 2:I just I'm hoping that it was the thumb and that was the problem and it was the hands and you know, like you said, trying to figure out how to reuse them, how to adjust right, because it still probably stings to get hit up there in the trenches.
Speaker 2:So you don't you're you're trying to almost your body's trying to protect, while also you're trying to do your job. You're trying your body's trying to protect itself from hurting yourself again, but you're trying to readjust, to play the game again. So, yeah, I can see where you could see it both ways, right, and I I hope that that was a big reason. Maybe, maybe he's not a star, but maybe he's a subpar player and I could if, if he ends up being a subpar dude or a little bit above a subpar dude, it's better than nothing at this point. Right now we're looking at him as he could be a bust, and a big bust at that. So if he can end up being average at the end of the day, I could take average at this point, because right now it's kind of teetering on average below average and I don't like that very much.
Speaker 2:So more tidbits. We have kesha nixon. He's talking about returning kicks again. He said last season the end of the year there, and we kind of hinted at this, assume this. You know.
Speaker 2:We saw jair walk out basically say deuces, right. We saw nixon say, well, I don't want to return kicks anymore. He was very adamant about that. He wanted to be qb or dot, qb1, cb1. Now we see him coming back and he's like well, I'm, I'm open to it, I'll do it. I'll do it again. That's fine. I like that, because he's walking back on it. He's not he's, he's like I, I screwed up. I didn't mean it like that, I was upset, I was frustrated, I wanted, because in that moment I probably, you know, I would have to think back. But how many times did he get torched last year? He's like I want to be better at this spot. I don't want to have to focus on two spots. I can understand that. So him coming out and saying though that I want to, if the team needs me to, I will return kicks. I like that. I like that versatility that he's willing to display there.
Speaker 1:I think with Keyshawn Nixon, if he's going to be playing a prominent role in defense, you don't want him getting exhausted on special teams. I think we drafted and also picked up guys that can actually take that role over and do a great job at it. With the change to the kickoff rules and touchbacks going to a 35-yard line, I'm going to be interested to see if they do try to kick the ball more to him and try to put him in that zone to actually return the ball. Keyshawn Dick walked back his comments. He said he was in his emotions. He sounds still pretty pissed off and that his mouth is still hit. They said bad taste. He says yeah, I got vinegar in my mouth.
Speaker 1:He did have a lot of elusive praise for every single one of the people that's in the secondary and then when I asked about Jair he had nothing but love In his original comments. He didn't say anything about Jair until actually prompted about Jair. But at the end of the day I think Keyshawn Nixon is one of those kind of dudes who you know. He even said that he barely even played in Oakland. It doesn't even count the fact that he has any like tread on. He didn't lose any tread on his tires because of the fact that he barely did anything in Oakland, which I think was kind of funny.
Speaker 1:But a guy like him I mean, when you're a special talented player like he is I think you just got to find ways to get him on the field. I think he's the kind of dude you put back there in certain situations. I'm not laying him trying to do kick returns on a consistent basis. I think, like you said, it's a great thing that he's like hey, I'm willing to do whatever it is to help the team win. But on the flip side too, if you're going to be cornerback one, or at least cornerback one or two, then I want that to be your primary focus.
Speaker 2:As long as Savion Williams can catch, or a guy like McCall Hardman can catch.
Speaker 2:I don't need to risk Gaden Reed on a punt return. I don't need to risk Keyshawn Nixon back there. And maybe Keyshawn Nixon walks back because at the end of last year he's like I don't know if Jair's coming back, right, because he's frustrated. Jair was, I don't know if he's coming back. Now I want to focus on being the guy. Now it's like, oh, jair might be coming back, so now I might be able to shift my focus back to being, like you said, cb2. And that's like a part-time role. And then I am also back there returning kicks.
Speaker 2:Because a big question mark too right now is where's jv and bullard fit into this whole thing? Because with hobbs on the inside and outside, it's like where do you put bullard? Because, evan williams, you expect him to be back there with mckinney. So you know, barring injury, right, knock on wood. But it's like the secondary is going to get weird because, like kaylin king, you, we want to see him take a big step forward. Where does he fit into the fold? Where does some of these young guys fit in? Jair comes back, you have Keyshawn, you have Nate Hobbs. It's going to be. There's a lot of depth, right, and depth's not a bad thing, but it's also like, where do you put your playmakers then at the end of the day? Maybe Keyshawn Nixon sees that and he's like, where can I best help this team? And maybe that's returning kicks, maybe that's being a sub on defense while also returning kicks. So it's one of those things too and it's like. It's like zach tom right now, and I want to get zach tom here.
Speaker 2:Zach tom, he's waiting on a big contract because we know zach tom is darn good, darn good when he went healthy, when going at his, he's one of the best in the game, if not the best in the game, and what he does. He's waiting for a, a massive contract. Yet he's at OTAs and he says and I love this quote I'm just trying to do what's best for the team and being here with the guys. I think it's worth more than that contract right now. Yeah, I absolutely love that. I love that talk because Trey Hendrickson yeah, I understand, we want Trey Hendrickson in green Bay. I Trey Hendrickson yeah, I understand we want Trey Hendrickson in Green Bay. I get that.
Speaker 2:So I don't want to trash talk him too much right now, but you see so many guys like that example right there, where it's like I'm waiting for my big deal. I ain't going to go out there until I got it. And Zach Tom's like dude, well, first off, right now there's no contact. I get non-contact injuries happen. It's like the risk is a little bit less right now. And Zach Tom's just like I want to get out there with my guys, I want to get this thing off the ground and run it. Trey Hendrickson's like I don't really care, like I know I'm the best on the defense right now. I don't really care, I just I love the way Zach Tom's approaching it. I know the floor spoke on it. He loved it too. He was very adamant talking about Zach Tom and that's a leadership that you can't really teach. That that's what you bring to the table, and so I love that. What are your thoughts on Zach Tom right now and what he's bringing into that locker room and into that huddle right now?
Speaker 1:I mean he's on that rookie contract so at the end of the day he can try to hold out. But I definitely can understand that he's definitely trying to also show good faith and being there and showing up. I mean, I remember this time last year he was dealing with a torn pec right, a pec injury, and I think that kind of probably had a little bit to do with maybe his output or throughout the year maybe he wasn't fully recovered from that. The same thing Tucker Kraft was dealing with, I think, for him to play as well as he did, knowing that he had an injury that he did.
Speaker 1:It's kind of crazy how many torn pecs and issues that we had on our team with Myers and Tucker and Zach. So it just seems like you know something that we need to get fixed. But seeing him out there and really because Elton's not there right now trying to get understanding about how this line is going to look and how they're going to kind of navigate through what they're going to do at these positions, it's good to get an idea about where people can kind of fit in. Just some things like I think it's a great to have contingency plans across the board, knowing that hey, if someone goes down, we're not going to fall apart like we did in that playoff game yeah, no, I agree, I agree and I, it's just, I love guys and I know he's on that rookie deal and everything like that, but I love guys who are there.
Speaker 2:He knows that he's worth a lot of money. He knows that, even if he's like, oh, packers, trade me right, go get me somebody else. He could do it. But he's like, no, I'm going to stay, I'm going to be here, I'm going to help my team get better. We're going to get better together. Because he sees other guys Can you imagine wasn't there and we're just like who's there, right?
Speaker 2:Who's actually at otas right now? So I love that you see zach tom getting in there. I love that we're seeing romeo dobbs in that huddle with those wide receivers. He's working with matthew golden. We saw him yesterday working with uh sam brown jr there during otas. I love that jobs is taking that step forward. We saw reed in there too.
Speaker 2:Reed was talking with the guys. He was helping him out a little bit. I just love seeing guys like that, especially because there was so much disgruntled talk and we had Goody going to houses talking to agents and it was just. There was so much controversy, right, and we were talking about it too right. I said point blank. I said this wide receiver room needs to grow up. They need to grow up in this offseason. This blink. I said this wide receiver room needs to grow up. They need to grow up in this offseason. This is it. This is exactly what I wanted to see.
Speaker 2:Was these wide receivers go out of their way to help the young guys at base, like you? Go out of your way to help them? Young guys, you're proving that you don't really like. You don't see them as a threat anymore. You, you see them. As I'm a mentor, now I'm helping these guys get their feet wet, get in the league. I love that. What are you? What are your thoughts on? Dobbs and reed and you know this the old, the veterans helping out the young guys here coming in I guess what you want to see.
Speaker 1:I think you want to see these third and fourth year guys taking that leadership role. Watson is also probably yet. He's out there but he's not practicing right, but just hearing, not only seeing him actually out there taking these guys under his wings, showing them the ropes, talk. And then also there was a couple of videos by ryan wood of him talking about how golden is asking all the right questions. He's asking a lot of questions. He doesn't talk a lot, he just comes and does his job, which I think dobbs can relate to, because dobbs is very much the same way too.
Speaker 1:And then for coast of floor, you know, as a head coach, you have opportunities to either bash your players in the media or you have opportunities to rise them up.
Speaker 1:We saw mccarthy, which he regretted doing after the fact, talking about eddie lacy's weight, and that kind of had a spiral effect down the wrong way right.
Speaker 1:And the floor for the most part doesn't try to, you know, attack his players in the media. He tries to take their side and sometimes you know, he does a little more than he needs to. In this case, with dobbs, you definitely saw where everyone is noticing that he has. He's taking the right foot forward, which is a good thing, because a lot of his mentors and stuff like that was coming into question from last year. So his commitment to the team looks like it's pretty strong, and the fact that he's just embracing that role because I feel like that can play into the fact that he was having some concerns about who he is or what his role is on the team. I think not only what the coach is saying, but just based on his own actions and the young guys coming to him and read, I think they have a good idea about who they are and that they should take that role very seriously, and I think they are I love it.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love it. There there's a guy who you were talking about last week there. One of your guys that needed to step up had to prove it this year. Right, was going to prove it this year, lloyd Marshawn. Lloyd Apparently, according to Matt LaFleur, had another injury pop up this offseason. That was why he was away from, I believe, the first OTA, the open media for the OTAs there. He was gone for that. He was back though. He's feeling better. He looked good. You know it's non-contact OTA, so what can you really tell anymore, right?
Speaker 2:Nobody's saying it's hard to gauge stuff when you get into that. But I mean, is it, are you concerned? Because I'm a little because we're talking about it where we have Emmanuel Olson, we have guys like Chris Brooks in there, you have Josh Jacobs. You have to make decisions right, because you're not going to carry how many running backs can you carry? You're not going to carry 30 of them here. You gotta, you gotta pick and choose who you're going to carry. And if marshall lloyd, I love the talent, I love the potential, but if he's injury prone, it scares you. So I mean, is it a major concern to you right now that we're coming into off the off season and we have another injury concern now?
Speaker 1:I think yes and no. Like you know, your best ability is availability and in lloyd's case, you know, if he keeps getting nicked up on these little things here and there, uh, right now is not the time to be too concerned, right, otas? When minicamp comes and hitting happens, that's when you're gonna really see what these guys bodies really made of. And then training camp, and I think, like they proved last year, that not having lloyd out there, they were still able to be just fine in the running game. And they do have some young talent that they've brought in. I do like Armour Johnson. Even though he has my first name, the truth is that he, coming out of South Dakota State, he has some juice, and one of the things that Packers do really well is find undrafted free agent gems and playing in the mixed team. Hence Emmanuel Wilson Sr is one of those guys, right, and so if Lloyd could come in and contribute, I think it would be great.
Speaker 1:And if he's injured again, then again. You know how we always talk about the third-round curse, and that's Tucker. Craft and a couple other guys broke that curse. Unfortunately, maybe Lloyd is coming back a little bit, but injuries are a part of the game. It's up to him to figure out how he's going to get past it, and it will be interesting to see what will happen here in the next three months if he's going to be able to push past, because last year he just had some horrible luck. I mean, you talk about the hamstring, the appendix blown out, the appendix blown and then the hamstring.
Speaker 2:He was just about to come back too, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like my god dude, this poor guy, like that's just terrible luck. So I'm I'm just chalking up to really bad luck and I'm hoping that whatever kept him out the first week was a very minor thing, and I mean, you're seeing this across the league cj stroud was kind of held back for a reason because he had minor soreness in the shoulder. So players are getting dinged up and they have little things that just work in the football shape a little bit. So I'll take that right now, but again you're talking about him missing preseason games and missing snaps in training camp. All right, now then I'm going to be concerned.
Speaker 2:Okay, there we go. Yeah, I like that. I like that answer. It's. You know his injuries. His luck is about as good as Brandon Woodruff's right now. He good as Brandon Woodruff's right now. He's been out of the bigs for, I believe, 20 plus months now.
Speaker 2:He had shoulder surgery. He's been working his way back. When he was working his way back through rehab he hurt his ankle. He was out for a while. Then he came back from the IL, was on rehab again and then just last night he was pitching in his last rehab assignment game in AAA before he's going to come back to the bigs. Got a line drive back to him, hit him off the elbow on his pitching elbow.
Speaker 2:So now they're expecting he's probably going to be out again, so it's like the luck is not there for him right now Sounds like it. Brandon Woodruff's a gamer and I just want to see him come back, even if he stinks when he comes back. I just want to see him come back Because 20-plus months being out of the bigs at this point he was pretty good before he got hurt there.
Speaker 3:it just sucks to see so any two years almost two years now, yeah, so it sucks, it absolutely sucks.
Speaker 2:So, umber, I gotta run here. Where can the people find you out there across social media?
Speaker 1:hey, man, come check me on uh on twitter or x, whatever you want to call it on am ar 3455. Uh, we do mean track has a show on Game On Wisconsin Coast to Coast Packers. We're probably going to be going I'm thinking Friday again because we're going to wait for some more of the OTAs to come through and some more press conferences to come through. But yeah, man, just Trey, thanks for having me so much. Man, I always enjoy this every week.
Speaker 2:Of course it's always a blast. It is always a blast, so we'll be right. We're going to talk Brewers on the backside. We've got the Memorial Day check-in. We're going to check in on the Brewers, check in on the rest of the league, See where everybody's at. We're going to wrap up the show here. We'll be back here on the backside of this ad break.
Speaker 2:Welcome back into Wisconsin Sports on the go with Trage. I'm your host, Trage coming back on this Wednesday. Hey, we're talk here to get us towards the end. But this next segment of the show here is brought to you by sport and spine clinic of greenwood, wisconsin, their expert traditional physical therapy and structural integration programming. Call flexible scheduling and evaluations. Just call chad down there at sports by clinic of greenwood, wisconsin there he'll get you right and get you doing whatever you are doing better than ever. So head over around here. We just talked Packers. If you missed any of that, make sure you're checking out the show next day here on any podcast platform Apple, Spotify, wherever you podcast. But I told you guys last week I wanted to get we didn't get to it last week the Memorial Day check-in.
Speaker 3:Everybody tells me at.
Speaker 2:Memorial Day. You can look at a team. You can say where do you see them right now? Are they buyers, are they sellers, where are they at right now in this season? So I want to look across the league what we like, what we're kind of seeing right now, who do we like, et cetera. So in the AL right now, I mean what's not to love about the Detroit Tigers? Honestly, right now, 40 and 21,. They're the best team in the AL right now. They've been fantastic. Currently Seven games up in that AL Central. And when I look at that Tigers team right now, I mean they're led by Scooble. They've had some young guys definitely come together and play. I mean they're playing some darn good baseball. Yankees have been playing well.
Speaker 2:So the Seattle Mariners I mean surprising people out there in the West. The West is kind of a. The West is the NL Central. I always say that the West is the NL Central. It's like the Astros and Mariners are carrying that top half. The Rangers are right there. The Angels are hanging around. The Athletics are kind of there but kind of not. So they're kind of hanging around. The White Sox have 18 wins. That's all we need to know. The White Sox have 18 wins. So right now, the American League, your contenders, you would say right now probably the Yankees Tigers. I would probably throw in a team like the I mean never come up with the Astros. I'd probably throw in the Mariners in there. Outside of that, I mean there's teams on the cusp right now but they're not, would you say, true contenders. At this very moment.
Speaker 2:When I look over at the National League, that's where it gets a little more interesting. So in the National League we have the Cubs on top of the Central, ahead of the Cardinals by four and a half games. The Brewers had six games there after they lost that game to the Reds last night there. And then in the West we have Dodgers up top. There. We see them with a one-game lead over the Padres Giants just trailing by three games. Diamondbacks two games below five. Five hundred seven games. Back there in the East we got the Mets and Phillies top one and two. There are the Phillies coming off a rough that was a rough weekend against the Brewers, so let's just go with that. That was a absolutely terrible weekend for him there.
Speaker 2:So where are you looking in the National League Right now? I mean your best team you would say would probably be the Mets. They're the hottest team outside of the Cubs 8-2 over the last 10. The Cubs 8-2 in their last 10. Both of them sitting there with 38-22 record there. I mean, the Mets have been better at home, so that's kind of where they get it, but the Cubs have been better on the road 18-11 on the road are the Chicago Cubs, whereas the Mets are sitting 14-15. You think about 500 on the road is a good record. The Cubs that run differentials at 102 at this very moment. The Brewers, they're on their way back 33-29.
Speaker 2:So the question is the Memorial Day check-in. The question is where are you at with the Milwaukee Brewers right now, after they just rattled off this big winning streak? They're 8-2 in their last 10. Where do you see this Brewer team right now? My answer to that I see them as buyers, but sellers.
Speaker 2:Because do I believe that they can compete with the Mets, the Phillies, the Cubs, the Cardinals, the Dodgers, the Padres? Yeah, I believe they can compete. Don't get me wrong. I don't know if they can beat seven-game series. I don't know if they got the. The thing with it is and I heard this on MLB Network and I completely agree I don't know if they got the. The. The thing with it is and I heard this on mvb network and I completely agree I don't know if they have the power to beat the dodgers, the mets, the phillies. They beat the phillies. But I don't know if they got the power when the phillies are healthy and they're rolling. I don't know if they got the power to win a seven game series and go long in the playoffs. Right, because over the last I I don't remember the stat it up and waste time here but over the last how many years the you had to be fourth or better to I mean, basically the team that won the world series have been fourth or better in home runs across the league. So you have to have some power hitters in that lineup. The brewers have some, but they lack it right. They have contact guys, right yourselves, your terrains, they know how to get the job done. They just lack, lack power, I would say. So that's the only knock that I could say on the Brewers. I think they can compete with these teams. I just don't think that I don't know if they got the muscle to go the length in this current state. Where they're at. So where am I at with the Brewers right now, if you have enough starting pitching, which I think they do right Logan Henderson, chad Patrick have been fantastic.
Speaker 2:You have Brandon Woodruff supposed to be back. He got banged up again, which sucks. Hopefully Brandon Woodruff comes back at some point there. But you have Savalli in there, you have Quintana and you have I mean you have a lot of young guys. Mizorowski's going to be coming up at some point there. If somebody calls for Freddy Peralta, he's got an option next year. That's it.
Speaker 2:I I wouldn't be opposed to moving a Freddie Peralta. I won't be opposed to moving a Katana, except for if it's in the national league, because he kills us when he pitches against the Brewers. So I wouldn't want to see him go there. But if they call about a Freddie or they call about maybe another like a Reesekins possibly it depends what they offer I don't know if I'd turn it down If it's a guy where you think he can develop into a good third baseman. I know Durbin's been playing a lot better, or actually Joey Ortiz is playing a little bit better. So I don't want to completely say, well, we should just dump him right then. But I wouldn't be opposed to seeing him maybe move on from a guy. If they can get better for the future because I do I really do think the brewers best years are the 2026, 2027, kind of that range 2028 because they have a lot of young guys, a lot of really good talent cooper pratt, etc.
Speaker 2:Down there in the minors who are on their way. It's just give them time. Right, they need a couple years, but they're gonna going to be here when they get here. I mean Jesus Maid, luis Lara, another outfielder, you're going to have Cooper Pratt, the shortstop, mike Bovey, brock Wilkin you have a lot of talent down there in the minors between double-A, single-a. Down in the Mudcats you got a lot of talent. Timber Rattlers there's a. It's just waiting for him to come up, waiting for him to get to the big leagues, and that's going to be a couple years from now.
Speaker 2:So can you bolster this team and be ready for that? Because right now it seems like you're kind of in this stagnant year where you're going to be good, you're going to win some games, you're going to be play competitive baseball, right, as david stearns would say, bites at the apple, but you're not going to probably win it all. But could you potentially at some point. So that's kind of where I'm at right now. I'm not a complete seller, but I'm like, ah, there's pieces that I can move on from. If it came down to it, I wouldn't be opposed to moving on for it. So that's kind of where I'm at the Memorial Day check-in. That's kind of where I'm at with this team right now. Am I a buyer? Am I a seller? I'd love to hear what you guys have to say. 715-990-4914. That is 715-990-4914. Where are you at with this Brewers team right now? Are you a buyer? Are you a seller? Where are you at with this team? I know it's early, right, everybody's going. Oh, it's too early to say that. It's never too early. Where are you at right now? If it was the deadline today, are you a buyer? Are you a right now? I'd love to hear it from you. 715-990-4914.
Speaker 2:So we gotta wrap it up for the day. We had a long nba talk. We had a long packer talk, so we gotta wrap it up for the day. We'll be right back here on wisconsin sports, on the go with trades. We'll wrap it up for the day. When we come back, we'll be right back here. Welcome back. As we wrap it up for the day here on wisconsin sports on the go with trades. It was a great night love, great talks all the way through.
Speaker 2:If you missed any of it, make sure you're going back checking it out tomorrow across all podcast platforms apple, spotify, youtube, wherever you get podcasts, make sure you're checking out, make sure you subscribe, anywhere you find us out there. We had badger talk earlier on today. We're talking badges, we talked brewers early on in the show we talked nba, we talked packers. We got to a little bit of LB here at the end. Just, it ran long, right. We only got two hours. Maybe we'll get to three at some point. Right now we're at two hours, so we couldn't go any longer there. But we got a little Brewer action coming up here over the weekend. The Brewers are going to be taking on the San Diego Padres, coming back home to take on the Cardinals after that and then the Cubs. So a little bit of tough sledding for the Milwaukee Brewers. So we'll see what happens there. Hopefully get some good wins coming up here over the weekend.
Speaker 2:But hey, just a quick little tidbit to end us. Here we have a non-profit charity. We're going to be partnering with Warm Kids Wisconsin. So make sure you're checking them out there. They supply warm clothes, clothes to kids, all Well, they're working. Right now they're up here in central Wisconsin.
Speaker 2:The goal is to get kids everywhere warm clothes and being able to donate them to kids in need. So we're going to be partnered that. We're going to have more information on that. But make sure you are searching it up Facebook. They're on Facebook Tick tock A lot on tick tock Right. A lot on TikTok right. They has a lot of videos that he posts over there on TikTok. But on Facebook they're on there. They're on Instagram. They have link trees there so you can help donate, find out about their mission, everything like that. So we're going to get a little bit more information on that. We're going to have it up on our Facebook page too, and we're going to have some commercial everything working on that. So we're going to be partnering with them With that. That's about all we got for tonight. Thank you all for tuning in. I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your night and week, but until I talk to you guys again next Wednesday, see ya.