HOUR 2 | Utah Jazz’s Summer League performance in SLC and LV | 5 Minutes Of | Diana Sabau departs…
Welcome back to the Saturday show 975 the KSL Sports Zone. I’m Christian Esparza. Alex Napoulos with me. Thank you for making us a part of your Saturday morning. Alex, let’s talk jazz. Got to start it off with uh some news that came out on Monday. We were just talking in the break like this week was so long. I can’t believe the John Collins trade happened on Monday. Like that feels like ages ago already. Um, and although it was a while ago, we still want to give our thoughts and opinions about it. Absolutely. In case you missed it, the Utah Jazz engaged in a three-team trade, sending John Collins to the Clippers. Um, and the Jazz ultimately they ended up with Kevin Love and Slow-mo Kyle Anderson and a second round pick. That’s his nickname. Yeah. Uh, I I want to point out while I mentioned the return there, the thought early on was that Kevin Love was going to get bought out. He’s still on the team. Yeah, he hasn’t been bought out yet. I was thinking about that yesterday and uh so we’ll see what happens there. I was a little surprised that he hasn’t been bought out. I don’t know how long their timeline is. You would think with it being summer in free agency, they probably want to try and do it quickly. He probably wants to try and get bought out quickly. Maybe they’re trying to trade him or something. I don’t know. I don’t know if he has any trade value. I mean, they literally had to attach a pick to Colin Ston to get off of him. So, I can’t imagine that they would get anything in return for Kevin Love. But, uh, Kevin Love’s, he joins the infamous alltime never suited up Jazz roster with, uh, Russell Westbrook and Derek Rose. That’s all the people who saw their West jerseys. Yeah, right. Add a love jersey to it now. Uh, why not? But it’s funny, you search up, you know, John Collins trade or whatever, there all these articles. Uh Tim McMahon from ESPN, he was on the Hoop Collective podcast basically saying that this is a quote. He said he was too damn productive last season. Talking about John Collins. I don’t even remember all the injuries they came up with to make sure he didn’t play. They limited him to 40 games last year. He played in 70% of their wins. They didn’t win much, but they won too often with John Collins in the lineup. And he was a reason they had to get rid of him. They couldn’t have him on the roster. And it’s funny seeing the national media, you know, come out and speculate about that and catch on. Yeah, we’ve been saying it all summer. You heard Austin A say that in his introductory press conference. You won’t be seeing that this year. That wasn’t in reference to tanking and losing games. That was in reference to manipulating minutes. Manipulating minutes, coming up with the fake injuries. And how do you get around that and still lose games? You trade these guys away. Yep. And John Collins is a vet. He’s in the quote unquote prime of his career. And he honestly gets to go to a good opportunity where he should be able to shine in a contract year with a playoff team in the Clippers who uh I know they didn’t make it far in the playoffs, but they pushed Denver to seven games. And that was a really fun, exciting series. So now he gets to go play with Kawhi Leonard and James Harden. And it’s a big difference from playing with this young Jazz squad. So he gets to go actually play meaningful basketball. Um, and and that’s what’s best for him and what’s best for the Jazz is they offload this vet and they can play their young guys. We talked about it last week, right? When we were trying to figure out the the rotations and trying to figure out the lineups, we were we were talked about John Collins and how he was kind of the one that was on the outside and we talked about how John Collins probably had his best year as a Jazzman last season. And he did. And he did. And that led to wins and and obvious 70% of the wins where he was involved for the Jazz last season. That’s that’s insane. They only won in they only won 17 games. I mean, it’s not a lot. You’re right. 70% of that is not a lot, right? But but regardless, right, you have you had to move on from John Collins, unfortunately. Yeah. If you’re wanting to continue to focus on the youth development, drinking, then you have you had to move on. There’s no point in keeping John Collins around. There were no literally nobody was benefiting from it. The Jazz were not benefiting. John Collins was not benefiting. Uh Jazz players are not benefiting because you look at guys like Flip and and some of the other younger guys, they’re losing minutes. So, they’re not benefiting. It It was in everybody’s interest to move on. And then I’ve seen some people say, “Oh, they’re not tanking this year. They’re just playing their young guys, which is different.” Tanking is a vague concept. I would argue you’re you’re always tanking. Unless you are trying to win the championship, unless your goal is to win as many games as possible, you’re tanking. However, yeah, however you want to label it, youth movement. Youth movement. Yeah, that’s what it was. Whatever. That’s still tanking. And that’s I would think that’s what the Jazz are doing next season based off of the decisions that we’ve seen. And you know, you can do it the kind of icky way that they did last year as far as like this says making up injuries and you know, they got fined for it or you can clear these guys off the roster and put the young guys out there. Whatever you want to call it. I’ll still call it tanking. Um because again, they’re they’re not focused on winning games. So, and by the way, I don’t have a problem with that. I think next year especially, that’s what you got to do. Um, but that’s just that’s where we’re at. And two years of John Collins in Utah, ultimately the trade, I think, is a net zero. I mean, they gave up Rudy Gay in a second round pick to get him. They get two basically. I don’t know. I don’t know what Kyle Anderson is going to do. They could stick him around. Kevin Love, I’m going to assume, is not going to suit up. And then a second round pick. So, it’s it’s whatever. Yeah. And I mean, I agree that you have to move on from John Collins. I don’t know if I necessarily agree with the return that you got for John Collins, especially coming off the season you had last season. I feel like you probably could have gotten more. Well, that speaks to again a 17 win roster. Like, that’s what we we talked about it with with Colin Ston. We talked about it with Jordan Clarkson. Like, when you win 17 games, everybody on your roster loses value. Yeah. Um, nobody wants those assets. And again pointing to I think it was it was either Austin or Danny. I think it was Austin. He was on DJ and PK and they they asked, you know, you’ve got a lot of vets on the trading block, but I haven’t moved them yet. Like, what’s the deal there? Um, I’m paraphrasing there. That wasn’t the exact question, but he basically said, you know, you can’t trade guys away if other teams don’t have interest in them. And if the Jazz are only winning 17 games, teams aren’t watching the Jazz saying, who can we pick from this roster that we want to add to our team? Right. And and you know, we all saw that John Collins played very good basketball and we all saw that again, he helped the Jazz win games. He’s going to help teams win games if he’s put in the right situation. Um so we would think that he has a higher trade value, but again after that Colin Ston trade, it’s like man almost nobody on this Jazz roster has positive trade value. It seems like not until they start winning basketball games 100%. And you know, we I I enjoyed watching John Collins and I hope that he he goes over to to the Clippers, man, and he he finds some success there and he continues to to build off what again last season was uh one of my one of my favorite Jazz guys to watch. Yeah. So, well, yeah, hoping for the best. And now, as far as vets that were on this Jazz team the last couple years, it’s Larry Markin. And uh Walker Kesler is the longest tenure Jazz player, beating out Lowry Markin by a couple months. That’s insane. Which is crazy to think about. That’s insane. Uh so yeah, we’ll see. It’s a full-on youth movement. It still remains to be seen whether or not uh Lowry Markin is is going to get traded eventually, but we will see. We will see. Let’s move on to summer league. Alex, the Jazz played their first game of Las Vegas summer league last night. They lost to the Hornets 111 to 105. That was after going 3 and 0 in Salt Lake. So, it was a good showing here in Salt Lake City. Um, where should we start with this? You want to talk Ace Bailey? Let’s start there because he’s the fifth overall pick. He’s the draw. Let’s start there. Yes. And and he’s the draw and then you had NBA Twitter, official NBA accounts tweeting out promotions for this game where you got the picture of Ace Bailey and Coniple. Yeah. You know, that’s the storyline. That’s what people are going to tune into this game to want to watch. But Ace Ace Bailey wasn’t playing. No, Ace Bailey ended up missing last night. Um, and this comes after missing the third game of Salt Lake Summer League. Uh, our guy Ben Anderson saying it looks like Ace Bailey is not going to suit up tonight either. Um, so that’s tough because you you draft Ace Bailey fifth overall. You are expecting a lot. um you expecting to see some flashes in summer league and we we did see some flashes and you would hope to see that continue but can’t see it if he’s not on the floor. So uh game one he looked okay. Uh he really struggled from the field. What was he three of 13 or something like that? Really struggled to to put it in the net, but his rebounding stood out. Um, and this is a guy who you you talk about rebounding and that’s traditionally like your star players normally don’t want to rebound. Um, as far as mentality wise, getting in there, digging out rebounds, being tough off the backboard. A lot of star players kind of shy away from that. Uh, but it was very clear from basically the opening tip, Ace Bailey was not afraid to get in there and grab boards. So, even when he was quiet shooting, he’s rebounding. And then that translated to a very good game, too. He made some tough shots. Uh he had some good putback opportunities because of his his rebounding. Um, I think the the big highlight there and is probably his highlight from the summer league is he pulled down an offensive rebound and then hit like a one step turnaround fadeaway, but he he crossed he covered probably like 10 or 12 feet on the ground, right, with his his one step and then his fadeaway because his legs are so long and he his length up top is so long. Like if you look at where he started versus where he finished when he released the ball, like he caught it almost underneath the basket and then released the ball at the top of the key. Like so he’s he’s got some real physical attributes that are very exciting there. And I think that was kind of again that’s like when you look when you think of Ace Bailey and what he can do, that’s the highlight that you kind of envision. I think what stood out to me too for Ace Bailey, like you mentioned the rebounds, but the one of the things that stood out is the going and and and recognizing, look, okay, I didn’t necessarily have the best first game. My first showing wasn’t probably the best that I the best performance that I could have put out there. So, what does he do in game two? He steps up and has a much better showing, right? You mentioned the shot that the the the fadeaway shot that he had. I there he also had um an impressive dunk where uh Collier just kind of alioops it up to him and he’s able to get it and dunk it. And then there’s a couple instances where um Kier got it out to got it out to him on the corner and he hit some threes. Yeah. Right. And so a spa that to me is what stood out is is look again you you didn’t play your best but you didn’t let that affect you. You came back in the next game and you showed not only the Jazz fans, but I mean the Jazz organization, you showed them what you are capable of and why why they why they trusted you to go number five. And he’s still very raw from what we saw. He’s still very he’s still very raw, but you see the ceiling that he has. Yeah, I agree. The ceiling is very high and that’s why he goes fifth overall. I’m grinning because Ben trolled me and a lot of other people on Twitter when I was talking about guys not playing tonight. The Jazz don’t play tonight. Oh, their next game is tomorrow. I was going to say I didn’t think they did back toback since summer league. Ah, you’re funny, Ben. That was good. Uh, so yeah, we’ll see what the injury report looks like tomorrow to see if Ace Bailey’s gonna play. Um, but anyway, I hope he does because he is the draw and when you make a selection that you haven’t had in that long as far as the Jazz picking fifth overall, that’s a big- time prospect. And you look at Ace Bailey in particular, just simply talking about prospect coming out of the draft, he is probably the best prospect the Jazz have had. And the ceiling is incredibly high with this dude and everybody wants to watch him play. So hopefully tomorrow against the Warriors we will see him suit up. Um but you talk about injuries this team. Walter Clayton Jr. their other first round pick. I doubt we’ll see him again. Uh he left yesterday’s game with a hamstring injury. Those are very tricky. Uh you don’t want to mess with that. So I would imagine they’re going to be very cautious with him. I think Walter Clayton Jr. showed a potential to run the offense. um you you you kind of look at this summer league slate as sort of an audition between him and Isaiah Collier as far as being the primary point guard, right? And I think that’s a very interesting battle and that’s going to continue into training camp. We’ll see how long this injury holds out Walter Clayton Jr. But I liked what I saw from him as far as being the floor general, but also his ability to make some shots. And I think that’s kind of the consens the consensus of of what I saw from Jazz fans um last night online, right? Yeah. A lot of people were very impressed with with Clayton. Some I saw plenty of of of comments saying that they would trust Clayton to be the starting point guard at this point over Kier. And I’m pump your brakes. Pump your brakes. It’s summer league, right? I think summer league is a great gauge to see of where these guys are, but you’re not really going to know where these guys are until it’s time to suit up for preseason. Until it’s real NBA basketball. Exactly. This is fun, but this is a lot of guys that aren’t going to I mean I mean the Jazz are playing against a lot of guys that aren’t going to be playing real NBA minutes. Of course, the Jazz are because it’s the youth movement thing, right? But uh real quick, one more note on summer league I I want to talk about is Kyle Filipowski. um because he he’s a very intriguing player as far as what he brings to the table. He had some big games in Salt Lake, but then last night he was by far the Jazz’s leading scorer. 32 points, 12 of 17 shooting, three of seven from three. He also grabbed six rebounds um and then racked up five assists. Like that’s that’s crazy. He picked up eight fouls, which is funny. Um summer league you get 10 fouls. Um, but Philipowski is this very interesting prospect on offense because he he does it all. He passes, he shoots, he takes good shots, he’s not hunting for a shot, he knows his spots and he gets to them. He knows his strengths and he plays to that. And that’s good. And he he scores a lot of points. We even saw in the regular season. He put up some some big numbers last year as a rookie. But defensively, it’s so it’s so hard to watch. Like even watching the Jazz’s first summer league game against Philly, uh, one of their depth big men, Bona, was just bullying Kyle Filipowski, possession after possession. He was Philipowski got out manned. He got outstrength by this more physical big true center. And that’s hard because it’s like, okay, we’ll slide him to the four spot, play power forward. And he’s he’s big. He’s not nimble enough to really keep up with some other power forwards. We saw him get moved off his spot defensively because he’s not again he’s not fast enough laterally. He’s not agile enough. So defensively for for as versatile as he is on offense. He’s a square peg and a round hole on defense. And that’s I’m curious to see what that ends up meaning for Kyle Filipowsk’s career because it’s one thing if you have a guard that can score on offense but can’t do anything defensively, you can hide that. But if you have a big power for power forward center that can score offensively and play defense, that doesn’t matter as much. You need those guys to be your defensive players, especially when the Jazz in particular don’t have anybody that can really play defense right now consistently. They need that on the interior. And to to watch Kyle Filipowski kind of struggle so far in summer league on defense, it’s like, okay, that’s that’s where he needs to improve because offensively he’s got it 100%. I mean, you look at the numbers, uh, 12 for 17 last night. That’s crazy. That’s impressive. uh 32 points. Like again, this is a good summer league is a good gauge to see where these guys are. And I feel like last night we learned a lot about Kyle Filipowski. I I feel like shot IQ is really good. He knows where to be, where to get his shots, and where to get his opportunities on the offensive side. However, as a big I look at the six rebounds, and that’s concerning. Yeah, that’s like you need to as a big man, the interior defense has to be better. Well, especially in 30 minutes, you’d like to see more than more than six rebounds. But anyways, continue. And I mean, Clayton Jr. got six. Yeah, Collier had six, right? You you want him to be a little bit more of your defensive anchor, and we didn’t see that last night from Kyle Falaskki. So, yes, the glaring issue right now with him is the fact that the the defense from him needs to be better. I am curious because you look at their starting lineup last night and of course they kind of toy with lineups throughout the night and you’re dealing with injuries right now so you don’t know exactly how this is going to go but the starting lineup was Walter Clayton Jr. Isaiah Collier Cody Williams Elijah Harkas and Kyle Filipowski. So you’re playing Kyle Filipowski as a center last night. I don’t think Kyle Filipowski is going to be playing center in the NBA. Um, so that’s a bit interesting that he’s doing that. Maybe maybe they are going to play him at the five a little bit to be Walker Kesler’s like true backup. But again, if Walker Kesler is this big defensive presence, but then your backup is the complete opposite of that. I don’t know if that’s the right way to go, right? I’d like I think they could play together. I’d like to see them share the floor, which obviously maybe they will. I I’m sure that Kyle Filipowski is going to be in the starting lineup alongside Walker Kesler. That’s probably the plan for the regular season. But if that’s the case, it’s like, okay, why why are you having to play center during the summer league, but anyways, we’ll see. I mean, that’s that’s the thing. Summer league is the opportunity to just try things out. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Um, so we’ll I guess we’ll see. But overall, I mean, 3-0 in Salt Lake and then they lose last night to Charlotte in a close game. It’s it’s fine. I think it’s about what we expected. So, and then back in action tomorrow against the Warriors again tomorrow. And we don’t know the injury reports to correct my mistake from earlier. Hopefully, uh we’ll see if Ace Bailey suits up. Hopefully Ace Bailey suits up and hopefully uh we get to see an R.J. Lewis who right now is kind of playing for this roster spot and we haven’t really seen him. Smu and Tanji man. Um I think that those are th those are guys that you need to have on the floor in in these type of situations to see if to see if they can compete for a spot on the roster. And I feel like it’s do I know it’s you don’t really have control over it cuz I mean there are injuries but I feel like it’s a disservice to them right now that they’re not on the court proving themselves. Oh, they need like you look at Tanji and Lewis specifically. I mean, everybody else dang near on this roster is a first round pick within the last three years, right? Um I know Kyle Filipki was second round, but that’s top of the second round and I believe they gave him a fully guaranteed deal. So, it’s a bit of a different situation. You know, you can essentially call him first rounder with an asterisk. Anyways, you look at Tani, you look at R.J. Lewis, second round pick and a unrest undrafted free agent. Like those are the guys that summer league is for because they they are fighting for their NBA careers. They are fighting for roster spots. So I hope that they get over their injuries quickly as you mentioned they they’re probably very real injuries because this is a very important situation and for them to not be out there it’s like oh yeah that’s that’s when they need to be out there right. So I hope we can see them soon because I am curious in both of those prospects. three games left and so they I mean there’s still a little bit of time but hopefully we can see them on the court man. And if they don’t end up playing in summer league, it’s not the end of their careers. I mean they still have it’s just getting it’s literally just getting started. So it’s it’s not a nail in the coffin or anything. Uh they still have opportunities to prove themselves, you know, in practice and training camp and with the stars and and things like that, but you would like to see them in summer league in game time situations. So again, yeah, hopefully we can see them soon. Uh we got to take a break. Coming up next, we will talk more about uh the Jake Ratzoff situation. He announced yesterday that he is withdrawing from the BYU football program. We’ll talk about what that means for him and the Cougars next. It’s the Saturday Show 975 DKSL Sports Zone. Welcome back to the Saturday Show 975, the KSL Sports Zone. I’m Christian Esparza, Alex Napoulos with me. Thank you for tuning in, making us part of your Saturday morning. Time for five minutes of got a few more things to talk about. Not a lot of time left, so we’ll jump around a little bit. Let’s start with this. Alex, yesterday, Jake Rzoff speaks up, releases his first statement since was it May 21st, I think was the date uh when the civil lawsuit was filed uh towards him. I know his his lawyer released a statement on his behalf, but this is the first thing that we have heard from Jake Rzloff. Of course, the the case has since been dismissed. Um, so this is the aftermath. This is what Jake Ratzoff had to say. After a lot of prayer, reflection, and conversations with those I trust, I’ve made the difficult decision to officially withdraw from BYU and step away from the BYU football program. BYU has meant more to me than just football. It’s been a place of growth spiritually, mentally, and physically. I’m grateful for every teammate, coach, staff member, and fan who supported me along the way. The relationships and memories I’ve made in Provo will always be a part of me. That said, I’m excited to turn the page and embrace the next chapter. My journey is far from over, and I’m more motivated than ever to keep chasing my goals. Signing off, Jake Rzoff, aka BYU. That was a little crazy with with the nickname that he got to point out he called himself that. He he was the one that kind of Yeah. pushed that Yeah. that nickname. Uh anyway, I mean this is not it’s it’s closure, right? But it’s not a surprise. This is what we kind of all expected. We knew that BYU was planning on suspending him for seven games because of the honor code violation. And once that came out, it’s like, yeah, he’s probably going to transfer. So, when this came out yesterday, one of the questions that, me, JJ, and Alex, um, Alex Cury had was why there there is a transfer portal that is open right now for the DSAs, the guys who got cut and didn’t make the 105 men roster. And, you know, one of the questions that we had was why BYU didn’t cut him, give him the DSA designation, and let him jump into the portal. Mitch Harper cleared that up phenomenally on a um on a on a video that he posted on KSL Sports on the on social media. The deadline to be on to be a DSA was April 7th. Yeah. So clearly we’ve missed that timeline for for Jake Red’s left. Again, May 21st was when that civil lawsuit was filed. So nobody even knew about this, right? Uh April 7th. So that deadline was missed. That’s why Jake Gretz can’t be a DSA and can’t enter the transfer portal that the one that is technically open right now. Yeah. So, in order to continue to play, he withdraws from BYU find and will now probably try to find a place to walk on. Yeah. And he’s going to have to walk on somewhere finish off his senior his senior year. Um he’s got time. Training camps aren’t starting for another couple weeks, so I mean it’s not a ton of time, but he has time. things move quickly in the college world. I would highly advise you to go listen to Mitch Harper with JJ and Alex yesterday. I listened to that interview on the way in. It was great. Mitch did a good job of of answering a lot of questions. He’s always on point. Um, go read his stuff at kslports.com. It’s a like I said, it’s a resolution. It’s, you know, Kehlani was asked about Jake specifically at media days and he was just like, I’ll I’ll wait for Jake Rzoff to to talk about it. He’s like, I don’t want to speak on his behalf, you know? I I want to respect him and let him be the one to talk about it. So, just a couple days after, yeah, Jake Rzoff releases his statement and everybody can move on. BYU can move on towards their quarterback battle. Uh, that’s going to be a fun next few weeks and we’ll see what happens and then Jake Raf can move on and try and find a new home. Right. And I that’s I think that’s the most important thing for at the from the BYU perspective and the BYU standpoint. You now have you don’t have this lingering question of whether or not Jake Rzoff is going to play, whether or not he’s going to stick around after he serves his suspension, right? There’s clarity. You know the his plans. You know he’s going to leave and you know he’s going to move on, which in turn means that you need to move on and find your quarterback. Yeah. That and that’s the most important thing, right? I think when you look at a guy like Chase Roberts, he’s going to want to know who who’s throwing him the ball, right? And so if there was going to be lingering conversations and lingering questions of who your starting quarterback was going to be, um obviously right right now you’re entering a quarterback battle, but now you don’t have the lingering question of Jake Rhettzle. RSA moves on, you move on, and now you’re focused in on your quarterback battle. And I think that’s huge. Yeah. Everybody’s just excited to uh get the get the product on the field, right? And I think we’re all excited to just close this chapter because it’s been a crazy saga from start to finish. It really has. Uh and now we get to Yeah, now we get to move on. Uh some other news locally, a big one unfortunately a few days ago, Frank Leaden passed away at age 93. Um, and that was that was huge because you look at where Utah sports are right now and I can confidently say and I think everybody else would agree Utah sports all of them whether it’s the Mammoth or the Jazz obviously or even RSL to an extent and you could even throw the B’s in there like they would not be where they’re at without Frank Leaden. And that’s how important he was in bringing I mean obviously he played a part in bringing the Jazz here um he was an executive there but then he was also a longtime coach um in in their first era here like that’s he’s a very iconic figure if you throw up Mount Rushmore of Utah sports figures Frank Leaden’s on there um 100% and his impact that he had on this team and this state and this market is still being felt today uh 45 years later. So it’s tough. Um so rest in peace Frank Leaden and again thank you to everything that you’ve done for the Jazz and and for Salt Lake City in the state of Utah. True Utah through and through. Uh drafted John Stockton, drafted Malone as the executive, right? picked Jerry Sloan on his coaching staff and then ultimately decided uh to help Sloan get the job. Ultimately steamrolled him up. Yeah. Ultimately steamrololled or Yeah. Steamrolled um a franchise that that needed to to start turning in a direction to to win and led them was the architect of a team that made to NBA Finals. Yeah. And again, like that’s what of course collegiatically you’ve got BYU and Utah, but like professional sports in Utah are built off of those two finals appearances. Like that’s been the peak of professional sports here in Utah. And you don’t get there without Frank Leaden. And you again, you don’t have the Utah M like with all these dominoes that fall. You don’t have the Mammoth here um without Frank Leaden. like it’s it’s again his impact is still being felt to this day even though he hasn’t been involved with the Jazz for a relatively long time. Um so that’s always tough news when when when you see somebody like that go especially with who we work with, right? Everybody knew him. Um we never got to meet him. Uh but everybody knew him or at least knew somebody that knew him, right? And immediately after the news came out, you guys had Thor Bailey on who Thorough played for Frank Leaden. Um, and he was able to come on and and talk about his impact on both Thor Bailey’s life and then the Jazz as well. So that was tough news earlier this week. He leaves behind a very important legacy, man. And we wish nothing but the best for for him. I mean, for his family. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we got to take a break. Coming up next, we will wrap the show up. Stay with us. It’s the Saturday show 975 the KSL Sports Zone. Welcome back to the Saturday show 975 the KSL Sports Zone. I’m Christian Sparza. Alex Napoulos with me wrapping up another edition before uh you can you know we’ll let you loose and go enjoy your weekend here shortly. But Alex, we’ve still got a lot of news left. Um left it out of last segment. I wanted to talk about it here because I have an actual kind of good comparison that I think you can let me know. Anyways, we’ll talk about this here. Diana Sabbo, Utah State athletic director. It was announced earlier this week that she is leaving the program. She’s going to be going to Maryland as a as a an associate, I believe, was the title. So, a lot of people were kind of confused by that. Senior deputy athletic director. That’s the title. Thank you. Yeah. And it’s tough because it’s a new year, same story for Utah State. I mean, you look at everything they’ve had to do, even as far as going back and finding a new basketball coach essentially every year, and then finding a new athletic director, and that was Diana Sabbo, and then finding a new football coach, and you know, you mentioned a year ago because of the the local politics, everybody hated or everybody in Logan, I should say, a lot of people in Logan, not everybody, they were not fans of Diana Sable when she came in. I remember seeing the I remember seeing the the comments online, man. Uh the Utah State fans were not pleased with with Sabo after what happened last summer. Yeah. But now turn around to this summer, literally a year later. And now that it seems like there’s a lot of more there’s a lot more stability happening at Utah State in the long term, right? We have the Pack 12 invitation. Uh, six conference champions in their athletic programs this season. And uh, there seems like there’s more stability, right, with bringing in Bronco Mendenhal. You have Calhoun who decided to stay. Um, I think that there’s promise for the women’s basketball team eventually under Wesley Brooks. There’s there’s promise there for for Utah State to have some long-term stability and Diana Sable oversaw a lot of that. She did. I mean, even just looking at the macro essentially. Yeah. the the big ones moving up to the back getting them into the pack 12 bringing Bronco Meninhal in. I mean, that’s always going to drive your athletic department is your football coach and what conference you’re playing in. Um because that determines, you know, your revenue and all that. So, those are huge moves made by Diana Sabo that are going to benefit Utah State athletics for the foreseeable future. Um, unfortunately her time at Utah State was not very long and that’s just what Utah State has turned into is a stepping stone program. And a lot of people obviously were questioning why she’s taking what you would think is a step down at Maryland. I want to give a shout out to to Casey Smurweight. He’s a he’s a writer, a sports business writer covering D1 schools and he he does a lot of stuff covering the Mountain West right now. um he put an article out yesterday basically talking about how Maryland’s actual athletic director, he used to work in the MLB because you look at kind of power conference athletic directors and the job is so different now than what it traditionally used to be. They’re basically running it’s like business operations stuff, right? A lot of a lot of stuff that athletic directors haven’t always had to do. So essentially, Diana Sabbo is going to be keeping a lot of the responsibilities that she had in Logan as far as more traditional athletic director stuff, handling fundraising and and and things like that um for Maryland, while this other guy is focusing more on the new world of college athletics as far as how you handle the revenue sharing just because there is so much that has to be done right now that’s too much work for just one person. So, while title-wise that’s not the same and it could be seen as a step down role-wise and potentially even salary wise, it’s going to be similar. And we know that uh she comes from the Big 10. She has connections um to this individual. I’m trying to find his name. I think it was Jean Smith. Uh she worked with at at Yeah. at Ohio State. So, there’s a relationship there and that’s why she went presumably to go work with him at at Maryland. So, uh, yeah, tough tough news for for Utah State. Uh, we also mentioned Diego Luna. He’s playing tonight, uh, for RSL. He’s making his return. They’re playing Houston. Long awaited return of Diego Luna. Hey, man. Undefeated in three straight. Yeah. Can RSL make it four? Uh, Houston coming to town. Uh, at America First Field. So, if you don’t have tickets, go be there. But if not, 975. The KSL Sports Zone is the KSL Sports Zone is the place to be. Always. Yeah, that’s uh that’s the fun thing to do here on Saturdays is go catch an RSL game. Fun environment. The comparison I wanted to make, Alex, in the break. You and Parker were talking about Diego Luna and his very quick rise to stardom and what that means for his career. Could we potentially see him going to, you know, across the ocean and to Europe and playing in bigger leagues over there? Right. And essentially, you know, you look at the MLS and that’s traditionally what happens to their good young players and it it’s good for the players because that’s a good opportunity for them, but then for fans obviously that sucks because you become attached to these players. So, we’ll see what ends up happening with Diego Luna, but it kind of clicked like that’s what Utah State is. Like it’s the same same thing as far as stepping stone programs. So, I don’t have any anywhere to go with that comparison. It just it clicked in my mind. I mean, they’re very similar and it it’s it’s very hard because you you get attached to a Danny Sprinkle, you get attached to a Diana Sabbo um and then they ultimately end up leaving for for greater jobs higher up because their end goal is not to be here. Their end goal is to be higher. And hopefully with the move to the Pack 12, hopefully for Utah State’s sake that will change. I know it’s not the same Pack 12 that we saw, you know, with Utah running things, but you would think with some more reputation, maybe one day there will be people that are like, “Oh, yeah. I want to be here.” I I think regardless, the future for Utah State is is bright. Yeah. I think like we mentioned, Sabo laid out a really good blueprint on how this team can be successful long term. Yeah. Why? by bringing in the coaching staffs that she did, by bringing in um by by making that move to the Pack 12. And there’s a foundation there that is that has been built. Now, it’s up to the next person to continue to build that pillar and continue to build those walls and make Utah State um not just a stepping stone program, but a program that can really be competitive and win some championships in the Pack 12, too. and maybe be one of these programs that arises as one of the new stars of this new conference. On one hand, it’s hard because you have Danny Sprinkle in place and Bronco Menal in place, which is it’s good because they are very wellrespected coaches. Sprinkle went to the uh Calhoun. Dude, I’m on like my fourth coach in three years. I know, Calhoun, you’re right. My apologies. I was going to say that’s not right. Anyways, Calhoun takes them to the NCAA tournament, right, in his first year in Logan, right? He’s well respected. He knows what he’s doing. Bronco Menhal, we can go on and on. So, it’s nice to have those guys already in place for the the upcoming athletic director, but then it’s hard because he didn’t pick those guys. S those are Sabo’s guys. Sabo picked Calhoun. Sabo picked Menal. So, I’m curious to see what that relationship ends up looking like with the new athletic director coming in who didn’t pick the coaches in place. But if they keep winning, there’s no reason to not keep them around. And and I trust them to keep winning. They the new athletic director is coming into a very good situation. Exactly. And that that’s the situation as long as I mean and you know this is Bronco Menal’s first year, right? He still has to prove it, but he’s earned the respect because of what he’s done in this state in the past. Yeah. With BYU. Yeah. Right. Um, as long as the teams are winning and being successful, there’s no they’re great coaches. Yeah. Right. There’s no reason no reason to tinker with that. So, we’ll see what like you mentioned, we’ll see what the that relationship ends up being. All right. Uh, that wrap wraps up another week for us. Thanks for listening and uh we’ll catch you next Saturday. It’s the Saturday show 975 the KSL Sports Zone.
Final hour of the Saturday Show with Christian Esparza and Alex Napoles on July 12, 2025
• The Jazz take the Summer League on the road to Vegas. Is it worth watching with so many injuries?
• 5 Minutes Of – Jake Retzlaff leaves BYU, Rest in peace Frank Layden
• Former USU AD Diana Sabau takes a new job with the University of Maryland
