HOUR 2: Utah Jazz insider Ben Anderson weighs in on the Jazz 2025-26 regular season | NIU coach H…
[Music] Looking for the latest on the Jazz Utes, Cougars, and Aggies? Yeah, we’ve got you covered. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G on 975, the sports zone. [Music] It’s kind of funny how these shows come together and you know, you get going in a direction and and I definitely want to talk about BYU and Utah’s camps and every once in a while something comes along and it just strikes you the wrong way and you’re thinking to yourself, I would really like to rant on this. And there’s a couple coaches right now in the news. You’ve seen Thomas Hammock with Northern Illinois. He’s the niu head coach. He’s been in the news a lot recently, but Thomas Hammock went in front of a mic and decided that he was going to rant on NIL and the transfer portal and paying kids and all those kinds of things. And then earlier today, Scott Frost, the head coach for UCF, decided to do the same. And I think I’ve got just a different approach to this. And as I heard them talking, I I I there were so many things that popped in my head. First of all, if you’re a mom or dad out there, this is going to strike a chord with you. And you’re going to be like, “Damn right, Coach Hammock. You’re 100% right. You’re absolutely right, Coach Frost. That’s exactly how it goes.” And and and that’s great. I’m going to push back against it just a little bit. But first, I want you to hear from him. This is Thomas Hammock. He is the head coach at Northern Illinois. And this was yesterday after practice. He had some things to say about his disappointment in the transfer portal. Yeah. To me, I mean, to be honest with you, I love the challenge. You know, it don’t bother me one bit because you know what? In life, you going to make decisions, right? Sometimes it’s going to work in your favor and sometimes it’s not. I told our team the other day, you know, we lost all these guys. Let’s see who plays. So, it’s all good when people put it on Twitter, hey, all glory to God, I’m going in the transfer portal. Let’s see if they play. How many other guys gonna play or travel or get snaps? You know, I was think I was gonna tweet something the other day, a picture of me, and say, “You know what? I enjoyed my college experience. I didn’t get one dime, but the lessons I learned was more valuable than any money you can ever pay me.” And I appreciate that because that is long-term. People are are losing the fact that this is shortterm. I coached in the National Football League for five years. five years, right? Don’t lose fat. Don’t lose focus of what the long term. Get your degree. Learn valuable lessons that’s going to help you in the long term of your life. That’s the whole purp. This is a transition from being a kid to a grown-up. And I hope people don’t lose focus of that. Everybody’s talking about everything else besides what is the most important thing for going to college. Because if you going to college to go get a couple dollar, you might as well go get a job. This is too hard to to go get a couple dollars. Learn the lesson that you need to learn to be successful in life for the next 40 to 50 years of your life. That’s that I I would do it again for free. For free because of the things I learned. That’s why I’m standing here today because of what I learned in college, not because of how much somebody gave me. That’s what I would tell people. and and parents, they need to learn that lesson, too. Stop trying to live through your kids. Go to teach your kids what what are the things they need to learn to be successful. That’s what I’m telling my kids. I don’t I don’t care about no NIL, no revenue share. I can care less. You need to learn things in college to get you prepared for life to be a father, a husband, to work, everything else. Those are the most important things. That’s what people are missing in my opinion. Just my opinion. I bet you think I’m going to sit here and go, “Yeah, coach. Dead on, coach.” Because I’m sure a lot of you are probably pumping your fist in your car saying, “That’s right. That’s what I love. It’s about college. It’s about football. It’s the purity of the sport. That’s what it is.” Lord, I’ll bet even you were like, “All right, I like it, Coach Hammock.” Huh? Preach, brother. Okay. I agree with this sentiment. I completely disagree with the reality of it. Completely disagree with the reality of it. All of it. Coach Hammock, you are speaking from a selfish point of view and you know it. And that’s fine because you got to create a team, keep a team, and you’re trying to build men and that’s that’s fine. So, I totally understand where you’re coming from. But just understand, coach, these kids that are transferring are still getting the college experience. They’re still getting their degree or the opportunity of a degree. They don’t have to have that college experience with you. And they don’t have to have that four and fiveyear consistent college experience like you had or like I had. They don’t. And Lloyd, I’ll tell you where this came from. And I try to stay out of trouble anytime Scotty’s gone because I You’ve been doing this with me for a lot of years, Lloyd, and sometimes I’ll have an opinion that that is in left field, and this might be in left field, but I but I’m okay to stand alone on this island because I’m speaking from a place of experience. All right. When he just said, “How many of these guys are going to play? They transferred, but how many of them are going to play?” All right. Okay, coach, let’s take it one step further. How many of these guys are going to have an opportunity to play in the NFL? I’ll tell you how many. 1%. Okay. How many of these guys are going to have an opportunity to make the type of money that they’re being offered right now in their life? I’ll tell you how many. 1%. And I tell you how I know that I made the most money I will make in my life in the first seven years after college playing professional football. I played three years of NFL. I was cut in my third year. I played four years of AFL. I made more money in those seven years than I’ll ever make in my life again. And guess what? If I could have transferred and I could have made $750,000 like a kid that’s nearly like a son to me is currently doing because he transferred, he took the money. I would absolutely do it. And I wouldn’t bat an eye because I’ll tell you something, Lloyd, the things that I learned in college, they’re great. They’re great. And I love the loyalty with Lavel Edwards and I loved playing for Lavel Edwards. But you know what’s helped me the absolute most as a father and a husband? Now I’m 20 years retired. You know what’s helped me the absolute most? Those initial investments that I had for my NFL money. That’s what’s helped me the most. My 401ks. I I had I had six years of 401ks. AFL paid 2 to1. NFL paid 2 and a half to one. you pack those 401ks in when you’re a young kid that you’ve got 15,000 to pack that in and they put in 45,000 or or whatever it is or 40,000 38 something they put in that money and you let that sit, you know, the the initial money that I got from the NFL, I I put a down payment on a house. We talk about, oh, kids can’t buy houses, kids out of college can’t buy houses. You’re damn right they can’t. But guess who can? a a college kid that took a payday and is gonna still get the college experience and is still gonna get the degree and is still going to be able to get the money. So don’t sit there with sour grapes, coach hammock, and stomp around and be like, “Well, you need to be experienced. You need to sacrifice the money. You need to No, what you need to do, coach, is go to your niu head office and say, “We got to find more money for these kids to keep them around so we can give them the college football experience and we can give them the money because that’s just where we’re at.” I’m sorry to say that that’s just where we’re at. Oh, and and you want to talk about the things that you learn from sports, you learn that in high school. Hold on a second. you. Yeah, I learned a lot in college playing sports. I learned my my my team concepts and my work ethic. And Lloyd Cole, who played high school sports, knows as much about work ethic and commitment to team and team execution. He knows as much as I do that played seven years of professional football. Why? Because he played high school sports. You learn those concepts in high school sports. Now that you got the opportunity to make money in college sports, yeah, there’s a level of commitment. And yeah, we’ve seen kids do it. I’ll just hell, I’ll give it to you right now. I’ll give it to you right now. Dallas Vaci, defensive tackle, the University of Utah, he left money on the floor. Now he’s making money and probably got an increase at the University of Utah because of everybody that was knocking on his door. He left money on the floor, but he’s still making money. Yeah. I mean, people need to understand that. Same with Smith Noden. Smith Snowden I I don’t know. There was a lot of money out there. There’s a there was a a perfect storm of money for college athletes out there that he could have gone and grabbed and he left some of it on the table, but he’s making money. He’s making good money. And we’ve talked about it. We’ve talked about when this and NL became a thing, this money that they’re getting, whether it’s Cam Rising or whatever, like the what’s coming with this, what they’re able to do with this money is a leg up. It’s a step up from I mean college when you’re trying to figure things out. Like it’s being able to invest at that age. Oh, it’s Lloyd My I How old were you when you got your first house? I was in my 30s. You were in your 30s. In my 30s. And these kids can now do it in their 20s. Yes, they can. even in this market that we’re currently in. And the kid that I’m talking about, I believe that he did buy a house. Some some will, some won’t. Some are going, you know, cross country and they’re taking the money out east or they’re taking the money back west and I guess it’s out out west and back east. But, you know, these these kids have an opportunity to make money. And what I’m telling them right now is make the money because you can. You’re learning your work ethic. You’re learning team concepts. You do that in high school sports. And then when coach Thomas when Hammock is sitting there saying, “Well, the college experience and you learn and you get your degree.” Wait a second. When niu is not the only place you can get a college experience. When you take that money and you leave NIOU and you go to Notre Dame and you take a $750,000 a year paycheck, well, you’re still going to get that Notre Dame education if you want. You might not have to. You know, if you make that amount of money and you’re that good, then the NFL comes calling and and the money’s going to be there. But here’s the thing I don’t like. These comments are coming from Thomas Hammock, who’s probably got a million and a half dollar contract and has been in college coaching for a lot of years. He’s got his full wallet padded with millions of dollars. And it’s really easy to sit there when you got millions of dollars and say it’s about the team concepts and it’s about commitment and it’s about turning down the money and staying in our atmosphere to get our college experience. Coach, honestly, it’s not about that. you’re taking another job at Middle Tennessee or wherever you’re going to take the job. It’s not about that then. The the person that’s getting hurt in all in all this is the fans. The fans are the ones that get hurt with all this for the most part as far as as far as learning and I’ll just say I’m selfish and radio because we get to know we’ve always gotten to know these kids coming through, you know, the program whether it’s at BYU or Utah and and the rivalry is hurting because these guys don’t they’re not familiar with each other. Yeah. like they’re not familiar. They don’t know what the rivalry is because guess what? They just came from uh I don’t know SC or wherever they transferred from and now they’re in the program. Yes. Like they don’t know what the rivalry is about. The fans don’t know these guys. They like nobody the the day and age of of g of getting you know what I’m going to get Brian Johnson’s jersey because that’s my guy. Yeah. Or I’m going to get you know Taesm Hills jersey because he’s been here for three years and that’s or we’re going to retire those jerseys. Yeah. Are we going to retire? When are you going to you’re going to retire a jersey like Shador Sanders who just who’s only there for one for for two years? Bat of the eye. Come on. So, this is what I’m saying. It’s it’s just absurd. It it it’s sour grapes. You’re reaching. And the other thing it is, it it’s like political hot button topics, Lloyd. Like there are there’s political radio out there on the left or the right and all they got to do is bring up one scenario and then the people that are on their side can huff and puff and they feel all good about it. Then they don’t even realize there’s an opposite side to it that’s really upset, maybe even possibly hurt by it. And this coach is feasting. He’s praying upon the college fan that wants to ste see stability on his roster and he’s praying on it. So he’s throwing these comments out there when they’re completely irrelevant. Man, you can make money. You can still have the college the whole college experience. You don’t have to sit there and not make money. And yeah, it does suck for programs and it sucks for some of these coaches because they lose the talent. But you know what, Bronco Menhal this thing 87 new players on a roster and I guarantee you Bronco is going to find a way to win. He will. He’ll find a way to win. So do that, coach. Don’t sit there and blame these kids for taking the money and getting the best the best start in life they can get because the best thing that I took away from all my time in football. The best for my family and for my wife was the financial gain in the seven years of pro football that I played. It’s the best thing I took from it. The second best thing was the team and concept and the and the work ethic. That’s the second best thing that I took from it. The third best thing that I still haven’t used that I went back 14 years later and got was my degree. I’ve I’ve got a health science degree. I I don’t know. At some point, I guess when you fire me, Lloyd, I could go be a PE coach. Yes, you could. But, you know, we sit here like, “Oh, well, let’s set them up for life.” Most these guys m most men and women come out of college, they don’t even use their degree. They go into a field that might require a degree, maybe some type of government workforce that will require require a degree, but they they don’t spec they don’t specify. And so I just uh yeah, anyways, kind of taking a different angle on that and I apologize if it’s ruffled your feathers. Bad and ugly coming up next. Also, another 60 and 60 drops. That’s all next. It’s time to saddle up and talk about the winners and the losers. This is the good, the bad, and the ugly. Now, here’s the good. [Music] Well, for the good and for this segment, we’re going to have to move a couple of things because the NBA schedules have just dropped and the Utah Jazz schedule is f fresh and hot off the presses and we got to get out to it just to take a look at, you know, some of the details. I I know that this is a different years compared to some, but here to help us kind of break this down and how it’s playing out. and I’m getting my initial look at it is our Jazz Insider for KSLsports.com, Ben Anderson. Ben, how you doing, bud? Good. How are you? Good. So, this thing drops. I’m just taking a look at it. It, you know, there a couple of fivegame road trips here and there, but I don’t know what what initially stands out to you when you get the new Jazz schedule. It’s not a murderer’s row right out of the gate, which is interesting. Um, I’ll have to go back and and pull up the whole schedule, but uh, it’s not, you know, impossibly difficult. And last year, I remember the schedule was really difficult really early on. So, you know, you weren’t facing any of these kind of nothing teams until later in the season, which by that point, you were already, you know, kind of tanking and and you were, it was easy to lose those games, but you racked up a lot of losses early. And this year, you know, Phoenix is not great, Portland’s not great, uh, Charlotte’s certainly not great. You’ve got a couple of those teams, even like Indiana, I know they were in the finals last year, but Atlanta, Chicago, some of these teams are not killers and you play them early, it’s a chance to rack up wins and that can change the tone of the season a little bit if you get a little artificially high because you’re winning games or or how that ends up looking. Even Boston, you know, you talked about Indiana, but I’ll talk about Boston, too, because who knows what Boston’s going to look like or be, Ben. Yeah, exactly right. those types of teams that might be some fluky wins for the Jazz that you weren’t necessarily expecting. Uh, and if that’s the case, you know, that you have to make up for those at the end of the year if your goal is to have one of the three or four worst records in the NBA and that ends up being difficult. You know, that means you have to be aggressive at the trade deadline to unload guys or you have to be aggressive tanking and you know, Austin said the Jazz weren’t going to be doing that anymore. Uh, but I think if it’s going to cost them their 2026 draft pick, uh, especially if it’s a top 10 pick and it might go to OKC, I think I think that tanking will come right back. Six of the first nine games are on the road. How much does that matter for the Jazz? Uh, yeah, that’s that’s certainly a way to uh lose some games early and and that helps. But, uh, again, if if you go on the road, you bond. I mean, you know how that is. That’s sometimes how young teams really get together and figure it out. Kind of not worried about anything else. You nothing but eat, drink, and play basketball. uh might put you in a spot where you win games you weren’t expecting to otherwise. Talk a little bit and and tell the Jazz fans a little bit and NBA fans a little bit about the Emirates NBA Cup and what’s playing between se December 9th through the 15th. Uh yeah, so the Jazz will open on uh Halloween night against the Scenic Suns. They’re also paired with the Kings and then much more difficult the Timberwolves and the uh the Thunder. you know, you win those games, the players have a chance to advance and play in Las Vegas. And if you win that, all you could win a half million dollars. So, I think the interest would be there, especially with a young team. You know, these aren’t a bunch of guys who have already made their max contracts. This is a lot of money for these young players, but I don’t know if the Jazz are really going to be competing in this, which means they’re going to get some extra days off in the middle of December as opposed to playing that 83rd game, which the teams that win it have to do. So, back when the Utah Jazz had a competitive roster, I would look at the first couple weeks, but I would spend most my time studying the final four to five weeks because if it was a competitive team, I wanted to make sense of maybe where they could work. Could they work all the way to the four spot? Could they potentially work in the three spot or do they find themselves in a playin situation? Um, when we look at the back end of the schedule, they do finish with four of their last five on the road. Um, you could go as far as to say the same as what I just mentioned for the start. It’s the same at the end. Six of the last nine games are played on the road to end the season and to begin the season. So, six road games. So, I guess coming down the stretch, Ben, if it’s a one-two race for the worst records in the NBA, it it looks like the Utah Jazz could find themselves on the road and and put some losses up. Yeah, I think conceivably that should be beneficial for them. The games I would have circled there, they played Washington twice after the trade deadline. They played them on March 5th on the road and they played them at home on March 25th. Those are obviously going to be two very big games. Uh because I don’t think Washington’s going to be very good this year. Then you’re circling kind of Brooklyn, Charlotte, etc. But most of those games come, you know, earlier in the year. You’re right. If you’re at that point where you’re thinking, “Oh, are the Jazz going to accidentally pick up a win in a tight race?” You close after Washington on March 25th at Denver, at Phoenix, home against Cleveland, home against Denver, at Houston, at OKC, at New Orleans. Maybe you circle that as a winnable game, though New Orleans has already traded their draft pick next year, so they should want to win. Home against Memphis, at LA. You could very realistically close the season on a nine-game losing streak, meaning your last win of the season is March 25th. And if that’s the case, yeah, you’re probably in pretty good lottery standings. Hey, one thing that kind of stood out to me and I I don’t know if this is something that’s been recent over the last couple two or three years or or if it goes a little bit further back and I just didn’t recognize it, but playing the same team in back-to-back games like playing Houston twice in a row or Minnesota twice in a row or New Orleans twice in a row. You know, there’s quite a few of these groupings. Is is that a new thing? Is that something that the NBA is is working or or have I missed that over the years, Ben? No, that is a relatively new thing. Team used to do home then home. You know, you would play in Salt Lake and you’d fly to Houston or whatever. You’d play it back toback that way. Now they’ve just realized, hey, let’s just cut out a travel day and just have them play, you know, a Friday, Saturday or a Friday, Sunday, uh, in the same city. And that way no one has to fly anywhere. And it just kind of reduces the wear and tear on the legs. And I actually think a lot of this started kind of postcoid. That first year teams were playing a lot of games really tightly together. They realized they just couldn’t fly everywhere. So, they’ve just started jamming in some of these, you know, two game kind of quasi baseball type series uh in a single city, but it is only the last couple of years. And I think they were worried that, oh well, fans aren’t going to go see a team on Saturday if they just saw them on Thursday. And I just don’t think that’s been the case so far. This isn’t breaking news for Jazz fans, I’m sure, but not a lot of national TV. Kind of walk us through what what to expect on the big stage. Uh yeah, actually two are two games that I guess would be technically national. One of them fully uh it’s going to be on NBC and that’s against the Clippers on January 27th. So cool to, you know, have that be our affiliate. That’s going to be a true just nationally televised game on a Tuesday night. And then on a Monday night, they’re going to be on Peacock when they’re on the road against Kevin Durant and Houston. Uh, I was wondering if maybe Ace Bailey would give the Jazz a little bit more of a boost if Prime would pick up some of those games or if ESPN would pick up games to see him. He’s going to be a highly touted player and fans are going to be curious about him, but they really only pick up the two NBC games. Tell us how that works where you get a game picked up on National Late. So, that can happen. Uh, you know, there are uh flexibilities for these or the these uh these companies the same way in the NFL. you know, Sunday night early in the season, you think, well, I think Lions, Packers is going to be a great game. And then you get to the end of the season, the teams are, you know, ravaged by injuries and they’re four and 12 and no one wants to watch them the second to last week of the season. They’ll flex it out for whatever the better game is that night. Uh, they can do that as well. Now, I would imagine the Jazz will play both of these games. It’s not late enough in like the playoff run where they were going to bump anyone in these games unless, you know, randomly the Rockets are terrible or the Clippers are terrible, the Jazz. But if this was like a March game and you know the Jazz were going up against the Lakers and they decided, “Oh, actually there’s a Thunder Rockets game that matters a lot more,” they could probably flex you out. I’m not sure how the NBA dealt with that with, you know, Amazon and ESPN, but we’ve seen it. You know, the J the the Jazz lone national TV game last year was when ESPN thought the Lakers were going to have Luca make their debut. It was this weird Saturday game and he didn’t play. So, the Jazz had this random game in LA with nobody really wanting to watch because nobody in Portland was playing. As I just kind of blink and get the first look at this, I’d say 80% if not 85% of the games tip at 7 or 7:30. Again, 80 to 85% at 7 to 7:30. Then you’ve got your spattering of mix and match in there. Maybe a couple of 8:00 tip times. You’ve got a random four:00 tip time against Dallas at the beginning of January. Um, there might be one or two 6:00 tips, but for the most part, expect 7 7:30 p.m. tip times. You’re going to be able to find it on your local networks. Only two currently on national television. You’ve got a couple of fiveame road trips. Those are built in there. Um, you got three fivegame road trips that are built in currently to this schedule. But other than that, Ben, anything else that pops that jumps out to you that you wanted to comment on? Uh, no. Oh, you look at the All-Star break. It’s always kind of interesting to see when those come in. And that’s February 12th, uh, is the Jazz’s last game they play on a Thursday and aren’t back till the next Friday. Uh, sometimes that gets moved around weird. You end up with these short date. So, the Jazz get a nice healthy break there. Uh, and then the season ends a little bit early. Uh, April 12th is a little earlier than I remember. Now, only two or three days, but uh, that’s a pretty that’s a pretty notable date to end that early. And you know what? Some of the guys returning, you know, John Collins is back in the season opener. uh he’s going to make his debut with the Clippers uh against the Jazz. And of course, I actually want to see Jordan Clarkson on the road in New York. Um I think that’s going to be fun. I think Jordan playing at Madison Square Garden Gardens, kind of a perfect marriage. And that’ll be on uh believe December 5th in New York. So, that’s a cool game as well. I’m just trying to count through and see any backtobacks. I mean, I’ve counted six backtobacks through the middle of December. Um I I don’t know, you know, been it’s kind of hard. I’m trying to engage with the schedule because I always do. I always love to print it out and I mark it up and try to make some predictions and some thoughts, but where the Jazz are just in full tank mode, it’s it’s tough to get overly excited about it, but I appreciate you taking some time and breaking it down. Happy to. Thanks. There you go. Ben Anderson, our Jazz insider. You can find him at kslsports.com, but and you can also see the current Jazz schedule. Ben just tweeted it out and you can follow Ben on Twitter, Ben Hoops. That’s Ben’s Hoops. Take a quick break. Come back to Whole World News. Oh, all right. Well, Barry Barry whole world news. We’re going to announce our next 60 and 60 coming up next. This is your top 60 and 60 watch list as Hans and Scotty gets you ready for the start of the 2025 college football season by highlighting the most influential players on their team for the upcoming season. And now get the call, baby. Let’s go. Here’s today’s newest addition to the watch list. [Music] Welcome back, Hans Scotty 975D KSL Sports Zone. 60 and 60. It’s not the same. I know. I’m bummed, too. We don’t rank them, but we do highlight them and the coaches talk about them. I’m excited about this one. It’s another University of Utah safety, big- time player, Nate Richie. Nate Richie has been in the program for many years. Very solid player, uh, very consistent. You can always count on Nate to to do the right thing and, uh, take care of his business. an extremely hard worker and a really good football player. He is very good football player and he’s gonna have to have a great season. Uh I’m excited about this backfield between him and Tail Johnson and some of the edges that you’re going to be able to find. Smith Snowden is such a such a durable universal player that he can do so many things. So great stuff for the University of Utah. Their defense is looking very solid. Always is, isn’t it? It is. It is. And and it’s nothing different. You know, we just had Steve Bartle on to talk about the linebacking situation. I actually think the defensive line is in a is in pretty good order. I think it’s in pretty good order. You know, one of the questions was who’s going to play opposite of Logan Fono? The other question was who’s going to play opposite of Smith Snowden? And there’s good options out there. Whether it’s Elijah Davis or others, there’s some really good options for this Utah defense. Cannot wait. game one against UCLA. I don’t know if there’s a bigger game. Utah, UCLA, UCLA’s got so much to prove. They’ve put so much into that program. I don’t know what they paid that Tennessee quarterback, Nico. I I I’m I’m sure it’s in the million pluses. And I don’t know what they paid their offensive coordinator to leave Indiana after he made a run to the college football playoffs, but I’m sure it’s in the the multi-millions. They’ve got a lot of pressure to go perform and they’re taking on a Utah team that their back is up against the wall. Kyle Whittingham is a cage dog right now. Kyle Whittingham after a five- win season is probably losing his mind. So, I cannot wait. Let’s kick this game off and let’s get it going. Utah UCLA. You’re going to hear from Don Vanado who has been in the news a lot lately. He is senior ESPN writer and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He joins us
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