SportsPrep Live

SPL is back from the NV State Football Championship where the Gaels reigned supreme. Listen in as SPL recaps the highlights, discusses the controversy surrounding the national rankings and chats about all the action happening in high school basketball.  What time is it? Game time! Episode available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podcast Addict, Amazon Music, Deezer or Player FM.

What is SportsPrep Live?

SportsPrep Live is an engaging podcast hosted by Graydon Prescott, a talented 15-year-old with a passion for sports. Despite his young age, Graydon brings a wealth of experience to the table, having started his podcasting journey at the age of 9. With a focus on excellence in athletics, SportsPrep Live promises captivating interviews with a diverse range of athletes, offering valuable insights and inspiring stories to its listeners.

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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz and more the University of Nevada Las Vegas or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

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Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode of sports prep live, prep live, where we unbox the mic and talk excellence in athletics.

Unknown Speaker 0:29
Welcome back to sports prep live. I'm your host Graydon Prescott, we got a lot to talk about today. quick preview of what we're going to be talking about. Bishop Gorman recap of their state championship. There's been some trash talk between one of the top high school programs in the country, we'll get to that. And brawny James has been cleared to practice for USC. We got a lot to talk about today. It'll be very interesting. I'd like to welcome back KB to the show. KB. How are you?

Unknown Speaker 0:59
I'm good. I'm good. Ready to Roll?

Unknown Speaker 1:01
All right. Sounds good. So let's dive right into it. We're going to start last time we were here we left off with a little preview of Bishop Gorman versus liberty. And I said I think we'll know what we're talking about. The next time that we're here, and I was right. You made a prediction? Yes, I did. I predicted that the score of that game would be Bishop Gorman. 56 Liberty 12. And the actual final score was drumroll please. Bishop Gorman. 56. Liberty 11. Yes, yeah, I was I was 1.0. Good job. Thank you. I impressed myself a

Unknown Speaker 1:38
little. So was that a stab in the dark? Or was that research and knowing the offense and defenses of both teams? Okay,

Unknown Speaker 1:45
so here, here's how I came to that prediction. Sure. So I went on to max preps and I looked at all the scores for liberty. And at the time, Liberty only had two losses, I believe, I think they were tending to going into the state championship game, but when they played Gorman the first time it was 49 to six, okay. So, I figure well, Gorman has been putting up over 50 points per game for quite a while in that game where they scored 49 against Liberty was early in the season. And of course, it's the state championship game, so they're gonna want to prove a point. So I, I thought initially, Gorman would get about 50. Right. Okay, and then a reasonable number, because it's a factor or seven factors into 56. You get eight touchdowns. 56 points. So I thought, well, Gorman 56. Sounds realistic. I don't think Liberty can stop them. So I figure Okay, I think they'll get around eight touchdowns. So with extra points. That's

Unknown Speaker 2:42
56. So there was a method. It wasn't a stab in the dark. And then liberty.

Unknown Speaker 2:47
I thought, by the end of the game, Gorman will probably have their second string in maybe Liberty can pop off a touchdown here in there, and maybe get a field goal, which they opened the game with. They started out three to zero.

Unknown Speaker 3:00
Did they started out really well, with the first three points of the game. Yeah, they

Unknown Speaker 3:04
shouldn't have, but they did. Right. So yeah, I figured they'd get a field goal here and there, maybe a touchdown. And I just thought that 12 Sounded like a number that, you know, that's pretty realistic. But 11 was what we ended up with.

Unknown Speaker 3:19
That was a very good job. Yes. And I'm here to say that great and did actually predict that beforehand. Or maybe we don't call it a prediction. That was your analysis. Yeah. estimation, right. And you know, to call 5612 in the score end up being 56 to 11. That is really impressive. And you were there you watch the game? Yes, I was you watch this unfold. Yeah. So since you were there, and you talked about heading over to the show, or to the game in our last show. Tell us about it. What were your takeaways from the Liberty, Bishop Gorman game? Obviously, Bishop Warren comes out with the win, they win the state championship in their division. What were your takeaways from the

Unknown Speaker 4:06
game? Well, first of all, I thought Gorman's defense was extremely impressive. And I liked what I saw from them, especially someone that we've had on this show. Yes, yeah. Keaton Harris. I don't know the exact stats from the game. But if you watch the replay from that game, Keaton made a huge impact. He made a lot of big tackles. he pressured the quarterback. He saved a lot of first out or potential first downs for everybody. Keaton was all over the place. He made a lot of big plays. So I was really I was really happy to see that, especially since it was someone that I've had

Unknown Speaker 4:39
a big struggle to keep trim. Yeah, Keaton is a beast. It broke through on Twitter, like the people that people were impressed. So, you know, I was seeing, you know, in real time at that time, people talking about what Keaton was doing on defense. I mean, he dominated the Liberty offense. Yes, he did. So A good shout out to Keaton Harris. Check him out on Twitter. He's He's big time. So good job teaching.

Unknown Speaker 5:06
Yep, and then another takeaway from the game was Gorman's offense. They looked absolutely unstoppable Michael mica, mica Yeah. Mike alojado. Quarterback QB one. He's really good. And he's a problem. And there's a reason that people are calling him the best quarterback in the nation at this point, right. He's leading the number one offense in the nation as well. And they really showed why they are the number one offense in the nation and the number one team in the nation. Which

Unknown Speaker 5:35
gets us to a little bit of controversy, controversy. Yes. So Bishop Gorman is and has been for the last couple of months. The number one team, high school football, high school, high school football team in the nation. That's right. And they played a team that at that time, the number one team also played. And I believe that was John Bosco at the time and they both played centennial. And Bishop Murray.

Unknown Speaker 6:09
They both played modern day was the team the number one team to start the season. And

Unknown Speaker 6:15
oh, I thought it was John Bosco. Okay, so it was made her day that makes it even more relevant because where some of the comments were coming from so modern day was the number one team and they played centennial. And Bishop Gorman plates Antonio miner day, defeated Centennial but only by a couple of touchdowns. Just as you were talking about your analysis a little bit earlier in the show, Bishop Gorman came in and put down the hammer scored over 50 Beat them by four or five touchdowns. I mean, it was a drubbing. And Mater Dei, recently had their Division five high school football game and they won state. So after they won, take us through what transpired with coach Frank McManus because he was talking grazie. Yeah, about they still feel like they are the best team in the nation. And a lot of us out there beg to differ. I mean, facts are facts.

Unknown Speaker 7:26
Yep. So what happened was monster day earlier in the season, they opened up one number one team, okay. And St. John Bosco, the defending national champions. They opened the year at nine okay, they felt quite different. That's correct. So Bosco played modern day this was when Gorman was number two. Modern day was number one. Bosco was nine. And Bosco beat modern day 28 to zero. Modern day film modern day fell in the rankings. Bosco moved up to three or four and Gorman moved up to one that was in September early October since then Gorman has been the number one team and they haven't really been touched. Modern day has been floating around the four five range in Bosco is not three range. In the California state championship game, it was modern day and Bosco again. But this time, moderate AB Bosco 35 to seven. Okay, so they got a 28 point when he got the cheat them by 28 and after the game coach Frank McManus and I have this pulled up he said, quote, We will lace them up in the middle of Bristol and take on anyone by that he was obviously referring God's fire to Bishop Gorman. Right. The number one team in the country modern day I think is now ranked number two. Okay, they're back to two Gorman is still one, okay. And yeah, that's what transpired he was calling his shot at Gorman. But from what I've seen, I don't think modern day can beat this Coleman team. This is a modern day team that did get shut out earlier in the season. And Gorman hasn't been held to below 39 points all year.

Unknown Speaker 9:06
And they're undefeated. They are undefeated, they are putting on offense and defense, every single game and here's, here's what I didn't like about those comments from Coach McManus. He knows having been there because he's not there. Now. He knows how difficult it is to become the number one high school team in the nation right in any sport, let alone football. And so for him to make those comments. I'm sure they are hyped up after winning their state championship there probably was a little bit of uncertainty there since they were playing Bosco. But they came out they handled their business and they won the state championship kudos to them, just as bishop Gorman did the week before them in the state of Nevada. So he knows how difficult it is to corral the troops Get everyone on the same page offense working in unison defense working in unison and put together a real strong season and have a chance to compete for the top spot in a sport in the country. And so for him to come out after the fact and make those comments I thought was a little disingenuous. We are where we are. It is not Bishop Gorman Bishop woman's fault that he wasn't on point or his team wasn't on point the first time he played Bosco. That is a strong loss to be shut out to be defeated by 28 points and say that your number, the number one team, that should not happen to a number one team, let's say you get defeated, okay, but it shouldn't be by 28 points. Granted, they got their revenge, but it shouldn't happen. That hasn't happened to Bishop Gorman, Bishop Gorman has been impressive all year. I know it probably doesn't bother them. But I think it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way because McManus has been there, he knows what it takes to reach you know that that King of the Mountain threshold, and so I felt like he was throwing a little bit of shade at Bishop Corman, Bishop Mormons weigh but Bishop Gorman is the king of the hill. And another thing that I do take umbrage at is there was a kind of a media poll that came out. So really, it's just people's opinion. Right, right. And I don't know if there was a little bit of favoritism there, or is it a little bit of legacy voting in that poll, Mater Dei came out ahead of Bishop Gorman, for number one in the poll, and then Bishop had dropped to two. But that wasn't really a coach's poll. It's just reporters, media guys and gals coming together and saying, Hey, this is who we think is number one. So I don't give a lot of credence to a poll like that. Where it matters. Bishop Gorman is the number one team in the nation. And I think by a country mile, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 11:59
I don't know if it's, if you're gonna be the number one team in the nation. If you lose a game, that's one thing, but at least make it close. Right? If they would have lost that game 28 to 24 or 28 to 21, and a full touchdown, they wouldn't have fallen as dramatically if they wrecked correct, but they lost 20 to zero, you can't lose 28 to zero and then come back later in the season and claim that you're the number one team in the country, even if you defeat the team that beat you by right they did beat them 35 to seven but you still but you still have that loss and it's still there. Gorman also played a team ranked higher than them Miami Central. Miami was not ranked higher than Gorman, but ranked higher than basketball skills. Yes, Miami was number six, I believe when they played Gorman. And it was a close game. It was a great game. It was a game to remember but Gorman came out on top 3935. That's how you should perform against top teams. Right. And even if Gorman had lost that name, say it was the other way around 35 to 39 in favor of Miami Gorman wouldn't fall down very far in the rankings. That's a top 10 team. And you made the game close, it was less than a touchdown, right? If you're going to lose by 28. That's where the argument for being the top team in the country starts to lose its traction. And that's why I think people are starting to take umbrage at the fact that he is calling his team, the best team in the country because in reality, if you're going to lose like that, you cannot call yourself the best Talk

Unknown Speaker 13:36
is cheap. It is Talk is cheap. We all know and again, shout out to the Coach Brown and the whole Bishop Gorman program. They were doing the darn thing the entire year, offensive side of the ball defensive side of the ball, just an impressive roster. For those of you who are out there who are unfamiliar with them, check them out on YouTube. Bishop Gorman is the real deal. And that's no disrespect to Mater Dei. They're an outstanding football program. But they are not the number one team in the nation. Not Not

Unknown Speaker 14:06
right now. No, they're not correct. We can flashback to last year too, with this modern day faced corpsman at Gorman. And that was a game that I attended. And I believe you were there as well. Yes. Gorman was not ranked as high as they are right now. Their team was not as good and they still almost beat monetary and they should have won that. They were up by 14 points in the fourth quarter. And everything that possibly could go wrong for them went wrong and everything went right for modern day. But that was a game that Garmin just let slip through their fingers. And I think coming into this year, they had that in mind. Did they lose by three was that it was 21 to 24? Yes, yes. Yeah, I do recall that. And that's a strong showing against the nation's number one thing Yes. And Monterey was number one at that time, and Gorman was four or five and it was a three point game. Even if moderator had lost that game as the number one team in the country, they would not have the wreck their rate ranking would not have cascaded as it did fall against Bosco this year. So, this year, modern day your great program, great coaching staff, great players, but you're not the best in the country coach

Unknown Speaker 15:21
McMahon's fallback, show some respect not this year.

Unknown Speaker 15:26
Transitioning from Gorman. Another thing in the news recently in high school sports specifically, is in high school basketball. We have a couple of dramatic upsets in high school basketball recently, most notably, Wasatch Academy out of Utah, played against Columbus, Christopher Columbus High School in Miami, Florida, right. And we've talked about Columbus. We've talked about the boozer twins, Jason Richardson and a friend of mine that we had on the very first episode of the show, Jackson Richardson is on Columbus,

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and they were all each of those teams were border league that played here in Las Vegas. They were here last month

Unknown Speaker 16:13
and Columbus at home. Home crowd came up against the Wasatch, who's ranked eighth in the country. They're not they're no slouch. But Columbus was one and Wasatch came out of that game with a two point victory 75 to 73. Cameron boozer had 26 points, Jason Richardson had 17. And it was a balanced game on the Wasatch side, I believe Mobley, John Mobley, Jr. had 17. Yep. Isaiah Hartwell had 15 or 16. And they had a lot of those players. So Wasatch came out with that victory. Do you think Columbus has to worry? Or do you think it's just a bump in the road, and that they will be able to recover?

Unknown Speaker 17:01
That is a great question. Going forward, you know, we're in Las Vegas. So I'll say this. If I were putting money on a game, I will not be but if I were putting money on, you know, they played a series of games or they played a seven game series, I am going to expect that Columbus is going to come out on top right? Wasatch is a great program. Juni is a great player, you know, he's got Chris newly there along with him. You know, those guys are really talented. But for my money, Columbus is on another level. Not Not to mention, not just the the Bucha twins, but as you mentioned, you know, the Richardson twins in our versus in brothers in Jackson and Jason. They've got some really talented people on that team. And so I would expect that of a seven game series. Sure, Wasatch may win, you know, two or three games. But if it's if it's gonna go, you know, the full series, I would imagine that, you know, Columbus is going to come out on top of that. And you know, in fact, let me take that back. I don't even know that it would go seven. Yeah, I expect Wasatch would win two or three of those games, they are talented. But it happens, you lose from time to time, the shots aren't falling, you know, players being injured, it players not on the same page. All those things happen even at the highest level in any given sport. So it's not surprising to me that they got defeated by another top team in the nation, you know, top 10 team in the nation. But I wouldn't expect that that's going to turn into you know, any sort of pattern going forward. If they were to play, you know, again, over the next over this season. They play another two or three times.

Unknown Speaker 18:48
Yeah. I'm a team that is also ranked very high in the rankings out of Florida as Marburg. They also played Wasatch, and that game was not particularly close. verd won that game going away. Now that team does have three or 435 star recruits. They got this guy committed to Duke named Cooper flag who we've talked about enrollment he's, he's pretty good. Yeah, Mark Byrd there right now looking absolutely unbeatable. The questions are starting to come up if they're the best high school basketball team of all time. Asa Noel, Liam McNeely, Robert Wright. Cooper flag, this team is stacked. Do you think there's anybody in the country who can beat them?

Unknown Speaker 19:33
I was surprised moments ago when you said Columbus is the number one team so I would have thought that would have been so

Unknown Speaker 19:39
here's the thing. So here's the thing. Yes, there's two or three rankings. There's the you have the USA Today. Rankings, right? You have that maxpreps ranking. Okay. And then I think there's like a AP ranking in the maxpreps ranking. Columbus is number one, and I think everyone or else Mark Burgess number one in Columbus. Oh three. That makes sense. There's another team called link Academy, who is perennially been number two in the country. And they are also putting it on teams right now winning by an average margin over 25 points. But I think in the big rankings mount Byrd has been number one, I don't even think they're ranked on maxpreps. I don't know why that might be an error. But yeah, Mont vert isn't on the maxpreps 25. At the moment, I don't think. So. If they were they'd probably be one. But that's why Columbus is, quote, unquote, number one in the country.

Unknown Speaker 20:41
I'm not. For me, they're the number one team in the nation, mother, mother, having seen Cooper flag play. This kid is a problem. He is. He is unbelievably talented. And I have seen a lot of basketball. And he is on a another level. Yeah. So I'm not going to bet against any. And as you said, there are you know, three or four other five star players, yeah, on this team. So I'm not going to bet against them against any team that they're facing in the nation. And I am really impressed with Columbus. And they battled hard when they were here in the border league. And I expect the games that they have coming against one another this season. Yeah, those are going to be hard fought battles. But I'm going to take maneuvered by a hair on those games, because they are they are just hypertonic. And yeah, they play

Unknown Speaker 21:34
each other Columbus. And moreover, they play each other, and a couple of weeks. And then, of course, the border league game, we saw that it was I think six or eight points. Right, right. It was a great game. Mumford jumped on early Columbus got three lovebirds kind of pulled away at the end. But it was a great game. This is great in Prescott, we're here on Sports prep live 91.5k u and v HD, two radio. I'm here with my man K. B. We're talking it up on High School Sports, and some college athletics as well. Speaking of college athletics, USA, us, brawny James has been cleared to practice. This is obviously huge news in the sports world. Right, considering what happened to him over the summer. It's a relief for everyone in the sports community. Sure. I'm happy he's back. Everybody's happy. He's back. Do you think that it's well timed? You think? I think he'll be alright. Right. But do you think they should hold him out for a little bit longer? Just to be sure. I

Unknown Speaker 22:40
think he's okay with doing you know, we talked about this earlier, in the season of our of the show. And, you know, I think that he's got an amazing team around him. He does. And that, obviously, the health professionals but it's his father as well. You know, everyone there, he's getting the best care. And I think they've really taken their time to make sure that they brought him along at a pace that the medical professionals were comfortable with. So he is cleared, but he's just cleared to practice right now. And that's going to be light practice. Until they they've seen Hey, he does really have his wheels under him. Obviously, he's got to, you know, slowly get back into game shape. I know he's been working out, you know, sometimes with the team away from the team. And when I say working out I don't necessarily mean basketball stuff. I just mean you know, cardio stuff, weights and things staying in shape. But I do think that they've done a really good job. Being patient, taking their time UFC has a really talented team. So they he didn't need to rush back. He will be back on the basketball court soon. But yes, I think that they did exactly the right thing. And it is probably a case study and how you come back from an injury of that nature. Yeah. So yeah, I think they've been very judicious. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 23:56
Obviously. Great to have him back on the court. Yeah. Good to know. He's okay. Are they doing the noncontact just practice right now. Okay. So he's back now I kind of like light practice routine. Yeah. So that's good to hear. Excited to see him back on the court. And I think he's got a bright future ahead of them just as long as they make sure he's alright. Yeah, just as long as this ticker is good. A fellow USC Trojan Juju Watkins, man. So just to walk into six games into the season right there. There's a record that stood for over three decades at USC. And that record is Lisa Leslie's 30 Point games as a freshman. She had the record, I think, with three or 430 Point games as a freshman and that record hasn't been touched. Juju broken in six games.

Unknown Speaker 24:48
Juju is again USC. Phenomenal. Absolutely. I mean to watch her play in she has you know Energy about her where she knows. This is my house. Yeah. And I don't only mean when she's playing a home game at USC when she is on the basketball court. Yes. This is my house. Yeah. I cannot wait for an opportunity to see her play. live and in person. Yeah. Juju is just as real as it gets. She is hyper impressive as a basketball player. She has to be along with, you know, Caitlin Clark. And there's a couple of rivers out of North Carolina State. There's, there's a few other people are players there that are vying for that wouldn't award or that AP, you know, college player of the year. Juju is right up there. Yeah. And I mean, if Caitlyn is one, Juju is one A, and I'm not even sure that Juju is not one. She is just unbelievable. You know, I'm a big fan of Caitlyn out of her mind, but Juju is fantastic. So I would encourage anybody, especially being you know, in the conference that we're in here in Vegas, and out on the West Coast, if you get a chance to see and she was here just a few weeks ago, you get a chance to see Judy watching Judy, walk into play. Please do not deny yourself. Yeah, she's phenomenal.

Unknown Speaker 26:16
It's incredible. And her team started out the rankings about where they were expected low 20s. Now they USC as a program highest they've been in 20 years. Right now, number six, and I don't see that continue to go up. Right. It's going up. Juju is phenomenal. She's efficient, she can score the ball from all three levels. She's as good of a player as I've seen in college. Aside from Caitlyn, she's as good of a player as I've ever seen.

Unknown Speaker 26:42
And then a little bit of gossip. You know, we'd spoke about this a little bit last week. Angel Reese's back. Yeah, on the record, we don't have to belabor the point. So it'll be interesting because coach Mulkey has really not talked about why she's been away from the team for four games. But she's back and she's coming and they want all four of those games. She's back. She's back. And she's coming into a tough one. Yeah, like she is Virginia Tech.

Unknown Speaker 27:04
I want to see how they do in this game. Yes, I would have been really interested to see how they do without her. But she's back will be at full string. So I'm excited to see how this game goes. Virginia Tech's a great better way and they better they better. What do you know where the game is? I'm not sure where the game is. I can I can check that right now. But yeah, that'll be a good one because Virginia that gave Iowa ran run for their money.

Unknown Speaker 27:32
Kenny Brooks down there has no team playing. So it's

Unknown Speaker 27:36
tonight at seven and the game is in at LSU. Okay, so we have a little bit of an edge. Yes, but don't sleep on Virginia Tech ballers over there. Look out for it. That'll be a great game. Well, thank you, everybody, for tuning in to this episode of sports prep live. It's been a great one. Thank you, KB for coming on. Once again. My pleasure. All right. Appreciate it. You can check out the rest of the episodes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And as always, everybody have a great day and we'll see you on the next episode of sports prep live. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of sports prep live. I'm grading Prescott and don't forget to catch all of our episodes on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts and be sure to follow us on Instagram or Twitter at sports rep law. Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai