Big Blue Insider with Dick Gabriel · NewsRadio 630 WLAP (WLAP-AM)

2026-02-18 - BBI

February 19, 2026·1 hr 22 min·7 clips

Daryl Bird reveals the Kentucky Colonels GM sat between Issel and Gilmore in the locker room and suggested it 'would be really nice to win this thing in front of our home fans' — then Artis Gilmore deliberately played his worst game of the season.

1. Big Blue Insider host Dick Gabriel post-mortems Kentucky's home loss to Georgia and discusses the ABA documentary Soul Power with CatsPaws editor Daryl Bird on this Wednesday edition. 2. Dick Gabriel anchors the show; guests include Daryl Bird of CatsPaws, Sean Woods at Scott County High School, and West End Bureau Chief Gary Moore. 3. The central argument is whether Mark Pope's analytics-based substitution decisions broke Kentucky's momentum during a game the Wildcats were positioned to win. 4. Kentucky led Georgia early, gave up a double-digit lead, and fell 81-78 after Otega Oweh dribbled out of bounds on a play down three with minutes remaining; Pope acknowledged post-game that Oweh's 38 minutes caused visible fatigue. 5. Pope said in the post-game that Kentucky gave up 1.26 points per possession against Georgia, calling it 'the worst defensive performance Georgia has faced the entire season in the SEC,' and acknowledged transition defense lapses as the primary cause. 6. Gabriel and Bird debate Oweh's 38-minute workload, with Bird arguing the bigger problem was the absence of a true point guard and the team reverting to one-on-one late-game offense rather than running a set play for Colin Chandler, who had hit six threes. 7. Bird argues Pope should stop relying on analytics when his players are in a flow and simply leave the rolling group on the court, saying the Georgia game magnified the roster's lack of a backup point guard with Denzel Aberdeen at the position. 8. Daryl Bird shares a story from his multi-hour sit-down interview with Issel at Issel's Denver kitchen table, using a book about the Colonels as the anchor for the conversation. 9. Bird recounts the story of ABA championship game four: after winning on the road with a chance to close it out, the Colonels GM sat between Issel and Artis Gilmore, said it would be 'really nice' to win the title at home, and walked out. 10. Gilmore apparently understood the implication; he played his worst game of the season in game four, the Colonels lost, and then won the championship in front of the Louisville home crowd in game five. 11. Bird shares the detail that a contested call in a playoff game against the Pacers had to be settled by staff going to WLKY Studios to calculate frame-by-frame on tape whether a buzzer-beater was late, and the Colonels played game three before learning they had officially won game two. 12. Both Gabriel and Bird agree Louie Dampier is underappreciated, citing Dan Issel's direct quote that Dampier would have been the ABA's all-time scoring leader over Issel if there had been a three-point shot. 13. Mikaela Shiffrin wins the Olympic slalom, her second Olympic slalom gold after Sochi in 2014, posting the third-largest margin of victory in women's Olympic slalom history at age 30. 14. American figure skater Amber Glynn is discussed as a likely medal contender who received a zero on her triple loop jump after completing only two revolutions, an 'invalid element' under figure skating rules. 15. Tyler Bell's shoulder injury from a dive at UNC Greensboro is the lead baseball story; coach Nick Mingione says Bell charted every swing at batting practice the following day while injured. 16. Luke Lawrence, who hit over .470 in postseason play last year, is now playing shortstop in Bell's absence; Kentucky is headed to a three-game road series at 18th-ranked Evansville. 17. Sean Woods recalls the February 15, 1990 Kentucky upset of 12th-ranked LSU in Rupp Arena — a team with Shaquille O'Neal, Chris Jackson, and Stanley Roberts — as the anniversary passed the prior weekend. 18. Woods argues that Chris Jackson's guard-dominance at LSU was the first instance of a pattern that repeated throughout Shaq's career: playing alongside a dominating guard (Penny Hardaway, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade) who challenged Shaq's work ethic and ball-sharing. 19. The episode blends post-game analysis with historical basketball storytelling; Gabriel is clearly aligned with the Wildcats as a fan and broadcaster. 20. Best suited for Kentucky Wildcats followers with interest in both current and 1970s basketball history; listeners outside the Kentucky orbit or seeking game-only analysis will find the format broad.

As heard by us

A damaging loss becomes a candid, wide-ranging Kentucky basketball conversation.

Big Blue Insider uses a damaging Kentucky loss as the frame for a candid postgame look at how much it hurt, what the Auburn trip now means, and why each game ahead feels more important.

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Why you'd press play

After Georgia, Kentucky's room for error gets a lot smaller.

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