FULL WED. SHOW - Matt Mooney (USD hoops stud 2016-18) / SDSU's turtle vs Sac State's hare in race to FBS

Happy Hour with John Gaskins

He had a jump shot out of a cannon that sparked the University of South Dakota's best two years in Division I hoops (2016-18), then Texas Tech's historic run into overtime of the national championship game (2019). Matt Mooney was a cold-blooded sharpshooting machine in those three years, and he is just as to-the-point and entertaining when he tells stories about them. In a one-hour sit down with Happy Hour host John Gaskins from his home in Puerto Rico — Mooney's latest stop in a six-year pro career that took him all over the continents of Europe and Australia — Mooney reminisces on high times like a couple wins over Mike Daum's South Dakota State and beating Tom Izzo's Michigan State in the Final Four.

The Chicagoland native also extracts the pain he felt in the low moments, like the Coyotes' heartbreaking losses to SDSU and the Red Raiders' oh-so-close overtime thriller against Virginia for all the March Madness marbles in Minneapolis in his final collegiate game. Along the way, Mooney weaves in colorful stories about Daum and SDSU's buzzer-beating Coyote killer Michael Orris, plus the rock star existence Mooney and his teammates experienced in Lubbock — a fan wanting to buy him a beer made how much from betting on Tech? — and his journeyman career as a pro from the NBA G-League, to NBA call-ups, to Spain and Turkey and Germany and Australia and New Zealand and Puerto Rico, oh my. Prolific and electric? Yes. Glamorous? Sometimes, but not as much as you'd think. But it has certainly been a journey worth telling, and Mooney tells it well.

Before Mooney joins, John tells a story of the Jackrabbits actually playing the turtle and not the hare in a race — this one from the FCS to the FBS.

Sacramento State is smearing egg off of its face in its brash and brazen bid to make that move as quickly and aggressively as possible, which has most recently backfired. The FCS Oversight Committee's denied SCSU of seeking FBS independence. This ruling followed Sac State's president calling the FCS level "JV" — a jab that received a lethal social media counterpunch from South Dakota's athletic director, Jon Schemmel.

Then, there's a remark South Dakota State athletic director Justin Sell made to Happy Hour on March 5 — that SDSU is in no rush to join the FBS, but is not closing the door on it ever happening, and why the "patiently aggressive" nature toward upward movement will work better in the long run.

Plus, while the Minnesota Twins wallow in recent hapless hitting and putrid pitching and defense, there's a professional team right here in Sioux Falls that is hitting its stride while blistering the cover off the baseball, with local talent leading the way.

Perhaps it is time to get off the couch and out of your Twins misery and head to The Birdcage to enjoy the Canaries Carnival.