Latest / Podcast on the Brink / POTB 566: Mike DeCourcy on IU basketball's portal class, March Madness expansion and more

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POTB 566: Mike DeCourcy on IU basketball's portal class, March Madness expansion and more · Podcast on the Brink

• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to a new episode of Podcast on the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Brink Friday, May fifteenth, Continuing on this every other week's
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: schedule for now Podcast on the Brink. With the off
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: season fully in swinging, any of the portal has really
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: slowed down here the last couple of weeks. It hasn't
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: been as much to talk about from an IU basketball perspective.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: But we're back this week with a good friend, Mike
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: de Corsi of The Sporting News. Before we get to Mike,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I wanted to take a quick moment to ask for
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: your support. Leave us a rating and review over on
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube like
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the video, subscribe to the channel. We appreciate your support there.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Mike. Always good to see you.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: As I told you before we hit record, gonna, I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: know you've got a couple more months here before you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: kind of hang up the full time duties over at
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the Sporting News. Told you I'm going to miss reading
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: your constant opinions through the college basketball season here. As
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I've said many times on the show, you're one of
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: the guys that I grew up reading in New Albany, Indiana.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I remember the Sporting News used to get delivered.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I read John Line for a long time, so just
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: wanted to congratulate you on a great career, Hall of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Fame career. We'll miss you, but happy that you're going
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to get a chance to hopefully spend more time with
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: your family do some other things outside of this grind.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: But welcome back to the show. Always good to talk
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you Alex for having me back, and thank
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: you for the kind words.
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: I will say your father.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Hung around a little bit longer than I did in
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: this game, and I'm not sure where he got the
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: juice to go those extra six or seven years, but
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: he's an icon and has been a model for me
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: for many, many years. The kind of person. There are
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: a few people in this business that I wanted to
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: emulate that I wanted to be like, and it involved
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: being provocative. But but but why smart? Not doing saying
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: something just because I know it will be it will
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: gain attention, but because I believed in it, and because
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I believed.
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: It was the correct thing.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: And there was a man named Stan Savergn who passed
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: away here in Pittsburgh a few years ago, who was
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: a talk show host for many years, and I've never
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: been a talk show host, but he had what I
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: wanted to have, that that ideal of being smart, being interesting,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: and being compelling. And your father was tremendous in that
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: area for so many years.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that. I don't know if he listens back to this,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: he'll appreciate it hearing that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Obviously. I just want to dive right in here. IU basketball,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it's been another, I guess, kind of complete rebuild here
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: in the off season. Look at the roster and you
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: see Trent Sisley is the only player coming back. You
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: look at what they lost in the portal and other
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: than Nick dor not really anybody that played a significant role.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I know you've followed this, maybe a little bit more
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: from afar than those of us on the day to day,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: but I know you're familiar with what they've been able
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to do from a portal perspective. Maybe a two part
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: question here. One, were you surprised at all at how
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: last season turned out just in terms of you being
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: a solid team, maybe just not good enough to get
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: into the tournament. And then the second part of that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: is do you think Indiana fans should be encouraged by
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: what took place this spring in terms of the portal additions,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and are they maybe in a better spot to get
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: into the tournament next year.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I say that I wasn't totally surprised by what
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: happened last year because when I looked at the final
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: roster after they went through the portal and all of that,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I knew that they were going to struggle physically up front.
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Where was the size, where was the power? You'd have
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: to have had a totally different approach, and an approach
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: that hasn't been common in the Big Ten and wasn't
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: really didn't really suit the players that you did have.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: You had a lot of really good perimeter players, but
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: it's not like you looked at them and said, Okay,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: if we press all game, maybe we can be great.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: I don't think they were really even built for that.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Even though they were small, they weren't really built for that.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: So they had to play it the best way they
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: could and try to emphasize their offensive talent. Then it
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: worked on occasion, the Purdue home game, the UCLA road game,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: some others, but overall it was going to physically wear
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: on them being in the league with a front court
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: like Illinois put out there on the way to the
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: Final four or Michigan did on the way to the
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: National Championship. That lack of physical power upfront was going
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: to hurt them. They were going to struggle on d
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: and they were going to struggle to convert when when
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: threes weren't dropping, what's the next step? Well you go inside.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Well you couldn't go inside. So it wasn't ideally composed.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: I look at the twenty seven roster and the first
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: thing they did, maybe not literally, but the first emphasis
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: they had was on getting bigger, getting stronger. Aiden Cherrell
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: the first example of that. The young man whose name
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: I will learn because I have to for Btn, etc.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: But I'm just going to go you to glue from SMU.
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: I saw him a lot last year and he's not
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: a great great player, but he is huge and he
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: should be a very good role player for the Hoosiers.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: You can start him at center if you need to,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: and he'll be fine. He'll give you that physical power.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: You could play him with Aiden Sharell if you want
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: to get really big, like to deal with the Michigans
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: and Illinois type teams, or you can bring him off
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: the bench to supplement what Charrell does. So there's a
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: lot of flexibility that have those two big guys gives
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: you and then on the perimeter, an area where they
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: weren't quite good enough. They weren't bad, but weren't quite
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: good enough, certainly not good enough to be a high
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: end Big ten team. The most important position on the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: floor for anybody at point guard. Bringing in Marcus Burton.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: Marcus is a tremendous, proven talented player, and there's there's
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: an excellent chance you get him for two years because
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: he had last season disrupted by injury, only played ten games,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: So you don't know exactly that they'll get the medical
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: hardship waiver, and you don't know what this five and
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: five thing might do to that for players who are
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: in comb and I have no idea, but there's a
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: very strong likelihood that he could play two years for you.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And he's a terrific talent. He's a proven player at
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: a high levels.
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: Has been a.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Player who can score himself and who can create for others.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: Not extraordinary assist numbers, but solid assist numbers playing on
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: teams that weren't super talented. So it's hard to get
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: big assists when your teammates aren't making baskets. But he
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: has a fair number of assists. His three point shooting
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: has been here or there, but he's continued to improve
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: as a finisher, someone able to get to the rim
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: and finish inside or make mid range shots. So those
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: three players right there give you strength in areas where
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: a year ago you either were vacant or not Big
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Ten strong enough. Connor Enwright was a really good player,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: but probably should I mean, maybe economically it was a
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: wise move for him to go to Indiana, but he
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: probably should have stayed at the Paul. The competition in
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: the Big East look Saint John's is great, Yukon's great,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: but the day to day competition in the Big East,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: at least as last year's league was composed, wasn't nearly
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: as strong what you're getting in the Big Ten most nights,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: and so he just wasn't quite good enough to be
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: a difference maker at that level. So the question I
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: think for them, for the Hoosiers involves the wing positions.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Mustaf from Georgia Tech could be really good. Darren Harris.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: It's a fascinating prospect because had the great high school rep.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: He goes to Duke and he played some, but he
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: never seemed never seemed really confident when he was out there.
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: He was willing to take shots, but he didn't believe
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: they were going in. When I watched him, it seemed
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: as if he didn't believe they were going in any
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: more than I.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: Believe they were going in.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: He's got to build that, he's got to show that
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: he can be that player. But he's got the physical traits,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: he had the great recruiting profile, and I think a
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: lot is possible there. And Bryce Lindsay has made shots
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: in the biggest games. I mean, I think he had
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: six threes in the Villanova law to Utah State, and
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: that was a game in which they were behind it
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: or slightly ahead the entire way, So it was never
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: like those were empty threes. I mean, they were all
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: consequential buckets. So he's played under high pressure and delivered
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: twelve thirteen points a game on a pretty balanced team.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: So at the very least, you know you're really solid
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: at the post and point that your wing players have talent.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: So I think there's a lot of possibility there. And
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: then I should mention Trent Sisley because I was one
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: of those who expressed the belief that I should have
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: played in the Crown last year because I thought, get
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Trent as many minutes as he can get in however
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: long you last out there, and even if even if
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: a lot of guys weren't going to play, he would
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: have and those minutes would have been valuable. We're past
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: that now, but I still think he can be a
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: very significant contributor on the twenty seventeen.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I want to go back to Darren Harris for a second,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: because he's a guy that I kind of looked at
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: back in the college basketball season and said, this is
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a guy like if you're going to go in the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: portal and you're gonna maybe take the approach of by
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: low on a guy that maybe had talent but hasn't
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: really panned out. He's one of the first names that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: came to mind, and I knew there was a connectionaire
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: with Team Takeover and Kenny Johnson, and you know, also
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the high school he went to. I think Kenny had
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: some connections too, So I felt like if he went
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: in the portal, he was a guy that Indiana was
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: going to be at least interested in and go after.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: But a lot of the pushback, a lot of the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: questions I've had from fans as well. All Right, he
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: was highly ranked out of high school, but he never
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: really did anything at Duke. Can you kind of put
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: into perspective for people maybe that don't follow Duke as closely,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: what he was up.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: Against in terms of minutes there?
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I know he was a part of
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that freshman class that included Cooper, Flag and Cohn, and
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: there's been obviously some other guys.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: But can you.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Kind of make a rational argument if you're buying low
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: and projecting there, that maybe he didn't get the most
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: opportunity there Duke because you look at his minutes and
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: obviously he got some opportunity, but he never had a
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: chance to go out and play, you know, starter a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: level minutes or even twenty five to thirty minutes a game.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So I'm just kind of curious on, you know, how
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: to respond to that kind of that skepticism on this
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: as a guy that went to Duke and didn't really
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: pan out, So why should there be any belief that
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: he can get it done in Indiana?
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I think the.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: First thing is you have to remember who he's playing behind.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: And so his freshman year he goes there and he's
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: a wing player, so he's playing behind Conkinipple and Tyree's Procter.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Konkinipple's borderline. He's certainly all rookie and a contender for
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Rookie of the Year in the NBA. And then you
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: have Tyree's Proctor, who made a team and has been
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: in the league. And if you want to go down
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to the point guard to a position that or the
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: other perimeter position, you got see On James and Caleb
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Foster as well, who didn't always play a ton of
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: minutes the first year. The first year Darren was in school,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: but began the year as a starter, and they've always
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: looked at as kind of a possible point guard, but
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: Caleb was there when Darren got there, so he had
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: an advantage in that. So those were the players he
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: was behind his first year. And then he comes back
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: and he's behind dom Asar who is going to be
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: a first round pick eventually. He's behind Isaiah Evans, who
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: will be probably a lottery pick, certainly a top twenty
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: pick in the twenty six draft. So it's just there
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: weren't a lot of opportunities for him regardless unless he
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: was that level. Okay, so he's not that level. He's
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: not Isaiah Evans. That's not an insult. Isaiah Evans is
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: pretty dog gone good. Darren's what Darren has to show
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: is he has to come in and show that he
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: can make shots with confidence. And like I said, I
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: always admired that he took the shots when they were
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: the correct shots within the Duke offense. If it came
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: to him and it was the right shot, he would
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: take it. I never felt like he was a strong
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: believer in that shot, and I certainly wasn't when it
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: went up and he shot about thirty two percent, I
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: think something like that from three thirty thirty two somewhere
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: in there, And so it wasn't great. It wasn't a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: ton of attempts, but he was only getting about ten
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: minutes a game. I think that you look at his
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: physical components. He's six foot five, he's got a powerful
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: physique for a wing player. He's got decent length, and
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: I think it's just really for him about an opportunity.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: And the great thing for him is when he looks now,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: he sees no one who is there and either has
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: the experience advantage over him or has an obvious talent
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: advantage over him. So if he goes out into this
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: and says, it's going to be my position, whether it's
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: the two or the three, I'm the guy. And he
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: plays like that. With that confidence, I think he can
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: be very successful. He's not going to get phys overwhelmed
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: in the Big ten because of his size. He's not
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: going to get overwhelmed talent wise, because he's used to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: playing around that talent practice every day at Duke. He's
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: played against NBA players his entire career, So I think
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: he has the ability to do that. Is it a
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: wait and see for fans, Sure that's fair because he
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: hasn't done it yet, But I think there's reason to
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: be excited about what's possible from him. I think he
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: certainly has the ability to shoot in the high thirties
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight, and to average in
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the somewhere in the low teens. I think that's a
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: reasonable expectation for his first year at Indiana. And if
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: it doesn't happen, If one of those two things doesn't happen,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I think it's not unreasonable for IU fans to be
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: disappointed because I think those things are available to him,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: and I think he'd be disappointed if he doesn't do
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: those things as well as the potential to be an
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: important defender again because he is. He has great size
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: for his position, whether he's a two or a three,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: physically powerful, decent height, and so he should be able
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: to handle himself on the Big ten perimeter.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Last thing, just kind of on the roster. You spoke
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit to it earlier. Just the size in
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the front court was obviously an issue last year, it
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: seems to me, and this is just kind of talking
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: to Devirees. We had a zoom with him last week.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: It seems like his plan is to play the two
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: bigs together. Because you look at the rest of the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: depth chart, Trent Sisley's probably gonna be a guy coming
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: off the bench giving you backup minutes at the four,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and they did just sign a prospect from over in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Germany that's going to be coming over. Seems like a
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: backup to me. So it seems like they feel like
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: those two can play together. Do you think that's something
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: we saw it last year with some teams in the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Big ten. I think Michigan State played some bigger lineups.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Produced certainly did with with Trey Koffman, Rehnn and whoever.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Kloff started up front for them. Michigan obviously played their
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: big front court. Is that something with those two? You
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: think Charill is a guy that has stepped out and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: made the occasional three pointer. And we've seen it in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the past with Indiana teams playing the two bigs, but
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: obviously Devrees offensively is a little bit different. He seemed
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: confident that the two are going to be able to
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: co exist and play together. Is that Do you think
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that's realistic given what you know about both players.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: One of the interesting things about this Alex is that
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: probably ten years ago there wouldn't have been a thought
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: of that, And then what happened a year ago everybody
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: that decided to try to play big and Florida and
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Michigan are the best example of this. Florida brings back
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: Thomas Houk. They still had Alex Condon, they still had
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: Ruben Shinelou. Okay, well, those are three starters in college basketball,
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: So how do you get them all on the court. Well,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Thomas could shoot, so he becomes the three? Can it work?
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: Can he guard those guys? And they and they had
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: one of the best records in college basketball and get
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: one seed and they were upset in the second round,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: but they had a great year other than that one game.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And then you look at Michigan and Yaxcellendo Boar is
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: up pretty unique and special player, but still they didn't
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: have a problem with having a big wing or a
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: or a big power forward in Marez Johnson. They had
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: the flexibility, and I think in the end, Daimara only
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: ended up playing about twenty three minutes a game, so
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: there were a lot of times when they were more
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: conventional with Yaxhel at the four and Morez the five.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: But no one who's gone in that direction has has
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: regretted it on the basis of our three man can't
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: keep up with the smaller threes, or our power forward
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: can't keep up with stretch fours. And I think Aiden
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: Sharell is he's going to have to show I mean,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Morez again a pretty special player who continued to evolve
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: in his ability to move on the perimeter. So Aiden's
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: going to have to show that he can guard the
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: ball screens, that he's going to have to be able
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: to close out on corner corner for men, that sort
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: of thing. But I think the way Alabama has played
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: under a Nate Oates it's always been oriented toward bigs
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: who can play on the perimeter, whether it's offense or defense.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: So I don't think that's going to be a huge
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: adjustment for Aiden. And then it's just a question of
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: whether the center is it is Big ten level, if
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: he's if he's effective at that level, and I think
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: he recruited him believing that he will be. And as
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: I said, I watched him a lot for SMU, and
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: he can be disruptive, He's he and he's he's got
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: reasonable quickness for a guy at seven to two, So
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: I think I think he can be a successful player.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: And again, if you only play him twenty three to
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: twenty four minutes a game and you get that impact,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: and then the other time you're playing Aiden at the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: full at the five spot, maybe eight ten minutes a game,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I think that seems like a reasonable plan.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: They definitely needed to look completely different than the way
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: they did last season. The insaids no fault of the players.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: It was just reed Bailey was obviously guy a little
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: bit miscast in the role, and as the season more long,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: I think they realized that and Sam Alexis took over
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the starter reps, and I thought he did actually a
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: really good job. He'd be a kind of a perfect
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: backup for this team to have around for another year.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: But shifting gears just a little bit obviously kind of
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a loaded topic here, But we've we got the news
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: recently that we're going from sixty eight teams to seventy six.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: That's going to make your life more fun as a bracketologist,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: maybe more teams to more teams to look at, right, Mike,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: So I kind of know what you're are on this,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But how did we get to this point and why
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: is this happening?
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we got to this point. I think
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: the original question was, could these expanded power conferences. We've
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: got eighteen teams in the Big ten, sixteen in the SEC,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, acc Big twelve, huge leagues. Can
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: those teams get enough of their teams into the tournament
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: if they're playing one another a lot? And that was
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: a legitimate concern. I didn't have any problem with them
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: being concerned about it. I had I had a problem
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: with proposing solutions for problems that had yet not yet
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: cropped up they could maintain they were trying to be
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: ahead of the game. But I think it was really
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: more an issue of we want to try to squeeze
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: more money out of this stone here, and like you
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: could pose it under that original idea, But that original
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: idea was detonated as soon as we had those teams
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: in place, as soon as the Big Twelve got to
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: eighteen and the SEC got to sixteen. Oh my, the
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: SEC gets fourteen out of their sixteen teams in the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: tournament year one.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: So it's not a problem for anybody.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Is there a problem for ACC that they only got
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: three out of however many they got, Yes, but why
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: did you only get three or four?
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Well, because you weren't very good. How do we know that?
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Because they got good in year two and they got
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: way more eight or nine. So again, it all comes
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: down to are you capable and performing? And in the
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: sixty eighteen universe, we were basically down to one or
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: two teams that were not in that group or if
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: you want to throw the Big East in as well,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that those five leagues were getting nearly every bid that
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: was available. Miami Miami of Ohio got one and that
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: was pretty much it. All The rest of them at
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: large bids went to the power conferences. A lot of
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the mid majors complain about this. I'm not a believer
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: in that necessarily. I think when the mid majors have
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: earned them, they've gotten them. It's harder for them to
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: earn them. I realize that. But what I've always said is,
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: you start with in sixty eight it was I think
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: it was thirty eight percent. In the sixty eighteen universe,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: it was thirty eight percent or thirty nine percent of
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: the field was automatically granted to mid major and low
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: major leagues through automatic qualification. And I really strongly believe
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: in automatic qualification. I don't think you have a real
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: championship unless every participant in your competition can start on
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: day one and say, if I do this, I'm involved.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: That's true in tennis, it's true in golf, it's true
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: in NFL, NBA, et cetera. If I do this, I'm in.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: And that's why you have automatic qualification. So they get
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: nearly forty percent of the field before it starts through
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: automatic qualification. Do they have forty percent of the best teams, Alex,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Let's be honest, they don't. I mean, they have some
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: terrific teams and they have made the tournament special, but
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I don't think they're being treated unfairly. On the other hand,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: this idea that in order for it to be correct,
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: the size of the tournament to be correct, you have
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: to have more representation from the power conferences.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: Than we already do.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's specious and I don't want to insult
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: any Indiana fans, and I don't think I am by
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: saying they're a perfect example. The Hoosiers up twenty six
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: are a perfect example. Third week of February. They're alive,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: They're pretty lively in fact, as a tournament contender. They
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: go to Northwestern Northwestern's three or four games under five hundred,
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: they go on the road, they lose, teams lose on
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: the Big Ten road, make it up somehow. They never
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: reclaimed that down the stretch through any Well, we gave
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: that one up, but we got this when we weren't
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: supposed to get And then they went into the Big
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Ten tournament with an opportunity. I sat there on BTN
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: on this final Sunday in the regular season and discussed
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I used chances, and they were again still alive, narrowed,
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: but they were still very much alive. But they had
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: to advance in the Big Ten Tournament at least one
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: round and probably multiple. But again they go out against Northwestern,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: which I believe at that point was again four games
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: under five hundred, and they lost by double digits. In
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: the seventy sixteen Universe, that team's got four teams behind them.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: They are in so easily that there are four teams
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: behind them, and I just don't see how that makes
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: the tournament better. I think it should be difficult to
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: get in.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Doesn't it also diminish as the regular season?
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: Right? Oh yeah, that's my honestly, that's my biggest concern.
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: Aless when people counter what I say by saying, well,
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: the tournament will still be fine because Thursday at noon
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you turn it on at sixty four teams and still great.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: And I'm not arguing that.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: I'm arguing that on that Tuesday or Wednesday of the
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: Big Ten Tournament, when Northwestern's playing Indiana, I mean, Indiana
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: doesn't even have to throw everybody out there if they
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: don't want, because they got four teams behind them, and
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: they end up losing that game when there was consequence
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: to it. I don't see how it's better if that
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: game has no consequence to it. What are you selling then?
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: What are you selling in the final weeks of the
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: regular season for bubble teams? Are we are we really
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: going to get wired up? If your team is sixteen
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: at fifteen and hey, if we can get the seventeen
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: and fifteen, maybe we get in or maybe even your
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: five hundred because we would have had and I talk
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: about Indiana having five teams behind, four teams behind them,
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Auburn would have had six teams behind them at seventeen
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: and sixteen. I mean, how is that better? That's my frustration.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: There was some intrigue with Auburn because everybody knew they
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: had the metrics if they could stay a couple of
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: games above five hundred. In order to do that, they
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: had to win some really significant games at the SEC Tournament,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: and they weren't able to do it down the stretch.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: They lose to Mississippi. They losed the Mississippi State. That's
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: how they got into the problem that they were in,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: and they as it turned out, if in an expanded tournament,
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: it wouldn't have been any danger at all. I can't
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: even say for sure that they needed to stay above
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: five hundred because that standard had always been two games.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Only two teams in the sixty four to sixty eight
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: team era made it at two games over five hundred
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: in year one of six of seventy six. We might
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: even have a five hundred team. How can we say
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: we won't.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, going back to what I just said, I think
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: my biggest problem with it is and this is not
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: specific to Indiana, and I know there's other programs that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the interest is going to be their year round, no
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: But there's a lot.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Of teams leagues where fan bases that really only get
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: engaged for the stretch run of the season or get
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: engaged for the tournament. That's not the case obviously here
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: in Louisville because it's the top rated college basketball marketing,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: people will watch any college basketball that's put on TV.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: That's not the case everywhere. So if we're trying to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: get the sport to be more healthy for the long term,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: we need to come up with ways for the regular
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: season to mean more. Have people watching games in early November.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I'd like to see more home and home games with
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: marquee programs early in the season, but by letting more
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: teams in, you actually are devaluing the regular season product too.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: For whatever reason, you think this is going to end
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: up garning more eyeballs for the actual tournament. But the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: truth is, and I said this on a podcast a
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, those first four games, as a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: casual when Indiana is not in the tournament, if I'm
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a casual fan of college basketball, I'm just tuning. Maybe
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I'll tune in to watch if there's a Big Ten team,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: But if it's you know, SMU playing whoever on a
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Tuesday night and Dayton, how much do I really care
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: about that game? Yes, I care about the actual bracket,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: but now we're going to have even more of those games,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and I don't think those ratings for those games are
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: doing such numbers that it really dictates all all of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: these extra teams being in. And yes, we'll all still
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: love the tournament. Yes we'll all still watch the tournament
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: when it actually gets down to the nitty gritty, but
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I just think overall, it's it's kind of addressing a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: problem that doesn't necessarily exist, and I think long ternam
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: it could actually hurt this the viewership in the regular season,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: and even those early rounds of the tournament, I don't
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: think are going to be as widely watched as people think.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: I think there are two elements. There are some very
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: prominent national voices in sports who have on many occasions
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: referred to college basketball as a one month sport. And
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: I could always fight back against that because I have
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: been involved in covering this sport and engaged in it,
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: and I could always point to, Man, you're missing out
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: on those on those regular season stretch runs, and how
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: how great they are. You're missing out on some of
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: these great regular season battles, and they like Duke Michigan,
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: didn't have huge consequence in terms of they were both
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: probably still going to be one seeds, the loser was
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: still going to be a one but it was still
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: a chance to see what the best looked like. And
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: that'll still be there. But that stretch run component of
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: the conference tournaments, especially at the major level, what what
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: consequence do they carry if if even your bubble teams
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: are going to make the tournament, Now, what's the consequence?
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: I think that's a problem. And then the second element
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: of that that's bothersome to me is the casual bracket fan,
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: the person who gets engaged in the NCAA tournament because
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: the bracket comes out on Sunday.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: It's easy to fill out.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: It doesn't. Hey, I've filled them out pretty quickly so
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: that we can get them on the internet and people
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: can read them. So I know it's not hard to
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: fill it out fast, and you can do that. But
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: now you've got to consider you've got twelve extra games
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: that you have to figure out a winner of and
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: then put them in the bracket. And like, I don't
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: know that people who are casual relative to college basketball
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: or the tournament are going to go to that extra steps.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: I think there's going to be a lot of it.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: It's just too complicated, I'm not bothering, And that diminishes
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: the size of your audience. And I don't think it's
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: ever good to in an entertainment business say we want
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: a smaller audience. I don't think that's necessarily the smart thing.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: You talk about those first four games, the average first
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: four game draws slightly less than two million people per
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: per watch, so you' and that's with prime time, and
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: half of the games are high major, and in some
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: of those games, I mean, when you look at when
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Indiana was in, they got like two point five. When
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Carolina was in it was like that. And I think
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: the Miami because of the undefeated regular season and the
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: intrigue they created the RedHawks, they got like two point
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: eight and that was the all time record. A Friday
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: game or a Thursday game in the tournament, you're looking
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: at ten million, So you're less than one fifth of
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: the audience. And that's those are the and now you're
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: eating more of those. I don't think that adding another
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: eight of those games is going to build the audience
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: for Tuesday and Wednesday. I think the audience numbers for
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: those games are going to go down even farther. And
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I've never been big on this, but the late John Feinstein,
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: who obviously has a huge connection to Indiana through the
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: book that he wrote, he always hated involving the sixteen
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: seeds in the first four. For him, it would have
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: been all all at large teams. The few that were
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: involved four every year often were compet you know, they
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: were compensated and often were satiated by the fact that
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: they were compensated with an extra unit if they won.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: And so that's that was always there, and so I
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: didn't have a huge problem with it. But now you're
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: taking in all the sixteens and half of the fifteens
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: as well, And yeah, you're you're buying them off within
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: it again that chance to earn the extra unit. But
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think that you're making the tournament better by
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: dragging more teams into that round. And others have and
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to claim this, but others have pointed
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: out that if if you seed Auburn, say as a
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: twelve at seventeen to sixteen, or Indiana as a twelve,
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: that pushes down the other teams like High Point that
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: had it that was able to be a twelve and
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: play Wisconsin, and now they're going to have to play
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: instead of playing a twelve, a five seed.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: They play a four seed.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: There have been people who tried to metrically say, oh,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: there's no difference between fours and threes. I'm sorry. We've
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: seen so many teams that were fives lose and so
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: few that were fours. I just can't buy that that's
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: all because there's that the fours or excuse me, the
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: natural twelves are so much better than the natural thirteen's.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I think that it's I think there's at least and
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: I think it might be more at the High end
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: that the fours are significantly better than the fives.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Last thing, we also seem like we're on a collision
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: course for CFP expansion. Obviously, football much bigger topic now
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: in Bloomington with the undefeated sixteen l season, which has
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to be I've talked about Dad about this has to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: be one of the more improbable college sports stories that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: he's ever covered. He I don't know that he could
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: think of a bigger one, but you can maybe weigh
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: in on that or that ranks. But in terms of
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the expansion for the CFP, doesn't this really I mean,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: we talked about potential damage for the college basketball regular
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: season if all of a sudden were at twenty four
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: teams in a college football playoff. Doesn't that damage is
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the college football season to a I don't want to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: say to a point of no return because people always
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: gonna watch football, But I just think all of a sudden,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the college football season feels a lot more. Does it
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: have nearly as much meaning if all of a sudden
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: you're gonna take twenty four teams.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: I don't understand the push for twenty four I just
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: don't get it. I don't know what it's about. I
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: don't know what the value is in it. More games,
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: more money, Yeah, maybe, but you're also cutting if you
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: go to twenty four, you're probably cutting the conference championship games.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: So maybe that's not more money, or maybe it's a
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: little bit more money. I like conference championship games because
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: I believe again, as we talked about with the NCAA Tournament,
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: I believe in automatic qualification. Again, if you just picked
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: the top twenty four teams, it's your right back to
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: where you were when I was covering college football in
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: the eighties, where you're voting on who's good. I've always
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: thought that was preposterous, voting on who's good, and it's
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: so to me, the automatic qualification process is important. You
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: can still keep that in place in a fourteen or
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: sixteen team universe, if that's if you want to expand
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: so much beyond twelve, I can live with that. But
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: at twenty four, at that point, I just you're losing
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: a legitimate conference championship. I don't think that's good. I
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: think there's a value in conferences that wouldn't necessarily exist
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: if you were going back to that expanded universe. I mean,
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: I suppose financially they still would matter. But if you're
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: not going to have a legitimate conference champion, then what
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: does your competition mean? You're just going through on the
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: way to being in the playoff. And I know that
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I've read others who suggested, again I'm not going to
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: take credit for this, but others who suggested that, Look,
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: we haven't had anybody in the playoff universe who has
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: sat out because they want to protect their draft stock.
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: So to speak.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: No one's ever done that. If sat out of all games.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: We've seen that, hundreds of them. It's never happened in
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: a football playoff situation. If you're asking them to play
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: five games, who's to say they wouldn't start to think
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: about that. I mean, yeah, they want to win, they're
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: driven athletes. But when you're asking him to play that much,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: it might be hard. It might be harder to justify
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: for particular athletes, those who have who have a lot
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: to protect, It's gonna be hard. You know, it's gonna
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: be a sort of a difficult dance. I mean, if
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: if Medoza last year had said I'm protecting my draft
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: stock instead of leading the Hoosiers to the national championship,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: I think teams would have looked differently at him, but
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: he's a quarterback who can play at a high level.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: They might not have taken him at one, but he
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have fallen far, so he probably could have gotten
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: away with it if he were so inclined. So the
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: next one might be and that that's another element of
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: that I don't like. I would hope they settle at
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: sixteen and keep automatic qualification and maybe have a few
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: more rounds on campuses. But I will tell you, Alex,
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: one of the things, as I approach retirement, I've compared
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: myself on occasion, if you watched Game of Thrones, the
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: character ho Door who literally got his name from trying
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: to hold the door against a bunch of demons. I
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: was trying to hold the door for the last three
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: four years against seventy six and I lost.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I feel like such a failure.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: So I don't know if I'm necessarily going to be
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: able to be successful in keeping and trying to keep
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: the college football playoff the fourteen or sixteen either.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: So where does the IU National Championship in football last
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: year ranked for you?
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Just in terms of college sports stories that you've covered
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that are improbable.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think by far the most improbable, because football
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: is so hard to do that in and especially in
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: this universe where you weren't having a lot of players
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: go early to get into the draft more in the
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: earlier part of the decade or the last previous decade,
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: because there was little to no money available to the athlete.
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: Now there's lots of money available. So it's not like
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: Indiana took over because everybody else lost all their good players. No,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: I mean Indiana conquered a college basketball kingdom that was
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: very rich in talent, and so to be able to
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: do that with no five star prospects in the second
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: year of a coach, to only lose two games in
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: a two year period, just I've never seen anything like it,
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: and I liked. I do like, however, and I have
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: done this before. I do like to point out the
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: fact that it took a Pittsburgh guy to do it.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: I do like to say that Kurt Signetti, although he
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: grew up partly in Morgantown, he was born here and
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: raised partly here, and his family is deeply rooted in
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: the Pittsburgh area. So I do like to claim credit
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: for that, at least that small part of it.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: It's gone from the social media rhetoric from the SEC
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: has gone from Indiana's not any good the last two
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: years to now they've outspent everybody. Mark Cuban bought the team.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: They spent fifty million. I'm like, it's crazy, man, They're
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: still not over thirty eight to three in.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: The Rose Bowl.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: They I mean, I couldn't believe it when I saw it,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: but it actually did happen for everyone that was watching.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: And guess what. The Big Ten is on top of
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: the college football world three straight national championships, won the
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: men's basketball and the women's basketball championships as well, So
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: good time to be a Big Ten fan. We're happy
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: that the college basketball drought is over. I used to
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: ask you about that every year around this time. It's
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: over now and now we can move on to hopefully
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: add some more championships over the next couple of years. Mike,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: if we don't have you back on before your retirement,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: wish you the best. Hopefully you won't be retiring from
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: podcast appearances, because it would still love to have you on.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I know you'll still be watching from afar. What do
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: you have scheduled here the rest of the kind of.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: I know you're going to be doing some World Cup coverage,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: but what's what the next couple of months look like
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: for you this Morning News before you officially retire.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm doing a lot of pre World Cup work.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: Now some of it we'll actually touch on Indiana, so
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: people can look out for that to some of the
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: some of the one of the big projects I'm working on,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: I'm going to touch a little bit on on IU
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: and so I will be in La for the opening
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: game of the for the US in in La on July,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: I excuse me, on June twelfth when they play Paraguay
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: and looking forward to that and then very much hoping
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: to be in Jersey for the final of the World
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: Cup and whoever whoever's involved there. It would be really
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I've covered multiple World Cups and multiple World Cup games,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: but have never done the finals, so really would be
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: excited about the possibility of doing that. And that's you know,
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: that's that's pretty much it. I'll still be I think
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: I'll still be around at the Sporting News. One thing
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: that I know for sure when I when I discussed
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: my retirement with them, I said one thing, I definitely
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: want to be involved in is the selection of our
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: All America team, where one of the four components of
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: the NCAA's consensus, along with the eight Associated Press, United
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: States Basketball Writers Association, and the National Association of Basketball Coaches.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: So I'm very proud of us being included in that quartet,
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: and and I'll continue to administer that into the future.
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: And then I hope.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: To be around doing some other things there and have
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: spoken to the folks at Big ten Network and Fox
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: and hoping to continue in those.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: Roles as well.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: So I won't I won't be disappearing. I joked a
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: lot at the Final four. I got a lot of
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: congratulations and and and so much so that at a
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: certain point I said to a few people, I said,
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: when I'm back here in Detroit next year, you're going
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: to be saying I thought we got rid of you.
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: So I'll still be around here and there.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you can just do kind of the things you
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: actually want to do, and like cover the tournament and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: do the bracket work, and maybe not as much many
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of the things as maybe it became tedious over time,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: so you don't have to mention what any of those
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: things were. Hopefully that can hopefully that can kind of
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: be You can kind of dive in when when it's
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: interesting to you and stay away when it's not as interesting.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: But thanks again Mike for coming on. Always good to
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: see you, congratulations on a great career. Will continue to
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: follow you for as long as you're producing content wherever
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: that may be. So thanks everybody as always for listening
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: to Podcast on the Brink. As I said, we're on
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: kind of on the every other week's schedule at this point,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: depending on what happens. The news has kind of slowed
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: down said with the portal being wrapped up. As I
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: said at the top, if you enjoy the show, please
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: leave us a rating and review over on Apple Podcasts
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: or Spotify. If you're watching on YouTube, like the video,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the channel and we'll be back soon with
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: another episode of Podcast on the Break.