Trump Wants to Save College Sports, Bubble Breakdown, Championship Week | Others Receiving Votes

All right.

Welcome to the show.

Others receiving votes.

Happy March Madness to you.

It's on.

We don't need to wait till the actual NCAA tournament.

This is too much fun right here, right now.

I'm Pat40 joined by my colleagues at Sports Illustrated, Brian Fisher and Kevin Sweeney.

And we have got a lot of hoops to discuss.

Uh, we've got Georgia Southern trying to win 6 games in 6 days.

We've got half-court shots.

We've got angry coaches.

We've got Danny Hurley getting ejected, Tom Izzo getting snarly after losing to Michigan again.

Uh, wild upsets, but Before we get into all that.

We have to recap the carnival in Washington DC last Friday.

The 4 p.m. Friday meeting, the getaway meeting that nobody really ever takes seriously in any line of work, and I guess that includes the White House and the President because Donald Trump took everybody for a ride in an attempt to quote unquote save college sports.

He had 50 people into the White House.

For less than 2 hours.

To sit around discussing a topic that we discussed like for hours and hours and hours on end.

Uh, I don't know whether they came to any better solutions than we have on this podcast, but Uh, I guess they tried.

This should probably be about 111th on the priority list for things happening in the nation's capital, but whatever, it happened.

We had politicians, we had former coaches, we had a couple of former players, we had a lot of other people there to bloviate.

Uh, Brian, if you would please.

Tell the listeners what this was about, what it wasn't about, and was anything actually saved in college sports.

This was, this was peak.

This could have been an email, you know, I'm afraid, it, you know, you know, and it also reconfirmed, you know, to, to me, you know, watching the whole thing and, and unfortunately getting stuck in it, you know, at least time zones, uh, it was not a 4 p.m. on a , on a, on a Friday for me, but, uh, you know, it kind of reconfirmed that, uh, you know, everybody.

In Washington, I, I don't know how they put up with it, number one, if, if you're a media member, but just everybody wants to get their, uh, 12th, you know, 10 or 15 2nd clip, you know, for, for the nightly news back home.

Like that, that was what this was designed to be.

This was a photo op to the maximum.

And, you know, truthfully, it, it kind of went better than I thought for maybe until about halfway through, maybe 2/3, uh, you know, Ted Cruz interrupted the president and started going on and, you know, he, he, he brought up, you know, the, the, no, no Democrats, uh, supporting the, the, the, uh, SA Act in, in Congress, and that kind of got everything off the rails, you know, and, and it was a, a totally off the rails type of, uh, thing after that.

And I, I mean, when, when Greg Sankey's having to come in and say, well, actually, you know, the, the Supreme Court weighed 9-0, uh, you know, against us, and that kind of set us off on, on, on this path, that kind of got everything.

Um, you know, just a reminder that, uh, you know, this is not an issue that is, I, I think as well known, you know, in Washington in terms in terms of some of the details that certainly reaffirmed to a lot of people out there that, um, you know, what they want to save is, is kind of up in the, in the air and it kind of depends on who you want to ask to.

I mean, Urban Meyer is out there spouting off about, uh, you know, collectives and, and saying we, we, we gotta rein them in and, and get rid of them.

You get, you got Greg Sankey out there talking about, um, you know, Trying to save college sports and, and Pete Pavacqua, the Notre Dame AD is out there saying, hey, we gotta tie, uh, revenue to, to Olympic sports.

It was kind of everybody, let's, uh, you know, read your prepared statement, uh, get it out there, you know, have your little 12th clip, but in terms of actual meaningful progress, uh , not much was, was saved outside of, uh, uh, maybe sending a lot of people to some of those bars, uh, there in, in Washington DC afterwards to discuss things.

It, it sort of strikes me, you've, you've heard the refrain a ton, oh, like the judges making these decisions on college sports is bad because the judges just, just don't understand college sports, like they, they don't get us, we do things so differently.

It doesn't strike me that anyone in Washington really gets it either, um, and it doesn't seem that.

There's anyone, again, kind of conveying sort of a unified message of, here is what we want, here is what we need, and we talked about this either last week or the week before on the pod, like, At some point, we gotta rein in all the competing interests and just settle in on a couple of key issues.

If, if this, you know, Hail Mary to the government is going to work, which by all accounts, it hasn't yet.

There's no indication why it would, but presumably the, the, the, the countdown is on to midterm election season, because once that happens, who knows what's getting done in Washington, you know, if that's what's gonna happen.

The the hope needs to be some sort of aligned interest, uh, aligned shared interest, and I had thought maybe this meeting would be that in some sense, and it was anything but, as Brian said, it was the, the sampling of whichever core, uh, constituency you have to serve, uh, make your announcement to the president and anyone who listened that it's important, and, uh, then, then let the president.

You know, say his piece about trying to, you know, return us to 2019 college sports , the utopia that that supposedly was.

So, yeah, not, not an overly productive meeting in, in, in my estimation, uh, who knows, maybe some backroom deals were made afterwards, bar conversations, uh, what have you, but the, the public version, uh, not encouraging for the future of government intervention in the sport.

Yeah, that, that one element there that you mentioned was.

A nice little plot twist of, uh, Donald Trump saying, gosh, can we just go back to not paying him basically uh, he didn't say it quite that explicitly, but like that's one thing that's not happening.

Yeah, you know, maybe, maybe we'll throw out, they can have some compensation, right?

You know, they, they can have some, you know.

That, that's one thing that I am reasonably certain is not happening.

The courts have absolutely made that one clear.

Um, uh, I, I agree that, again, and we did discuss this a couple of shows ago, that, that we have, um, We just have this shotgun blast of ideas and issues and solutions, and there's no focus, there is no, there's not a consensus, and there's not a focus on what needs to be done.

First, uh, you know, of any way of actually getting something going.

And, and Brian, you wrote a column about this, about, uh, uh, you know, I think it was last week, uh, about what exactly are they trying to say.

There's a lot of things that don't need saving, right?

There's a lot of things that are very good right now.

Uh, in, in, in some ways, you could argue that college sports is in a better space than it's been.

In a long time, if not ever, uh, from the standpoint of the players being compensated fairly, from the standpoint of Viewer interest, uh, from the standpoint of largely packed stadiums and arenas.

Uh, those things are all good, and those are big things.

The issues are whether this is financially sustainable, and the thing that is bothersome to me on that front, and Brian, you alluded to this in the column as well.

The one thing you have, and you've got people at Louisville writing white papers and people elsewhere writing uh theories and treatises and whatever, the one thing that doesn't seem to even conceivable is cost containment.

We don't hear that, we are, well, to be competitive, we have to spend more money than we have.

Really, that doesn't seem like a very good strategy.

Uh, but that's kind of what people are saying.

It's like football and basketball, we just basically have to go blank check.

And if that ruins everything else, gosh, that would be a shame.

Government, help us.

Uh, Instead, maybe, maybe we could not give completely ridiculous contracts to head coaches.

Maybe we don't have staff sizes, the, the, the, like a small army.

Maybe the athletic department shouldn't be 400 people.

Um, you know, there, there's a lot of areas that I think could be examined for some cost containment.

I get it that when push comes to shove, People are gonna pay the strength coach a lot of money if you're trying to win in football.

And they're gonna pay the defensive coordinator, and they're gonna pay the head coach, and they're sure gonna pay the players.

But, I think if there were some.

I guess more concrete discussion of cost containment within all of this, it might be a little more palatable to getting to, to the rest of it.

I don't know.

Any thoughts on that, guys?

Well, you know, it, it's funny because you, you, you bring up Louisville, right?

And they had record revenues, you know, last year, but why, why, why did they not, uh, turn some massive profit on, on record revenues?

Why?

Cause they're paying buyouts for coaches.

You know, like, I mean, that, that to me is, is the one thing, you know, we, we thought there could be some sort of market correction.

All right, NIL is coming into effect, revenue sharing is coming into effect.

All right, those are, those are big line items on on on the budget.

Right?

And it hasn't changed the outlook of, of college athletics at all.

You know, it's not changed the mentality.

It, it, it's still everybody out there for themselves, and that's competition, which can be a good thing.

It's a great thing for athletes right now, right?

You know, they can move around, they, they can, they can leverage other schools into better deals.

You know, it's never been better, um, in this era of player empowerment to, to be one of those players, you know, and not only in terms of your compensation, but Um, everything that goes along with it, but the schools have not adjusted, and it, it is, you know, and, and Pat, you and I, we, we talked with Charlie Baker pretty regularly.

I continually ask him, all right, what, what is the plan, you know, for, for college athletics if you can't get something done in Washington, let's, which, let's face it, outside of this executive order that Donald Trump is supposedly going to come up with this week, and he, even he acknowledges it's going to get challenged by the courts right away.

Um, you know, there, there's not really much of a, a, a thought in terms of how do we move forward as an enterprise, um, beyond this Hail Mary in Congress, which, let's face it, given everything that's going on in the world, it is not gonna happen.

You know, and even before getting into, uh, the midterms and all that, you know, there's a lot of issues, uh, right now in terms of passing anything in, in Congress, much less something like this that, let's face it, if you were to go to Your local representatives or or your local senators, they're gonna support some sort of congressional reform, but actually getting that over the line is, um, you know, it's just not gonna happen at this point.

So, hopefully this, this, this, this meeting, uh, last Friday could at least serve as a wake-up call to, to, to the rest of the leaders of whether they were in that room or not, whether they spoke up or not, that we, we got to do something else.

We, we gotta start mainly.

Thinking a little bit harder about collective bargaining.

We're gonna start, start thinking about maybe some of those cost containment issues that we were just talking about, uh, because right now, uh, the, the shining, uh, white knight is not coming to the rescue of college athletics, and, and hopefully, uh, more people are gonna, gonna recognize that moving forward after this.

I mean, I mean, how about just having a little bit of backbone financially?

Like, it's the same, it's the same.

Thing we talked about with, with coach contracts and whatnot, like, the, the, the frightened old AD that's convinced that their coach is gonna get stolen from them if they don't give him that nice seven-year contract, right?

Or Oregon State uh is just finally getting out of, um, quote unquote, you know, coaching salary cap hell with Wayne Tinkle from the extension that no one needed after the 2021 Elite Eight run, right?

And Instead of, OK, maybe we need to reevaluate how we do things, we're still doing it, we're still giving out these terrible contracts, and now we're doing it with the players too.

Now, now we're so, we're we're we're panicked that our, our left tackle or our backup power forward has an offer on the table , because, again, it's one thing if Jimmy Sexton is telling you, we need to get this deal done.

Now, we're getting strong-armed by people who aren't even qualified to be agents.

This is where we're at.

It, it, it is, it is chaos to the max and An athletic director.

At some point, someone in the, I don't, I don't know if it's the coach, I don't know if it's the AD, I don't know if it's the president of the board.

Someone has to say like, enough is enough.

Like, you got, you got your $10 million build a basketball roster, build a good one.

Like, you , we, it, it can't just be this constant wave of excuses.

Oh, if we get 2 more million dollars, we, 12 will be the 12 will do it.

Oh, well, now 14 will do it.

Like, last spring, I sort of understand how things got absolutely chaotic in the basketball portal, right?

There was this kind of doubled effect of Revcher plus NIL.

Like if people keep just blowing through budgets over and over again, we're never gonna get anywhere, right?

And that's on NIL, that's on coaching salaries, that's on athletic department budget, like, learn how to run.

A department in the black.

Figure out how to run your business like a business.

Everyone, that, that's the term, right?

Everyone wants to talk about, oh, we're gonna, we're, we're gonna professionalize our model.

We're gonna build an athletic department that's more like a business.

OK, so start acting like one and stop complaining that, oh, we got, we got strong-armed into paying somebody 3 times more than they're worth.

You gotta let them walk.

That's the reality.

I mean, those are great points, except I, I, I fear what the answer to that will be.

It's like, OK.

Uh, if we're gonna run a business, we're getting rid of all our, uh, all our red ink sports, or as many of them as we can.

Uh, and we have seen just in the, I think just last week, a wrestling program cut, a gymnastics program cut, a couple of weeks ago, a swim program cut.

And I just, I fear that's always going to be the answer, or at least as far as they can do it within the realm of, within the bounds of Title IX and within the bounds of having enough programs to be Division One compliant.

Um, you know, I, and they, that's the, I guess what's become kind of the existential debate is, well, why should football pay for everything else?

Why should football and basketball have to pay for everything else?

The fact of the matter is, college sports was not set up to be money-making enterprises.

It became that, I get it.

But that's always been the case, is that, that two sports make money and the rest of them don't, but they've always had all of them.

And I don't see that now, just, well, well, let's just get rid of those sports .

First of all, legally hard to do.

Secondly, uh, you can go to most campuses, and you can have maybe.

An engineering department or a business school that brings in the most students and thereby the most tuition, it doesn't mean you don't have a sociology department.

It doesn't mean you don't have a philosophy department.

Those things still exist.

That's the way universities work.

If somebody wants to completely remake the university model and just say sports are too important.

We're gonna do it this way, OK, but I, I think we're, we're really going pretty far down the field to make sure that the, the strength coach makes a million dollars.

Uh, one other element of this that struck me, uh, and Brian, you used the term wake-up call.

I am wondering, If this meeting and the whole, just the whole dynamic of what led to this might be a bit of a wake-up call for The two guys who have pretty well either tried to take over or been put in charge of college sports, that's Greg Sankey and Tony Pettitti, commissioners of the SEC and the Big 10.

And I am wondering whether they have lost the plot and lost the room.

Uh, They have pretty well led the charge, especially Sankey, over the last decade, really.

of limiting the NCAA's powers, but the resulting vacuum has not led to any solutions that have stuck from them.

The Cody Campbell slash Capitol, uh Smash Capitol pool the media rights, uh, group.

That has kind of risen up as a challenge to the status quo, has not been subdued.

That's really, I think, what's driving a lot of the current discussion is this uh kind of a, a big 12 led to a degree push to, to, uh, diversify or pool all the media rights and to kind of put everybody on the same playing field, at least in the power conferences, more or less.

Uh, beyond that, the SEC and Big 10, they were put in charge of the football playoffs by their own strong-arming.

They haven't been able to agree on a format.

SEC members are unhappy about playing 9 football games, but not having a 16-team playoff.

Big 10 members, and importantly, Fox are not happy about Petitti failing to deliver a 2014 team model.

So there's a lot going on that I think is causing people to question Sankey and Petitti here.

For a long time, Sankey was unquestionable.

Like he was the guy, the most powerful person in college sports, and I think he had broad support across Division One, and certainly within his own conference.

Now, I'm looking at all this and starting to wonder.

If there are a little bit of cracks in the foundation of his support, and by extension, Petittis, who I don't even think likes college sports.

So, uh, I'm wondering, what am I, am I overestimating the potential.

I don't know about danger, but the headwinds that these guys are now flying into, what do you think?

Well, I think you look at, uh, you know, really the, the job that they have now, it it is certainly more difficult than even when, when they first took it, and then even going back with, with Tony Pettitti just a couple of years ago, you know, like you look at these schools themselves, um, they're listening to the conference office a lot less, you know, they're, they're listening, they're, they're more a little bit more independent, uh , I think than they ever have, uh, whether That's the coaches, whether that's the ADs, um , whether that's school leadership, even, you know, I mean, he used to talk about, oh, we have a great group of presidents, and then they're really understanding.

Well, those those presidents are spending more time on college athletics than they ever have been.

They've been in meetings with boosters, uh, about college athletics more than they ever have been.

And guess what?

That, that comes with it more, much more local, uh, focus, much more about me and, and, and not.

Not us.

And I think that has been, uh, probably their, their biggest challenge, not only right now, but, but moving forward is, is getting that, everybody kind of pulling in the, in the same direction.

It's certainly something that, uh, Greg Zinke has had to deal with over his much longer tenure.

Um, and, and they're certainly facing those, those headwinds, as you mentioned, um, in terms of just broader college athletics.

And, and I, I, I think it, it almost is a job that is, is No-win situation at this point because they, they, they certainly have to look out for their own leagues.

They they're, right now, they're, they're leading the charge, uh, as the power to.

They got more money than everybody else, but with more money comes more problems.

And I, I think they've understand they're, they're gonna have to take some slings and arrows, uh, moving forward, uh, no matter what.

Um, if, if they're gonna kind of get college athletics a little bit more over the line, uh, than it has been.

It strikes me that like, There's a feeling that, OK, well, like a rising tide should lift all boats with college sports, but also like, I think nobody agrees which boat should be in the water to rise, right?

Like, at some point, Kevin, you know, like the SEC wants to raise itself up, but then inside of the SEC, well, why should Alabama have to lift up Mississippi State?

Like, at the, at its core, all of these conversations, right, whether it's why should football pay.

For gymnastics, why should Alabama pay for Mississippi State?

Why should, uh, Ohio State pay for Northwestern, right?

Why should the SEC pay for the Big 12?

Why should the Big 12 pay for the Horizon League, right?

At its core, like that, that's what all of this is.

Why should we be footing the bill?

And I, I guess, where I wish everyone would come together, and I, I don't know who the leader is on this.

I don't know if it's, you know, like, I think Petitti and Sankey are probably ill-equipped to be that now because at its core, like, They've been driving the bus for the top 1%, if you will.

So why are they now the, the, the, the, the, the, the common man's advocate?

Like it's just never gonna work.

I guess where I, where I'm, where I'm struggling is like someone needs to shake everybody free and say, look, like, A 30 team college football Super League, if this is where some people envision it heading one day, may be good for a small portion of this enterprise.

It's not going to be good for the vast majority of it, and it's not going to be good for, I, I think even those 30 long term, and I think the sooner everybody can like shake themselves into believing that and understanding, like, there is a valuable enterprise here for all of us, and we can all win.

If we work together, the better.

Now again, how does that work?

Is it pooled TV rights?

I don't know.

I'm not the expert there, but I do know that like, at some point we probably need to stop being so individualistic and start realizing like, this is, this is big business for all of us if we just handle it right, and I'm just not sure who's the guy, who's the voice that's gonna make sure everybody does.

Well, that's the multi-billion dollar question , and, and I do think, I think Sankey at least understands that.

And has a, he can at least, he can see the cliff ahead, and say, we cannot drive off the cliff and go become a 30-team or 40 team Super League, we can't.

It's not gonna, it'll destroy everything.

Petitti, I don't, I, again, I don't think he cares, um.

But how do you avoid going to the cliff?

I, I don't know.

It, it is, it's, it's astounding to me.

that that we're in this position, but, you know, the point I guess I come back to with these guys, these conferences wanted control.

They took control, and they haven't done anything with their control other than continue this churn of uncertainty and disagreement and everybody for themselves.

Well, you know, and, and part of the, the issue too, you know, really in the last kind of two decades of college athletics, you know, they've, they, the, the tail has been wagging the dog in terms of the TV networks, and I, and I think that has also been part of the problem.

I mean , Eric Shanks was, was in that room, you know, smiling, uh, you know, the president of, of CEO of Fox Sports, you know, like, I mean that if that doesn't tell you about kind of the state of college athletics right now, you know, I, I, I, I don't know what else does, you know , I mean, I, I think that that the room too.

Uh, I, I, I, he was definitely invited.

I don't know if I, I remember seeing him, but, um, you know, like, I mean, it's, it's notable certainly that, uh, you do have kind of these two competing interests in terms of Fox and, and the Big 10, very much tied together.

I mean, Fox literally owns the, the grant of rights to , to, to the conference.

You have the SECs tied in for, for many more years with the ESPN and Uh, ABC, and, and that's been a fruitful relationship for both, and it's led to all these record revenues, but you know what, there's, there's some, some to do list, uh, on , on behalf of the TV networks, and that's where, uh, we, we've, we've had this conflict.

And maybe if, if they would, you know, go back to Kevin's earlier point, if they would have a little bit of more of a backbone to start saying no, you know, and, and whether that cost them 1 or 2 per school down the road in, in some 2032 negotiation, who knows.

But, uh, I don't think any anybody is stepping away from the.

Table saying, hey, college athletics is, is going to get less interesting.

It's gonna get less valuable.

You know, I think everybody understands this is still, uh, you know, the 2nd most popular sport in the, in the country, 2nd most, you know, 2nd biggest entity behind the NFL at this point.

Um, and it's only gonna continue to grow.

We've seen that in the interest level and, uh, hopefully somebody will start standing up for, for college athletics, but I, I'm not convinced in, in the near future that that's gonna be the case where everybody kind of puts the greater interest ahead of their own.

Nobody, everybody is so scared of.

Of a small defeat on the way to a larger victory, you know, I mean, like, we, we lose this player, it's over.

If we lose that million dollars, it's over.

The panic level continues to drive everything.

All right, enough about that.

Brian, uh, you said, executive order, hoped for, we'll see.

What could it do?

What's, what is next?

What's coming out of this meeting?

Is there anything we can actually expect?

Well, you know, you did hear, uh, you know, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, uh, certainly, uh, the, the, uh, Republican leaders well say they're gonna go back and, and, you know, look at the SCORE Act.

Uh, there's also the Save Act out there that's well.

There's only one, Democrat, uh, involved in this, and Laurie Trahan, who's been pretty outspoken on the issue.

So we'll see if there's any across the aisle, um, you know, conversations.

There was a bill, uh, you know, from, from Senator Cantwell, Senator Schmidt that came out, uh, as well, kind of looking to amend.

Um, the sports Business or Sports Broadcasting Act, uh, and, and maybe there's, there's some movement on that, but, you know, again, it's, it's about focus, you know, that, that's the thing that's involved in all this.

You got certainly the executive branch wanting to put out, you know, an executive order, and that's likely to be challenged by the courts.

You got, uh, Congress trying to not trip over itself, you know, in terms of what's actually going to happen, I, I, I, I don't expect much, you know, I think it will kind of shape some of the conversations moving forward, um, you know , it's gonna be interesting, you know, here in a couple of months, uh, over the summer, you know, like during NACTA when a lot of the athletic directors meet.

How much more conversation is there gonna be about, you know, hey, maybe we should do collective bargaining for football and men's basketball players.

Maybe there's something that needs to be done internally with the conferences.

Maybe we, we've kind of heard, uh, Jerry, Jerry Moorehead, the, uh, Georgia president say, maybe the SEC is not going to start creating more rules that apply just.

Our university.

We, we could start to see maybe some progress on those fronts, but in terms of actually big holistic changes, uh, I'm not expecting much to come out of this.

I don't think anybody else involved in college athletics is either, but, um, hey, everybody got their uh nice 30 seconds and, um, of speaking for the, the TV news and, uh, hey, here's March Madness.

Let's move forward.

Yeah, let's, let's, let's move this podcast forward to March Madness, all right?

Uh, we, we will have plenty of time for the offseason to discuss the trials and tribulations of college sports as a whole.

But right now, right here, 2nd week of conference tournaments, the big tournaments get going, it's fantastic.

But first, it's also firing season, soon to be followed by a hiring season .

Uh, 4 power conference coaches have been fired or reportedly fired thus far.

Here is the list.

Earl Grant at Boston College, Damon Stoudemire at Georgia Tech, Kim English at Providence, Jerome Tang at Kansas State.

What do they all have in common?

They're all black coaches.

The number of Black head coaches in power conferences was already a rather low percentage.

It was 19%.

It stands to be significantly reduced when those jobs are filled, quite likely by white coaches.

Uh, amongst the other , I believe it's 11 coaches who have been fired, 4 other black coaches gone.

Um, All these guys we're losing on a case by case basis.

You can go through and say, yeah, I get it.

The larger picture is at the very least noteworthy in a sport that is played largely by black athletes at the highest level.

It is largely coached by white people, and it's going to be that percentage is going to skew even more out of this.

Kevin, uh, coincidence or a problem?

How do you, how do you view this?

Uh, I, I think it's something in the middle, um, that's sort of a cop out.

I, I do think it's, it's concerning.

Um, what I would say is this, I, I think in the post 2020 climate, there was a significant push to, um, diversify your searches, if nothing else, like talk to, uh, candidates from every background, um, etc.

and I think that was successful in a lot of fronts, um, uh, uh, uh, and I, I think over the last couple of years, what has really swung back in, in, in the pendulum is this idea of, like, head coaching experience.

Every hire needs head coaching experience, right?

And maybe some of that's like a Signetti factor and some of the other guys that have done a good job that have climbed their way up the ranks, slowly but surely at lower levels, um.

Some of that's probably a swing back in terms of, you know, like, we'll use K State with with Tang as an as an example, first-time head coach, seemingly in over his head in a lot of, a lot of respects, especially over the last couple of years.

Um, but what I would say is, like, particularly in this environment where top assistants at high major schools, big programs, make so much money, right, 500,000,600 $700,000.

Kamani Young at at UConn, who's well overdue to be head coach, makes over a million dollars.

Like, those guys have priced themselves out of being mid-major head coaches now.

Right, those jobs, the first job that you usually get as a even a great assistant like Kamani or something like, those are, those are jobs that don't often pay a million dollars.

They don't, so, so, so, so you're, you're, you're given this choice of take a pay cut.

Or Stick it out, keep being an assistant.

And I think unfortunately, what, what that's created is we have a great group of really good high major assistants, but they're not necessarily primed to take some of the jobs that they can get, and the pool of jobs that would actually hire them with that money is very with that money is very small, right?

There, there might be a couple of high majors that we consider uh straight assistant or even the Atlantic 10, you know, Mountain West, jobs like that do pay a million dollars, that do have real resources, etc.

You know, I think, I think that's the, the real challenging thing, and I know, Pat, we talked about, you know, a couple of the, the really good coaches who've clinched bids already.

Nolan Smith, first year at Tennessee State, doing a phenomenal job, Rod Strickland had to build this thing up at LIU, it was shaky early , they're dancing now.

But those guys took jobs that, like, not everybody would take, you know , particularly in Nolan's case, you know, Nolan's career, I, I think if you had told Nolan Smith a few years ago that he would be the head coach of Tennessee State, he probably wouldn't have believed you, right?

His career had to hit some bumps to get to a point where he's taking a Tennessee State, you know, the, the Louisville debacle with, with Kenny Payne, and so, um, I, I think it's, it's a real concern that, like, Some of these searches feel very sort of preordained, and there isn't a lot of room for outside, uh, outside candidates, uh, once the job actually opens, more and more seems done before it ever opens.

Um, but, and I think that prevents us from talking to maybe an intriguing assistant or someone like that.

But I do think, you know, the, the core of this is sort of this, this push for head coaching experience, and quite frankly, It's trickling down from these, these elite assistants.

They're not taking those opportunities anymore, and because of that, now, now what's next?

And then that's, that's the concerning thing.

So I do think 100% it, it's, it's a problem, but I, I, I don't, I don't know if it stems from, you know, more of a sea change as much as it's just the direction of how these searches are, are, are being wired in the, in the, you know, 2026 college basketball and college football as well.

Yeah, I mean, there, there's a ton of, you know, individual issues that you, you can definitely see cropping up.

I mean, Earl Grant, that's, that's a no-win situation there at Boston College in terms of resources provided to the program.

Um, you know, certainly Damon Stoudemire, the way he went about, uh, you know, building the roster, all right, that was, that was obviously flawed and, and it kind of came back to, to, to, to bite them, uh, you know, in the end there at Georgia Tech, and, and you could see a lot of those kind of individual situations and make sense of them, but there's still.

macro trends that those all add up to.

I mean, we're even seeing in the NFL.

I mean, that was certainly a topic of conversation in the NFL coaching cycle, you know, which was very active.

A lot of the jobs that came open, nearly a third of the league, and the lack of black hires.

I mean, that, that was something that was brought up by a number of people and that's something that, that, you know, there, there are rules in place, obviously, you know, at the, at the league, uh, level to, to interview, uh, minority coaches and to get more people into the rooms.

And get that more exposure.

And there's there's not that number one at the, at the college level, and I think more to the point, you know, you talk about some of these searches, it, it's an issue, I think for whether you're, you know, a young African American assistant coach or a head coach, you know, just being in the room, um, with, with donors, with athletic directors that are, you know, different, and you're asking, you're, you're gonna have to ask them for money.

Like that that that can be a difficult task in general for for a lot of people, but it's even more.

So nowadays, because if you're, you're a head coach, whether you're at, uh, uh, you know, a high major program, whether you're at a power, power program, um, you're, you're having to fight for your program in terms of resources in, in the sport of men's basketball, and going into those rooms, hitting up donors, going to those cocktail parties, um, you know, being lively, sometimes that's, that's just a difficult task for a lot of these guys and it's, it's easy for a lot of these athletic directors for these search firms to kind of Just default to say, all right, well, we, we know this guy.

He, he, he will work, you know, it, it, it'll fit the bill and maybe we can win.

Um, and I think that's something that college athletics is grappling with and, and in general, but moving forward, I, I think it's definitely going to be something to kind of keep an eye on with, with the this coaching style, especially because it's not gonna be quite as crazy as we kind of expect it to be, uh, compared to like football or even the NFL recently.

Uh, good stuff, guys.

And then I appreciate a little bit of, of nuance being applied there, especially by Kevin on this in terms of, there are good high major assistant black coaches who, who, who aren't gonna stick their neck out and take a bad job at the catch-22 is if you don't have experience, what are you gonna get?

So, uh, that, that adds a little more layer to the discussion.

Um, You know, I, again, I said, I think you can look at all of these and, and certainly justify them, but I, I also No, the math is this, I mean, Uh, Jerome Tang was in his fourth season, that winning percentage of 0.

555.

Uh, recent coaches at K State, Jim Wooldridge, 0.

480, Tom Asbury, 0.

491, they both got six years.

They got a little longer leash.

At Georgia Tech, three years and out for Damon Stoudemire, I thought it was a weird hire to begin with, never fit, didn't work.

Brian Gregory got five seasons despite an overall losing record.

Josh Passner got 7 despite an overall losing record.

Uh, to Brian's point, if anybody tries to hire you as a, a revenue coach, a revenue sport coach at Boston College , just say no, it's not gonna work.

Uh, Providence, Kim English, he was hired at age 33.

I still think Kim English can be a very successful coach.

I just wonder if it was too fast, too soon.

There's not a lot of 33-year-old head coaches out there.

He went quickly from George Mason to Providence.

Now, I'm looking, I'm a little bit, you know, concerned or watching what's gonna happen with Adrian Autry at Syracuse, Jeff Capel, Pittsburgh, Lamont Parris, South Carolina, Micah Shrewsbury, Notre Dame.

Again, it's a small percentage of coaches in the power conferences, black coaches that have these jobs, and it could be drastically reduced.

I'm not saying anybody's doing, is, is performing, you know, racial discrimination.

I'm just saying the overall picture is of concern.

And when the coaches all get together at the NABC convention in Indy at the Final Four, This has got to be a topic, right?

Uh, this has got to be something they discuss and like, hey, what's not working for a significant portion of our membership.

So, we'll see where the issue goes.

But, uh, for now, something to keep an eye on as, as the coaching carousel turns.

Uh, a couple of other things here, tournament-wise, uh, 3 mid-major top seeds have lost before even reaching the semi-finals of their tournament in a one-bid league.

Basically, they have nuked their own best teams, uh, Belmont in the Missouri Valley, Navy in the Patriot League, UNC Wilmington in the CAA all lost in the quarterfinals as number 1 seeds playing 8 or 9.

Are they doing it wrong in terms of protecting their best teams in those leagues?

Should they go to a Sun Belt flock of geese bracket where they only have to play like twice to get the bid, or is this the part of the flavor of March, and what makes it interesting is everybody gets their chance, and some of them maximize it.

Some of them flop.

Uh, Kevin, what do you think about this?

I, I've, I've looked a lot at this over the years, and it doesn't feel to me as though any bracket, um, model, at least in single elimination basketball, has magically protected the one seed.

So, I'm sort of inclined to just say like, let's play it, let's put like, let's treat it like a bracket, let's treat it like March Madness, like.

Let's, let's go play.

You, you go in your 3 games in 3 days.

As frustrating as it is for a team like Belmont, you know, I was there as they, um, came crashing out of the Valley tournament to, to Drake.

I mean, Drake entered the Valley tournament having lost 9 in a row and put an absolute beating on a Belmont team that was like incredible, like, I, I think Belmont could have won 2 games in the NCAA tournament, like, they were that good, and they, you're judged by your worst day in in in in in this sport, it's just, it's the reality of it, um.

What I would say is this, like, I, I don't, I, I, I would be increasingly open to what models you could take that are more drastic than simply, uh, the, the Sun Belt stairway to 7 or something like that, right?

Double elimination.

Would that work?

Yeah, um, I, I would be intrigued by, I, I saw someone propose this, and I apologize to whoever on Twitter I'm stealing this idea from, like, the conference tournament gets played out, and if the one seed loses, uh, the one seed then hosts the conference tournament champion for the automatic bid, and you play a home game, and if you get the one seed, then you also get a chance to make a little extra revenue.

Like, I'm intrigued by some ideas like that long term, but at its core, like, I don't think these leagues actually care that much about sending their best.

I think they would like to, you know, the, the Missouri Valley would certainly prefer if the 26 and 5 Belmont team gets to go instead of the 6 seed Northern Iowa, although I will say Northern Iowa is really, really good.

Um, but at the end of the day, like.

The event exists for television and for people to buy tickets to the conference tournament.

It, it, it's, it's a, it's an entertainment product.

It's, it's not, it's not a best team wins situation.

If it was, we wouldn't have these things at all.

Well, there, there have been a good lot of good teams to, you know, to, to be fair.

Uh, High Point was the #1 seed, Tennessee State was the #1 seed, LAU was the #1 seed, North Dakota State was the #1 seed, and that's just of the, of the recent automatic qualifiers that we got, uh, through the weekend.

So there have been some top teams, you know, Northern Iowa is definitely the, the, the outlier in, in this situation, but I, I mean, the, the format of conference tournaments.

I mean, that has been discussed in spring meetings and and conference meetings.

I think from, from the beginning of time, you know, I think there is that kind of navigation between, yes, you do want to protect whoever made it through the, the gauntlet of the regular season and, and had the best year and maybe has that best chance to earn some tournament units, more importantly, for, for a lot of these leagues that subsist on that.

Um, you know, you, you know, if you're in the, in the MAC, not the MAC, the NAAC, uh, if you go on one of those crazy runs where you're getting multiple tournament units, that can fuel additional staff members for the conference office.

It, it can fuel, um, you know, increases in revenue that can go back to the athletes in terms of putting on championships, uh, and, and, and being in better spots and You understand that that balance with also, hey, it can be difficult at times for one team, uh, you know, to, to, you know, shoot 2 of 20 from, from the field, uh, you know, for, for a stretch, and that just completely tanks their, their situation.

I mean, it, it's kind of just inherent in the sport of basketball that you do kind of get that randomness, um, from a lot of these conference tournaments and frankly, I, I, I will, Expect some conferences to maybe start exploring some of those more outlandish ideas because what do they got to lose at this point?

You know, I think they are gonna start to say, hey, maybe it does make more sense, um, from an investment standpoint to more protect some of those top seeds moving forward, given how important earning those tournament revenues are, uh, moving forward.

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating.

I, you know, I, I feel like it's a little bit of an overreaction, as, as you said , Brian, this is, we're talking about 3, so far.

There, there will assuredly be some others, but, but 3 champions.

Uh, and the problem is 2 of them just completely punked out, Belmont and Wilmington just got destroyed, and the CAA is hilarious.

Uh, Wilmington got destroyed, opening everything wide up for Charleston, who then got beat worse, lost by 25.

Those two teams were head and shoulders above, I guess Hofstra was close.

And, and it's like they both just absolutely cratered at the wrong time.

Navy, I feel bad they lost on a 40-foot shot, but they also barely won their first round game.

So, You know, this is uh part of, this is the fiber of tournament basketball, is you have to show up in March.

Everything before that is prelude.

It's tough, but, but this is when, this is when it matters, and everybody knows the rules of engagement going in.

So, I kind of lean back on saying, I, I, I like the madness that, that we get.

Um.

All right.

Speaking of madness, we had a lot of people extremely mad about Miami of Ohio, uh, possibly being an at-large team with a bad schedule.

Well, guess what?

That's no longer an issue.

Miami of Ohio is 31-0, and there ain't no way they are missing the field, even if they lose in the MAC tournament, which I think they might lose in the MAC tournament, because they have been playing with fire for weeks.

But, Uh , which high major at large team would you least like to see sneak in, and why is it Auburn?

Ah, never mind, sorry, I, I, I don't mean to prejudice anybody here.

It's Auburn for me.

But Brian, tell me which bubble team really has no business being in this tournament, unless they win an automatic bid this week.

Well, hey, at least, uh, Bruce Pearl softened his stance, and he's rooting for two MAC teams now.

So, you know, we, we, we, we can clear that up a little bit on the Auburn front.

Uh, maybe Auburn, yeah, I mean that, that's one of them.

I, I mean, it, it, it doesn't so reflective of why we can't expand this tournament because the bubble this year has just completely lost track of what they're, they're capable of doing.

I mean, it seems like every single team.

Just this past weekend was like, all right, they're on the bubble, they're the last 4 in, they're the last 4 out, boom, loss, boom, loss.

Um, and, and frankly, I don't want to see any of them, you know, I, I would much rather see, uh, you know, New Mexico out there, out of the Mountain West.

Um, you know, some of these other mid-major schools, you know, hopefully, Santa Clara is maybe, uh, played their way, way firmly into, into the field.

We'll see if that , that, uh, results in a trip to Dayton, but I, I mean, you know, Missouri has backslid, you know, they had that perfect opportunity there, uh, against Arkansas and, and, and just completely let go of it down the stretch there in, in, in overtime.

I mean, NC State is back, backed their way into, uh, certainly the, the bubble talk after losing, uh, their last couple of.

Games.

I don't want to see SMU.

Um, Indiana's out there, you know, it's like, uh, like, like, what, what have they really done?

Yes, some of the metrics are, are saying that they, they should be in that bubble conversation.

You know, hopefully, USC has played their way, you know, firmly out, out of the conversation to where we don't even have to discuss them.

Uh, being a potential bubble team, but like, you know, it, it's, it's just reflective of how, how, how flattened the sport is kind of at this level where we are talking about so many of these teams and, and we don't wanna see any of them, you know, like, uh, you know, skip, skip over these.

Guys, I'd, I'd rather see, uh, Duke bludgeon, a top 16 team rather than, than, than suffer through some of these teams playing in Dayton.

And that's just where I'm at.

Uh, it's probably the state of these coaches and where they got these programs, but, uh, I, I, I don't want to see any of these bubble teams necessarily end up making the field.

I'll, I'll give you an easy sort of metric that should be an eliminator, right?

I know people love to say, oh, you know, if you're under 500 in your conference, you should be out.

I, I don't like that personally.

I think there's, it's a little too complicated , league strength, etc.

etc.

Especially now with the unbalanced schedules, right?

It just seems unfair to me to, to, to draw that line.

But I do think there's a, a less arbitrary line that , that should be very clear.

Quad 1 games, quad 2 games, quad 3 games, tally them up.

If you're not over 500 in those games, you have zero business in in this tournament, right?

If all you've done is pad your record with quad 4s, you don't belong here.

There's 3 serious bubble teams, right?

Cincinnati is below this mark, Baylor, which is still some somehow sort of halfway hovering, Oklahoma.

Uh, as well, but there's three, like, serious contenders that are, that are below this mark.

So, first we have Indiana.

Indiana is 11 and 13 in quad 1 plus 3.

Yeah.

Um, Texas is 10 and 13 in quad 11, 12 and 3, and then finally, uh, as we've talked about Auburn.

Auburn is 10 and 15 against the the top 3 quadrants.

I understand that not every game is created equal, and I respect Auburn for challenging itself ridiculously in the non-conference, right?

I, I think if Auburn had done the bare minimum, they would be in this tournament, but they haven't, you know, you have, yeah, yeah, yeah, at some point, like winning the games has to matter, and As you said, like, I, I just don't think these teams who have been given chance after chance are, are deserving entrance into this, into this event, right?

And we just talked about Belmont, like, you're judged by your worst day.

Belmont's a damn good basketball team, right?

But why, why can't We give Belmont a shot in Dayton, because they had one really bad day, right?

Isn't that what a 1st 4 should be for, right?

A team like that , not a team that got 15 chances and took advantage of 5 of them.

Um, so, look, it, yeah , it's, it's, it's frustrating, um.

You know, and look, I'm sure that after, after this, we'll still get expansion conversations, we'll still get the push, uh, and they'll say, oh well, maybe there'd be room for Belmont, uh, if, if we, if we expand that tournament.

And maybe , maybe just we get 8 more spots, and somehow I have a feeling that, uh, we'd, we'd instead be talking ourselves into Virginia Tech and Oklahoma, uh, not the Bruins.

That's it.

The, the 8 more spots, at least 6 of them are going to the power conference teams that we have, I think you said, have chance after chance after chance and lose.

Most of them.

And that, that's what just is maddening to me.

Expanding the tournament with this bunch would just be, it would make for some truly terrible, uh, viewing experiences, that's for sure.

And it wouldn't make for enough revenue to, to make that work.

So, um, all right, uh, let's, we'll try to pick up the pace here.

We got a couple more things to get to, but, uh, again, high major tournaments starting this week.

They're all gonna be really interesting.

Give me one.

That you're particularly fired up to see and why, Kevin.

Um, you know, I, I, I'm probably most intrigued by the Big 12 tournament, just in the sense of, like, some, some teams that I think still have a lot to prove heading into the tournament, you know, Iowa State has sort of limped to the finish, BYU certainly has, but then it's the big win over Texas Tech.

I think we're still learning a little bit about the Red Raiders with without JT Toppen, um, you know, the Kansas with, with, with, with Peterson, and, and what does that look like, you know, they stumbled there last week, and then Darren had his best game in quite some time over Kansas State.

Um, and then you have this kind of surging bubble Cincinnati team that, you took a step back against TCU over the weekend, but like, it's playing like a tournament team.

They're, they're the rare sort of like, you know what, I actually wouldn't mind seeing this current version of the Bearcats in the NCAA tournament , and, and so, yeah, let's let's see what they can do, let's see if they could make a run.

Um , I, I think that will be a a a compelling one for sure.

Yeah, I'm definitely a little bit jealous of Pat, just in terms of the talent level there in Kansas City.

I mean that that is the reason why the NBA scouts are flocking uh to to the Big 12 tournament alone, you know , just just the level of guys, especially in the in the freshman class alone, you know, that you're gonna be able to see there, uh, play some meaningful games, you know, and, and gonna be meaningful.

For a lot of those seating, uh, purposes as well as some of the bubble teams and like you mentioned with Cincinnati, uh, maybe even TCU in terms of, uh, where, where they might end up geographically.

And, you know, to me that, that does probably is the most interesting of tournaments.

I don't think there's much intrigue in, in the Big 10 outside of maybe if Michigan can I, can I keep this thing going.

Um, you know, they, they're not gonna lose the number one seed if they, if they go out early.

Maybe it's a, a more, more faith in Illinois if they were to somehow, uh, you know, sneak out of there, there with a win in Chicago.

I, I'm, I'm intrigued a little bit with the ACC tournament where I'll be at, uh, just in terms of the, the bubble positioning for, for a lot of those teams.

I mean, a team like Stanford has suddenly kind of surged into the conversation now, um, and I do think Kyle Smith has been playing well at the right time of the year.

We'll see if, uh, you know, uh, you know, certainly, uh, Cameron Boozer can come maybe cap off maybe the greatest regular season, um, that any freshman has ever had in, in college basketball if, if he's able to kind of continue his, his pace, um, there in Charlotte.

Um, I, I, I would throw out there though that I, I do think it's gonna be interesting to, at, at the same time that all of these tournaments are going on.

I mean, there's the definitely the potential for some bid thieves, uh, out of the Mountain West, right?

You know, some of those other tournaments are going on at the same time, maybe get lost in the shuffle a little bit.

Uh , I, I, I think there, there could be some, some very much some intrigue, especially as the committee goes into their meetings on Wednesday, um, about maybe, maybe this, this, the, the stakes are a little bit raised in, in some of these high major tournaments too.

By the way, I wouldn't be shocked if there's a Big East bid stealer or at least one playing for one on, on Saturday, which is partially because you only have.

Three locks, um, there's a pretty good chance you pull one upset, you're, you're there, but, you know, like, Marquette just beat UConn , UConn looks vulnerable-ish at the moment, you know, um, I, I don't know who it would be, maybe it's Seton Hall, maybe it's Marquette, Honestly, Marquette has played better of late, um, you know, Nigel James, the freshman point guards a stud, so.

I do think the energy at the garden, if there's a chance for a 3 games in 3 days or 4 games in 4 days run to the dance, would be, will be pretty cool.

I'm not saying the whole tournament will be great, but maybe that Saturday could be, could be a lot of fun.

Yeah, that's, I was gonna mention the Big East and specifically Marquette, which has just had a disastrous season, but, but.

You beat UConn to close it, you've won 3 of your last 4, you get a number 7 seed.

Could some stuff happen?

I don't know.

I mean, Rick Pitino's an unbelievable tournament coach, and he'd be in your way if you get that far.

Uh, no, I'm sorry, it'll be UConn again, it'll be UConn again, cause UConn is the #2 seed, Saint John's is actually the #1, ended up winning the league, but still, uh, I, I am a little bit intrigued there.

Uh, I, I, it's nice to see DePaul not be completely horrific, even if they are playing in their traditional Wednesday first-round game.

Um, I, I, Seton Hall, you mentioned, could they just scrape and fight and claw their way back into the bubble conversation.

Is this it for Greg McDermott at Creighton?

Uh, is he still gonna keep going after this season?

Could he go out with a, with a bang there that, that maybe elevates them into the tournament?

I don't know.

So, I always love watching the Big East Tournament just for the, the energy in the garden, uh, which I know everybody talks about, but if you're there and you see it, man, it's, it's a really cool thing.

And then just the ferocity with which they end up playing.

It's just, like, as that tournament goes on, it just becomes a street fight.

It's like, all right, we got contact, and then we got a lot of contact, and then we just have a street brawl, uh, by the final.

And that's just the way the Big East has always been, uh, and that's part and parcel of it.

So, lots of, lots of good basketball to watch everywhere.

One thing we are not watching.

Uh, senior day with guys that have been at the same school for 4 or 5 years.

According to, uh, Isaac Trotter, 24/7 sports, great stat here.

22 scholarship players.

Went through senior day at the same school where they started in the high major leagues.

That is an incredibly small number.

It clearly is indicative of the transfer culture that we live in.

Uh, is it like the sign of the end times, or what do we think, Brian, uh, quickly on this one here.

Uh , much more the sign of the times, and I, I was also kind of thinking about this stat, uh, you know, in relation to Bruce Thornton setting the all-time scoring market at Ohio State.

Like, is he, is he the last like power 5 guy that, that's gonna end up doing that, you know, because either you're, you're going straight to the pros, you know, uh, after, after a way stop, you know, or you're probably transferring.

A couple of times, right?

So, uh, I think it's certainly just the nature of the game and, and nobody moves around more than college basketball players even before, you know, the one-time transfer exception went away, but it has really been the case now for the entire sport.

So, um, definitely the last of the dying breed, uh, and so, you know, at least they have those plaques, you know, that they can hang up on the wall for their one-year stop or maybe it's 6 or 8 months, uh, in one of these places.

Yeah, I know Mick Cronin press conferences are becoming a bit of a joke, but uh he actually made a pretty good point in one of them recently about, you know, creating some system, sort of like NBA bird rights, where there's an incentive to come back, right ?

There's an incentive to stay, right?

We should be thrilled about the idea of Bruce Thornton doing what he's done.

We should be thrilled about the concept that maybe Alex Condon could be a 4-year Florida Gator, and when it championship and come back and keep going, things like those, those stories should be celebrated.

Those stories should be incentivized financially, both for your team's salary cap and maybe for the player as well.

So, uh, I, I, I think we do, I, I, I, I know there's a lot of work that needs to get done legislatively to make that a reality, whether that's collective bargaining, um, get, gets back to all the conversations we had at the beginning of the show, but I do think it, it, it, it, to me, it's very concerning stat because Like, it's hard to expect fans to be as in the weeds as I am hunting the portal, and then like, that stuff that I can spend all day on, it's not realistic to expect the average Joe, and if we want the average Joe to care about the, the sport, uh, throughout the season, uh, and throughout the offseason as well, we, we need to find a way to make the best players not only want to stay in college, but stay at their school for as long as possible.

Yeah, you're inviting fans to check out because they're just not gonna be interested in the constant churn, uh, roster.

So, I mean, a percentage of them will be, but a lot of them will be like, no, I don't really need this.

The NBA actually has more permanence.

If I wanna watch basketball, I'll watch that, it's better basketball.

Um.

And I, I go back on this point to something Matt Painter said at the Final Four a couple of years ago, which is, is lost on a lot of people is.

You know, like at Purdue, a place where they have a huge fan base that cares and is loyal.

And if you're loyal back, if you're there 4 years, you could average 7 points a game for 4 years.

You could average less.

Somebody is gonna want to take care of you afterwards.

They're gonna want to give you a job.

You're gonna work in medical sales or something at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, because a Purdue booster said, that guy came to our school and stayed and was a good egg, and we're gonna reward him.

Uh, the, the amount of opportunities that can come to you if you stay put at a school that, if you go to 4 different schools, I, you know, I did a story in the summer about the, the kind of the transfer culture and talked about AJ stores, 4 schools in 4 years, we're actually going to high schools, 8 schools in 8 years or whatever , and I don't wanna make him a pinata in this.

But the question that, that I kept being asked , you know, and not just regarding him, but players in general, like, What letter jacket do you wear after college?

Where do you go to homecoming?

Who are your friends?

You know, if you change your friend base every single year, when you're 30, or who, who do you talk to?

Uh , you know, just a lot of quality of life kind of things that, that I think can be lost by continually moving around, uh, that I, are, are part and parcel of this, not to mention the ability to get a degree.

So, Uh, you know, that, that's the nature of what we're in right now.

I don't think it's a good thing.

I, I don't know whether it's the end of the world, but it's, it's a concern at the very least.

All right, gentlemen, let's wrap up with this.

We've got, we got a, a March Madness story of a different kind.

We're dropping down a level.

We are going to Indiana high school basketball, and a young man named Hunter Abner , uh, producer Kent, I believe we've got some, some video from Hunter Abner playing for the Bloomfield Cardinals in the sectional tournament over the weekend.

Can you play it for us?

It feels great, man.

We've been working for.

Four years towards this one total goal, it's to win section of 37, and I mean, I know coming into that second quarter I had to step up.

Ishmael's huge, all credit to him, he's a great center, but I knew I had to come in here and do what I needed to do to win this ballgame.

I'm just so emotional, I'm so happy, it's great.

I love it.

We've been waiting 4 years, man.

That is tremendous.

Please watch the video, check our YouTube feed.

Watch the video of this, because you gotta see Hunter Abner in , in, in action.

This guy, a backup post player for Bloomfield, uh, I found on, on Max Preps him listed as 61,280.

And that looks about right.

And Bloomfield, I don't think has football.

This is a small school.

I'm gonna give you way too much Indiana high school background here in a minute.

But, uh, came off the bench, he is a husky lad , let's say that.

He is a husky young man, uh, he has a massive, like, chin beard, like lumberjack look.

And this is high school basketball, and if you can do it in Indiana, it's even better to come in off the bench and hit 3 3s and help keep your team from being eliminated and advance in the Indiana high school state tournament.

I love Hunter Abner.

Is he the greatest living American or just in the top 5, guys?

He's, he's up there, I guess, you know, at least for, for this week.

Um, you know, I'm a little disappointed though, you know, we, we, I, I sent it to the group chat, you know, there was a donkey that escaped and was, was running around.

Uh, you know, as part of, uh, you know , searching for his girlfriend, so I, I thought that was gonna be the story this week, but Hunter Abner about that for sure.

Part of, part of everything, uh, that, that is great about that Indiana State tournament, and, and man, they were leaving him wide open.

If, if you check the video, they were leaving him wide open, and, and he did not believe in Hunter's range.

No, but you know what, he, he knocked him down.

Credit to him.

You know what, you know, he, he, he's showing the range, so I, I gotta give credit where credit's due.

So, my, my angle to this is that I'm, I'm now a big fan of, if you heard in the video, he referenced Ishmael as a great center.

So Ishmael is the center for the opposing team, who is a sophomore in high school, Ishmael Kika.

I'm probably pronouncing his name wrong, I apologize to Ishmael in advance.

Um, he is 6'10, 225 pounds.

I, I hope his career takes off.

I hope this guy is a McDonald's All-American, I hope he's an NBA player, and then we can pull the video of this in 5, 10 years and say, Hunter Abner got the best of Ishmael that day.

Hey, you could be his manager.

Brady, Hunter Abner shot him out of the tournament.

Oh, it's , it's too good.

So, look, that, let me give you a picture of where Bloomfield, Indiana is.

Um, it's in Greene County in southern Indiana, which is actually the home county of Dusty May , by the way.

But Bloomfield Small School, 350 kids back 1000 years ago when I covered Indiana high schools, it was smaller than that.

Also, back when I covered Indiana high schools , it was single-class basketball, they've ruined that.

Uh, there are now 4 classes, I think at least.

It should always be single class.

Bloomfield was a good program then.

It is located between Swiss City.

And Cincinnati, Indiana, is not far from popcorn, Indiana, not far from Hoosier, Indiana.

It's out there, and that is hardcore where they're at.

They advanced now to play in the regional, in Washington, Indiana, in the Hatchet House, which is one of the fabled gymnasiums in Indiana.

Seats like 7900.

In the town of Washington, Indiana, old, historic, you walk in there, you're like, oh, all right, this is why they made the movie, right?

That, I mean, it is, it is archetypal Indiana high school stuff.

So, things like this pop up, and I'm sorry, I, I tend to lose my mind with romanticism for Indiana high school basketball, but I think Hunter Abner's worth it.

You watch that guy, uh, I can't wait.

I wanna see the clips.

I wanna see him come off the bench and light it up in the Hatchet House and see if Bloomfield can continue to advance further.

So, keep an eye on that, keep an eye on all the basketball.

Keep an eye on the White House executive orders.

Thank you all for listening.

Please subscribe, give us a good rating, watch the YouTube video, and we will talk to you again.

Selection Sunday night.

We will have a reaction show after the bracket comes out.

Talk to you all later.