Andy & Ari On3 - A chalky round of 32 sets up a BLAZING Sweet 16 | USC's recruiting heater | Michigan Hires Dusty May

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Need to sneak in those tournament games while at work? Prime Video has you covered. Watch every game live, on your phone, on your laptop, or relax and watch at home on Prime Video, with a subscription. Prime Video gives you choices to add on channels like Paramount Plus and Max, both featuring March Madness tournament games, all in one place. It’s March, it’s Madness, stream it all on Prime Video.Learn more now…https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/storefront/ref=atv_hm_spo_c_rEmqNT_6_2?contentType=tournament&contentId=amzn1.dv.icid.64a44c0e-3ac7-4b14-ad4d-c2a438001f2c&jic=8%7CEgNhbGw%3D0:00 Intro2:15 Georgia RB Trevor Etienne Arrested3:36 USC's Recruiting Weekend8:47 James Fletcher III Joins to Recap March Madness18:10 Duke Blue Devils20:02 UConn21:47 Iowa State vs Illinois23:34 SEC and ACC Discussion35:17 Tennessee & Creighton, Rick Barnes42:26 John Calipari's Future53:09 Michigan Hires Dusty May57:05 Louisville Update, Conclusion - Lance Leipold tomorrow!Before we talk hoops, a little football news. Georgia running back Trevor Etienne, who just arrived from Florida, was arrested early Sunday morning and charged with DUI. Meanwhile, USC had a big recruiting day Sunday as the Trojans try to address their defensive issues. They flipped a defensive tackle from Georgia and landed commitments from a highly rated edge rusher and safety for the class of 2025.The Sweet 16 is set, and it’s pretty chalky. But it took a miraculous overtime escape by South No. 1 seed Houston against Texas A&M to get there. The Cougars had four players foul out Sunday night and still managed to pull off a 100-95 win. Also, On3’s James Fletcher III caught a leg whip from Houston’s J’Wan Roberts when Roberts dove over press row for a loose ball in overtime.James joins Andy to talk about the wild finish in Memphis and the rest of the tournament action…UConn looks like a machine that could roll to a second consecutive national title…Purdue dispatched Northwestern with ease.North Carolina handled Michigan State.Chalk in the round of 32 means big matchups in the Sweet 16. Andy and James get you ready for Alabama-North Carolina, Houston-Duke, Purdue-Gonzaga and Illinois-Iowa State.Plus, Michigan hires Dusty May away from Florida Atlantic.Also, Kentucky hasn’t made a decision regarding John Calipari yet. That could happen early this week.

Welcome to Andy Staples on three. Happy Monday. I don't know if it's a happy Monday. We were all very late watching basketball on Sunday night. Unless you live on the West Coast, but pretty much everybody else up very late watching Texas A&M push Houston to the limit. Watch our guy James Fletcher III take a leg whip from a Houston player diving over the press rope for a loose ball. We'll talk to James about that in a few minutes.

Before we talk about the basketball, which was very, very chalky, very chalky, I think the, I believe the Vegas favorites were 15 and one in the round of 32. Clemson, I think, was the one that defied the odds. But that sets up a pretty incredible Sweet 16. You got Duke Houston. You got Iowa State, Illinois. You got North Carolina, Alabama, Creighton, Tennessee. I think America's sweetheart is still NC State. They're playing Marquette. And who's to say that the Wolfpack run does not continue? UConn looks like an absolute wagon. This may be the UConn Invitational again for a second straight year. You never know, but they look absolutely incredible. Purdue looks outstanding.

Willie Thomas in the chat says, good morning, all good morning, Willie. So the downside to a lack of upsets in the round of 32 is bangers on bangers on bangers in the sweet 16. So that's our trade-off. And thankfully, Texas A&M and Houston gave us something fun on Sunday night.

It wasn't a complete, you know, kind of snooze fest. You had NC State, Oakland on Saturday night. That was fun too. But I think Thursday and Friday will more than make up for all that. Before we go to James and talk about him getting leg whipped in the middle of overtime of a tightly contested NCAA tournament game, we're talking a little football, little football. Georgia running back Trevor Etienne, remember he just transferred from Florida, arrested early Sunday morning, charged with DUI and multiple other things. I think one involved something hanging from the rear view.

Failure to maintain a lane, improper driving, as well as affixing materials that reduce visibility through the windows or the windshield, which could be a tent thing. Yeah, Trevor Etienne arrested. We'll see what happens in terms of discipline. This is obviously a very sensitive topic at Georgia. Driving offenses have been an issue over the last couple of years. So we'll see. Zach says Spurrier's words of wisdom will always be true about UGA. Everybody assuming that's something Steve Spurrier said when he was at Florida. No, that was what Steve Spurrier said when he was at Florida. No, that was what Steve Spurrier said when he was at South Carolina and they'd always

play Georgia in like game two. And Steve Spurrier said, yeah, they're always going to have somebody suspended in game two. So we'll see what happens with Trevor Etienne. That one kind of came out of the blue on Sunday morning. Etienne did not have any, any issues like that at Florida in the two years he was there. So, uh, but again, a very sensitive topic at Georgia. A little more football news also on Sunday. And the state of Georgia is heavily involved here. USC, a big, big recruiting weekend for USC, big commitment weekend for USC, and big because of where it was geographically, but also the side of the ball.

So USC flips defensive tackle Justice Terry from Georgia. He's from Manchester, Georgia. He's the number eight overall prospect and the number two defensive tackle in the class of 2025. They get a commitment from Isaiah Gibson from Warner Robins, Georgia, number 37 overall prospect, number two edge in the class of 2025. They get a commitment from Hilton Stubbs, a safety in Jacksonville, Florida, number 67 overall prospect, number six safety. They also got a commit from Gus Cordova from Austin, Texas. He's a defensive lineman. He's a three-star, but he had offers from Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas A&M,

which suggests the next time the rankings get updated, you're probably gonna see Gus moving up. So this is an interesting one because what has been the problem for Lincoln Riley defenses, whether at Oklahoma or USC? Well, they've not been very good, but if you were to look at root causes of that, one of the things you can talk about the coaching, but they've just changed that coaching staff on the defense. But one of the root causes is they've not really brought in great raw material, especially on the defensive line, but really in general, they just have not signed a ton of top 100 type defensive players, whether Lincoln Riley was at Oklahoma or at USC.

So here you have one day where you get three top 100 players on the defensive side of the ball to commit. That is a very interesting development. That bears watching. That could mean something going forward for USC. Now they got to keep them. It's obviously March. So we'll see if they wind up signing with USC. But if they do, this is what USC has needed to do. This is how you get out of the problems that you've had defensively. You get better players. We'll see if they're coached better, but it seems like DeAnton Lin is a very good defensive coach. We saw him at UCLA last year. So maybe this is how they dig out because there's not a ton of excitement around USC football in

2024 as it enters the Big Ten. Nobody's looking at them as a team that's a college football playoff contender, as a team that can contend for the Big Ten title. Now, I would suggest don't completely sleep on them because they still do have good players. Zachariah Branch is going to be one of the most exciting skill position players in college football. But defensively, it doesn't feel like they're ready to take that step forward yet from a personnel standpoint. Maybe they're going to start doing that because this is different. This is not what they've been doing historically under Lincoln Riley and recruiting. This is a very different situation. So it bears watching, bears watching. I'm going to be in Nashville this week

talking to all of our guys. We may have to get Josh Neuberger, Duke's scoop on to talk about this recruiting heater. Duke's I want to talk about because he's a Georgia guy. And to see these guys from Georgia going to USC, and remember, they've got a quarterback from Georgia in the class of 2025 as well. So it does feel like there's a little Atlanta West going on. One of those guys from Warner Robins. That's very middle Georgia. That's where the Buckeyes is on I-75.

They don't want to be lumped in with Atlanta. But it is a lot of Georgia planning to head to USC, and I think that's very, very intriguing. You know what else is intriguing? Watching the NCAA tournament, especially Sweet 16 games, which are going to be awesome. If you've not yet figured out how you're going to watch if you're a cord cutter and you want to know how to watch, Prime Video has you covered.

Watch every game live on your phone, on your laptop, or at home with Prime Video. You subscribe to Prime Video. You do the add-on for Max and Paramount Plus, and they give you access to all the games within one app, one password. You're good to go. And, oh, yeah, yeah, the new Roadhouse is in there too. New Roadhouse just hit Prime Video. Jake Gyllenhaal, he's the new Dalton. It's in the keys.

Come on, you know you want to. And look at these games. Look at these games in the Sweet 16. Duke Houston, Illinois, Iowa State, North Carolina, Alabama, UConn, San Diego State. Two teams who were in the final four last year, Gonzaga, Purdue, you know you want to. So sign up for Prime Video. Hit the link in the show description, either on YouTube

or if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform, the link is also in the show description there. They'll get you signed up. You'll be good to go. All right, let us talk basketball. Let us talk Memphis. Let us talk overtime. James Fletcher III joins us.

Very sleepy. He was at the FedEx Forum last night for Texas A&M and Houston. And James, I got to tell you, so I covered the Texas A&M and Houston. And James, I got to tell you, so I covered the Texas A&M Northern Iowa round of 32 game in Oklahoma City a few years ago, where they came back. I want to say they were down 14 with 35 seconds to go. It was one of the most incredible comebacks you've ever seen. This one was even more incredible because they were down 12 with 151 to go to a number one seed and sent it to overtime at the buzzer.

Yeah, it was incredible to watch that late comeback. Wade Taylor with his heroics through the last couple of minutes there. And then, of course, Taylor takes a couple of shots. They can't get it to go down. A jump ball, which everyone in the stands was kind of under their breath talking about that jump ball. What does it come out with? An Anderson Garcia three, not the play anyone thought in the bounce pass inbound to a perfect three. Yeah.

And it just as soon as he lined it up, you knew it was going down. Just just the ability to get open, perfect form, rotation of the ball, and then we had overtime basketball. Yeah, that's when it got even more interesting there in overtime as Houston kind of had to lock down. They end up in foul trouble, losing four players through the course of the the end of the game had a walk-on in who then has to hit some really clutch free throws down the stretch uh Ryan Elvin getting his his

moment in March Madness there uh it was it was incredible just incredible from an all-around story standpoint well and and you know who else got his moment in March Madness? You! Because Jawan Roberts, all 240 pounds of him, comes flying over the press row table going for a loose ball, and you get leg whipped. How's that? Well, it was funny because on Friday, we get to our seats down there on media row, and I'm kind of joking around with some local

TV reporters from New Mexico that we're in prime position to get hit if anyone wants to die for a loose ball. Of course, it doesn't happen Friday. It doesn't happen through Sunday. And then we get to overtime of the last game of the night. And I see Juwan Roberts, he's coming for the ball. And I'm thinking, of course, he's going to stop before he gets here. This ball is just going to land out of bounds. That happens all the time. He's able to save it though. And as a result, he comes over the table. It all happened so fast and took a little knee to the head there, as you can see in the picture. But actually, interestingly, I think the camera probably cut away because I haven't seen any other video of it. His foot gets

stuck in the chair that's next to me. So I've got to then get back onto the court after all of that happened. So yeah, it was quite an ordeal there for a second. Yeah, I've covered a lot of NCAA tournament games and been in sort of a similar spot on the court. I've never had the player come flying over the table at me. I have gotten the ball. I've had the ball that was just thrown away, errant pass, that just sort of landed in my hands. But it's interesting because you and I,

both in games involving Texas A&M teams got really involved because when Texas A&M played football against Alabama and Tuscaloosa in 2022, there was a play where Ryan, right. Will Anderson chases Haynes King. He's about to sack him. Haynes King throws the ball out of bounds, throwing it away on the last drive. And I end up catching it on the sideline. Right behind the Texas A&M athletic director at the time, Ross Bjork, who's now the Ohio State athletic director. And I was going to take the ball because, like, come on. But the AD is standing right there, and it's his ball.

So I'm like, eh, here's the ball. There wasn't much opportunity for me to get any kind of memento from catching DeJuan Roberts. You can't take his shoe. He needs that. You can't take the shoe with me when it comes off on the chair. But, yeah, it was interesting. And then, of course, the texts start flooding in because it's on national TV. It's the overtime game late on Sunday.

Everybody's watching. So I had plenty of text messages to get to. My phone actually went flying. It took me like three minutes afterwards to try to find where my phone went. I'm kind of dazed. I'm trying to make sure my laptop works. And then all of a sudden it hits me like my watch is buzzing, but I have no idea where my phone is.

And some fans behind me pointed me in the right direction. They saw it go flying apparently. So yeah, everything ended well though no no injuries to speak of laptop obviously booted back up so we're good well that's the part i really appreciated because usually when that happens the the thing you see from the reporter on press row is they're like they're covering their laptop they're they're moving to guard the laptop. No regard for the laptop safety from you. You're locked in on the play. You're like, what is going on here? Is he going to save this ball or not? And then wham, that knee hits you in the face. Yeah, I was, I was kind of, like I said, as he's coming towards it, I'm thinking

he's going to stop. Like I might catch the ball here. And then as he dives, my, my reaction was stop him from rolling over the table completely and onto the floor here. Cause that would probably be a safety hazard for him. So my thought was mainly about where Jawan was going more so than where I was or my laptop. As I, as I watched my laptop kind of just get closed for me as he came over the table. And then Jamal Shedd fouls out. Ryan Elvin comes in the game. It was interesting watching all the other Houston players just sort of hug Ryan Elvin as he came into the game. Like, dude, it's okay.

You're going to be all right. It's good. We're good here. And then when he's got to shoot free throws, like every single Houston player on the court came up to him with a message of hope. Yeah, but he was able to get the job done. And that's, I mean, really, for like, as we mentioned,

for a walk-on to be in that moment, to get that kind of just big March madness moment for himself, for his family, for his team. It was great to see. And obviously they celebrated pretty hard after that one on the court, then headed to the locker room. They were, they were real excited to make another trip to the sweet 16 under Kelvin

Samson with this group. Yeah. And this is, this is a group that we weren't sure you and I both said, we're worried about these guys getting out of the first weekend and I mean they they got pushed to overtime by a nine seed so that it probably makes sense but this is not as deep a team as as it was in December because they've had some injuries and then you saw what happens when they have some guys foul out and I believe this is the first I can't remember what year it was,

or maybe it's ever, the first team to win an NCAA tournament game having four players foul out. So that's a pretty impressive stat right there. That's not going to work going forward. They got Duke. They're going to have to play Marquette or NC State after that, which NC State's the lowest seeded team left in the tournament, but I don't think anybody's looking at them like a real 11 seed. I think

they're looking at, they beat Duke in North Carolina a week ago in the ACC tournament. They're dangerous too. So the road is very difficult for Houston from here on out. Do you think they have enough to get to the final four? I think last night showed that they have enough to get to the final four. Like you said, they've got a Duke team coming up here, which has been a little bit hot and cold recently. So Houston playing the way that they play, I think that they'll have a good chance in that game against the Blue Devils. The key will be playing their style of basketball as it always is in March. If you're able to implement your tempo, your offense,

make sure that you're playing the way you want to up and down the floor, you've got a good chance to win. And this Houston team, number one at Kempom, number one in the net, the analytics are behind them. They might not be the deepest team in America, but you don't really have to be in March unless you have four guys foul out on your way to overtime in a big game late at night.

So I think that as long as they can avoid kind of the outside things that happened in that Texas A&M game from happening again, avoid foul trouble a little bit more, try to keep it from going to overtime as you always do. I think they'll be in a much better spot against Duke. And then in the bottom half of that bracket, you're going to get a Marquette or a NC State. So I think right now, and this is what Kelvin Samson would tell you, they're taking this one

game at a time. They're focused on Duke and they're going to lock in on what they can do to disrupt that team here in the next few days. Well, Jared McCain, I doubt he's going to have the kind of explosion he had against James Madison, but he was incredible. There was a moment where it looked like he was going to outscore James Madison by himself in the first half. Yeah, Duke really showed up this weekend. There were questions about them. Plenty of people picking them to get upset in the first week or two here. They face Vermont, then they face James Madison. They kind of avoid Wisconsin in that draw. But man, if you ever wanted Duke to show you that they are a contender, this was a great week for you because they left no doubt against two very lively mid-major teams.

James Madison pulled the upset against Wisconsin and really led that game in the first round for quite a bit of it. So for Duke to get everyone involved the way that they did, McCain kind of emerging as their go-to guard, their best perimeter option has been really big for them because early on, I think a lot of people thought that would be Tyrese Proctor. He has not kind of lived up to what people expected his year two evolution to entail, but McCain has come in, he can shoot the ball and just an all around really good guard for them. Who's been able to put the ball in the basket and really raise their ceiling from what it probably was. Meanwhile, I mean, you, you were covering Texas A&M and Houston, but there really wasn't much need to watch UConn and Northwestern. UConn is an absolute wagon.

They look maybe better than last year in the NCAA tournament, and they rolled through the tournament last year. Yeah, I think to this point, they probably have looked better, and the momentum that they carry through. I watched this team, and like you said, in that first half, you kind of were able to switch your attention to everything else that was going on because you knew UConn had pulled away and they were just going to win the game and Dan Hurley might get upset at something that happens but it was all going to be for nothing

because that game was well out of reach for Northwestern. UConn I think that maybe the biggest thing that I've seen from them so far in this NCAA tournament is Donovan Klingin's defensive ability. For him to go out there and put up eight blocks and a steal. We have in basketball terms, we talk a lot now about stocks, steals plus blocks, because they're both valuable to the overall defense. Almost getting to double digits there in an NCAA tournament game on the biggest stage is incredible from Donovan Klingin. He also had a great scoring first half. He was hitting the boards really hard, and they didn't really need him in the second half. So who knows what his stat line would have been if they had needed him down the stretch, if it had been a closer game. He has emerged, and if he can play big minutes for the Huskies here, I just think that what they've got shooting on the perimeter, what they've got in a little bit of star power

from Tristan Newton and Stephon Castle at those guard spots, they are just about as complete a college basketball team as you're going to see and really rolling here down the stretch. Yeah, and now they're going to play San Diego State, but on the other side of that bracket feels like maybe the best game in the Sweet 16. Illinois-Iowa State, which we've talked about the job TJ Otzelberger's done at Iowa State. Obviously, the Terrence Shannon stuff has been a big topic of conversation all season for Illinois, but this is two teams that either one of them might have a chance against UConn in the Elite Eight. Yeah, this is the game of the Sweet 16 for me. Getting to watch Iowa State and Illinois, they both look like two of the best candidates

to knock off UConn on their way to attempting the back-to-back national championship run because Illinois red hot right now. You look at what they did in the Big Ten tournament. It was incredible. They were really clicking on all cylinders through that week, and now they've brought it into the NCAA tournament. They just look like a team that knows its purpose and that is executing at an extremely high level. Terrence Shannon, of course, their go-to scorer, but they've also got some complementary pieces around him that have been able to really emerge here

and show that they can impact winning in a big way. Marcus Damask, of course, one of the big ones who has played a role here down the stretch. They also, similar to Duke, they drew a couple of double digit seeds on their way to this point. It gets a lot tougher now. So you got to face an Iowa State who just a week ago absolutely blew out a Houston team, which is ranked number one in the country. So there's not an easy path here. Iowa State, they're right there in that conversation too, as on any given day they might be the team that could knock off UConn.

So one of these teams is going to get a shot. So we know that that UConn path to the Final Four is going to get a shot. So we know that that Yukon path to the final four is going to feature one of two teams who has every opportunity to make that series interesting. Which one will it be? I think it's really a toss up right now. So we got to talk about the SEC a little bit because I feel like there was some ball don't lie going on after Greg Sankey comes out and says, oh, this is why the tournament needs to expand. They're taking opportunities away from competitive power conferences. And what he's basically saying is as the power conferences expand, there probably will be more deserving power conference teams.

Well, his own league sort of put the lie to that where Auburn loses to Yale. Florida loses. Now Colorado is going to be in the Big 12 next year. That's a power conference team as well. But Kentucky loses to Oakland. Tennessee and Alabama are the only SEC teams left. Six of them are gone. And A&M obviously did its part. It pushed a number one seed

to overtime, but the rest of the SEC did not show up. No, it really didn't at all. Is it the Greg Byrne comments? Is that what led into this? I don't know, but the SEC really had a chance to build that momentum. They had Mississippi State, who kind of had a late search to make sure they were in the field. Texas A&M gets in the field late. And then we see just a struggle from them to get it done in the NCAA tournament this year, really poking some holes, adding some questions to

what is it that Greg Byrne wants to get out of this? Greg Byrne seems still in it. Alabama is still very much alive. Excuse me. Yeah. Too many Gregs in the SEC. But what is Greg Sankey looking to get out of this? Because if you add in Texas and Oklahoma, who will be there next year,

Oklahoma wasn't even in the NCAA tournament field. And Texas, they went out to Tennessee, mind you, but they went out in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. So there's a lot of questions that are going to be raised about the SEC after this performance. I don't think it has any long-term implications i don't think it really means anything beyond uh there were upsets in march madness just like there are any i think i think it means leave the tournament alone like

it's fine at 68 here and people get always get mad at me because i'm i'm a fan of of them going to 12 in football it's okay to feel like four is not enough in football, but 68 is plenty in basketball. Like there's a wide gulf between those two things. And I actually think they should go back to 64 in basketball. Or if you're going to have a first four, make it all power conference teams and make that a better TV event. I think that would definitely solve a lot of this, as if you were able to do that,

where the play-in games, they should not include these mid-major teams that are just getting one shot at the tournament. Although some of those mid-major coaches would argue against that, they like being able to pick up an NCAA tournament win somewhere along the way, add that to their resume, which there's very low of a chance to do if they are just a regular 16 seed in the tournament facing a one seed. But yeah, I think that the 68 team field is good. And that's the whole thing is with the 14 model, the 12 team model, look, there were things that came up in that four-team model with football that people wanted more out of, and so they go to 12. With college basketball, what do we want more of?

You know, Greg Sankey says we're going to need more of these deserving teams. Well, there weren't even 68 deserving teams this year in the NCAA tournament. There never are. There's never 68 tournament teams. No, there's really not. Virginia, of course, this year was the one that everyone picked on. Even you look at the other side of the bubble, and Indiana State, I think, would be the one people would kind of point to as deserving.

Oklahoma maybe would enter that conversation. But that's on a shortened bubble. We had five bid dealers and we were sitting here saying there's only one, maybe two deserving teams that got left out. So it's just a conversation that's going to come up. It'll probably happen in some format. There will be some kind of expansion in the future. But the idea that we have power conferences now, so we need more bids, we dissolved an entire power conference to get there. So we didn't really change how many teams have programs that are deserving of an NCAA tournament bid.

So Michael Wilder in the chat, but everyone said the ACC was weak this year. And yeah, Duke and North Carolina looking awesome right now. And NC State, again, would it surprise anybody if NC State winds up in the Elite Eight or the Final Four? Yeah. And how about Clemson? Clemson, you've got four. There were some people projecting maybe only three bids to the ACC at one point during the season. They end up with four teams in the Sweet 16. And this is kind of the ACC's formula. But I think it's something that needs to change for the ACC if they're going to continue in the way that they want to. Because yes, they got four teams into the Sweet 16. It's a great story. But if you look at it, NC State really had no business being there in the first place. If they don't go on a magical run

through March, they never even get an opportunity to play in the NC State tournament. So this conference, don't let four teams in the Sweet 16 overshadow an entire season of work. They've got things that they've got to get figured out from a depth standpoint in that league. Let four teams in the Sweet 16 overshadow an entire season of work. They've got things that they've got to get figured out from a depth standpoint in that league. They've got programs that have been down for a couple of years now. Yeah, Louisville, Syracuse, they need to get back. Florida State even. Leonard Hamilton just kind of fell off a cliff there in recent years. So you've got to get those teams back into the pinnacle of college basketball

if you want to be what you were. But, yeah, in terms of March Madness success, Duke and North Carolina are always going to help you. And then getting some help from Clemson and NC State is great for that league. Well, what happened to Clemson? Because they're the one team that has really defied everything this tournament season. And, look, with NC State state we've seen it can go either

and we saw with auburn like auburn looked great in the sec tournament but and this happens every year where a team looks fantastic in its conference tournament and then lays an egg in the ncaa tournament that's what auburn did nc state meanwhile has the incredible run through the acc tournament and they continue it into the NCAA. Now, part of it is they played Oakland and not Kentucky, probably. Now, they could have beaten Kentucky for sure. They can beat anybody, but Oakland pushed them to overtime and it was looking pretty dicey there for a minute for the Wolfpack, but they've been pretty good. And I, again, I can see them beating any team on their, in their region from here on out. So that one's an interesting one to me,

but it is interesting to see like the difference in when you have that run through the tournament versus when you've just been great all season. Yeah, these Clemson guys, opening day before the games were played on Friday, they had a little practice and they talked to the media and they gave you the kind of cutaway line that every team gives entering March Madness when they lost early in their conference tournament. They said they got back in the gym, they had really good practices, they're playing as a team now, They figured out everything that was wrong, and it's going to be magically fixed for the NCAA tournament run.

And you kind of just file it away. Yeah, like that's what they're trained to say for years and years and years. That's what they're told is the correct thing to go up in front of a microphone and tell the reporters. But they really seem to have done that. It seems like this team is playing in a different way. They're playing more as a team, first of all. They've gotten contributions.

I think R.J. Godfrey, his kind of emergence in those first two rounds, the ability to give him big minutes, because P.J. Hall got into foul trouble there in pretty much both games. R.J. Godfrey came in. They didn't really miss a beat. Jack Clark gave them really good minutes as well. Joe Girard, of course, played well. And I think that the biggest thing that they got that they didn't have in the ACC tournament

that they got here was Chase Hunter. Chase Hunter looked like, at times, the best player on the floor in these two games against New Mexico and against Baylor. He laid an egg in the ACC tournament. So whatever it was, getting the right guys back on track, making sure that everyone was pulling the same rope, whatever it was that Brad Brownell did over the past week, it worked and Clemson is now in the Sweet 16 with a chance to go even further. So, yeah, it's been a great run for these Clemson Tigers. Of course, the first coach in Clemson history to make two Sweet 16s, and his players, they'll fight for him if you start talking about his job security.

Well, you don't have to talk about it anymore. Because Brad Barnell is amazing because every time it gets close, he goes on a little run. And then I think Kevin Keats is probably entering that territory as well. But it feels like Brad Brownell, for sure, whenever it gets a little bit dicey, boom. All of a sudden, they're good. They were the only six seed to win. You know, the six seeds went 0-3 on Thursday, and then they end up beating New Mexico. It didn't feel like the Baylor game was ever close.

No, it really, every time you looked up at the scoreboard, it was 10 points away. And every now and then it would get up to, you know, 14, 15, it'd come down to about six, five or six, but it was always at 10. If you wanted to look up at the scoreboard, that's what you were going to see the margin. Baylor made a late run there. They got a couple of runs. You thought it was going to be what we ended up getting from Texas A&M there. Jacoby Walter kind of took over, was looking to get his shot, but they just weren't able to hit enough shots down the stretch. Clemson starts hitting free throws, and then you can pretty much pack it in at that point. Once you're down multiple possessions inside of a minute and the other team is headed to the free throw line with an 80, 90% free throw shooter, you know that the writing is on the wall and that's what happened here for Baylor, who just ran out of time with a young team, Jacoby

Walter and Eve Messi. Really, if you look at the entire field, they were two of the last impact freshmen who were on the board anywhere playing for a team. So yeah, they just didn't have it enough there at the end. Well, let's talk about that. There's a Friday night sweet 16 matchup that I think is going to be one of the best games of the weekend. Purdue and Tennessee. Let's talk about how these two teams got here. Tennessee and the Rick Barnes Bowl against Texas. It was a Tennessee game. It was a Rick Barnes game. It was grinding and kind of frustrating to watch at times, but the defense was good. If you're going to knock out to the team that fired you,

kind of do it your own way, I guess. Are we going with the Elite Eight matchup? Potential Elite Eight matchup? Oh, sorry. I've got this. The potential Elite Eight. Tennessee Creighton is your Friday night. And then Purdue and Gonzaga is your other Friday night matchup. So sorry about that. Yes.

I don't know why I'm jumping ahead. I don't. In fact, really bad job by me because both of those teams could be out. You can easily have a Creighton-Gonzaga Elite Eight matchup, and nobody's going to be surprised by that. Yeah, that's right where I was going. These are two of the best matchups of the weekend. You've got a Gonzaga team, Red Hot, rolling through the NCAA tournament. Purdue, same way. They've kind of put to bed some of

those narratives. So what does Gonzaga have to throw at Zach Eadie? Can they pull off another upset? Can they go through this Purdue team and head towards a matchup with either Tennessee or Creighton where you were going Rick Barnes yeah we talked about it this team was different than past Rick Barnes teams now they come up against a Creighton team that is just so good offensively a really fun team to watch I love this Creighton team with Tyshawn Alexander, with Ryan Kalkbrenner, with Baylor Shireman. I think that they are just so complete in their starting unit, what they're able to do, spacing the floor, defensively, how they match up with teams. I really, really like this Creighton team. And so it's going to be hard to pick a winner in this one between Tennessee, who's got the defensive end of it.

They've got Dalton Connect to carry them on offense, but is he going to be enough? Can Creighton slow him down enough to let their offense kind of carry the day? And then from there, I think maybe the most interesting conversation surrounding this game has nothing to do with what happens on the floor, but if Tennessee were to lose, where does that leave

us in the Rick Barnes discourse about March Madness success? Because he got through those first two games. He made it through the opening weekend, but I think the expectation with this Tennessee team is to go further than here, to make at least the Elite Eight. However, you run into a Creighton team that's just that good you might just lose the game and there's nothing wrong with that I feel like when you're in when you're in a chalk situation in the sweet 16 like you can't make value judgments on the coach unless they just get completely bombed which I don't think is going to happen. But at this point, it's two really good teams playing each other in a single elimination tournament.

It's not like we talked about Kentucky and Calipari after the Oakland Lions. It's a very different situation. In this case, if Barnes loses to McDermott, I mean, it's not like, well, if we reverse it, does it say anything about Greg McDermott if they lose to Tennessee? No, no. Like these are two really good teams and only one of them can win. And I feel like we're in a lot like Illinois, Iowa State, same thing. Yeah.

North Carolina, Alabama, same thing. That's Duke and Marquette. I'm sorry. Duke and Houston, same thing. That's Duke and Marquette. I'm sorry, Duke and Houston, same thing. It's not a value judgment on the coach when you've got a 1-4 or a 2-3 game in the Sweet 16. Yeah, and I would agree with that. I think that this is where it becomes so hard for fans to judge success in college basketball because ultimately end of the day march madness is where you kind of make your money but can you really determine how good a coach is based on how far they go in march we've seen the upsets before we've seen some of the best

teams in college basketball not make it to the final four not even you can determine it by do they put themselves in position to play in these games but that's where it stops like exactly you got to get to these games and if you can do that then you're giving yourself a chance like you know i i think you go back to sheshefsky before he won his first national title like i remember i was in middle school and it was like oh is duke ever going to get over the hump? Well, yeah, they kept getting there. Yeah. And eventually they were going to break through and they did.

And they want a bunch more after that. Like, yeah, as long as you keep getting there, you have a chance. Right. And that's kind of where we're at with Rick Barnes is getting there every time enough for the fan base. I think it is right now. I think that they've enjoyed this team so much that, yes, even if they go out to Creighton, if it's in a really good effort, fans should be happy with that.

Fans should be happy with this season and kind of wish that maybe there was a little bit more at the end of it, a little extra punch. But it's so hard to kind of put it all in perspective, what the regular season was and then what March Madness means when we're so sold on Final Four appearances, national championships. Only one team gets to lift the trophy at the end of each year. So there's only so much to go around in terms of accolades when you get into conversations about post-season success well you also have some fluky runs to the final four sometimes that that will give a coach a little extra juice and like you know like remember indiana making the final when they had no business making the final like those sorts of things help

i well it's funny because i think we might have thought the same thing about hubert davis early in his north carolina career when they made the final as an eight seed. And now we're looking at it like, Oh no, no, no. Maybe, maybe he's, he's really good and it's going to be fine. But yeah, I think as long as you are putting them in, in position, getting to the second weekend, getting into those matchups with the equally good teams,'re okay you're you're gonna be fine it's when you underachieve when you when you get beat by teams that should be destroying you or that you should be destroying and i think now i think going deep buys you grace yes like nobody's mad at bruce pearl now. I mean, some Auburn fans are disappointed that they lost to Yale, but he took Auburn to the fucking final four,

like Auburn. He took them to the final four in 2019. Like that, that carries for a while. Yeah. And now we'll, we'll get into a Calipari discussion here in a minute. Cause we do have to follow up on everything we talked about Friday.

But I do think as long as you're – and I think, well, we can actually start that Calipari discussion now because what is making Kentucky fans so mad is that they are not getting to these games. Yeah. They're not getting to the point where they're playing equal talent teams and then let the chips fall where they may. Right. And that's kind of where this, this whole discourse goes to is that a round of 64 exit is different than a round of 32 exit than a sweet 16 exit. And the round of 34 exit, you can excuse it. Like you said,

with Bruce Pearl, nobody's mad at Bruce right now in terms of a long-term fit at Auburn people are mad at John Calipari because it's happened two out of three years they've had very little success over the last four to five years in the NCAA tournament period I mean the one win is not going to carry them in this conversation of blue bloods yeah, things for Calipari have heated up because he's not in a position where anyone he loses to you think, yeah, that loss makes sense. You can't, when you can't make sense of the results, that's when the coach starts to get in trouble. Yeah. And okay. So here's the Calipari situation as we know it now, Matt Jones from Kentucky

sports radio, probably the most plugged in guy covering Kentucky. He talked about it over the weekend. He had a Twitter space on Sunday night and he said, basically they need to make a decision. They were a little surprised. It sounds like the Kentucky administration was a little bit surprised at how angry everyone was at how many people are out on Cal and they have to, they have to choose. Now the, the video that we, we did on Friday, James got passed around a lot where I talked about the buyout math where it's $33 million. It sounds like a ton of money. It is a ton of money, but if things break the right way, it's not that much because he has an offset. He could get another job.

And it's also not do a bunch up front. It's all doing equal installments till 2029. So it's a doable thing for an SEC program that has a lot of money. The question is, do they want to do it? And the discourse over the weekend was very interesting to me. And I'm sure you saw a lot of it, too. Yeah. I don't know if a lot of people understand how coaching changes work, especially Kentucky, where if you think about it, Cal's been the coach there since 2009.

Mark Stoops has been their football coach since 2013. They have not been on the coaching change roller coaster nearly as frequently as people who follow other schools. So like how coaching changes work now, it's not the same because I saw a lot of, well, if you fire Cal, then all the recruits are going to leave. And I'm like, well, of course. Yeah. The new coach is going to want to bring his own players anyway. Right. Yeah. And the discourse with Kentucky has been flo floated out there it's been talked

about a lot for me when I hear that the administration was surprised by the fans reaction when I hear things like they're considering it over a long period of time they'll have a decision in the next few days That tends to suggest to me that there is a real hesitance to pull the trigger on anything, which then in turn suggests to me that this John Calipari leaving Kentucky deal is not the most likely outcome here. what we think Mitch Barnhart is going to decide in the coming days. Because at the point that you start putting in qualifiers, I think that's when you start to show what your opinion is on different things. So when there is this kind of discourse, when people are back and forth with it, that tends to suggest to me that the guy who has not only a big buyout, but a long history with that team, you mentioned going all the way back to 2009. That sounds to me like a real hard conversation in the office where it's understood that this is the year that you better get it done. And I know

that's going to make a lot of Kentucky fans roll their eyes because that was supposed to be this year. That was kind of what the fans set as the expectation for this season was you get it done this year or else with this group. Now, here's my question. If they decide to keep him, because I've been thinking about this over the weekend too. If, if they decide to keep him, like normally you don't announce that your coach is coming back next year. Like he just comes back. Like everybody, like nobody's announcing that Bruce Pearl is coming back at Auburn. Nobody's announcing that, that Todd Golden is coming back at Florida. Like they're just back because they're not on the hot seat. But at this point, if you decide to keep Cal, do you have to say something? Yeah. Like, do you have to explain why?

100% you have to say something. And I think you have to set the expectation too. I think if Mitch Barnhart wants to keep John Calipari around, he's got to come out with a statement, whether it's a press conference or putting it out on Twitter, in a press release, whatever he wants to do. He has got to send a message to fans that the expectation has been set and that they are taking real tangible goals towards fixing the program. Because if not, there is going to be what we talked about. There is going to be uproar, not only on the message boards, not only on social media, but there is going to be a disgruntled fan base in the arena. And as you said, that's when they stop donating and they can't have that.

So there's got to be a call to arms here where they tell the fan base, look, you want this program to succeed. We want this program to succeed. If John Calipari is going to be the coach who leads it, we need those donations. So we need you one more year to do this. And then if he doesn't live up to the expectations, then we'll get to that point that everyone seems to be at right now. Yeah. And, and that will, that will be an interesting, cause you, you have to be very careful how you word that, how you, how you handle that because you don't want to go in with an apathetic

fan base. And I think the thing is Cal Perry recruits well enough that they'll come around in the offseason. They'll be able to get excited about next year's team. Now, if it starts out poorly, maybe they have a little bigger problem. But they can get excited if that's what happens. But I still, like, the longer this goes, you think it's But I still like the longer this goes, you, you think it's,

you know, the longer it goes, the more it heads toward Cal coming back. I think the longer it goes, the more it heads for Cal not coming back. Cause this is not, it's not football. Like football,

you have to make the decision now because of the way the season works. Like you have to, you have to fire the person right after the season ends. If you're going to make a change at all. Otherwise you've missed your window. Like like in basketball you've got some time you've got a few weeks where you can let the decision you know let it breathe talk to your major stakeholders figure out what you need to do and i think now i i was texting with matt jones about this over the weekend he disagrees with me he says if, if you're going to decide on Cal,

you decide on Cal, whether or not you've got somebody lined up. And I realize I keep going back to the Texas A&M football stuff, but that is probably the closest parallel here with Jimbo Fisher and John Calipari. When they made the decision on Jimbo Fisher, they did not have anybody lined up.

They did not. They had a list, but they did not have someone who said, I will take this job. I'm waiting in the wings. And ironically ended up, they almost hired Mark Stoopsway from Kentucky. But Matt thinks you make the decision on Cal, regardless of whether you have somebody with a conditional yes. I think you should have a conditional yes from somebody before you commit to that buyout. Like you should know you have, and I am completely giving you a hypothetical here because I don't have any inside information on any of these people,

nor do I know if they'd come like a Brad Stevens or a Billy Donovan or somebody like that, where, you know, there's going to be a splash and immediately everybody's like oh i'm not worried about the buyout anymore let's go like you know that's happening then it takes the sting out of committing all that money but if you don't know that well if you bring cal back another year you know you're gonna have good players and if you have good players there's a chance you could have a good run. And that's where the timing of this is going to get real tricky because you can't just let the fans just hang out there and wonder what's going to happen. You've got to make a decision on Cal pretty soon before the fan base gets even more

upset with this whole situation. Because the last thing you you want if you're Mitch Barnhart is to lose support from the fan base towards you like they they're out on Calipari Mitch Barnhart can't afford to have them turn on him based on what he decides or the process that he goes through here so I think that that's where like you said it gets real hard because a Brad Stevens or Billy Donovan well they've got the NBA season to play out. That's not going to get done for the Bulls until at least mid-April. For Brad Stevens, that could go all the way into June. Yeah.

He could be a college coach too. We keep throwing Nate Oates' name out there. I don't think Nate Oates is an option because he just redid his deal at Alabama. He's a $12 million buyout. You attach that giant buyout to get him on top of the buyout to fire Cal. I think that becomes financially prohibitive. So there are college coaches, obviously, that would take Kentucky. This is one of those, like, I always tell the people on the football side,

like, you watched Lincoln Riley leave Oklahoma for USC. You watched Brian Kelly leave Notre Dame for LSU. Kentucky is that level of program in basketball. Somebody would leave. And that was another interesting thing with the discourse among the fans over the weekend. Them saying, well, if we fire Cal, who's going to want to come here? I'm like, everybody's going to want to come. It's Kentucky, for God's sake.

Yeah, and that's where even those coaches in the college ranks, a lot of them who Kentucky would be looking at, still in the tournament. You look at Nate Oates, still in the tournament. I know that we've kind of ruled him out for the time being. Unless some booster steps up and just decides they have to have Nate Oates, and Nate Oates comes to some decision that he wants to be there, I think he's probably out of the picture. But even a Dan Hurley, who doesn't want a piece of Dan Hurley right now at UConn?

So if UConn makes it all the way to the championship, we're still talking about mid-April before you're able to get to him. So it's just the timeline is going to be the hardest thing for Mitch Barnhart to navigate here because you've got to keep the fans happy. You've got to have some kind of vision you've got to have for the transfer portal i mean that's what they need they need to add transfers but if the transfers don't know who's going to be the coach nobody's going to be taking official visits there nobody's going to be signing on to play for them until it's all resolved so

they've got to get this figured out as quickly as possible to set up next year's team and the future of the program, whatever that path is. That's exactly right. Now, one program that does know what its future will be is Michigan. They have hired Dusty May from Florida Atlantic. Remember, Dusty May took Florida Atlantic to the final four last year, and Dusty May had a choice here. He had a choice here. He had a choice between Louisville and Michigan. Louisville, obviously, you know, if we're talking about more of a blue blood basketball program,

that's Louisville, but Michigan's in the Big Ten. There's more money in the Big Ten. Probably, you know, kind of equally recent success. They played each other for the national title. The last time one of them won a national title. So I think this is an interesting decision, though. Were you surprised that Michigan was the one he went with? No, I wasn't surprised with that.

I knew it was going to be kind of the Dusty May sweepstakes. Like it was going to come down to Michigan, Louisville. I know Vanderbilt kind of got thrown around in there. I don't know what the situation surrounding them being inching whether that was a fallback for him or what the case was but but yeah we knew Dusty May was going to move jobs and we knew he was going to get one of the biggest ones on the market and here he lands at Michigan I think he'll do a really good job there for Michigan I think they can look forward to kind of a new era, turning of the page. Things got stale with Jawan Howard as the head coach, but now you bring in a

Dusty May, everything's going to change in that program. It's going to be run differently. He's going to have his own ideas, a fresh way to look at things. And now we'll see, is he able to overcome some of those hurdles that got in the way of Juwan Howard in those last couple of years? I know everyone wants to talk about the admissions at Michigan. That became the big deal when it came to basketball. So can Dusty May land the right transfers to bring in that can get enrolled and impact winning for the Wolverines here early on as they come into a new conference, pretty much.

It's still the Big Ten, but you've still got to face Oregon, UCLA, and USC. Now, they all kind of had down years relative to their expectations this past year, but we have to assume that they're going to be back to where they were in those basketball programs, making that gauntlet even tougher. Yeah, and that discussion about the admissions thing was really interesting, I thought, because everybody assumes that certain schools have higher admissions. But in this particular case, it's not like Michigan, if you cover their recruiting enough, you know, in terms of getting guys out of high school, they can get most of the guys they want. They do have a little bit higher admission. But is undergraduate transfers was the key here. Like I guess grad transfers, there's not really much of a problem. They can get them in, but undergrad

transfers seem to be the one that is the hardest part. And in college basketball right now, you've got to be able to have a pretty wide net to cast for the undergrad transfers. Yeah, I know they've been able to get in a few here and there. They've been able to mix it up, but it's going to be figuring out how it all translates. And I'm sure that Dusty May is going to hire somebody who will be all over that, who's going to have an understanding of which players he can or cannot bring in. It's interesting, though, because we see the Stanford job is open right now as well. And it's not the same thing. But last year, it becoming such a storyline surrounding Caleb Love in particular,

I thought it was interesting to kind of parallel the Stanford job and how hard it is to recruit, to bring in a transfer there versus what it's going to be at Michigan for Dusty May. Because should it be easier? Yeah, it should be way easier. But does that mean that it's going to be, you know, oh, there's the number one player in the portal. Let's go add him to the roster. No, there might be a couple more steps that go into it than that. Yeah. So we'll, we'll see what happens, but where does this leave Louisville? Because they obviously down bad, the Kenny Payne era was a disaster and this is a proud program. This is a program that should be one of the better ones in college basketball.

How do you, how do you recover and find the right person here? Yeah, I think it sends a clear message on what that Louisville job is right now. It is not the blue blood, historic Louisville head coaching job. It is a rebuild and it is a situation that is going to take time to recover from. They are going to have to build a roster and then build a culture beyond that over the course of a couple of years. So I think that they're still going to be in the mix for quite a few good names, whether that's a mid-major coach who is up and coming, who just can't look past this opportunity, a disgruntled coach at another school who has maybe had some success, but is frustrated with whatever his situation is at his current program.

They're going to be in the mix for a few of these guys still, and somebody is going to take on this program, the history of it, and then the resources that are going to come behind it because this fan base is ready to get back to winning. You know they're going to be motivated to give the coach whatever he needs to find success. All right, James, we're putting the first week in the NCAA tournament to bed. Thursday and Friday looking like a lot of fun. Give me a one, two, three, your three favorite Sweet 16 matchups. All right. Well, so we're going to go. Number one is going

to be Illinois and Iowa State. Like I said, it kind of paves the path for UConn there. They're going to have to get through one of those two teams. They're both really capable of pulling off an upset. So watch that one to see which team gets that opportunity. Second, we're going to go with Tennessee and Creighton the Vols. Like we said, trying to make that deeper run, but this Creighton team is in their way, is really, really talented. They're capable of making a deep run themselves. And then last, I'm going to go with North Carolina and Alabama. I know we didn't talk a ton about that matchup, but this Alabama team, I think it's really interesting because coming into the tournament, probably felt like the most upsetable Alabama

team in recent years. You put them right alongside that team that lost to Notre Dame in the first round of the NCAA tournament a few years ago because they have struggled defensively. But that offense is so good and the bracket fell just right for them that now they've got an opportunity to make the deepest run in the Nate Oates era by pulling off one upset here against North Carolina. And this is, if you remember, this is the side of the bracket that we felt like there was going to be chaos. We didn't know what it was going to be. We felt like there was going to be chaos. Maybe this is what happens that kind of busts everyone's brackets in that West region this weekend. Well, it's going to be very, very interesting.

Cannot wait. Shockey first weekend gives you a massive, massive sweet 16 James. We will talk to you later in the week. All right. Sounds good. And we will talk to all of you later in the week. We got a lot planned.

Got some campus visits for me for football. We're going to have some fun this week. And I've got a very special guest on Tuesday, Kansas football coach Lance Leipold. If you've not heard him talk before, you will understand why Kansas went from the worst program in the Power Five to really good, really fast under Lance Leipold. He just gets it. You will hear him on Tuesday. We'll talk to you then.