Andy & Ari On3 - UConn BLASTS Purdue to make it two consecutive national titles | Waiting on Coach Cal and Arkansas

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

UConn is the national champion for the second consecutive season after dominating Purdue in the national title game on Monday night. Boilermakers star Zach Edey scored 37 points, but the Huskies held Purdue to only seven 3-point shots all game, and Purdue only made one. Meanwhile, four UConn starters scored in double figures. Guard Tristen Newton led the way with 20 points.(0:00-4:18) Intro - UConn wins back to back titles(4:19-27:09) James Fletcher III Joins to recap UConn's run(27:10-30:14) Calipari and Arkansas Update(30:15-43:33) Kentucky's New Head Coach(43:34-48:21) Calipari's Fit in Fayetteville(48:22-49:01) Georgia Update Tomorrow(49:02-59:07) Clemson Update(59:08-1:02:37) Conclusion(1:02:38-1:05:57) Update from Dukes the Scoop and the Five Star Flex(1:05:58-1:07:04) Nakosifications on the Way, Talk to you tomorrowWhere does UConn rank among the nation’s top programs after six national titles since 1999? Where does Huskies coach Dan Hurley rank among basketball coaches working today? On3’s James Fletcher III helps Andy break it down.Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for official word that John Calipari is leaving Kentucky for Arkansas. That should come Tuesday, but a few potential Kentucky candidates have already removed their names from consideration.Want to watch the show instead? Head on over to YouTube and join us live, M-F, 8-9 am et! https://youtube.com/live/BB4MAr8fMEw

Welcome to Andy Staples on three, where my voice still cracks every once in a while. That's the hazards of the morning show. I don't know. I don't think we ever had one like that in the evening show, but it's all right. I still like the morning show format better. We have a new national champion in men's college basketball. UConn was inevitable. 75-60. The Huskies beat Purdue. And the game went about the way UConn games tend to go. Purdue hung in for a half. Zach Eaddy played incredibly.

37 points. But there was no stopping them. You knew it when you looked up at the end of the first half and you said, Zach Eaddy is playing about as well as any human can play in a national championship game scenario, and they are still losing. At that point, they were down by five. UConn stretches it to seven,

and you just know the avalanche is coming. Sometime after halftime, the avalanche is coming sometime after halftime the avalanche is coming and it came it came there there was nothing that purdue could do to stop it yukon's game plan was let zach edie do what he does and then force purdue to keep feeding the post and not ever shoot a three-pointer. Purdue only took seven three-pointers. They only made one. UConn basically choked them off. And the length UConn has at the guard spots, well, that's why. You saw how hard it is to shoot against those guys. Castle and Newton and Spencer and especially Castle and Newton, like just trying to shoot over them is such a chore.

And Purdue got comfortable with Zach Eady dominating the post. But it didn't matter because UConn was making threes on the other end. And then eventually you knew that Purdue would go cold inside or UConn would figure some stuff out or Zachary would get tired. And that's it did look like he got tired. And that was the end of that. Two consecutive national titles for the Huskies. They are the first consecutive national champions in the men's game since Florida in 2007. It is hard to repeat. And they did it not in the way that Florida did, where Florida had most of its core together.

UConn lost its top three scorers last year. UConn brought a different group back. Cam Spencer especially. Very important piece of this. Tristan Newton, very important piece of this. Newton had 20 points. They had four guys who started, who wound up in double figures. It was a complete team effort like it usually is for them. And they are just the team that is built for this era of college basketball.

Dan Hurley has the secret. He knew it. He knew it. Let me take you back to 2020, January 2020. He's just lost to Villanova. You've seen this clip floating around all tournaments. You know, people better get us now. That's all. You better get us now. Cause it, it's coming. It's here. It's here. And the thing is, you know, they're going to lose members of this team. I mean, Spencer is a senior. Donovan Klingin, you would assume, is going to the NBA. Stephon Castle, you would assume, is going to the NBA. But it seems like Dan Hurley has a formula.

And we'll talk about it a little more later, but I don't think Dan Hurley's going anywhere either. So this is going to keep happening. But what makes it interesting is Dan Hurley seems to understand how to make it happen with a different cast of characters. Now, will it be like this every time? No, but he definitely has the formula figured out and everyone else will be trying to copy it. We are joined now by James Fletcher III, on threes, resident bracketologist, college basketball expert. And James, that was everything you would expect in a UConn game. I'm sure the folks at TBS

and Turner and everybody would like for it to have been a closer game so the ratings would have been better. But I feel like there's something poetic about a team dribbling out the shot clock at the end of a national championship game. Yeah, this Yukon team did exactly what they always do. And it felt a little bit different against this Purdue team. It felt like they had a little bit of something and then it just kind of fizzled the same way it had in every game in the NCAA tournament so far a team looks like they can kind of hold hold things together they can play with UConn in the first half you wonder you know will they be able to push this into the second

half continue at that intensity and then UConn flips some kind of switch, goes on a run, and they pull away. And then it's over, and they're up by 15, 16 points. And from there, we're just talking about margin of victory. This UConn team is one of the most dominant that we have seen in a long time. And over the course of two years, of course, the first that we've seen in quite some time, over a decade, first ones to do it back-to-back. The strategy to force Purdue inside, to just take away the perimeter entirely, it was executed to perfection. It's funny because you didn't quite notice it at first because you're watching, you're like, oh my gosh, Zach Deedy is completely dominating this game.

And then they throw up the three-point numbers about halfway through the first half, and you realize, oh, wait, Purdue's only taken one three. That's not going to work. It's interesting because they're not a high-volume three-point shooting team, but this is 2024. Everybody shoots threes. Their stat line looked like something out of the eighties. Yeah. It was very fascinating how UConn approached this defensively. We saw with Klingon, they, they, they largely let him guard Zach Eadie down low in the paint, which invites Purdue to go to their big man who has dominated all season long against anyone who tries to guard him down low.

And we saw for large portions of the game, and I know he ends up with 37 points, so it's hard to say that, but Klingin made him work for everything that he got up until about the point that Klingin got his fourth foul. He came out of the game for a little while. He started to pick up momentum. And then once Klingin came back in for that last little stretch, they were up by 15 and he kind of was trying to make sure he didn't pick up that last foul. So until that point with about eight minutes to go, when Klingin, uh, I picked up that fourth foul, uh, he had largely made Zach Edie be a 50% shooter from the interior. And when you pair that with being able to take away the perimeter,

because they were not leaving the shooters on the perimeter, they were sticking with them and letting Klingin take on that matchup. If he gave up buckets, that was okay, because twos for threes is going to usually end in your favor. Samson Johnson committed 5,005 minutes of playing time. But that's a very impactful five minutes, I felt like, because it felt like when I looked at his stat line at the end of the night, I was like, he only played five minutes?

You just said that. It felt like he did so much more. Yeah, it felt like he had a really big impact because of the way that he gets up and down the floor. And what I was thinking the entire time that Simpson Johnson was out there playing center was Dan Hurley is going to have a good team again next year. That's all I could think is he's going to figure out how to use that guy because he is so athletic. He gets up and down and he presents matchup nightmares

that even Edie and Klingin, it's in a different way, but he is going to provide this UConn team with another kind of player down low who they can build around and put perimeter guys around. And UConn's going to put together another really good roster here. Well, and this is very similar to Johnson's in in the role that clinging was in last year where clinging was was the backup the understudy and then got ready for the role but that's something dan hurley's figured like he has figured out how to mix the veterans from the transfer portal the stefan castle types who are wanted like Stephon Castle is a one and done player. And then guys like Donovan Klingin, who's a clear NBA player, but needed development. Now Donovan Klingin, it's weird because it's kind of like the old, very old story.

Like Donovan Klingin is from Bristol, Connecticut. He goes to, this is how everything used to work in college sports, but it doesn't work that way anymore. But Dan Hurley somehow figured a way to keep that little piece of it where, hey, I can take a big man who needs some development. He can sit, play a role as a freshman, stay engaged, but not have to carry the load. And then as a sophomore, he's ready to rock. It's hard to do that in this era. And we're going to talk about Cal later. we're going to talk about Cal

later. We're going to talk about John Calipari and what happens with him. Zachary in the chat says, wouldn't be surprised if Cal Arkansas falls through. I would be very surprised. I will explain how that is going down a little bit later in the show, but that's what amazes me about this. James is what Dan Hurley has been able to do in this era of college basketball, where he's kind of mixed how things used to work with how they work now and come up with a good marriage. Yeah, I think we've seen that in his comments throughout the week. He was a guy who came out there and they asked him about coaching in the NIL era and how hard is it to be that that hard nose that that coach that screams at his players and he said no I coach my

players harder because there is an expectation when there's money involved when when people are donating or whether it becomes salaries someday, there is an expectation of performance when you start being given money. And I know that the NCAA has very strict rules. It is not performance-based money, but that doesn't change the fact that you feel a responsibility when someone gives you money to perform at your best in whatever you are doing. So he has kind of found that balance of, yes, this is the player empowerment era, but there has to be an accountability with those players who have so much power now, if they are going to reach their potential and the team's potential along the way. The other thing we see with him and the reason he can coach them so hard. I mean,

I go back to last night when he's pushing Cam Spencer on the court. And the ref's like, wait, you can't do that. This is a player playing on the court. You can't just grab him and move him. But that's how Dan Hurley coaches. And he's laughing about it later. Dan Hurley, and I wonder about this. Is this something like if you were a dog

as a player and then you become a coach, are you better at doing this where you can coach your players very hard, but you can kind of speak their language? Because you see it with Dan Hurley. You see it with Don Staley on the women's side. You see it with Kirby Smart in football where these are people who are really good players. Now, Don Staley was far and above what Dan Hurley and Kirby Smart were as players, but Dan Hurley and Kirby Smart were really good players in their time, and I feel like they're just better at speaking that language, and so they can goof off with their players,

but they can also ride their asses pretty hard, and the players aren't upset about that. They thrive in that. Yeah, I think there is definitely something to say about that dynamic that you talk about, being a dog on the court and then kind of graduating into coaching. You have a unique understanding. When you're that grinder, that player who didn't necessarily just have all the talent to get there and didn't have to go through the trials, didn't have to

earn their spot on the court, then sometimes you struggle to understand, you know, how to motivate a kid who's kind of lagging back in practice. If you're somebody who didn't go through those moments of wanting to hold back in practice, not wanting to give 100% to sprint through because whatever happened that morning or whatever's going on on the court, sometimes you can't push the same button that people like that can push. So for Hurley, you mentioned Kirby Smart, Don Staley, across sports, really, you can see it, these kind of grinders, these dogs, a lot of times when they're able to overcome that fiery side that they have, when they can find that happy medium, that ability to control that passion and channel it,

those oftentimes across all sports are some of the most successful coaches that you're going to find. Yeah, and the thing is, I look at this and I see what they're losing and I'm like, okay, I don't care what they're losing because as long as they're not losing Dan Hurley, it doesn't matter.

And so he got asked about what might happen, what comes next. And here's what he said. Dan, I hope I don't misquote you, but you said out on the court something about UConn giving you all the resources you need. Can we interpret that to mean you intend to be back at UConn next year? You're not going to entertain any conversations with anybody else that might have a job coming open tomorrow? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't think that's a concern. You know, my wife, you should have her answer that.

Yeah. We can maybe arrange a press conference for Mrs. Hurley in the morning. Congratulations, Coach. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she'll answer that question better than I can. So the great Mark Fratto, by the way, just setting up the Mrs. Hurley press conference. But that doesn't sound like a man who's going to go to Kentucky if Kentucky calls. That sounds like a guy who plans to be where he is. And I think this is interesting, James, because we talk about what happens next in college sports and we realize that

football drives the revenue train, but UConn is the one school that is essentially de-emphasized football in the service of basketball. They went back to the big East for their basketball programs, both of which are great. And I feel like that because they've made that commitment, they'll do what they have to do to make sure that Dan Hurley stays there. Yeah. Sometimes the pursuit of a great thing can ruin a good thing that you've gotten.

Yukon realized that, uh, you know, football never really drove the revenue for UConn sports. It was the basketball team. That's what that community has fallen in love with. That's where the history is. And so to try to artificially create something in football, yeah, maybe you can chase some dollars here and there, get into the American Athletic Conference, which they did for a short period of time. But what does it cost you on the basketball side? Because if it costs you fan support,

if it costs you a piece of history and a piece of pride in your institution, sometimes it's just not worth it. And that's something that I wonder how much we're going to see in this new era of college athletics, where we see teams ditching old rivalries to head to different conferences

in 10-15 years how many of these teams will look back and say maybe we can piece together this other conference if we're not in that that top group uh that that group that we talk about potentially splitting away and doing their own thing if you're not in that then i think we're going to see a lot of these, these teams and these conferences kind of look at each other and say, maybe we should kind of bring back together these rivalries, bring back together our structure that we, we kind of went with and our fans are familiar with and get back to

something that we know. Well, and the thing is you can be among the best at basketball without anywhere near the investment that you need to be among the best at football you can be a national title consider basketball with a reasonable amount of money i mean you looked at what gonzaga's done yukon tried to do it the other way tried to do it the other way and then just at one point just said look we're a big east team what are we doing? And they're still trying in football. And I actually think Jim Moore Jr. is doing a good job there, but they're probably not going to ever get

picked up by a quote unquote, big time football conference. And that's okay. Like they figured out where their place in the world is. And I do think there's probably some other schools throughout Division I that may feel that way. They may find as the years go by, hey, why are we chasing this thing? We can be really good at basketball. We can put several million dollars into basketball every year. We can pay our coach a competitive salary. We can be good at this. And then that's fine.

And that's good. Yeah, it's a simple math equation. I mean, you've got 13 scholarship players in basketball and go look at a football sideline. You got to pay a lot more people to get a competitive football roster from top to bottom at the level that you need to compete with the Alabamas, the

Georges. And I think in that sport also, we've seen just more separation from that top group to the bottom group. And in basketball, it seems like it is easier to kind of catch fire. You can find that kid who maybe went overlooked that hit a late growth spurt. Dalton Connect. You can find Dalton Connect in northern Colorado. Yes, exactly.

And those stories exist in football. I don't want to overshadow that. But it feels like in basketball, it's easier for that guy to emerge from his previous situation because it is – I mean, there's only five people on the court. So if you have one who stands out, you can kind of spot that spot like that a little bit more than you can one out of 11 on a football field. Yeah. And so we're now into this era where I don't know about you. It feels like it's, it may be a little easier when a season ends to start thinking about what next season might look like, because there are going to be more

players staying. There will be some more continuity. Yes, there's a transfer portal. We'll talk about Cal and Arkansas, but Arkansas has literally no players right now. None. It has no roster at all. But I think North Carolina is a place where you can reasonably figure out what it might look like. Duke has Cooper flag coming in. How does he fit around the pieces that are coming back? You know, it's, it's not as much of a mystery anymore. And I do think that's going to be ultimately helpful for the sport. Yeah. Well, that's why coaches are so important in college basketball, because we know what Dan Hurley's system is. Now he adapts that to the players that he has.

He kind of puts the pieces together and he'll change the offense a little bit, the motions that they get into. But we know what a Dan Hurley team looks like. If you close your eyes, you can picture it. A Nate Oates team. You can picture what that team looks like. John Calipari, historically. Eric Musselman as well.

These big coaches that we've seen do it at the top of the sport time and time again. We can picture what that roster is going to look like. And the names we'll figure out once we get midway through the summer or into the fall, depending on what kind of fan you are. But you know what that team's going to look like. And you have an expectation of how they will then perform based on that. So we can start to kind of look at, well, we expect this team to be here. We expect this team to be back at this level.

No better representation than that than Kansas. Bill Self, you know every year what roster he's going to bring back. It's going to be one of the top three. You could have zero players on the Kansas roster as of today. And I would still feel confident that they will open the season in the top three because Bill self is going to get it done. Roster building. That's not the case this year. They've got some guys coming back. So we're talking number one and number two, but yeah, that, that,

that that's just one of the examples of these coaches that you, you know, without any of the players named what their team's going to look like so josh in the chat says boring game never thought i would see the day the women's game be more exciting than the men's but it definitely happened this year well the women's game has gotten more even at the top and there's more teams near the top of the women's game it used to just be two or three and they just dominated everybody uh we were talking earlier in the week and and like in the women's game now james the round of 32 is where it gets it starts to get real spicy and it used to be it didn't get really good until the elite eight right the men's game is very even except for yukon like the the comparison the recent comparison i would make is 2022 georgia

football where they were just so much better than everybody else. But because Hurley is going to have to reload, he's going to have to retool the roster. I don't think you can guarantee they're going to be that dominant every year. I think we're going to get a situation where they'll kind of come back to the pack because it's just not as magical a group. Yeah, we're going to see one-year breakaways. We always will in college sports and any level of sports, really, where we have these teams that find some kind of magic along the way. And whether that's at the level of a UConn,

where that means that they're running away with the championship in the final month of the season, or it means the mid-major that kind of makes a deep run and they're one, two losses over the course of the whole season, or it means, you know, the mid-major that kind of makes a deep run and they're, you know, one, two losses over the course of the whole season, make a deep run in the NCAA tournament, or even your NC State, right? It's the same thing. It just happened only in March rather than across the course of January, February, March, and then into April. So I think that in college basketball, we have seen, and across college sports to a lesser degree, but in college basketball has been the greatest demonstration of how the transfer portal in NIL creates parity.

Early on, a lot of people were worried the top teams in the sport were just going to separate. It would be the five best players on Kansas and then five more of the best players at Kentucky and at Duke. Well, it was already like that with the recruiting cycle. Go look at the five stars. Where were they going? Kentucky, Kansas, and Duke. So when you then are able to spread out those guys who are on the second team, that freshman who maybe has to come back to college basketball next year rather than just go to the NBA. When he has options rather than being behind those freshmen who are coming in, well, now he can go be the star somewhere. And so we've just seen such a balanced college basketball

over the course of the past couple of years as we move into this new era. And it's going to be interesting because things are still changing we've got the end of the covid year rule this off season uh this is the last season that we have to worry about fifth year sixth year seventh year seniors uh outside of of course injury waivers that we will still have moving forward yeah get old stay old is going to be a little bit harder than it has been you and you won't see the the super old players but you're still we're still going to see old players we're still going to see guys that are

in their fourth year playing and i think you know i the the guards for yukon that cam spencer and tristan newton a great example of that think about that i mean tough old guards we've always said that's how you win in the ncaa tournament tough old guards and then you you throw the one and gun in next to them and all of a sudden it's pretty tough to deal with yeah we we have seen the formula what the successful team looks like here uh yukon has paved the way i think some of these other teams in the NCAA tournament who had great success did. NC State, you can even look at, look, a dominant big man and veteran guards around him. It doesn't matter how old that center is, but if you have that dominant centerpiece

and then guards around him, you're going to be successful in college basketball. That's why centers and point guards are the ones who are drawing the most attention in the transfer portal. That's why they're really hard to come by. But if you can find one, you can have success deep into the season. That's exactly right. And obviously, Purdue, Zach Eadie, he moves on. He's going to be in the NBA. You saw the skill level last night that you're dealing with with him. He's not the kind of stretch the floor big that the NBA likes now, but I guarantee you a creative coach will figure out a way. Can you imagine Greg Popovich going,

I got something I could do with him? Like you use Wimby for spacing and then clog the lane with Zach Eadie? Yeah, I think that there are definitely a few teams that are out there that are kind of fascinated by using Zach Eadie. It's not like we haven't seen centers in the NBA in recent years who don't space the floor. Rudy Gobert, I think, is probably the greatest comp. Rudy Gobert's success kind of paves the way for Zach Eadie to get in the room with these GMs and make his pitch for why he can be a great NBA player at the next level. Gobert, of course, at a different level defensively,

but Zach Eady might have a more polished offensive game, especially than what Gobert had at his age. So I think that the success of these, these big non-mobile guys, non-mobile, of course, being a very relative term in professional basketball. He's more mobile than us. He's just not more mobile than your average NBA four or five right now. Right. But yeah, being able to do that, Walker Kessler, another name that I think about in that kind of body type with success in the NBA that'll kind of allow Zach Eady to come in, be a first

round draft pick, and then kind of pave his own success from there by being able to fit in with whatever players he plays with. All right, James, let us move to the Cal discussion because we talked yesterday. I put out a Kentucky hot board. Cal walked his dog. He's got a stroller for walking his dog. Yeah.

But we still got no official word. Now, I did some digging on this last night. And here's what is going on. It's happening. It's going to happen on Tuesday. We're doing the show here live at about 830 in the morning Eastern time on Tuesday. It's going to happen on Tuesday. We're doing the show here live at about 830 in the morning Eastern time on Tuesday. It's going to happen sometime Tuesday. They've been working on a contract.

And the difference in this particular one is a lot of times a coach will sign a term sheet or a paper called a memorandum of understanding, which lays out the basics. Here's how many years. Here's the salary. Here's the buyout. And it's done in like one or two pages. They're doing a full on contract. This will be the full contract. A lot of times you'll have a coach sign the MOU and then he'll sign the long form contract for another four, five, six months. This will be a full contract. That's what the delay was over the last day or so.

So once that gets signed, Calipari is the Arkansas coach. They'll announce it. At some point, he will call the Hogs. It will probably be awkward. I don't know. Let me ask you this. On a scale of one to Bobby Petrino, is Cal awkward when he calls the Hogs

or because Cal's a showman, does he come ready he calls the hogs or it, because cows, a showman, does he come ready to call the hogs? He is. He's a salesman and a, and a showman. So I'm,

well, no, I think it's good. I think he, I think he, he does a solid one. Maybe he practices this morning. He's got it down.

Maybe, maybe that's the real reason we're delaying this press conference. And so we can get it down. Maybe that's the real reason we're delaying this press conference is so we can get it down right. He's in the mirror this morning. He woke up early. He's getting ready for it. But, yeah, no. Seriously, though, yeah, the Calipari thing, yeah,

I know people are getting antsy because it has not been officially announced yet. But, you know, these offer sheets, sometimes coaches work on them for, you know, upwards of, of about a year before they get the final contract signed and sealed, but makes sense for, for everyone involved here to get a full contract done before you get down on the ground. It is such a, such a big move, such a kind of, I don't even know how to describe what this is. The other piece of it, you know, having read Calipari's Kentucky contract a bunch of times when we were trying to figure out what the buyout situation was, if he didn't actually

tell Mitch Barnhart in Kentucky that he was engaging with Arkansas, he's actually in violation of that contract. So they could fire him for cause if they wanted to. So he kind of has to get the deal done in Arkansas. So this is going to happen, but it'll be interesting to see what happens next. Rod in the chat says, Kentucky about to be UCLA irrelevant.

Listen to the DeMarcus Cousins comments with Rachel Nichols. Well, of course, Boogie Cousins is going to, to defend UCLA, irrelevant. Listen to the DeMarcus Cousins comments with Rachel Nichols. Well, of course, Boogie Cousins is going to defend Cal, but there was a Kentucky before Cal and Boogie Cousins. You know, Kentucky's won seven national titles. Six of them came before John Calipari. There is not one coach that is bigger than Kentucky basketball.

No, and I think we look at the two names that have kind of, we've seen some names kind of fall off of that hot board, but the two names that are still up at the top of it are Scott Drew, who, by the way, had two potential lottery picks in this upcoming NBA draft, along with some veterans who are really, really good this year. They were a top 10 team for most of the season. So if you don't think he can build a roster at Kentucky, then I'm not sure what you've been watching throughout the course of his career, a recent national champion as well there at Baylor. He's been able to find that mix of transfer portal and recruiting cycle. The other one, Billy Donovan, who until last night was the most recent coach

to go back-to-back in the national championship game. So, yeah, I'm not sure if you think that Kentucky is just going to fade away, that whichever coach takes over is not going to be able to get things going there. I'm not sure what you've seen from any of these coaches that have been named that would suggest that, but I sure have not gotten that impression from anyone who might take over the Kentucky job well you know who it's not going to be it's not going to be Jay Wright because he got on the broadcast before the game and said I'm happy doing what I'm doing I'm good and I that one was an easy one to figure out because Jay Wright didn't want to coach at

Villanova anymore. He was tired of the, the way recruiting had gotten. He didn't like the NIL piece of it. He didn't like managing all that stuff. Well, Kentucky that's ratcheted up 10 times over what it is at Villanova. So you knew that wasn't going to be his cup of tea. The other one, and I don't think this was particularly surprising either, given what he just signed, is Nate Oates at Alabama, who put out a statement on Monday night that was very clear. He said, I am fully committed to this team and this university. We have already accomplished some great things here, and there's nothing I want more than for the University of Alabama to win its first national championship in men's basketball. Despite any rumors to the contrary, rest assured that I will continue that pursuit as your head coach, Roll Tide. So Nate Oates has an $18 million buyout that just went up because he just redid his deal.

And the folks who cover Alabama put out the signature page yesterday of that contractor. I know there were some folks saying, oh, it's not quite done. It's not signed. No, it's been signed by Nate Oates and the president and the AD and the board of trustees. It's done. So he has an $18 million buyout, which he was completely cool with taking because I think he likes it at Alabama. Yeah, this is the new thing in college sports, apparently. Fans announcing that a coach has not signed his extension.

And I don't really know what that really means because unless you're one of the big-time boosters, that really doesn't change anything. If you're going after a guy with a $12 million buyout, why wouldn't you go after a guy with an $18 million buyout? But regardless, yeah, the Oates situation, we've talked off the show and on the show, I think about how comfortable he is at Alabama,

how much he enjoys being the coach of that program, what he has kind of built, similar to what we're seeing from Bruce Pearl as well. Just a comfortability there, a guy who has some pride in being the coach who brought this school to this level. And if you're Nate Oates and you look over at Kentucky, of course, it's the Kentucky job. It's going to draw your interest.

You're going to take a look at it. At least when you hear your name connected to it, it's a sense of pride. But you've got resources at Alabama. You've got people willing to put in that money to the NIL program. You just got your big extension. And so if you're Nate Oates and you're comfortable there, your family enjoys it there, you've had success over Kentucky in recent years.

Alabama has had more SEC tournament success, more SEC regular season success, and more NCAA tournament success now than Kentucky over the last few seasons. So if you're Nate Oates, you've got a good thing going, and there's really no reason that you have to make that jump. So he decides that he wants to stick around. He gets some commitment from donors, I'm sure. Greg Byrne, the AD, threw out the NIL pitch immediately.

Within 10 minutes of Nate Oates making that statement, Greg Byrne tweeted out, hey, here's how you donate to Yay Alabama, which is their collective. That's how it works. There's some transfers that I've heard they're already looking to throw that money at. It'll be fun to watch over these next couple of weeks. The Jay Wright thing, though, I do just want to real quick get your opinion on. How many times does he have to say in no uncertain terms that he will never coach college basketball again before we believe him? Because it seems like he comes up for every job and yet every time he's in front of a microphone, even if he's not asked about it, he is making it very clear that he has no interest in this profession. Yeah. So he's Bob Stoops. That's what he is. Bob Stoops is the name that comes up for everything

because Bob actually retired from Oklahoma at a younger age than Jay when he retired from Villanova. Jay was 60 when he retired. Bob was 56 when he retired at Oklahoma. But Bob Stoops' name came up. When Florida state hired Mike Norvell, there were so many Florida state fans convinced that Bob Stoops was coming. And I remember talking to some of their beat writers at the time. I was on a podcast with some of them and like, guys, Bob Stoops is never coming. Like he's not coaching in college football again. He hates recruiting right now. he has no desire to recruit and it's only going to get harder so i don't know where you're getting this information from he's not

gonna do it and they're like but but but but and i know there's no buts like he's selling tequila he's happy and jay wright same thing like he's amazing on those broadcasts he's incredible on television which we knew we always knew he would be even when he was coaching but he's so good at that the pressure's off why not coast into because I'm sure look Jay Wright obviously a high achiever type a type person but everybody gets a little burned out at some point. This allows you to stay in the game, keep a foot in the game, make some cash, but the pressure's not there at all.

Yeah, and you know what? If he gets tired of being on the sideline, he wants to get back in the game, the NBA is right there. And any team that has an opening will hire him. And I guarantee you that a team that is in playoff contention would give him a chance to walk in there and take a shot for a couple of seasons to get an NBA title. So I don't think he will ever return to college basketball. He has made it clear the reasons why, and those reasons are not changing with NIL, the transfer portal, just the grind of

the schedule that these coaches go through. I think we can put the Jay Wright rumors to bed no matter what opening we're talking about here in college basketball. From this point forward, I'm not going to bring him up. I'm sure other people will, though. He'll be on every list, every single one rod in the chat says billy donovan is not coming back to today's college basketball actually i think today's college basketball is probably more preferable to him than the version he left because the version he left was the old sneaker companies you know basically directing recruits everywhere this

version is a little bit different this version is probably much more similar to what he's used to in the nba now you've got to be your own gm so he would have to be the like when he was at oklahoma say oklahoma city like he'd have to be the sam prestey but i think that would be more amenable to him than the version he left that said we don't know if he wants to come back. I think the Bulls have just not been able to cultivate a superstar while he's been there. So we'll see how the people in Chicago feel and what he wants to do.

But that's really more of a personal choice, I think, for him. And until we hear from him, they've got a game on Tuesday. So we may hear him say, you know what? I'm good. I'm planning on staying in the NBA for a long time. We'll see. Yeah. I think that that Billy Donovan one, it is interesting. You talked about how much better he fits in this era than the last. I think back when you'd say that to Dan Hurley's comments about how he can coach them harder because there's this accountability aspect to the NIL and transfer portal era. So, uh, I think if Billy Donovan could find that, that happy medium, I think he'd, he'd probably be happy in

the college ranks again. Uh, but like you said, you gotta be the CEO. You can hire people to help you with all that stuff, but you've got to be the one making those kind of GM type decisions. It's a lot on your plate and it's a grind. So it is the Kentucky job though. It's Billy Donovan, Kentucky. He could kick them out of the gym and tell them to come back four hours later, which was one of his patented moves back in the day at Florida. I don't think you can do that with the Chicago Bulls, but you can definitely, if the practice vibes aren't right, throw them out of the gym and bring them back in four hours.

So this is, this is going to be an interesting situation. I I'm with you. I think Scott Drew makes the most sense. I still, I think Bruce Pearl was born for the job, but as we're talking about with Nate Oates, Nate Oates can let kaylin deborah

handle all the pressure yes but alabama's gonna give natoats exactly the same things that the big-time college basketball programs have he'll have all the same resources he'll get paid the same so why deal with that it really is the the kind of reverse mirror on mark stoops and whoever gets hired at kentucky mark stoops has the paycheck and all of the resources that all these other football programs have and none of the expectations and yet he still almost took the texas a&m job if their regions hadn revolted, he would have been Texas A&M's coach. But you can do that. At Alabama in basketball, actually any SEC school that is a football school, there's so much money now in the SEC that they can't help but pass along a good amount to basketball, which by the way, men's basketball is profitable at most of the SEC schools.

So they're going to give you everything you need at Alabama, at Auburn if you're Bruce Pearl. So you don't necessarily have to jump to Kentucky to have a capability to compete. Yeah, the last step for Alabama is to get that new arena compete yeah the last step the last step for uh for alabama is to get that new arena get the new arena colman is a barn hearing about since i was in high school and then you're good yeah colman coliseum is a barn like absolute barn now i will say pretty cool when they're good yeah Pretty good environment when they're good.

The only arena in the SEC that, well, there's two. The two arenas in the SEC that nobody seems to be able to figure out how to make them good and even putting really good players in them hasn't worked over the years. Stegman Coliseum in Athens, the Maravich Assembly Center at LSU. Now, I would argue that Kim Mulkey's figured out how to make the PMAC hop. But even when LSU's had great teams, it's not been the greatest environment. See, I can't believe you didn't throw Vanderbilt in there.

I love Vanderbilt. I love Memorial Gym. Memorial Magic's the coolest thing ever when they're going. I just can't stand the sight line. The bench on the baseline i oh no i don't want that to ever change i never ever change tight shot they they expand it out and it just it bothers me hey i can't well they're letting the coaches come down the sideline now at memorial because they had to like there was no other choice but now how do you make a substitute

you gotta run all the way back down the other way to make your substitutions i listen i call that a home court advantage you call that weird i call that a home court advantage so no do not change memorial gym protect memorial gym at all costs but yeah figure out how to make stegman coliseum rock yeah because like georgia should figure out how to be good at basketball. There's no excuse to be bad at basketball. But, yeah,

the Kentucky thing, Kentucky's going to hire someone pretty good. Before I let you go, let's talk about Cal at Arkansas. He comes in. We've seen the Will Smith

empty living room gif. We've seen it 100 million times in the last 24 hours. There are no players on the roster. One, how many of Kentucky's current signees do you think, or Kentucky's current players on the roster do you think will follow Cal to Arkansas? Yeah, there will be a few. There's some of those that have that deep connection for sure. But I think the interesting thing to follow with this, this Kentucky roster is they committed to the Kentucky brand as well as Cal. So depending

on what coach does come in there, how many of them decide that they want to stick with the new coach that they want to be part of the new Kentucky brand. They're probably going to be one and done's anyways. So might as well be with that guy versus, uh, I know that they've got one Kentucky native there. I feel like he's probably the most likely to stay at Kentucky and Travis Perry, but I think beyond that, he will get a couple of them to come with him. I'm not going to throw around names because obviously I haven't gotten time to go through which ones that is. But you've also got in this new era, they're going to reopen their recruitment. And unless Cal has already sealed the deal that that relationship is there and they want to follow no matter what, Boogie Fland had plenty of other suitors in his recruitment.

You know, Jaden Quisens, same way. He's got a lot of teams that'll show interest if he decides to open things back up. Carter Knox is a guy that I think a lot of people believe will follow Calipari to Arkansas, but I wouldn't be surprised if a couple coaches called him up just to see what his interest is before he does that. Santo Cyril, another guy who would draw some interest. And then

you've got the interesting one to me. You've got DJ Wagner. There's the relationship with the Wagner family, with Calipari. He's still on that Kentucky roster as of now. We'll see what he decides to do. He's also got an NBA draft decision to make through all of this. And then Billy Richmond Jr., who is the son of a former John Calipari player at Memphis, but they are local to this Memphis community. The family's still here, runs a chicken wing business in town. So does he come home, for penny hardaway or does he follow cal to arkansas does he pave his own path at kentucky he's got a lot of options as well so

you live in memphis james i i don't people who have never lived in tennessee i'm not sure understand how the geography of it goes it's a very long parallelogram like memphis is a six hour drive from knoxville and and a seven and a half hour drive from the far corner of the state and tri-cities it the joke is memphis is actually the capital of arkansas and mississippi like so it's like somebody from memphis going to arkansas is not an unusual thing no it's it's really not. We've seen it in the past. Arkansas has a pretty good recruiting hold in this area. And yeah, there is kind of a unique flair here in Memphis. It's not really part of the rest of Tennessee. It's not like these kids in town grow up dreaming of going to Tennessee. There's exceptions. There are ones who their family grew up there or they just fell in love with it, especially around my age with that team

that was number one in the country under Bruce Pearl. There's situations like that all over the country, but it's not just a pipeline like a kid in Kentucky grows up wanting to be a wildcat. It's not that same kind of thing over here on this side of the state, like you said. And so, yeah, you've got Arkansas, you've got Ole Miss, and then you've got the University of Memphis, which has plenty of basketball history, especially with the local kids wanting to kind of submit their name

as kind of a staple in this community. All right. Well, we're going to watch what happens. We should get official word on Cal today. We'll see how his hog calling goes. We'll rate his hog calling technique. James,

thank you so much. I'm sure we'll have you back again in the next few days to, to break down. Everything has happened. Maybe after Kentucky makes a hire, we'll have you back and we'll break that down too. But thank you so much for all your help throughout the basketball postseason. And now get in that transfer portal.

Let's go. Looking forward to it. James Fletcher III. What a basketball season. That was a fun one. That was a lot of fun, but we we've got to switch our gears back toward football because we got tons of spring games this week. We're talking a little Georgia tomorrow because the Bulldogs have their spring game and we'll see how many transfer additions that they've added

that can make an impact right away. I was reading on, on dogs HQ, our, our site on, on three about Colby young receiver who transferred from Miami, you know, Carson Beck's got some new targets and obviously needs to break in some new targets because Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkie headed off to the NFL. We had the Clemson spring game last week. And, you know, I don't know that, that you learned a ton from the Clemson, the Clemson spring game, the two scholarship quarterback, Kate Klubnick and Chris Vazina, they were fine, but it wasn't particularly knocked your socks off. But again, it's a spring game. They're, they're not going to try to wow you. But it's interesting. We had Roddy Jones on last week talking about Clemson and I found

something he said very interesting. And then coincidentally, the same day we recorded that when Dabo Sweeney had a press conference and kind of elaborated, he got asked a question about it and elaborated on it. And I think it's an interesting discussion to have regarding Clemson and it kind of fits into the discussion we were having about John Calipari these past few weeks so let me play what Roddy said when he was on the show last week and then I'll play you what Dabo said so here's Roddy and the thing that alarms me about Clemson now Andy is is they've started to dip into it in terms of recruiting guys particularly in the offensive line and I've, they haven't been good at it. So the speed gating of the transfer portal,

Clemson hasn't adjusted to. They went after reportedly like five offensive linemen. None of them chose Clemson. It's developmental relationship type recruiting that they're very good at, and they're very good at it at the high school level. But it feels like the speed gating of the portal, they haven't quite adjusted.

So that's Roddy Jones from the ACC Network and understands the landscape in that conference better than almost anybody. And he's explaining why you haven't seen Clemson really embrace the transfer portal or embrace it at all. They've tried to use it a little bit, as he mentioned, but not in the ways, obviously not as drastically as Florida State and not in the ways that some other schools have used it to kind of just grab every once in a while, somebody who can plug and play and be a starter right away. That's what Georgia does. That's what Alabama has done. That's what Michigan did really well the last two years.

Dabo Sweeney got asked about his recruiting style. And this is a question about his high school recruiting. But when you listen to him talk about it and explain it, you can kind of extrapolate and figure out why it's been so hard for him to embrace the transfer portal. So here's what Dos said last week. I mean, I think, I just don't, I mean, I just think we're, we know what we're looking for. You know, we're not all things to all people.

I think we've offered 55 or 56 kids so far in this class of 25. You know, our hit rate's really high. You know, if we offer a kid, there's a good chance, you know, we might get them. And, you know, I don't know. I've just always, I've just always wanted our offer to mean something. You know, I've never really wanted to water our brand down and, you know, offer kids that they're not even interested, you know, and that's part of it. But I just think evaluation is key. Retention is key. Development is key.

And, you know, you win with people. And that's how we've won here. You know, we've won with consistency and we've how we've won here. You know, we've won with consistency, and we've won with those areas, evaluation, retention, development. And so we usually are done by August every year. We don't usually have maybe there's a random spot here or there or somebody leaves that we didn't anticipate or know about yet or a junior goes pro, you know, whatever.

And you kind of address that but you know it's it's it's just as our as we've had success and as our brand has grown and we've got kids that that are interested from all kind of different places all over you know i want our offer to mean something you you know. And that's why we don't offer freshmen and sophomores. You know, it's a developmental game. There's a lot of great players that have been here at Clemson that would have never gotten an offer as a 10th grader, you know, because they weren't good enough, you know,

and wouldn't have gotten many offers from many places. But especially kids that are 14 to 18 and the, the transformation and the development happens there. Um, so we just always wanted to be slow and right and fast and wrong. And, you know, we've made some mistakes in the past. Um, like anybody, uh, you're never, never going to bat a thousand, but, um, you know, we just think the biggest thing is, is we know, we know the fit here and, you know, we, we know what we think is a standard at each position and what we're looking for criteria.

And, you know, we, we, again, our, our hit rate is pretty good. So that makes sense. When you listen to how Dabo talks about how they have built their recruiting apparatus over the years, the offer has to mean something. Other schools will offer 200 players, 250 players in a cycle. And they don't really mean that you can come and have a scholarship there. They mean we're quote unquote offering you and we want you to come to camp. And then if we see you at camp and decide that you're good enough, then we might actually give you the real offer. Clemson doesn't work that way. When you get offered by Clemson, it is a real

offer. It is a scholarship. You can come and be one of their 85 scholarship players if you accept. That is very different than a lot of schools. The problem is in the transfer portal era, and I've talked to personnel people, to coaches, to players who've transferred, the way it really works is the guy goes into the portal, and usually the personnel people already know two, three days before the guy goes into the portal

that he's going in the portal. You offer immediately. The way those schools do it, the ones that use the transfer portal a lot, they offer immediately. That doesn't necessarily mean they want to take them, but they want to get in the door. That gets their foot in the door. And then, as Roddy said, speed dating in transfer portal, that's exactly what it is. It is speed dating. And so you only have maybe a couple of days. Now you can have an in-home visit. I talked to an assistant coach at one school a few weeks ago who said, you know, I like to go see them in person to get an idea of who they are because I don't feel comfortable just taking somebody's sight unseen. But like Dabo wants you to be at camp multiple years. Like he wants you to come to camp as a 10th grader and as 11th grader. And they have a real kind of robust idea.

They've gotten to know your family. It just doesn't work that way in the transfer portal. It's so much faster. And the offer doesn't work that way in the transfer portal. It's so much faster and the offer doesn't mean as much. And so if you're Dabo, you have to decide, do I abandon this philosophy that has worked really well for me over the years? Because it's probably not going to work in the future, at least in this part of recruiting, the transfer report part of it? Or do you keep it up and hope that somehow things will be different for you this year? I don't suspect they will. Or next year or the year after that, if they don't start embracing roster building the way you build a roster now. But at least you've gotten to hear from him and

you can kind of empathize with where he is on that. I realize a lot of people just yell at Dabo all the time and I've been guilty of it too. But what they had was pretty special. And they figured out a way to get players who really wanted to be there, who they could then develop. It just doesn't work that way anymore. And unfortunately, you've got to figure out, do I scrap this system that I've spent years building that I'm really proud of to try to do something else? Or do I go down with the ship? And that's where they're at right now. And it's going to be interesting to watch going forward. Because if Clemson is not an ACC title contender this year, I think you have to make changes.

You have to make fundamental changes. Not coaching changes, but they ain't firing Dabo. We talk about buyouts, manageable buyouts. Clemson ain't firing Dabo. But you may have a situation where either he gets fed up with it and decides he doesn't want to do it anymore, or he has to decide, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to recruit differently. But at least you've gotten to hear him explain why. Because it's easier to understand why the reluctance to do this.

And I do think if he wants to change, he can. He can call Brent Venables up, who obviously worked in that Clemson system and is using pieces of that at Oklahoma. Like Oklahoma, if you're a high school recruit and you're committed and you take another visit, you're not in the class anymore. You've got to recommit and go through it all again. That's taken straight from the Clemson manual. But Oklahoma's also getting transfers because Oklahoma had to get transfers. They had no other choice. They had to change the roster. They were moving to get transfers. They had no other choice. They had to change the roster.

They were moving to the SEC. The Lincoln Riley administration did not recruit a lot of really good linemen. They had to do something different. So Brent Venables had to adapt. I think Dabo could if he wants to. But again, it's very hard when you've built something that to you is very special and now you've got to change it so that's the part where it dovetails into john calipari john calipari went to kentucky at the dawn of the one and done era it was a few years after the nba had imposed

its age limit and figured out how to recruit really good young players, elite talent, and just try to overwhelm you with elite talent every year, which for a lot of years worked because you didn't have as many good old players in college basketball, you didn't have the transfer portal where people could move very efficiently to places where they can maximize their talents. But the world has changed. And now you can grab somebody out of the portal and have those good old guards that we talked about, that you can then pair with a one and

done type guard like Stefan Castle is at UConn. And you can pair with an NBA post player like Donovan Klingin at UConn. And all of a sudden you have a team that is much tougher to beat than a bunch of freshmen who, while talented, may not play as well together, may not be as tough defensively. Those are all things that Cal has to figure out as he moves to Arkansas. I wrote a column saying this is very similar to the Texas A&M Jimbo Fisher move when he left Florida State to go to Texas A&M. Basically, he was resetting the clock and leaving a place where he was about to get questioned to go to a place where he was about to get worshiped. So Cal will get worshiped at Arkansas initially. And then

if that doesn't work, it's going to end the same way the Texas A&M Jimbo Fisher marriage ended. Like if Cal can't get out of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, it doesn't matter how many elite players he brought in. It'll be similar to Jimbo bringing in a number one class in 2022 and going five and seven. Doesn't matter. And like the first round of the NCAA tournament, first round exit, or even a first weekend exit, if you're a program that aspires to championships, it's essentially like going six and six or seven and five

and making a lower tier bowl game. That's what that is. And that's what Jimbo Fisher was doing. That's what Cal's been doing for the last five seasons at Kentucky. So he has to change. He has to figure out how do I adjust my recruiting? And again, we've talked about that Will Smith empty living room gif. He has a blank canvas now at Arkansas. So we'll see what he does with it. If he's willing to adapt, listen, he's always going to get good talent. There aren't many people who evaluate talent better than Cal. If he's willing to adapt, he's going to win big.

If he wants to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result, just because now he's got a group that's not going to question him about it, at least for the first couple of years. He's just going to get the same results he was getting at Kentucky, and that's not good enough. Arkansas has been to the Elite Eight twice since Cal has gotten out of the first weekend. They have big expectations there. They have a big arena. They fill it. They care deeply about college basketball. It's not Kentucky, but it's not that far off. So he's going to have to figure things out and win pretty quickly,

or it'll all go the same direction. One more thing before we go. If you're not subscribed to the On3Recruits channel, first of all, do that. And second of all, you got to start watching the five-star flex. So that's our guy, Philip Dukes. That's his show. He has some of the best players in the country coming on that show, the biggest recruits. And he had a big, big, big guest this week. Jakeem Stewart. This man's nickname is Thanos. He's a 6'5", 270 pound defensive end from Reserve Louisiana. He's the number one prospect in the class of 2026. And I feel so old saying that, but here's the deal. That is one cycle away.

But at the end of his interview with philip dukes thanos dropped a little nugget that that is very very intriguing so if you're a fan of lsu miami usc alabama these are all schools that are recruiting thanos and and hoping to get his signature well that signature may come earlier than expected. Last question. You got any thoughts about reclassifying? Yeah, I was thinking about it. I sat down with Coach Clyde, and I thought about it. He told me we're going to come back in the summer.

He just wanted me to stay focused for the spring right now. But I'm thinking about reclassifying in 2025. I don't want to really announce it until I really thought about it, you know, talk to my family about it, but I feel like it's going to be a big move, you know, if I really do it, you know, but just being as a defensive lineman,

I think it's a smart decision, but I think it's not a smart decision at the same time because I've got to develop my body into really banging in the trenches 24-8 with them big, big offensive linemen. There's a lot to think about. So it doesn't sound like a decision has been made, but it sounds like something he is seriously considering.

And we're seeing a lot of the reclassification now because you can get a lot of classes taken care of at the high school level pretty quickly. Almost everybody has virtual school now, so you can get your credits and you can get into college and start that clock toward the NFL, where remember, you got to be three years out of your high school graduation before you can go into the NFL. And also you start the clock of NIL money in college. So it makes sense if you are physically ready to do it.

And that's the, that's the thing you got to make sure, especially as, as Jakeem Stewart mentioned, as a guy who plays on the line of scrimmage, it's a little bit different when you got to go in there and play against some 22, 23 year old dudes. Those are grown men. And it is a very different situation when you are 17, 18 years old. So we'll see what he decides, but keep an eye on that one because he's the number one recruit in the class of 2026. He would be very high in the class of 2025 rankings as well. Question is, which class will he be in?

We got to start getting ready for all this stuff. Recruiting is about to ramp up in a big, big way for college football because the high school players, the elite ones, they're going to start committing in droves here in about a month and a half. But even sooner than that, the spring transfer portal window is opening on Monday. So we will be expecting some NACOS-ifications from our man, Pete NACOS. There's going to be some action. I don't know if it'll be as heavy as the December one. And I don't know that it's going to, but I do think it's going to be more than just, I didn't win a job in spring practice, so I'm going to try to find somewhere else. I think there's more to it than that. You're going to see some guys that have jobs that maybe want to go to a different school and

that job may get a little bit better. It may be a little more lucrative, or it may be that they feel like they showcase their talents more, but you're going to see some of that. That starts Monday. So strap in, get ready. We got about a billion spring games on Saturday. Tomorrow, we are talking Georgia with Jake Rowe. It'll be a lot of fun. And I wait. No off season. None.