The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Gottlieb - All Ball - part 1 of 2 - with special Guest Jay Bilas

Episode Date: September 1, 2018

Subscribe here to the All Ball with Doug Gottlieb Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/all-ball-with-doug-gottlieb/id1358843497?mt=2. All Ball with Doug Gottlieb is part of the Colin Cowherd Podcast Network. All Ball is an unfiltered podcast covering the biggest stories in college basketball and the NBA. Join Doug as he brings his unique perspective as a TV analyst and radio host. In this first of two episodes, Doug talks with Jay Bilas about some of the latest rule changes in the NBA, how his career began, meeting Coach K and what it was like playing in Europe. Follow Doug on twitter at @GottliebShow and go to theherdnow.com to find the latest content. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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sports. I'm Michelle McPhee, and I've been unraveling the strangest criminal alliance I've ever reported on, a Mormon polygamist and an Armenian businessman. Multimillion dollar house, Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, a billion dollar fraud. But how long can this alliance last. Tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, welcome into the All Ball Podcast. I'm your host, Doug Gottlie. Thanks so much for downloading, and I'm really excited for this week's pod. My guest is Jay Billis, lead college basketball analyst for ESPN, a former colleague of mine, and someone I consider a friend. And it's interesting

on how Twitter and sometimes debate segments on TV shows leave you arguing both sides. We'll get into some amateurism discussion, but I also think that Jay's kind of a fascinating guy. It's interesting to me. I think it'd be interesting to you. As someone who, like me, grew up in Southern California, he went to Duke, starred there, and ended up being drafted in the NBA, played overseas, and then worked his way into being, arguably the top broadcaster in the entire sport. In the meantime, he was also a grad assistant at Duke,

and of course has very close ties to the Duke program. He called NCAA tournament games. He's done just about everything, including working with and then kind of usurping the great Hall of Famer Dick Vital. So Jay Billis will be our guest, and we will get into some amateur or some talk, but I don't think that's the only thing that's pertinent when listening to Jay Billis' story because you've heard his side on amateurism.

You've heard mine. But I think we'll have a thoughtful and engaging discussion. A couple of other things you need to know about the NBA and about college basketball. They have changed some of the rules in the NBA, for example, or they appear to be going to change some of the rules in the NBA with the 14-second reset on offensive rebounds. I love that. I love it. As some of you know, I coached overseas.

last summer in Israel at the Maccabi games. And I quickly learned just how different the game is based upon the rules and based upon the shot clock. Now, I knew about the 14 second reset, so it was something we'd actually practice for. And one of the things I think it does is it doesn't allow you to bring it out, get a reset, get another set. And so it kind of makes the offense more attentive to getting a quick shot off the rebound. And it also makes the defense, not just try and defend against the second shot, but also

contest three point shots on kickouts. My basic philosophy when I was coaching was, and would always be even if you didn't have the 14 second reset, is you get an offensive rebound. And if you have a putback layup, fine. If not, we want a space and look to get a quick three, get a quick rhythm three. A couple reasons. One, obviously the defense lets its guard down as everybody looks at the basketball and runs towards the balls like a moth to a light. And so a lot of times you're shooting.

shooters are open. Secondly, shooters themselves, everyone shoots better when the ball is coming from inside out, much like your mom or your dad or your high school coach or your manager feeding you jump shots. You shoot a higher percentage when the ball is coming inside out. And then what I found is if you make it about, hey, let's get a dagger three, which is something that I know others have done it. I'm going to credit Davidson. They were the first I know of to really use it in the NCAA tournament. Of course, Duke borrowed it when they won a national championship in 2010. It was something that they changed. changed. Really, really remarkable on how now the Golden State Warriors really use that philosophy.

And you'll watch teams when they're playing Golden State to give up an offensive rebound of Draymond Green or Andre Aguadala. And you'll see teams just run right to the shooters and not even concern themselves, sometimes with layups giving up on offensive boards. So it changes the way you coach offense. It changes the way you coach defense. It makes you much more attentive, not just to the boards, but to the open three-point shooters. And look, you get more shots up. You have more energy. It gets exciting as guys run to run. rebound and kick out look to shoot threes and it almost becomes a team three point shot. You can almost track it like an offensive rebound is a team three point shot because oftentimes

it takes one shot. It takes an offensive rebounder, which means, you know, one person showing great effort. Oftentimes the kick out leads to even more moths running to lights. And then, you know, an extra pass or two or three extra passes and then you ultimately get a three. Sometimes if all five players will touch the basketball, even though the idea is get an offensive rebound, you don't have a putback. you kick it out for an open jump shot.

So I'm all for that rule change. I think it's a good one. The other one I'd like to see changed, I love international basketball that you can touch a basketball when it's on the cylinder. Now, many people don't understand this rule if they're just a fan. And I know if you're listening to this show, you're probably a hardcore basketball fan or player or coach or whatever. But if you're not, just so you know, like normal rules of goaltending ball on the way down

is still a goal tend. The difference is once it hits, hits the cylinder, that's a live ball. And again, that makes guys go after the boards, go after the ball when it's on the rim. And on a second shot, remember a second shot in a free throw, the ball's rattling around the rim, you can knock it off. On the other hand, you can also knock it in. And if defensively, you try and knock it off and it goes in, the offensive team gets two points instead of just one point. So there is a risk or reward to it, even though I think common logic would be it would cut down the percentage. You can't hit the ball through the inside of the rim, right? You can't

go up through the net. So the normal rules of goaltending apply with the exception of the cylinder rule. I'd like to see that rule changed. I just would. I think that would, again, make it, you know, I don't know if it'd bring back the big guy, but to make the big guy more part of college basketball, more part of the NBA, and I think that's a way to do so. So kudos did the NBA. I'm all for college basketball. Also not resetting the shot clock all the way on an offensive rebound. I think that'd be a great

idea, a great rule change as well. All right, let's welcome him in. He's the lead college basketball analyst for ESPN. Of course, he's called NCAA games going back to when he worked also with CBS and Duke alum as not only as an undergrad, but also has a law degree. He's the one. He's the only. He's Jay Billis. He joins us here on the All Ball podcast.

How do you want to be introduced? Like outside of, like, what's the, what's the way which when you walk into a restaurant and a friend introduce you to another friend, hey this is Jay, I mean, because you do have a lot of stuff to your resume. Boy, that's a good question, Doug. I hadn't really thought about that. I know when people say, hey, you know, what's your title? I always say just, you know, ESPN or ESPN basketball analyst. You don't need a whole resume deal.

But that's what I see myself as now, just as a basketball broadcaster, not as a broadcaster, but specifically around basketball. So I'd probably say ESPN, I think they, they, call us basketball trading stocks or something. I don't know when that happened. It used to be we're a color analyst. But yeah, I'd probably say ESPN basketball analyst. Okay.

There's a lot to basketball I'd like to get to, and there's some that believe you should be the commissioner of all things basketball with the NCAA. I want to get to that. But what about the college game itself? Do you like the game, when you call games, when you watch games, when you study games, do you like watching college basketball as much now

as you did when you started in the biz. I do. I think the game is in a really good place right now. I think for a period of years, maybe four or five years ago and then for maybe a 10-year period, and I'm probably just guessing at that. I thought it had devolved into a clutch-and-grab game

where it became overly physical, and the officials were not calling the game the way it had been called, maybe when you played, or certainly when I played, And I think it had scoring was going down. I think that was the reason it wasn't that defenses were getting that much better is that they were getting away with more.

And the coaches were way more creative and, as you know, better than I do, sort of, you know, fouling with your chest and bumping cutters and grabbing guys coming off the screens and disrupting timing that were clear fouls that just weren't being called. So we've done a better job the last two or three years, I'd say, and cleaning that up. And I think the game's gotten better. I heard a little bit of what you were talking about before, and I agree with you a thousand percent,

is that whether we go to feeble rules or whatever, there are so many things that we can do to enhance the game. And expect my colleagues, it may be times saying, look, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But there's a part of me that says, you know, nobody ever says if it ain't broke, don't improve it, or if it ain't broke, don't maintain it. And there are certain things where the game evolves that we need to change. and I think an example of how they can adapt to the way coaches change with the way they're doing things, the way players change, changed the way they're doing things in order to stay ahead and the game,

you know, staying, you know, it's gotten fast basketball, as you know, it was a slowest game. And we've gotten that down to 30. The world didn't spin off its axis. Everything was fine. If we went to 24, like when these teams go overseas and play, they do great. It would be just fine.

And so I think we need to try to stay current as best we can. It doesn't mean we have to change everything and be like the NBA. I'm not suggesting that. But we can certainly be more proactive in keeping up with the way the game is being played. You know, it's interesting. I've often thought that the NBA should go to the old college-style free throws and stick with me on the logic here. So every rule that the NBA has is because we would both agree,

those are the 450 best players in the entire world, right? So the three-point line is further. The lane is wider, although I know Feeba has adopted that lane. You only get eight seconds to get it across the court. You get 24 seconds on the shot clock. They're obviously adapting the 14 seconds in the offensive board. In other words, every rule is meant for the highest level of competition. And yet they only have two shot free throws once you get into the bonus.

I think we really want to keep, as you said, and I think it's a great way of looking at it, which I hadn't thought of, which is like, hey, just because you like college basketball, Well, doesn't mean you can't change some of it. Think about the changes that many of them have worked out for the better, including cutting down the clutching and the grabbing. But why not go to the one-in-one in the NBA? You know, listen, you don't have to go with five, but if they're truly the best players,

why not put them under as much or more pressure as we see college players under? Well, that's a fair point. I mean, but sometimes I look at it from the standpoint of, you know, like, look, I don't know every game out there, but basketball is the only game I know of where you can score with no defense. And so when you go to the free throw line, oftentimes when you foul someone,

if it's a common foul or fouling in the active shooting, you know, you're not only taking, sometimes you're taking away, well, especially in the common foul, you're taking away your opponent's opportunity to hit a three. And so they're, you know, it's really free throws are, so I'm okay with sort of the international rule, five fouls per quarter, and then you're on the fifth foul, you have two shots.

I'm not sure that when you foul, it should be on the offense. You know, there should be a sanction for the defense for fouling. That makes sense. I mean, you know, I see both sides of it, and I'm okay with that. If we think the one-in-one is an integral part of college basketball, I'm cool with it. And if we want to argue for that for the NBA, that's fine, too. But my thing sometimes winds up, wait a minute now. You know, if you foul and you're taking away my opportunity,

to get a three. I've always felt like, and this is getting way off of what you're asking, and I apologize. No, listen, it's a pod, yeah, you can do whatever you want. Yeah, I guess we've got more time. But so when you, when there's a lane violation, and they give, they give the non-violating team, the, if they're shooting, I don't want another free throw, I want the ball. Like, you know, because if they violated and on a miss free throw, if you make it, you know, it counts, but if you miss it,

they took away your opportunity to get rebound, which could lead. So if there's a violation, the non-violating team should get the ball. You know, that's interesting. And another free throw. And I've always felt like that should be part of the deal. And I don't care unless there's a foul, if there's any violation on the lane, if the shot goes in, who cares?

The shot should count. If you miss it, then the non-violating team should get the ball. and I've always, I felt that way even when I was a player, when I played pro ball overseas, I thought the fee cents to me, then the college rules. It doesn't mean they were all better. And we've been really,

for some reason in college, and I've sat on some of these committees. I'm on the NCAA's competition committee. Several years ago as an LLC, and the NCAA brought it in house, and the people on the committee couldn't be better people. I mean, they're all well, but there is this kind of,

as we're this separate and distinct thing, and people like, I kind of sit there sometimes, and I respect the opinion. I just don't agree with that. I'm kind of thing. I don't think people sit at home going, wait a minute, that rules like the NBA. That's really offensive to me. That's the second shot clock and all this other stuff that NBA's done in the past.

Like, look, I'm fine with if somebody doesn't want the NBA rule of in the last two minutes, you know, if you get a rebound call time out, you can move it to half court. I get that if college doesn't want that, that's fine. But why we fight court in the one argument, and the one argument, you know, that I hear more often, Doug, on the quarters saying, be like the NBA. And they have quarters in high school. They have quarters in women's basketball. You know, we're the only game in the world that doesn't have quarters.

Like, what do we know that the rest of the world, you know, that we need to clue in the rest of the world and how dumb they are? We can't really justify why we have half. It's just like our tradition. And we can't really say, well, this is why I like it. It doesn't make, you know, it kind of doesn't make any sense to me. No, listen. Jay, Jay, it is a little bit, a little bit of a college.

thing, which is, and this is one of the things I struggle with is, you know, I watch, and these are, there's some great coaches, and I mean this. This is not like me talking out of both sides of my mouth. Guys that I think are really, really good. And, you know, for example, a Tom Izzo, who I believe, you know, I'm a believer in the college system. I like guys going to college for a couple years and learning about who they are, but also learning the game and learning a system and playing for the team because you have the rest of your life to play for yourself. But I will say that, and this isn't just Izzo. Roy Williams, I watch

some of the stuff they do, and it's the exact same offense they ran when we played against Kansas in the late 90s and in the 2000, and I kind of think it's one of the things with college coaches, not all of them, but a lot of them, they've had a ton of success, so they why do we do it this way? Because this is

the way we've always done it, right? And there's a little bit of that with the haves, and I find that's the only disappointing part I'm one of the disappointing parts I find in college basketball was some of the coaches kind of fear this evolving basketball. Like you said, the international game. You watch some of the style of the NBA is much closer or it has evolved much closer.

Like the whole idea of ball and player movement, that's a European style that we adopted and a little bit of a college style that we've adopted. But I find that the same thing you're thinking of with halves instead of quarters, I find with offensive and defensive systems in that guys struggle to evolve with the game and some of these other younger coaches have been able to use some of the European stuff, some of the NBA subs to great success because they're going against colleges that still play three big guys, two big guys and three guards. You know, they still run traditional systems that they've run because that's what they know best.

Yeah, I agree with that. And there are some guys that have done it a certain way for all these years, and it's been extraordinarily successful. Like you mentioned Roy Williams at North Carolina running the same stuff at Kansas but it works, and it works at a really high level. And they play differently than almost secondary break. So absolutely I get that. And I'm okay with, like, I'm okay with the way the game is.

I just think there are certain ways we can push it forward. Like I think right before I came on, I heard you talking a little bit about, you know, sort of the idea that you had conveyed to me that the best players in the world, you know, the three-point line is further back. and I've argued in college that we need to push it back to at least the Fiba distance, but it's not because it makes the shot harder. That in my view and what I have seen sort of in my experience has been, and everybody's going to run their offense to that line.

And oftentimes I've heard coaches, and you may have heard exactly the same thing. We run in the same circles that in an NBA facility, our offense runs. I've argued for the three-point line in these, these because I think there should be more risk reward to the shot and the shot should be more difficult. It's because I think it improves and it makes it the better the spacing, it's easier to officiate and you know, the click when you know, you probably, you know, you're a fair clip younger than I am.

So you probably played with a three point line in high school, right? Yeah. Yeah, see, I didn't play in college. Wait, didn't you guys have the short? We never played with that. The three-point line came into college basketball the year after I graduated, and you wouldn't believe how congested things were back then. Everybody packed it in and made you prove it over the top because it was a two-point shot.

And so when people say, well, the depth of the mid-range shot, you know, there's no mid-range game in. Why would you take a mid-range shot now? Back then, that was a good shot. But it's not a good shot anymore. It's not a valuable shot. You still want to hit it. I don't know. I'm sure it's like bunting in baseball.

You still want to be able to do it, but you're not. And that's just sort of the way the game's changed. And I don't think the game's worse now than it used to be. I think it's way more exciting. I think the players are way more skilled now. Generally, they're better than they've ever been. Athletically, skill-wise, nutrition. It's totally better.

It doesn't mean that Michael Jordan wouldn't be the best player now, or Ralph Sampson wouldn't be the best. Maybe they would. Player now is way better than the... All right, let's work our way back in time. You grew up in Southern California in Rolling Hills. Were you always just a basketball player? Were you volleyball?

Are you football? I mean, obviously, you were a tremendous. Like, for people who don't remember you as a player, you were a very good athlete. So was it always just all-ball? Basketball? You know, I grew up in the, I was born in 1963 years, we're in the 70s. And so you played back then, you played the sport. And so my dad wouldn't let me play football.

His thing was you can play football when you get to high school. And he told me later on his thinking was that my dad thought football was a headbanger. I played basketball and baseball. And after my sophomore year, I played baseball until my sophomore year. And then even back then, coaches were pretty territorial. And so I had to choose. And so I basically quit. And I was six and had a better opportunity.

I gravitated toward basketball. That's pretty much all I did after. after my sophomore year in high school. All right. So, but your dad was a, he was a repairman, right? He wasn't, it's, it's really interesting. Our backgrounds are similar in Southern California are similar in that. I did actually play football growing up, but you did play the sport in season.

But they're dissimilar in that your dad wasn't a basketball guy. How did he, how, what was he like as a parent in terms of you as a growing athlete? Yeah, my dad, San Pedro, where I was born in Southern California near Long Beach, the Port of Los Angeles. And he worked when he was a kid. So he was a commercial fisherman when he was young. And then later on, after he got out of that, he went to technical school, and he got into TV sales and service and sold TVs out of there back when, you know,

like when I was a kid, TVs were furniture. You know, they had these big kind of all that stuff. And so when your TV went on the fritz, like my dad got called, and he went on a house call. And if he couldn't fix it right there, he took it with him, and back to the shop, and, you know, now your TV breaks, you throw it away. But back then, you know, you can make a significant amount of money fixing those things. He made all his money, really not on sales, but of new TVs.

But he did that, and then got out of it when I was, you know, just getting out of high school. But, you know, it was, I grew up in a very nice area. Roeel's a very nice area. It wasn't as sort of big money as it is now. It's big in the country now. but back then there were a lot of a lot of people like my family that were middle class but I didn't my

my dad never wanted me to work when I was a kid like I had to do stuff around let me get a job and my mom wanted me to let you know a kid my age and you know high school or my dad is really the only time I remember my parents kind of arguing having to get a job but I never I never worked in that regard I just worked at what I what he

he thought I was supposed to do which and I had to work for him during the summertime so especially when I was in college, I did construction work during the summer for him. Job I ever had before I, you know, I got to college and worked during the summertime, like in the broadcast industry or something like that. I never really had a real job until that. Okay, so let's, again, keep it with high school and growing up. Like, did you go to, do you go to Five Star?

Did you go? What were the camps back then? Because mine was, there was a camp at, was a camp in Santa Barbara, actually at Westmont College College College College. Snow Valley that I went to religiously, I think from the time I was like eight to like 14 or 15. And then there were superstar camp in Santa Barbara went to. And then the pumps got involved right around I was 13 or 14.

And that's when it was West Coast All-Star. And then obviously ABCD, which was kind of a breakoff of the old Nike Princeton ABCD camp. Did you go to basketball camp? Like what was your summer hoop like? Yeah. When I was growing up, I played on, they called the conference team. So rather than, like in Southern California, they didn't have school teams. So you didn't play for local teams.

So we played California. And I promise you, I played in Tustin and your gym and San Clementi. I played in every high school in Southern California at one point or another between fourth and eighth grade. And then when I got to high school, I never went to basketball camp as a kid. So when I got to high school and was, I got invited to, you mentioned, I got invited to it was called the Sports World Superstar Camp. plan. It was in Point Loma near San Diego, so it's south of where you and I grew up. And so that was my first experience at a recruiting camp. And I got invited to some camps in the east, but I didn't feel like, well, you know, I want to make my dad pay for me to get out there.

You know, I didn't understand how all that worked. So to me, the superstar ball camp I ever went to. I played a little bit of by Gary McKnight, who's now modern days at a hall of the end. So I played for Gary for a couple of years, a couple of summers. And then play, you know, so we would play in the BCI tournaments in Provo, Utah, and Las Vegas. And there weren't as many. So we played in Long Beach City College, stuff like that. And then I played, I played in, heck, I played in Gold Bark League, the American Roundball Corporation. And they played for New York.

And Washington, it started as slam a jam in Long Beach. I played in that. So I played a ton of basketball all around Southern California. But it wasn't quite as, I mean, it was organized. but it wasn't like now with the pump. Like, you know, it seemed like during the summer, I Plum Beach City College or Cal State, L.A. I played for the U.S. Olympic Development League.

Every single grittier when my parents didn't go. You're like a bad parent. My parents didn't go to all my games. It was my thing. They came sometimes. And when they came, it was great. So the drive to be great just came from within? Or was it something that was your dad somebody who pushed you?

Was it your mom who pushed you? Like, where did, you don't become as driven as you are, and you were, you were driven academically, as well as, as in basketball. If not, I would, I would think, and this is more maybe a parenting question. Obviously, you're raising kids, you know, one that's, you graduated and the other one that's about to graduate. But where did your personal drive come from within, or was it one of your folks? Well, my dad never pushed me.

My parents never pushed me. My mom, because my mom didn't know anything about sports. and didn't much care about it. She just kind of wanted to do well and to have fun and to behave ourselves. If I went to a game, she said some things to me that I'm like, I came home from some event, and I thought, you know, I'd been the leading score and all that stuff, and I thought I should have been the MVP of this tournament I played in,

and I had made some statement about, well, you know, I'm just not getting the ball enough. And my mom looked at me and said, you're a big boy. If you want the ball, go get it. And I was like, here's this little lady telling me, you know, it doesn't know anything about sports. And my dad would say the same kind of thing if I complained. Like he never said, hey, man, you didn't do this. He needed to do this better.

He wasn't built like that. He didn't care about that. So he wanted me to expectations, but he never really voiced. I would, you know, that was kind of the big guys' lament is, you know, they don't throw the ball inside. And my dad would go, look, I've been watching these games. Your teammates missed a lot of shots. Why don't you go get the rebound?

and you can get the ball anytime you want, go get it. And so I remember that they never pushed me. And he was a kick-ass good athlete grown up. Like he did everything. And he's a great smaller than me. He's only like six. So he had, like, no joke, he had like 125 trophies in our room. Every time he went somewhere, he won.

And else, you know, they'd give him the nickel tour or something. They would always stop in my brothers in our room, and they would marvel at how many trophies my brother had. one. His name's Dave and just a step motivated me more than anything was I wanted to do things well. When I was like a senior in high school or something, I finally got as many trophies as he did. And that was like a huge, and that was more motivating to me than, I think. And that was sort of the, your grades have to be good. Once I got good at basketball. I know that I know that you were part of Duke. It was the number one recruiting class in the country. And it just, it was an amazing list of

Allery and Dawkins and Dave Henderson, and you're part of what kind of set in place this path to an incredible legacy that Coach Kay is going to leave behind at Duke. But you did grow up in Southern California, and I know UCLA wasn't at its peak, but you grew up in the 70s in Los Angeles. Larry Farmer was the head coach, I believe, right? It was Larry Brown and the Larry Farmer. Did he not offer you? Were they late to the party?

Why wasn't UCLA considered, especially, you know, growing up there and being a good student. sophomore in high school, Larry Brown was the head coach at UCLA, and he'd gone to the Final Four in like 1980, my sophomore year, and they lost a little. I grew up in the shadow of UCLA. And I had a lot of guys that I'd played against that had gone there, and that's, I think it was.

UCLA hired Larry. And they recruited a guy who was in my class, and they thought they had their big guy. So they kind of didn't really the same kind of interest that I was not of interest to you. and I'm going in this other direction. So when Kerry Bogart me kind of turned tail and went to Kansas, I didn't have a whole lot of interest in UCLA when they, and my dad made sure that that wasn't going to happen,

because I'd already made my mind up. I was going to Duke, and he was not about to have some excited. So I have no idea whether I got every phone call, because my parents had said, wait a minute, this is old. I know some places at call. The signing period back then I didn't find out about some of, them until afterwards. But Coach K wasn't Coach K then.

So what was it that appealed to you about Coach K that made you get on a plane and want to fly all the way across the country and play at Duke, which is a place where if anybody's ever been there, not only beautiful and completely different than Southern California, but it's also mostly populated by kids from the Northeast. What was it about Duke and Coach K? that, you know, when I was in high school, I had a little bit of a difficult experience with sort of the coach there. You know, I'm really tight with all my teammates, and we had a great experience with each other, but it wasn't a great experience with school.

There were three different head care. Wow. Hold on, were you a coach killer? I figured out at least that probably that I was going to be. So the coach was the most important thing to me. And it really, like, oddly enough, so the four schools I came down to at the end, And then Kansas were time. Sure.

And so those were the four games. We're now in the basketball. Had not... NCW tournament game was Coach K's first. And he'd never been there before. My first final point was his first. And so it's kind of a... And he never lied to me in South and Orange County.

I mean, this is like 1981. And so, you know, you go to the Mexican joint and have lunch. I mean, it might be four bucks for me and four bucks. You know, I don't know if this happened. to you, Doug, but, you know, back then, it wasn't that people didn't respect the rules, but went to lunch with where I had to pay. And coached it down the middle. You're going to play center there for four years.

And I was like, nah, he wouldn't be asking about it. And I said, you know, everybody's saying that you're going to make me play center. For a year, yeah, another big guy, and you can move back to your natural position. And he did. It's just the big guys weren't quite what he expected, and I never got to move out of there. but he never lied to me. And there was no mezzan on that end. But didn't your sister go to UCLA?

She did. My sister was a player. So, you know, me being in the east, you know, he couldn't get back like now. There's no internet or all that. So I never really saw my sister play high school volleyball. And then when I watched her play, when she got to college at UCLA, and I came back for Christmas my senior year and watched her play at UCLA, I was blown.

But yeah, she played volleyball at UCLA and was, you know, a Phi Beta Kappa student. My sister turns out, her name's Cheryl, the best athlete in our family. Yeah, and she wasn't the high school coach killer that you were. I mean, that's really the legacy you leave behind. So you get to Durham. And I remember it's interesting.

You talk about being honest. And that's one of the reasons I chose Notre Dame was John McLeod was honest, whereas I felt like, it wasn't that Jim Herrick wasn't honest. He was, you know, they had taken commitment from a kid named Alusiumi man who was a year behind me. and they were still recruiting Stefan Marbury and I'd say like, listen, coach, you got Cameron Dollar there and I'd be a freshman,

he's a junior, you know, would you promise me to not to recruit over me? Dougie, five guys. We play the best five guys at UCLA, whereas John McLeod gave me his word that I'd start as a freshman and I did and he wouldn't recruit over me and he didn't. But I remember getting to Notre Dame

and, again, different part of the country than Durham. I think both are beautiful campuses, all of the weather far better in North Carolina. And even though I had traveled a lot with basketball and a lot with my family, having family in the East Coast, I was incredibly homesick. Did you go through that? A little bit. Or the culture, the culture changed that, you know, back then, like right now, I live in North Carolina now, and Charlotte, and so it was, and you had mentioned sort of the makeup of the college campus, and that may have been exactly

right as far as, you know, a lot of people from the Northeast and all that, as far as a student body was concerned, but you walked off campus and you, You were in the South. And so that was a huge culture change for me. And even though, like you're right, that the weather in Durham, North Carolina is a lot better it is in South Bend, Indiana. But I was still freezing my... I'm still, I'm 54 years old now, and I am still not used to, even where I live, hotter than

blazes during the summer. And I still get chilly. I didn't own a coat and a windbreaker, but I didn't have a coat. And now, so I didn't buy one when I went to back east and and uh... and i i wasn't homesick as much as i was this isn't what i'm used to like i you know it's so it was an adjustment period and then the basketball part was a huge adjustment because you were going from uh... you're going into you know arguably the best league in the country

the pc game i had to guard ralph sampson it wasn't much of a contest and michael jordan was at uh... and sam perkins all that so that the can nor can't nc state won the national championship my freshman year out of our league and I think they finished fifth in an 18 league and won the national championship. It was a... Yeah, no, listen, my mind, we were young and we finished, I probably was like, it was back when the Big East expanded, and Syracuse finished fourth in the league and lost the national championship game to Kentucky.

You know, that was Yukon had Ray Allen and Nova had carried Kittles and Georgetown was two in the country, and they had Alan Iverson. So I, so, okay, let's start with Ralph Samson. Three-time player of the year. some of it was injuries but some of it was his game didn't translate to the NBA you played against him when he was at his absolute peak what was it what was Ralph Samson like

that if he were 6-7 would have been a shoot it he had great hands he could and you know not to not to you know sort of argue but I actually think that his game did translate to the NBA that he was a 2010 guy every year that he was in a lot overseas I think

and I came back in 1990. It happened to be in Houston. He was playing for the and his knees were shot, and he couldn't run anymore. God, that's it. And, you know, I think a lot of people

remember him when his first five years in the league, and that was, that was sort of the difference, but he was like two or three time national players. Nobody could deal with them. Nobody could. Was he a finesse player? The three-point line would have helped him

because it would have given him more space to operate because he got triple-teemed every time he touched it. All right, that's part one of my interview with ESPN, college basketball, savant, analyst, Jay, Billis. Coming up in part two, I'm going to ask Jay about replacing Mike Shoshiewski. I'm going to give him the list of all the potentials, the Jeff Capels, the Quinn Snyders of the world, Steve Wojahowski, Chris Collins. I'll give him every possible name, Johnny Dawkins, Tommy Amaker.

Who's the right? Mike Bray. Who's the right guy? to replace Coach K. You'll find out in part two of my conversation with Jay Billis. So that's it for this episode of All Ball. Make sure you subscribe. You download.

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