The Kevin Sheehan Show - Draft Picks and Brackets

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

Kevin opens the show by talking about everything that happened this weekend, from the Terps to the Caps and Wizards and, yes, even the Oscars. He then talks about the compensatory picks the Redskins received, and how he thinks the team could use them. To close the show, Patrick Stevens joins to talk about how the NCAA Tournament is shaping up, where Maryland could end up playing, Georgetown's chances and more. <p> </p><p>Learn more about your ad choices. Visit <a href="https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices">podcastchoices.com/adchoices</a></p> Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You want it. You need it. It's what everyone's talking about. The Kevin Sheehan Show. Now here's Kevin. All right, I am here. Aaron is here. This show is presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows 86690 Nation or go to Windonation.com and tell them we told you to call. Cooley won't be on today. I think Wednesday will be the day for him this week. So we will do that then. I've got Patrick Stevens on the show today. Patrick covers. college basketball, does a bracketology, the NCAA tournament projections for the Washington Post. Patrick's is good as anybody at putting together that tournament field in advance. In fact, I think he's probably better than Joe Lannardi. By far.

And he's definitely a better guy. And I don't know Lannardi, so I shouldn't speak to that. But I have heard horror stories from others. But anyway, besides that, I want to mention something real quickly at the top of the show because I usually mention this at the very end of the show, and sometimes many of you miss it. But for those of you that don't miss it, I appreciate what you've done to help out the podcast. But for those that haven't heard me say it, it helps if you subscribe to the podcast. You don't have to pay for it.

You don't have to give any information. If you're listening on iTunes or Apple Podcasts or any platform that allows you to subscribe to the podcast, that helps us a lot. just going and finding it every day. If you subscribe, it'll just get sent right to your phone. You can listen to it if you want. If you don't want to listen to it, I mean, we'd like you to listen to it, but there's no requirement to listen to it, and it doesn't take up any space, really. So it would help us if you'd subscribe. Again, it's free, and it's better for us in our ability to monetize the podcast if you subscribe to it. Also, if you can rate or review it, or both, that helps all. That helps Also, that helps us get ranked on the iTunes list for sports podcasts, which we've been rated

at various times pretty high on that list. But that helps us also. Also, if you know people who want to listen to it and they don't do podcasts, you know, they can't figure it out, just tell them to go to the Kevin Sheehan Show.com. So anyway, I wanted to do that early in the show today because a lot of you don't always make it to the very end of the show, although I do know that we have a significant, what they call in the trade time spent listening a number, which is good. It's interesting, and this is sort of inside baseball stuff, but ratings and radio are basically created from a

formula that includes two important things. One is audience QM, meaning how many people actually tune in for a quarter hour at any point during your show. And then the other component is is how long do they listen? Time spent listening. It's TSL. It's a really important component of the ratings. And the one thing that podcasts have over radio by a significant margin is that the time spent listening to a podcast is much longer than time spent listening to a radio show, which is good

for us. It just helps us if you subscribe and rate and review it. And again, there's no cost to doing that. None at all. All right. I mentioned Cooley will be on Wednesday instead of today. I watched very little of the Oscars. So I'm not going to really spend much time talking about them.

You watched a lot, I'm assuming. I did, for two reasons, one of my wife really wanted to see it. The other thing was, did you see what happened with the best director for gambling purposes yesterday? No. So there was a rumor early in the afternoon that there was a leak that the director of the favorite. was going to win. At the time that director... The movie, the favorite.

The movie the favorite. The woman who won the award for that movie had, apparently, according to everybody, the best acceptance speech of the night. And that was also a huge upset. Glenn Close was supposed to win that award. But the director, who was 50 to 1 at the beginning of the day, there was a rumor that he was going to win, which caused a massive shift led to books pulling the best director category from the board.

That didn't end up winning, but it was just kind of... He did end up winning? Did not end up winning? Interesting. End up winning. So that was an interesting side thing. Man, I'll tell you what, they have, I've never bet on the Oscars. I mean, it sounds like you have. Man, you got more.

Aaron's got more issues than I have, actually. I like betting on the random things. But, you know, a lot of those, you know, non-sports prop bet stuff, there's high risk. And usually they limit, you know, wager size on this. Right. And that's why it's fun to bet. Yeah. You could throw 10 bucks on something and, you know. Yeah.

It's, uh, anyway, I, I watch. very little of it. The only thing I will say is, my God, Rami Malick's co-star, female co-star. What's her name, Lucy Boynton? Did you tell me it was? She is spectacular looking. I mean, just spectacular looking. Anyway, not going to be spending any more time on that. He won for Best Male Lead, right? Yes. And he was excellent playing Freddie Mercury.

I saw a couple, I mean, what was the list of the movies that were up for best picture. I mentioned to you that the Green Book, I thought was a good movie. I didn't think it was a great movie. I thought it was a good movie. I enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong. I thought the performances were good. But I am surprised that it won the best picture of the year. A lot of people did. Roma was considered to be the favorite. Didn't see it. The nominees were Green Book, Roma, Black Klansmen, Black Panther. The favorite was in there. Bohemian Rhapsody. Bohemian Rhapsody was another. There's two more that I'm forgetting right now.

I think there were three of them that I had seen. A Star is Born was probably there as well. Anyway, whatever. Done with that conversation. Lucy, whatever, though. Goodness gracious. How old is she? She can't be older than 25, is she?

I hope she's not a lot younger than 25. 25. Okay, there you go. Good. All right. Just turn 25. Just turn 25? All right, there we go. Anyway, I'm not going to spend much time talking about the Wizards today either, except for this one thing that I do want to mention, because they lost two games Friday and Saturday.

They are very honestly, the worst defensive team I have seen all year, and it's not even close. Now, I don't know where they rank statistically. It's got to be near the bottom. I just pulled it up 25th in whatever advanced defensive statistic they used. They are, but beyond being a bad defensive team, they seem to be the least interested in playing defense. And you see that a lot of times in the NBA, various teams, especially on the back half of a back-to-back, you know, it really looks like there's very little participation, very little effort defensively. The Wizards look like that every night. And I put that on Scott Brooks. I like Scott. I don't

love him as a coach. You know, I mean, I'm not going to sit here and tell you because I like him personally. And I think he does a really good job with the media. I was never a massive Scott Brooks fan when he was in Oklahoma City. I always felt like, you know, and I'll stand by this because I've had this conversation with many coaches before. Randy Whitman, although many in the media didn't like him and, you know, he clearly was not warm and cuddly with the players. Randy coach, I mean, make sure that that's understood that Randy Whitman with basketball people that will tell you, Randy could actually actually coach. But when you're as disinterested in playing defense as the wizards are, that's on the coaching staff. I don't care if your best player, your All-Star is paramount to your ability to

do anything offensively. You know, Beal at times is completely disinterested defensively. But all of them are. Jeff Green, all of them. You know, I'm talking about your supposed mature players. The only guy that actually can defend and will defend is Trevor. But we've known that for a while. The Wizards are going nowhere fast. The franchise is crumbled over the last year, which makes Ted's peddling, Ted Leonis' peddling of sports betting and his desire to become this city's number one bookmaker.

It makes it even more off-putting. You know, out of All-Star Week, I don't know if you saw this, but Ted was in the headlines for, you know, peddling sports betting. Yeah. Every time he speaks, it's not about his crumbling NBA team that's a laughing stock right now, but it's about the importance of sports betting and how easy it's going to be for all of the smart kids to take down the house.

And again, as I've mentioned many times, I mean, there's not an easier mark than people like Ted when it comes to sports betting. My friends would stand in line and fight each other to get his business on this. But he's not going to bet. He's going to be the house, which is the smart side. He's going to have all of his supposed smart friends that have access to gambling for the first time all. place wagers through him the bookie. Actually, that's an exaggeration and unfair because he won't actually be the bookie. The DC lottery and the DC and however that gets structured, he will just be able to offer up a place to place wagers, which will help his overall business. I get it.

And I get why he's pushing it. It just, you know, with an NBA team, his NBA team, as bad as bad as it is right now, it just, for those of us that actually have, real-world, non-theoretical, you know, based experience with sports betting. And it's just a little bit off-putting to see him peddle this like a dope pusher. But anyway, I did watch the end of the Caps game yesterday against the Rangers. I love three-on-three overtime hockey. It's so good. You know, it's so entertaining.

And I thought that they got very lucky in overtime. First of all, they needed the win yesterday. They got clobbered by Buffalo on Saturday. and then they gave up a two-goal lead in the third period against the Rangers, and you're in overtime, and for the first three minutes of that overtime, maybe longer, I mean, the puck possession time was like 90% to 10%. They looked tired. They looked tired.

The Rangers had all the momentum. It looked like they were going to have, you know, an opportunity to win it. And then the caps ended up, you know, very late in the overtime, about 39 seconds left getting the game winner from Kuznets off, which could have been Kuznets off for Rovetkin. sure. They gave it to Coosie, though. But it's a good win for them. Good win for them. And coming off of their trade,

got Nick Jensen and then sign him to an extension, I believe. Oh, they did end up signing him to an extension. I believe they finalized that. But he looked good. He looked like they really added a spark on Sunday. I was actually there. Maryland won on Saturday. I was not there. Aaron was another solid game for Anthony Cowan.

I know how important Bruno is, you know, to this team. Very important. I'll get to him in a moment. I mentioned, I think, on Wednesday the day after the Iowa game, Maryland's got no chance of doing anything significant this year without Anthony Cowan playing well. He's played very well recently, and I love how hard he is on himself. Read stories about how he thinks he could play better, and I think he can play better too. I think sometimes he has some very needless turnovers, you know, that are unforced turnovers.

But Cowen is the heart and soul right now. and Bruno's important too, and it was a weird game in that, first of all, I don't know that Maryland's played a worst first four minutes of a game all year long. It was four to two at the under 16 timeout, that first TV timeout. They couldn't dribble it, they couldn't pass it, they couldn't shoot it, they couldn't hold on to it. Bruno Fernando came out with no energy, looked tired. You mentioned this to me before the show, and you said, when I mentioned that about Bruno to you, you said, he's had some games like that recently, and you are right. There have been a couple of halves or stretches where he hasn't been very strong with the ball. He's looked tired, and maybe he is tired. Here's a dude that gets

beaten on, night in, night out, double-teamed 70% of the time all year long in the post. He was God-awful in the first half. And then the second half came, and Bruno Fernando came to life. And he had energy and he went for another double double, had 14 points after the break, and was huge, because they went right to him early in the second half with a five-point lead, and they built it to a 16-point lead. I mean, it looked like they were in complete control of the game. I thought Sorrell Smith, who played for Eric Ayala, who got sick, wasn't feeling well, Sorrel Smith, who, for you Maryland fans who have watched every game this year, you know that this dude is, you know, he's a scorer, and he's got a scorer. And he's got a scorer.

mentality. And, you know, if you've played basketball at any reasonable level, you know dudes like Sorrell, right? They're in pickup games. They're in real games. We're in their mind, they believe they're going for 30 every time they step on the court. And it's just a matter of getting buckets. But Sorrel Smith is actually more than that. He has, he's a long-armed defender. You know, he's not always consistent, but he's been pretty good on the, defense event. In fact, when they went small at the end of that game and they had Smith and Morsell out there at the same time, you've got two hellacious long-armed defenders. Morsell's a hellacious defender. He's one of the best defenders in the league. I mean, he had one of those

games, too, where, you know, he's been very inconsistent offensively, and then with the game on the line, he knocked down a huge three or, you know, late in the second half. But there were two Two other things I wanted to mention. One is they let a 16-point lead get cut to two with about five and a half minutes to go. And I was like, good God, because this has happened several times now. It happened against Wisconsin. It happened against somebody else, I'm forgetting, where they had massive second-half leads that got cut down to, you know, two or even tied.

In this particular case, it was cut to two with five and a half minutes to go. And then the Terps outscored the Buckeyes 15 to 7 down the stretch. really responded. They have in the past, too, this year. They got a team that seems to, you know, and I'm critical of this sometimes. I'd like him to run. They actually tried to run more on Saturday and had a couple of, you know, those breakouts where you end up with open threes or you end up with dunks or you end up with layups or you end up getting fouled. Man, it's just easier to face a defense that isn't set versus a defense that is. That's my philosophy anyway with a talented team and Maryland's talented. It doesn't always seem to be Turg's philosophy,

but they got out on the break a little bit on Saturday at times as they built that lead. And look, you know, you got to get stops to fast break too. I understand that. Although some teams don't. North Carolina doesn't. Michigan State doesn't. They take it right out of the net and they're on the attack. And I think Maryland could be one of those teams, but you've got to practice playing that way too. You got to be about that if that's what you're going to do, and they're not. necessarily. But anyway, they have responded when they've been in these situations of blowing leads with really solid execution. And that's the funny thing is that in years past when something like that has happened, I've been, you know, I've been nervous. I thought there were at no point

on Saturday did I think they were going to lose that game. I felt the same way. I felt the same exact way. I did not. Part of that is because, and this has just been my view of Ohio State all year, I don't really think they're very good. I mean, they are likely going to make the tournament. They're going to be a tournament team. I just, when I watch them, I don't see, you know, they've got some talent. I mean, you know, the big boy is talented. He can shoot it too.

But they're just compared to the other teams we've played this year in the Big Ten, I think Ohio State among those that are going to the tournament is the least threatening to me. And Maryland swept them. I mean, they had a 14-point win in Columbus and a 10-point win Saturday. in College Park. This coming week is huge. They've got a road game at Penn State Wednesday night, and Penn State's playing very well. In fact, they've got talent. I think Chambers is a good coach. I think that's a high, high level danger spot for Maryland Wednesday, I know, at Penn State. Definitely a game that they can lose. Then they get Michigan on Sunday in College Park. If somehow

they got both of them this week, you know, by the time we get to a week from today, they'll be, pushing the top 10. They'll be right, you know, between 15 and 10 at that point. They'll be pretty much locked for a double buy in the Big 10 tournament. And they'll be inching their way very closely, very close to a top four seed in a region. And I think that's important this year, not that they can't get into the East Regional without it, but if they're top four seed, their chances of being placed in the East are better. And if they're placed in the East, two wins, and they're playing a Sweet 16 game at Capital One Arena. And that would be a huge advantage for Maryland

to have a home game, essentially a home game in the Sweet 16. Two other quick notes. One, Mark Turgeon, before the game, noticed that Gary Williams was in attendance, and he sent his team down there lined up to shake Gary's hand. That's just the class act by Mark Turgeon. I listen to the post-game show, Johnny and Naki and Walt's post-game show. Every single game I try to listen to it.

I think you can learn a lot. Naki does a really good job with the interview with Turgeon. And I think you can learn a lot right after the game and how the coach feels about it as he's sitting there and he's looking at a stat sheet and he's trying to digest all that happened. Naki asked him about that. And he said, you know, Gary's been great. Gary's unassuming. We never even know when he's coming. And that's true. Gary's been, you know, as a Hall of Famer and, you know, the courts named after him. Gary's very unassuming. It doesn't seem personality-wise based on what most of you remember about Gary Williams, that that would be the case. But he's such a good guy and he's never, ever really gotten in the way of anything that's going on out there. But he'll come to an occasional game. And he came Saturday. And I heard Turgeon tell Nakki, he goes, You don't even know when Gary's coming, but when I saw him down there, I just told the players,

that's, you know, how often do you get to go shake the hand of a Hall of Fame coach, you know, in basically the building he built because of the success he had? The last thing is this on Maryland in general. This is my feeling after Saturday. I think I felt this way for a little bit. I think that anything, you can probably say this about 70% of the Power 5 teams that will be in the tournament. Maryland's in the tournament. That's a lock now. You now agree, right, Aaron?

Oh, yeah, yeah. They can lose the rest. They could lose the rest they're in. They're not going to lose the rest. But anyway, they just are a team, in my view, because of the way they play, I just think that they are vulnerable to an early exit. But at the same time, they have the talent and, you know, the ability to execute and clutch situations that they got the ability to beat anybody. They could lose early, they could lose late, or keep winning right through the draw.

This is going to be a very interesting team to watch. Maryland's young, we've heard that all year. It's not an excuse anymore. They're not young anymore. These guys have played a lot of games. Most power five, you know, ranked teams are young to a certain degree, although it's interesting to watch North Carolina who's got seniors and juniors, Roy Williams does. But Maryland's potential, I think, is limitless.

and I think their downside isn't, it's not a reach to say if somebody said to you right now, yeah, they didn't get out of the first weekend. You wouldn't be shocked, and I wouldn't be shocked either. I'd be disappointed, but I think they're going to be a lot of those tight, you know, it's 58, 56, six minutes to go, and you've got to execute. And they've got players that can execute. And they got a coach who loves to be able to run his stuff and execute. now to execute the other team, and they've gotten good practice at that.

And here's the wild card Aaron on the tournament. We don't know what the Big Ten is going to look like when it gets outside of the Big Ten, meaning it's been such a tough grind-it-out, night after night, no night-off league, physical, defensive teams, well-coached teams, exceptionally well-scouted teams. perhaps they get out of it in the Big Ten and they're playing teams from outside the league and it becomes easy. That's a possibility too.

I remember there were many years in the ACC where it was like, you know, we went 500 in the ACC, we're 20 and 13, but we got a seven seed or a six seed or a five seed. And then it was like your first round game was easy, you know, because you weren't playing teams that had you well scouted and you weren't playing teams that were nearly as good. And that could be a result when we get to the tournament, too, for teams in the Big Ten. I mean, I think they're exceptionally well-coached teams in the Big Ten.

I think it's a tough defensive league, really tough defensive league. But at the same time, Gary Williams told me this a long time ago. And he said, when you get to the tournament, unlike other sports, where defense wins championships in the NCAA tournament, you have to be able to score. You've got to be able to score. And that's why teams like Villanova and North Carolina, you know, over the years, and in even recent years,

Gonzaga, it's why they've had some real good success in the tournament. Over a six-game stretch, if you're not a great offensive team, then you're prone to that one night that's even worse than usual and getting bounced. Defense is important, but in the NCAA tournament, over six games. If you want to win the whole thing, you've got to be able to score.

And that's what Maryland occasionally, and many big teams, occasionally have problems with that. I'll get to the Bob Craft thing a little bit later on. I want to get to some Redskins News too. They got their compensatory picks. But let me first tell you about Window Nation. Before you wish for this winter and crazy cold weathered end, and most of you are, boy, how about the wins yesterday. There's one thing you've got to do. You've got to get your old and drafty windows replaced. Why now in the dead of winter? It's because that's when you unquestionably get the absolute best pricing. When Donations award-winning installation teams need work, and the factory is running at half capacity, which means insane savings right now. For the next two weeks, buy two windows, get two free. That's two free windows with every two you buy. By four, get four free, buy eight, get eight free. no minimum purchase, plus pay nothing for a year, make no down payment, make no payments,

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Plus, you put nothing down, and you'll have no payments and no interest for a year, 12 months, 86690 Nation or wind donation.com. Tell them that I sent you. All right, Patrick Stevens will join us in a few minutes, and we'll go through March Madness, Bracketology. He does such a good job with that, and we'll get into all of the, you know, what's Maryland's upside in terms of what's their downside is Georgetown still alive because that's a possibility you know they keep showing up in these you know next four out conversations and it's always a surprise i actually have

watched georgetown a little bit you've been to some georgetown games i will just say this for i think this fifth or sixth time this year every time i watch them i think they're well coached i think patrick ewing and this and his staff does a good job they just need players they need some more They need more talent. But I think they're on their way to doing something there. But it would be wild, right, if Georgetown got a few wins here and made some noise in the Big East and ended up in a first four game on a Tuesday or Wednesday night when March Madness gets underway.

I don't think they're out of it, although the loss of Creighton certainly didn't help them. I want to read this quick tweet before I get into the skins. It came from Kelvin. Kelvin said, in talking about Bob Kraft, which Andy and I did at the very end of the show on Friday, because the news broke very late in the show. He said, you said, Kevin, 50% of your friends have been to a happy-ending massage parlor. Wow, that doesn't say much for you or your friends. I laughed out loud reading that.

Perspective is everything in life, and everybody's got their own perspective, and I'm not going to be critical of it. I will tell you, I just threw that out. And after reading that tweet, I started to think about it. And I would say, yeah, it's 50%. I mean, I believe that to be true. Anyway, I haven't taken a poll on that. But I would say 50% of my friends have done it.

Look, there are a couple of things on the Bob Craft story. Number one, let's just wait. Can we just wait until all of the facts come out, all of the information comes? comes out, shouldn't the Jesse or Jesse Smollett or Smollett, however you pronounce it, I had never heard of him, by the way, before the story of the last few weeks, shouldn't that story tell us, you know, and a lot of these stories, the Covington, Kentucky kids, all these stories, shouldn't it just tell us just to wait a little bit? It doesn't mean we can't have an opinion,

but it should all be sort of under the, you know, prefaced by, my opinion could certainly change when all of the facts come out, and it more likely than not will. Look, if he was behind a human trafficking ring, or there were minors involved, he's going to be in big trouble, and he should be. If he was just a dude that went into a rub and tug in a strip mall in Florida next to a Win Dixie and got a massage with a happy ending from an adult masseuse, I mean, he's not going to get in much trouble.

He might, the league will slap him around a little bit because it's, it doesn't look good for the league, but he's not going to lose his team over it. And if you think that he's going to lose his team over that, you're really naive. Um, but if human trafficking and he's like, he's, his money fronted the whole place and is behind it and he, of course, that's a completely different story. All right. Um, I think the other owners who can't stand craft should tread carefully. on this one. What do they say about glass houses and stones and throwing them? But by the way, the big takeaway out of all of this is what in God's name was a billionaire NFL owner doing in a Florida strip mall looking for a happy ending in a massage parlor?

That might be the strangest part of all of it. He's a billionaire. He could have porn stars delivered to him. for what would amount for him to be pennies. Anyway, it's the whole thing's interesting. I, yeah, I would say, I would say a significant percentage of my friends. I don't know what percentage that is.

I haven't pulled them, but, you know, you should send a mess text out right now. Happy ending, rub and tug. How many times have you heard that description over the years in conversation with your boys? It's not because nobody knows what these places are or they're unfamiliar with them. Anyway, I wanted to get to the Redskins.

The Redskins were awarded four compensatory picks on Friday. It happened after the show. They got extra selections in the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh rounds. So now they've got nine picks. The two that they don't have, they don't have the fourth rounder that they sent to Green Bay for Ha Ha Clinton Dix. They used a sixth round selection on. Adonis Alexander in the supplemental draft.

All right? So basically, the formula for determining compensatory picks is like, honestly, it's really difficult. It's calculus, too. And I'm not going to get into it because I'm not even sure I understand it to. I have the basic understanding of it, but the basic isn't good enough. but basically the loss you know it's the losses and pluses

of how you did the previous year and free agency who you lost, who you got and then somehow it's all put into a formula and they end up with this year four compensatory picks nine draft choices overall and actually as I'm saying that

you know and I'm going to pull this thing up because you know now the Redskins have really used the draft like they've never used it before, you know, since 2010. You know, when Bruce Allen got here, there has, and I've said this many times over the years, that they are a much more responsible organization when it comes to roster management

than they were during the Vinny and Dan years, you know, when Vinny and Dan were handling player personnel, and it was a true clown show of the highest order. You know, that 2008 draft in which they did have a lot of picks in that 2008 draft is one of the worst drafts in NFL history. And it's ironic that the draft during the 2000s, and I've got a list of them up here right now, that had the most picks in it because they had in that particular draft 10 selections in the 2008 draft, which has to be the most that they've had. And, you know, I'm not even sure.

There was the 2011 draft. Hold on for a second where they had a bunch of picks the Carrigan draft when they traded back with Carrigan. One, two, three, four, five, six. They had 12 picks that year. All right, they had 12 that year. So that's more than 2008. But that 2008 draft with Devin Thomas and Fred Davis and Malcolm Kelly, you know, where they drafted a punter, Durant Brooks in the sixth round, is one of the worst drafts in NFL history.

I don't know who's left in the league. I think Chad Reinhart may be on a roster somewhere. I think that's possible. He may be the only one that's left from that draft in 2008. Now, it's been 10 years, you know, in terms of the season, but one of the worst draft in NFL history. I don't think Reinhardt's been around for a while. You might be right.

I don't know. But look, I guess the point that I was going to make here is that what the Redskins changed in 2010 was a mindset of, you know, complete and utter irresponsibility when it comes to when it comes to player acquisition, then basically compensating those players after you've acquired them, coaching those players, developing those players. From the time Dan Snyder took over the team, it was really a clown show of the highest order. And when Bruce Allen, who was incredibly frugal, when he arrived in 2010 with Mike Shanahan,

it became a different story. And I still, you know, over the last, you know, during the Bruce Allen era, the record's terrible. We know that. The results haven't been any different. In fact, they've probably been a bit worse. But the way they've gone about building and maintaining a roster has been more responsible, fiscally and otherwise. They have used the draft. They have used the draft on interior linemen, where for almost a decade, they rarely use the draft on interior linemen. There was a period of, of time before Trent Williams was picked in 2010, where the highest drafted offensive or defensive lineman was Anthony Montgomery in the 2000 draft in 2005, that he was the only defensive lineman, the highest drafted defensive lineman during a long stretch of time, and that was a fifth rounder on Anthony Montgomery. It was embarrassing how they drafted and what they did in free agency for sure. And since 2010, the Redskins have used the draft. You know, they haven't been successful in the draft. They haven't been overly successful in anything they've done.

But I do give them credit for using the draft. In fact, you know, in the last couple of years, I give them credit for drafting Alabama players, you know, when in doubt, I mean, draft a Nick Saban player. You know, if you don't have super confidence in yourself or your scouting department, to really evaluate players at a high level, why not take Alabama players or Virginia Tech defensive players? That's always been a good idea as well. So they have nine picks for the upcoming April draft. And they've got a first, they've got a second, they've got a third. This is going to be a draft that's going to be very important. I think the nine picks, now, do you know, do they use some of those picks to trade up in the first round? That's a possibility. I don't think

anybody's going to discount that as a possibility, especially if there's a player there, a quarterback in particular that they really want. But for an organization that's really, really difficult to credit them for much of anything here in recent years, I do like the fact that they use the draft. Have they been successful using the draft? The results are mixed. We know that. You know, I mean, it certainly would appear that John Allen and, you know, and Duran Payne in terms of the first rounders, the last couple of years, were really good picks. But then you've got to look at the second rounders. We don't know about Geis yet. You know, we don't know about Ryan Anderson yet, whether or not he can play. Sue Craven's was a disastrous pick. Preston Smith was a good second round

pick. But Trent Murphy, even though he played well this year in Buffalo, didn't end up having great success or high-level production for a long enough period of time to have justified using a second-round pick on him. You know, you go back to David Amerson and Josh Loribis. Was Leribis, I think he may have been a third-round pick? Jarvis Jenkins was a second-round pick. You know, they just, it's been very hit and miss in terms of the Redskins ability to really evaluate well. But that makes it even more important to have more picks rather than less. Because when you're not great at evaluating, the more picks you have, the more chances you have on hitting on some of them and adding players to the

mix. But I just pulled up their draft history and just looking starting in 2010, and it wasn't their fault that particular year that they only had six picks necessarily. But you know, you go through the list every single year they've had a solid, you know, number of picks. You know, you had the big trade for Griffin, which gave away a first rounder for consecutive seasons in 13 and 14. And that hurt a little bit. But even that they would trade down in the draft and pick up a few at the end. You know, and then you go back to pre- Bruce Allen and you got a lot of like, you know, you know, the 2000 draft, they had all those picks, you know, courtesy of Charlie Casserly's trades, you know, starting in 2000 with the two picks with Arrington and Samuels, both going in the, you know,

number two and number three overall. But after that, I mean, you had five picks in 2001. You had more in 2002, but remember, old Dan, you know, he did his workout at Patrick Ramsey, and he fell in love with them. And they drafted him. They only had three picks in 2003, four picks in 2004, six picks in 2005, six picks in 2006, five picks in 2007, six picks in 2009. You add these things up, if we were to do it real quickly, they've just had many more picks during this Bruce Allen stretch than they did during the Dan and Vinny stretch. You know, and you throw another 15, 20 picks over a 10-year period, you know, you're talking about a much better chance to have a roster that can compete. It's going to be a big draft for the Redskins. It's going to be a big

free agency period for the Redskins. Many of you took exception to the conversation that we had last week about the salary cap and what can be done with the salary cap as far as the Redskins are concerned. You know, I had Joel Corey on the show. last week he was really good right was it last week we had quarry yes um and they can get this thing up to you know 35 to 40 million with some good solid moves and that doesn't include getting rid of Alex Smith right now and if you've got 35 to 40 million you're probably right in the middle of the pack it's it's not a dire situation for the redskins salary cap wise obviously it doesn't help that you're going to have 20 million dollars invested and accounted for on the salary cap with a

quarterback that more likely than not won't play next year, that you also had to give up a player in a third round pick for. It's not a great situation, but that's also a situation that was out of their hands. Not in terms of the long-term contract extension, but in terms of the injury and his availability, which, you know, there were some pictures last week that came out on Alex Smith that did not look that great. Again, I mean, that contraption he has around his leg just without knowing anything other than what that doctor that the former chargers team Dr. Chow, Dr. Chow has said it just doesn't look like he's going to be ready to play. But anyway, that's it. So the Redskins, their four compensatory picks, I think, were as many

as any NFL team got. Yeah, tied for the most I think. Rams and Patriots also had a lot. The other thing I wanted to mention is that their third rounder is the number one compensatory third round pick. So it ends up being number 96 overall. I think there were like seven teams or eight teams that got third round compensatory picks. And theirs each got two, I think, in that first round. Yeah, theirs was the highest. And that's what they got for losing Kirk Cousins, essentially. So, you know, we're going to have a lot to really look at. You know, this is a big draft for this team because you're going to have to really, you know, continue to create a foundation for the future, but you're going to need to get some players that can contribute

next year, too. And, you know, the mock drafts keep coming out. They're all over the place. I mean, lots of Daniel Jones's, man, lots of Daniel Jones at 15. I think I've seen that more than anything else, you know, as each mock draft comes out. I, Charlie Casserly likes Daniel Jones. I read something that he said, and we had Charlie on the show a few weeks ago, he thinks that Daniel Jones of the quarterbacks throws with the most anticipation, which, you know, I think is the one thing more than anything I think I've learned over the last decade when it comes to evaluating quarterbacks, especially pocket throwers in particular, is can they anticipate? Can they throw before, you know, most quarterbacks throw? Shanahan says it's, you know, it's up there among the

most important things. And it's not something that's easily taught. Accuracy isn't something that's easily fixed. Of the quarterbacks that I watched in college football this year, Kyler Murray is obviously the most unique, but Drew Locke always impressed me when I watched Missouri. You know, not like some other quarterbacks in more recent drafts, but compared to Daniel Jones and others. The thing about Daniel Jones is Cutcliffe is a quarterback whisperer. You know, he's a, he's an offensive quarterback guy. The NFL trusts David Cutcliffe as a head coach at Duke. Peyton Manning obviously had him as his coach at Tennessee and continued to work out with Cutcliffe late in his career at Duke. So coming out of that Cutcliffe system, Daniel Jones,

they know is going to be well-coached. The Combines starts later in the week. Murray is going to be there. Murray has emphasized that baseball is not an option, that football is his number one thing. I think it's going to be interesting to see a lot of these guys. still believe that the Redskins should explore the blowup option, but we know they're not going to do that. I would take right now a redo, a start over, and hopefully looking and finding the quarterback of the future, but if you don't love a quarterback, don't take a quarterback, because there are some defensive playmakers in this draft that could be much more impactful than a developmental quarterback that may or may not make it. There just are.

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Farish Cars.com for all of the information. All right, let's welcome in Patrick Stevens, who, for my money, is the best at putting together these brackets, this bracketology business that he's been in for many years. You can see it, you know, every week in the post. He does it. He also writes for the athletic and covers Maryland college basketball and a lot of other different things, college sports in particular in the area. And Patrick joins us right now.

And I always love talking to you at this time of the year because I think that you consider everything and a lot of things that other people aren't. And one of the conversations that we've had over the years, Patrick, is since the field went to 68 in particular, there's all. always been this challenge every year of finding enough teams to fill out the bracket. You know, enough quality teams to fill out the bracket. And, you know, a lot of teams that think they're completely out of it don't take into consideration. You know what? We might be in consideration. Like, I was surprised to see Georgetown still on lists as, as a possibility. Do we have the same situation this year where it's going to be, you know, difficult to fill out a full bracket with quality teams.

Well, I think that question will be partially answered by whether you see a Gonzaga somehow lose in the WCC tournament, whether a Buffalo loses in the Mid-American tournament, whether Nevada loses in the Mountain West tournament, whether you have some surprise bid thief in another league, whether you get a random Pac-12 champion whose name is not Washington or Arizona State. it always looks worse sitting here at the end of February than it does two weeks later because something happens in there, whether it is a bid thief that emerges and crunches the at-large field a little bit, or somebody gets hot and suddenly, you know, let's say a central

Florida, which is a really borderline team right now, but has some opportunities to pick up some decent wins. They go and do that, and then they make a run in their conference tournament, and suddenly they look a lot more secure than they would have otherwise. So this is sort of the Nadeer. The end of February really is like the worst spot to be looking at the field because you're sitting there thinking, gosh, somebody's got to make it. There's going to be 36 at large selections in the field, no matter what. And for the moment, you're looking at teams at the edge of the field I mean, I've just started my projection that's going to run this week. And we're talking about teams within eight spots of the field, teams like Creighton, who's pretty average,

and Dayton and Liberty, and UNC Greensboro, and a Nebraska team that's barely above 500. And so you look at that and you think, gosh, how is this going to work out? well, usually it sorts itself out so it's only the last couple teams that you're going, gosh, these guys don't belong in here at all, as opposed to, you know, there are times even now where you're sitting there maybe six teams, you know, safely into the field, the number 31 at large team, and you're like, that team doesn't belong in there. Right. But by the numbers, they do.

So somebody's got to be in there. And that's a task that the committee will have to deal with. but I feel like this happens every year. It won't look quite as bad in two weeks. No, I know what you're saying. I mean, you know, you get alarmed at this point, where if you're a team that's really outside the bubble, like hanging on to being on the bubble, you know, you get,

if you're really paying attention, you can get a little bit optimistic with, hey, it's such a soft bubble, we've got a chance still, and then ultimately, like you said, it sorts itself out. But I'm just curious, does one, since going to 68, is there one or two teams that jump out to you as just teams that really, there was a lot of hand wringing over with respect to the people like you who do this, like that team shouldn't have been in the field? And by extension, is there a team or two, and maybe you've already mentioned them,

you mentioned a couple of teams that if they were to get in this year, because you got to fill out the bracket, wouldn't be a quality team? Well, you know, the quality team and quality record are kind of a, you know, eye of the beholder type thing. I think that when you look at sort of those Big East teams that are swimming around at like 15 and 13 or so, Providence, Xavier, Creighton. Georgetown's got a little bit better record than that. Those are all teams that you're looking at and saying, is this really one of the 36 best at-large teams available? You would have been saying that about Indiana or Nebraska as well. Those are teams that stand out in that way.

I'm sure that we'll be hearing about if Arizona State ultimately makes it. Well, this is a team that is playing out in the Pac-12, which isn't very good. But at least Arizona State went out and played a pretty good schedule early on and picked off some good games like they beat Kansas. So those are all teams like that. I think the team that to a lot of people stood out as one, that they really couldn't quite understand was the Tulsa team of a couple years ago. Was it 16, I think it was, that made it into the play-in game and lost to Michigan?

You know, I actually kind of thought that Michigan team probably didn't belong there myself. But the Tulsa was the sort of team in 16 where people were just kind of flabbergasted. I thought their numbers suggested that they were borderline under the circumstances at the time. but if I had to be put on the spot to pick one team out, it would probably be that. But we could go on and on about, you know, we think about a team like Oklahoma last year, which did not play well down the stretch. No. But at the same time, like non-conference play count two.

So, you know, by the numbers and by the way the committee has operated, particularly over the last four years where we have seen a shift towards simply valuing quantity of high-end victories. That's something that obviously helps teams in power conferences because they have more opportunities to get them. And so you've seen teams like Syracuse last year slide into the field really where you're sitting there wondering if they belong in there. And then you have teams such as Colorado State in 15 and Bonaventure in 16 that miss out. And even Bonaventure last year, which was a really good team and played. almost completely lights out ball the last seven or eight weeks of the season and the lost in the 8-10 semis.

And they barely made it into the field before they were able to get a victory. So you can find those examples on either end of the fence of teams that have probably benefited from the way the committee has treated those teams at the edge of the field and not treated those teams at the edge of the field over the last few years. Yeah, and let's not forget. Those first two nights now, the first four, the Tuesday, Wednesday night. It's a television show in many ways. It hasn't gotten necessarily the ratings that I think they had hoped. So, you know, getting high-profile teams or players even into that game can be helpful.

I wanted you to quickly explain, if you will, for people that are just paying attention to it for the first time. And that's a lot of people in this sport. You know, it's the Super Bowl ends, and they dial in on this sport a little bit closer. especially as we get closer to March. But tell everybody about the NCAA net rankings that are being used this year as a huge criteria in determining the field, seating, et cetera, versus what they used to have. It used to be the RPI, which was used for more than 35 years. And the RPI was, when it comes to mathematics, essentially like meatloaf.

You could game the RPI very easily. It was a quarter of your own winning percentage, a half your opponent's winning percentage, and a quarter your opponent's opponent's winning percentage. So the key to all that was to go find teams that had decent schedules, or you knew we're going to go win 17 or 18 games in smaller conferences, but weren't necessarily going to be a serious threat to you. So it's been replaced by a formula called the net, which they have not actually released the formula, which a great bit of transparency there by the NCAA. And the net stands for the NCAA evaluation tool, which is not exactly the most original name there.

In any case, the net is supposed to take into account things like offensive and defensive efficiency, so on a per possession basis, and also take into account margin of victory up to 10 points. Now, you can kind of see where the rub is there. If the margin of victory is capped but the efficiency isn't, you're still getting credit for beating the snot out of people. Right. And so there's some teams that have been able, NC State very much near the top of the list,

of teams that have gone out and played a terrible non-conference schedule for the most part and just drubbed so many of these early season opponents, and they benefited from that. I think this is something that's still a bit of a work in progress. But I would anticipate that the net is treated largely the same as the RPI was in terms of evaluation, which means you're going to be using it to sort of block off teams. The former top 50 victory, top 100 victory, got replaced last year by quadrant 1 and quadrant 2. But the same kind of thing applies that you're looking for those high-end victories and notable losses as well in some cases.

that would distinguish teams from each other, especially at the edge of the field where you're trying to find some sort of factor that separates teams from those that are ultimately going to get left out. I've had a point of view on something specifically that has been based more on sort of intuition than really research, and I just want you to tell me if it's right or wrong. The point of view has been that I don't personally, as someone who loves basketball and loves college basketball. I can't stand the fact that November and December becomes so important to the rest of the season. I mean, John Thompson once told me, you know, Big John once told me that there's nothing that's more a waste of a time in trying to determine whether or not a team is good or isn't than November and early December college basketball. These teams develop and they become totally different in February.

in March than they were in November and December. Yet, Patrick, so much of a conference strength is determined during that period of time when you're playing non-conference opponents, and that tends to hold up for the year. You know, the Big Ten last year was terrible at a conference early, and therefore, you know, teams at the end, like Nebraska and Penn State that were borderline teams didn't make it, even though watching those teams at the end of last year, I felt like they would have been dangerous had they gotten in. And this year, they did have a good non-conference in November and December. Am I right or wrong? Well, here's the flip side of that. First of all, if the games in November and December don't matter, then let's not start playing

until January 1st. I understand that the solution isn't easy, but go ahead. The other part of that is, if you're trying to figure out relative strength of teams, there does have to be something on the outside, because if not, every league is going to be 500. Like, everybody would be 500 against each other in your conference. So there has to be some sort of outside work there. You know, I think part of the issue here, too, is that the season continued to creep up earlier and earlier and early. And so if we go back 25 years and practice starts on October 15th, and you don't see the first game until Thanksgiving roughly.

That's a little more time than what there is now, where practices have actually slipped back into early October, late September, and you're playing on November 6th or 5th or whatever the date happens to be in a given year. When it was practice doesn't start until the 15th, and you're playing on November 8th, I can certainly understand that you're sitting there wondering how much is there to work with there.

So I think you can't just simply discard games based on when they're played. Now, you're more likely to be able to do it, say, in basketball than you could in football, where you only have 12 games. That's right. It drives me up the wall in football and people say, well, that happened a long time ago. Well, you only have 12. You only play 12 of them. Look, the only answer to it really is more subjective evaluation, you know, as the same.

season goes on and later into the season by, you know, coaches on a committee or, you know, former players or whatever. But that, you know, you are, now you're getting at it. Now you're getting at it. See, and this is not simply a basketball thing. And I'm not disparaging the committees in any NCAA sport when I say this. But the goal, especially when you see all this data throng out there. The goal is to be, the goal that these committees have is not to select in basketball, 36 at large teams. It's not to select 36 best teams. It's to select the 36 best profiles that can be defended in a reasonable and rational argument. And that's where you see the disconnect occur. That there is a desire to simply pick out the, make the decisions that you can

best defend as opposed to picking out, well, this team is better than this team because that's what my eyeballs tell. And frankly, because it has become as mathematical, if you will, as it has, and it certainly has been that way for a while now, it certainly made the cottage industry that includes people like me a little more viable because you're simply looking at the data and trying to figure out, well, these people have made decisions based on this in the past. So logically, they're going to probably do this year based on this season's data. But I understand why people would have an issue with the fact that you're picking out best profiles

as opposed to the best teams based on how they are playing on the court. All right. Let's talk about Maryland in the Big Ten here for a moment. What's the best case for Maryland? And at this point, with three regular season games left and then at least one game the Big Ten tournament, what do you think the worst case is for them? Worst case, if they lost out, I could see them on the seven or eight line. But that's obviously going to depend on what a lot of other people do. And it also has to take into account that just about everybody has one loss minimum in them,

the rest of the way, because of a conference tournament. On the flip side, if you've got a Maryland team, that's what, 21 and 7 right now and wins out, which means they'd be 28 and 7, 27 and 7, depending on what seed they got in the Big 10. Well, if they won out, you'd have six straight wins. They'd be 27 and 7, because they'd only play three in the Big 10 tournament if they won out. Yeah, I hadn't done the math on whether they could still miss out with Wisconsin. But let's say you're right. I'll assume you're right there.

That's with a win over Michigan. It's with randomly enough, a quadrant one victory over Penn State. that road game would be a quadric one game at the moment. It's a dangerous spot for them, definitely, with the way Penn State's been playing. Oh, it's absolutely a dangerous spot. You know, I think that, again, assuming most everybody's going to lose at least once between now and the end of the season, I think their peak is probably about a three-seat. But I could see a scenario where if they simply want out that you would have a possibility of even being a two,

but three is I think is probably the peak for this team. I think if they won out, and I don't think they will, okay, but I think if they did, and they were 27 and 7, and by the way, winning out, I think would guarantee them at least no worse than a four in the Big 10 regular season, perhaps a three, there's even a chance they could finish second in the Big 10. But anyway, that's what I was thinking. I was hoping you would say that, that actually a two would be in play,

worst case would be a three. In fact, I think if they were to win two of their final three and then make it to the Big Ten finals, so win four of their final six, that a three would be in play, but it'd be no worse than a four. Might be. I will say this, that the Big Ten final in every year other than last year,

remember, it has that 3, 330 p.m. Yeah, 3.45. So you sit there and you're never in time, sure how much that game matters. Yeah, true. And you hear the committee folks say that they have different brackets that have been established for those late games. I think the American also plays a late mid-afternoon conference tournament final as well.

But you're never entirely sure how much that last game really matters with the Big Ten tournament because of the time squeeze. So I don't know if they're going to get – I have them as a five right now. So, you know, it would obviously depend on what sorts of results they got down the next three weeks or so. You think there's a chance, Patrick, if they were a four that they'd be placed in the East Regional with a chance, perhaps, to play a Sweet 16 game at Capital One? That's a great question. And I think, first of all, whoever, whichever of the Michigan, Michigan State Purdue combo ends up, ends up as the best of the bunch in the Big Ten,

and I would assume one of them probably will. They're probably getting put in the South bracket in Louisville, which is a pretty reasonable drive for all three of those sets of fan bases. The next most likely, it wouldn't shock me to see one of them in the Midwest after that. So if you're Maryland, I think you want to be one of the top three seeds out of the Big Ten. And that gives you a chance to be in the east. If not, you're probably getting shipped out west unless you end up being the fifth of the sixth team. And then maybe you're back in the east based on geography.

Yeah, interesting. I think the interesting thing for, you know, that's something that is deep in the weeds. I think an interesting thing in terms of locations that's sitting out there for Maryland is that there's a sub-regional up in Hartford, Connecticut this year. which is, you know, there's plenty of short flights from BWI on Southwest up to Hartford every day. And most of the time you would say, oh, well, that's where Villanova and Syracuse are going to go. But neither of them is having the sort of year that you traditionally expect out of them. You don't have a Yukon factor, obviously. You don't have BC or Providence or St. John's or any of those teams in the Northeast that you typically think about as possibly getting sent up there.

So Maryland can get itself up to the foreline. I think there's a very good chance that that's where they ultimately play in the first weekend, regardless of what regional they're ultimately assigned to for the second. Yeah, I mean, Columbus and Columbia, South Carolina are pretty short flights, too, for the most part. And I think they were in Columbus a few years back when they lost to West Virginia in that second round game. Well, let's start by, when you look at Columbia, you've got Duke and Virginia and Tennessee. Right. So they're all logical, and North Carolina, for that matter.

Right. that would all probably be ahead. For Columbus, you've got, and for Columbus, you've got Kentucky and Michigan and Michigan State. Yep. Yeah, that all makes sense. So I think those are two places they're probably not going to end up unless they collapsed. So did Minnesota kill themselves last night losing to Rutgers, who, by the way, is a dangerous team too? I mean, the Big Ten top to bottom, I mean, there is not one weak team in the league. I don't know if we've seen that from any league in a long time, but did the Big Ten just,

get knocked down to seven bids? You know, first of all, as my friend Heather McDonough of Channel 4 would say, the rack is a tough place to play. We have learned repeatedly this year. Yeah. So anyway, you know, I think that Minnesota, while it has some work to do and the tail end of its schedule is not the sort of schedule that you'd want to be dealing with with work to do, because I believe it's what,

It's at Northwestern, home for Purdue, and at Maryland. But I don't think that they're up a creek just yet. I think that the victory over Iowa, the victory at Wisconsin, they did some decent work early in the season, knocking off Washington. And getting back to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, you know, somebody's got to fill out the field. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, as Nebraska and Indiana have faded away,

those are two less teams that a team like a Minnesota or a team like a Clemson or a Central Florida or an Arizona state is probably going to have to worry about for those last couple spots. But I would say that, you know, yes, Minnesota has lost six of its last seven and it would be wise to get its situation turned around here over its final three conference. Does Georgetown have any shot without winning the Big East tournament? Strangely enough, they do. you know, if they were to finish, you know, strong here, let's suppose that they can go three and one down the stretch. And they have two DePaul's, a Seton Hall at home, and a trip to Marquette. I don't expect them to win at Marquette, but they played Marquette pretty tough in D.C. last month.

Granted, Marcus Howard got hurt and only played about three minutes in that game. But they're in the mix. And if they can get some traction, which is a big if, because they've only won back, back-to-back games once since January 2nd. But if they can get some traction, there's opportunities for them to improve their profile. They have more decent victories down the board than a lot of teams in that neck of the woods. You know, they beat Villanova at home. They got St. John's on the road.

The Butler win on the road helps. So there's stuff that's helping them there. And heck, even a game like Illinois on the road is something that helped them out a little bit. You know, nobody would have thought that a month ago. Exactly. But here they are, and that's an opportunity, I think that's a game that has the potential to be a little bit of an asset for them as well. Right. That said, is there any reason to think Georgetown is going to suddenly win three out of four, four out of five?

I don't think so, but I do think it's a team that nobody's really going to want to play when they get up to New York. I just think it's funny because you mentioned that Illinois, and that was sort of part of the conversation earlier. I don't know that Georgetown would have a chance against Illinois if they played him now. They'd have a chance. I'm not saying they wouldn't have a chance, but Illinois is a completely different team today than they were on November 10th or 8th or whatever day they played them. I mean, it was super early in the season. All right. So what am I leaving out?

Virginia is a one, right? It'd be hard for them to lose a number one seat. At this point, you know, given that Tennessee's now lost, you know, two games in the last week or so, are they in – they have to be in danger, right? of dropping to the two line somewhere, right? I think they already have. I think they already have. And I don't get myself too wound up about the differences between ones and twos. You're still ending up in a good geographic spot.

You've still got yourself a reasonably good chance to get at least one victory. You mentioned Virginia, let's ignore what happened last year. I agree that especially when you look at what they finish with, they get three out of four to close at home, Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh being. the first two. It's going to be, and plus Louisville, a team that they just, you know, steamrolled in the second half the other day after a sluggish start. I think that they'll probably end up on the one line. There's a, there's a scenario where they don't, but I have a really hard time imagining them being anything worse than a two of this. All right. Lastly, give us, you know,

I've been reading a lot. I've not watched Wofford play, but I know that there's a lot of discussion about Wofford. I have seen Houston play. They're a terrific defensive team. Give me the team outside the Power 5 right now that's going to be seated super high that will surprise people who haven't been paying attention all year. Well, I don't know if I should toss South Dakota State out there, but I think that's a team that is going to be a 13 or a 14 and create all sorts of problems thanks to Mike Dom, who just won over 3,000 points for his career. They've been a mainstay in the tournament throughout his career. Another team that I would point out to Yajstra,

even though they lost the other day to James Madison, they've got a guy in Justin Wright-Forman that can score 30 points getting off the boss. And he's got a wingman in Eli Pemberton that can easily score 20 to 25. Maryland played him in December, right? And beat him in November. And we're down at halftime. Yeah, exactly.

And I'll also toss out out of the Atlantic Sun Lipscomb, a team that was in the tournament last year, really veteran bunch. Garrison Matthews, Rob Barb Barry, guys that have been around the block, they're really well coached, and a team that's bound to create problems for somebody if they can win the A's Sun. No sure thing, given the race that they've had with Liberty, which moved into the league this year. That actually has the potential to be one of the more interesting small conference title games here coming up in the next. few weeks. Is Gonzaga right now in a good spot to get the number one overall for the tournament? I don't think Gonzaga will be the number one overall seat. I think that ultimately when you size up all the numbers that they're looking at, and you can sit there and say,

well, they beat a 100% Duke on a neutral floor. There just haven't been as many opportunities for the Zags to build their profile as much as some other teams. So, I expect Gonzaga to be the one out west and to be a factor. But when you start looking at the number of high-end wins for them, they've got four quadrant one wins. Virginia has nine. A Duke has eight. Kentucky has nine.

Michigan State has 11. I think that difference in quantity is ultimately going to be a factor that keeps Gonzaga more like the number three or number four overall seed rather than the number one. It's just amazing, you know, that league, and, you know, we've seen in years where St. Mary's has been good, BYU, whatever. They are just annihilating that league this year. I mean, every night they're a 20-point-plus favorite. And, you know, against BYU last night, I think there were 21, or two nights ago,

they were 21-point favorite and one-by-thirty something going away. I guess I'm trying to think, was their last loss must have been against Tennessee, right? Or Carolina. Or Carolina, Carolina, right. Yeah. But I mean, you look at this. I mean, let's run. through what they've done since they

lost to Carolina. They beat Texas Arlington by 34, Denver by 61, North Alabama by 45, and then we go 45, 43, 33, 13, 18, it's ridiculous.

I mean, I sat down to watch their home game against St. Mary's a couple Saturdays ago, figure, well, this is a good chance to kind of check in on the Zags. And by, you know, by the 13 and it's not competitive. They're up by 18. I'm like, I'm not watching this. Yeah, Hachamura is really a, he may be the best player that he's had on that team,

you know, on his really good teams. And this guy is definitely a first round pick, if not a lottery pick. And he hasn't always, you know, had that. I mean, he said, good teams, well coach teams, but this team's explosive. and they've got NBA talent on the roster. It's going to be interesting to watch them when we get there. I always appreciate this. I hope we can do it right before Selection Sunday,

late in championship week, and get your thoughts right before it happens. I love reading you and always think you do such a good job with this. So thanks for the time, Patrick, as always. Kevin, thanks so much for having me. I really, I like Patrick a lot. He does such a good job. And it's a lot of work.

to do what he does, you know, what he and Joe Lenardi and types like him do. It's a lot of work. Patrick's been doing this. I think when I first met Patrick, he was covering the Terps for the Washington Times. Sounds right. You know, 15 years ago, and he wasn't yet doing a brachatology thing, but he was doing it. You know, he was like, he would be, I'd be like, what do you think about this team? He's like, you know, I'm looking at this. I think they still are in it. And I think they're probably an eight seed. And then, you know, he started doing this. and there is. There's like this cottage industry for these guys that do this and they get a lot of attention. And now he's, for many years now, his runs in the Washington Post. He does a really good job. He's actually a really high quality guy as well and does some great work. So follow him, by the way, on Twitter at D1. At D1S course. Discourse. Replace the eye with the one.

Exactly. At Discourse, but replace the eye with the number one. He's a great follow and a great read, always if you're a big college hoops fan. And he covers a lot of other college sports as well. Let me tell you quickly about launch workplaces. Launch workplaces is a great place to move to if you're working from home and you need more space. I did it. I'm in the Bethesda location. If you live in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Upper Northwest D.C. And it's too hard to get work done for. home, check out the new launch workplaces in Bethesda. They've got flexible and affordable private office solutions so you can get work done. It's a beautiful new space, fully furnished offices, they've got conference rooms and co-working desks. So if you don't want an actual office, they've got co-working desks that you can lease or just use on a one-off basis. They've got high-speed internet, complimentary drinks, a cafe, and free parking along with 24, seven day a week. access. Get more work done today by moving your office to launch workplaces. Call today for an exclusive free two-day trial, 240, 86714, or visit launchworkplaces.com today. Mention my name,

and you'll get that exclusive free two-day trial. 240-86714 or launchworkplaces.com, and they've got places all over the area, and you can find out where all of those locations are, and maybe there's one closer to where you live at launchworkplaces.com. All right. Tommy will be in tomorrow. We'll get into the Bryce Harper stuff in much more detail because Tommy's first gut on Bryce Harper was Dodgers. And now it appears as if the Dodgers may be back in play.

It really seems like Bryce doesn't want to go to Philly. It really seems like to me that the whole process for Bryce Harper, and Scott Boris of Free Agency that was long touted as, you know, an unprecedented event in baseball free agency has been a bit of a wake-up call for him and Scott Boris. He may ultimately get a $350 million deal, but this whole process, I think, has made everybody to a certain extent, become disinterested in it. It really has. And in him to a certain degree, this process, in so.

many ways I think has cheapened him a little bit. You know, perception-wise, I think he's a great player. I wish you were playing in Washington. But man, it didn't work out or it didn't certainly evolve the way most of the experts, or I think even both of them thought it would. So Tommy you'll join us tomorrow. We'll talk about that, get caught up on a lot of other things as well. Have a great day.