The Kevin Sheehan Show - Kevin O'Connell: Redskins Future Head Coach?

Episode Date: January 30, 2019

Kevin opens the show talking about Kevin O'Connell taking over as the Redskins' Offensive Coordinator and whether or not he's in line to be the Skins' next head coach. Jimmy Patsos was a guest on the show and they talked about everything....Terps, Wizards, Under Armor, Zion Williamson, Super Bowl 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'm here. Corbin is in for Aaron today. This show's presented by Window Nation. If you're in the market for Windows, please call 86690 Nation or go to Window Nation.com and tell them we told you to call. Jimmy Patsos will be on the show a little bit later on. Jimmy's a good friend and we'll talk some hoops with him, college pro, and he'll want to talk about the Super Bowl. Also, we'll get to the Wizards, Terps, and we'll be doing some Super Bowl trivia, but not today.

We'll do it tomorrow and Friday, I promise. The prize, not sure yet, but we'll do it tomorrow and Friday. So those of you that have asked for it, I appreciate that. I'm glad that you missed that segment, and I didn't know that there would be overwhelming demand for it, and I'm not suggesting that there's been overwhelming demand,

but I remember how much people liked it from the radio, so we'll do it for two days leading into Super Bowl weekend tomorrow and Friday. So it didn't take long to learn why the Redskins were interviewing quarterback coaching candidates. Remember yesterday we had the discussion about the Alex Marvez report that the Redskins were interviewing Ken Zampeze for their vacant quarterback coach position, and we wondered about Kevin O'Connell. and I suggested on the podcast yesterday that it probably meant that O'Connell was in line to be elevated, perhaps to offensive coordinator, and that's exactly what happened yesterday afternoon.

The Skins put out a press release that read yesterday as follows. The Redskins announced today the passing game coordinator, Kevin O'Connell, has been promoted to offensive coordinator. O'Connell has spent the past two seasons as the Skins quarterback's coach in 2017, and the passing game coordinator in 2018 for the Redskins. And then in their press release, they explained what was going on with Matt Kavanaugh, writing in a corresponding move, Matt Kavanaugh will now be the club's senior offensive assistant. They also in that press release announced that Jim Tom Sula,

the skins D-line coach, is coming back for a third season with the team in the exact same role. Real quickly on Tom Sula, who some of you tweeted me yesterday when you saw that announcement, why wasn't Tom Sula considered to be a replacement for Greg Mniewski as defensive coordinator? I don't know that he wanted to be the defensive coordinator. In fact, I think he is very happy that Mnuski is coming back as the defensive coordinator, and he's pleased that he can continue in sort of the same role that he's been in. You know, the young defensive talent on this team, John Allen, Duran Payne, and Matt Ionitis,

they love Tom Sula as their position coach. And they like Greg Minnowski also. So the young defensive players, the future of this team, the strength of the team, they are okay with Minnowski staying and they are thrilled that Tom Sula will continue as their defensive line coach. He is very well-liked. well respected, if not revered by the players that play for him. All right, back to O'Connell. Two simple words. Sean McVeigh.

I'm not saying that Kevin O'Connell equals Sean McVeigh, but they like him and people around the league like Kevin O'Connell, and they like him a lot. This was Tori Smith on Twitter yesterday. Tori Smith, wide receiver, played with O'Connell in San Francisco in 2016. He wrote as follows on Twitter yesterday when Adam Schaefter announced that Kevin O'Connell was getting the offensive coordinator promotion in Washington.

Tori Smith tweeted, The Next McVeigh. And then in a follow-up tweet to someone who said, oh, yeah, yeah, Jay Gruden's coaching tree with like an emoji, you know, laughing out loud, then Tori Smith felt compelled to respond with the following tweet. He is legit, one of the sharpest dudes I've been around. He is also great at communicating, which is half the battle when leading a team. Plenty of folks, no ball, but can you lead?

All right, so look, there's a couple of things here in terms of what his responsibilities are going to be, and then I want to sort of work back to what Tori Smith said, because I think it leads to an obvious thought, which I'll get to in a moment. The elevation of Kevin O'Connell, first of all, locks him into being here. I'm not sure if he's going to call plays. Wouldn't surprise me if he does. Although with that said, I don't think Jay Gruden, if Colt McCoy is the starter next year,

is going to relinquish that responsibility of calling plays. I think Gruden still wants a chance to prove what he and Colt can do together. And I would guess that Colt McCoy, being the starting quarterback next year, if that's the way it plays out, is going to excite Jay Gruden. It's not going to be his call, all right? I think we've learned that coaching staff decisions and roster decisions are not Jay Gruden's call. They are Bruce Allen's call. I'm not sure how much really drives Jay. I don't know that he's a driven guy.

But I think the prospect of Colt McCoy being his starting quarterback to open up a season next year will drive him in a way that he hasn't been driven in the past. And that's why when people say, okay, O'Connell's the offensive coordinator, he'll probably be the play caller. I don't know if Jay will give that responsibility up if Colt is the starter. Just a hunch. Don't know anything just a hunch. Jay likes O'Connell. the team likes O'Connell.

Other teams have been inquiring about Kevin O'Connell and his availability. They didn't want to lose the next Sean McVeigh, which just saying that out loud leads to this obvious thought. Do they view Kevin O'Connell as the eventual replacement for Jay Gurdon as head coach? It's in play now. It's definitely in play now. You know, it's possible that they want him to stay and want him to grow, because this time they're not letting the next great young head coach out of the building.

O'Connell's 33 years old. I've heard for a while now, and I've mentioned this in the past. He's smart. He's a very good communicator. He knows ball. He really loves it and really knows it. Back to what Tori Smith said. Tori Smith, he's legit.

One of the sharpest dudes I've been around. He's also a great communicator, which is half the battle when leading a team. Plenty of folks no ball, but can you lead? And he had written before on Twitter, The Next McVeigh. So this is now a thing. Kevin O'Connell as the Redskins head coach in 2020. That is definitely a thing to keep an eye on now. Now, they'll have to be more productive on offense than they were last year. And I'm talking about healthy. They weren't very productive, healthy last year on offense. You know, the 2016 Redskins, which led to Sean McVey getting the head coaching job in L.A., they were a top three offense in most statistical categories.

McVeigh got a ton of the credit for the passing game production that year and Kirk Cousins production that year. You know, a nearly 5,000-yard season, a very efficient, highly productive offense, third-down offense in particular. The thing they struggled with the most was they were not great in the red zone that year. But the Skins offense, if you recall in 2016, in some very big spots on national television, whether it be that Green Bay Sunday night game when they blew out the Packers 42 to 24 or the shootout with Dallas on Thanksgiving Day that year, people were watching and saw a dynamic pass offense without the benefit of a productive running game much of the time. You know, having to play off one of the league's worst defense

in modern NFL history in 2016. That 2016 defense was the worst third and long defense in the era of post-merger NFL football. So O'Connell's going to need some of that momentum going into 2020 with a big year on offense. The problem is, he doesn't have a quarterback like they had in 2016, a highly productive quarterback. back they really knew the offense, maybe Colt will prove everybody wrong. I wouldn't hold my breath on that. They don't have Deshawn Jackson. They don't have Pierre Garsohn. They don't have, you know, and they probably won't have a healthy Jordan Reed. They had those things in 2016, and they all made a big difference. They just don't have the talent to really produce those results.

But if they do, he'll be sought after. If they do pull, you know, an offensive rabbit out of their hat, you know, he's going to be next year's Matt LaFleurr or Zach Taylor. He'll be a head coaching candidate. If they get the results offensively, and that's a big if, you know, the Kevin O'Connell's situation is a situation. He appears to be a head coaching candidate here in Washington and perhaps elsewhere if they get the results in 2019. This is why he was elevated. This is why they had a quarterback coach vacancy. This is why they were interviewing Ken Zampeze. I didn't see Kevin O'Connell, you know, emerging here in this particular offseason as a potential Redskins head coach in 2020, but the last two days clearly reveal that. You know, you have to connect the dots. They didn't, they, I don't know if they're kicking themselves

for Sean McVeigh. And let's be fair here. honest as we've been with each other over these last few months. Some of you think it's way too negative. I just think it's realism. It's what it is. You know, Sean McVeigh may not have succeeded here like he did in L.A. You know, we've had coaches here that have succeeded elsewhere that haven't succeeded here. Sean McVeigh may have, you know, been redskinned here.

You know, he may have not succeeded here because of, you know, the front office dysfunction. You need everything working together. You know, a great coach can only overcome so much. The situation in Los Angeles is totally different. But anyway, they certainly learned from the McVeigh situation. I don't know that they could have done anything about it in the moment. We've talked about that before. It would have been very hard to fire Jay Gruden after back-to-back winning seasons

for the first time in nearly 20 years. You know, they weren't overly impressive winning seasons. nine seven, eight, seven, and one, basically the bare minimum for back-to-back winning seasons, but it included a playoff trip and should have included a back-to-back playoff years. Should have. But we all know what happened in that giant game. You know, the defense was horrible and the quarterback didn't play well. Both of those things were true about that game.

You know, the revisionist history is that it was number eight's fault. He blew it by himself. But the real story of that game was a giant offense with a vanilla game plan that couldn't run the football against anybody all year, rolling up 140 yards on the ground in the first half, and dominating time of possession and taking a 10-0 lead or 10-3 lead or whatever it was. The Redskins defense was horrible that year. But yes, the quarterback was really bad on that day, too. He wasn't good enough. Anyway, real quickly, before we get to Patzos, I didn't see any of the Wizards game last night. I went to the Maryland game last night.

And it was what we expected in terms of the weather preventing a big crowd. The students came out, which was great to see, but everybody else got scared of a little weather. And I will tell you, there wasn't an easier night than last night to get to college park for a 7 o'clock game. Because the federal government was out early, schools were out early, everybody went home early and the roads were fine. They were fine.

At least that was my experience. They were completely fine. But anyway, you know, most of the people, season ticket holders, others that would have come to the game, didn't come to the game. So it wasn't what I would call a raucous environment for the first game that the students were back in. But Maryland did what they had to do last night. They were the desperate team. Turgent said after the game that after losing to Illinois, He could not eat for four days.

And you can see how he wears this on his sleeve. He is into it. He cares deeply. He is a competitor. And these losses, I know the loss to Seton Hall right before the holiday, just killed his holidays. Just ruined it completely. And the loss to Illinois was a backbreaker.

And, you know, it was preventable in so many ways. one of the ways, and I talked about this on Monday, you don't give up a home game in conference season in late January. You want to play a game at Madison Square Garden? You want to appeal to some of the Maryland alum that are up in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area, play it in November against a non-conference opponent. You know, that's what you do. You don't give up a home game. Maryland would have beaten Illinois at home on Saturday. I feel very confident in saying that. They didn't play well, and it's possible that they could have lost that game at home. More likely than not, they would have won the game on Saturday if they had played it at Xfinity Center.

Last night, there were a couple of things that stood out. First of all, Northwestern could not put the ball in the bucket for all the money in the world. They opened shots, short shots, long shots, a lot of three-point attempts in particular, could not make a shot. They shot 31% for the game. At one point, I think they were 22%. They were 5 for 23 from behind the arc. Maryland played good defense. And Maryland's been at times a good defensive team. And at other times, they haven't been against certain styles of teams. But really Northwestern's inability to make a bucket made this game a blowout. You know, pretty much never in doubt. I was wrong about that. I predicted a close game last night. I saw the point spread at seven and a half. I thought it was a little bit short. thought we were in for a tight game. I'm glad we weren't. I was right about Texas laying a point and a half last night to Kansas. They won going away. And the other game I liked that that I didn't mention, I did not mention, was I did like NC State with a short number, and they ended up

covering against Virginia. I was gun-shy about that because I love Notre Dame against Virginia on Saturday. Virginia is just a difficult team to bet against. But anyway, I also liked Northwestern last night. And believe it or not, yeah, I played Northwestern last night, plus the number. It was never in doubt. And that was a happiness hedge too. I was, I was happy losing that wager. Maryland pulled away late. You know, they didn't have Cowan. There were some cheap fouls on Callan in terms of, you know, total minutes. You know, Cowan probably played the fewest number of minutes I've seen him play in a long time. He played 19 minutes because of the foul trouble. They got out on the break a little bit more. it's still my biggest pet peeve when it comes to Maryland.

I want to see them run more. You know, when they dominate, or, you know, last night when you, when you dominate a team rebounding-wise, in part because the other team's continuing to miss shots, and part of that I'll attribute to Maryland's defense, you just have to push tempo more. It's where Maryland is at their best, and they will make mistakes. A lot of teams, you know, will get too fast and they'll throw it away, they'll turn it over. I want to see more possessions in a game. I want to see more shot attempts.

in a game, and they still don't have enough shot attempts in a game for me. I mentioned this the other day. They're 12 out of 14 teams in the Big 10. They should be getting more shot attempts, more possessions per game than they do. But the ball moved well last night. Bruno Fernando, bottom line was a beast again. I mean, 22 points, 10 rebounds. He was nine for 16 from the floor. And of the seven shots he missed, four of them were easy. Four or five of them were easy looks. He just missed him. Like he short-armed a couple of jump hooks, missed on a spin move hard to the bucket.

But there are moves he's starting to make with the ball facing the bucket. He's got a great low post game that NBA scouts are drooling, watching. He is a lock now, an absolute lock to be a first-rounder in June. I don't like to think about that because I want to enjoy him as a college player for my team for as long as I can. and he had 22 and 10. He's an absolute beast as a rebounder. It's really difficult with him in the game to offensive rebound if you're the opponent. And Northwestern had a big dude that, number five, pardon, he's 6-8, 240, 2-45, something like that.

Bruno, you know, Bruno's a million times better. Stick Smith bounced back last night, good game. And Eric Ialli, you cannot leave him open. a good long range shooter. And Darrell Morsell, keep shooting. I've got no problem with you taking open shots. Shoot them and shoot them confidently. You give the team so much more than offense. Everybody recognizes that. And yeah, he makes some bad plays every once in a while, some dumb passes sometimes in traffic. But don't pass on those shots. I want to see Morsell. I want to see Wiggins. I want to see Sorrell Smith. I want to see Cowan. I want to see Ayala. I want to see the big guys,

especially sticks Jalen Smith from Beyond the Ark. Don't pass on those open looks. Ricky Lindo, don't pass on an open three. He passed twice when the ball had reversed, I think, at least on one possession, two times. He's got a wide open look, and he didn't shoot it. Get those shots up. Sometimes they're the best looks you'll get in a possession. But it was a good win, a necessary win for Maryland.

I thought they could have won the game by 30, and they were up by 24, 25, 26, you know, late. in the second half. They have a monster game Friday night at Wisconsin. Wisconsin's ranked, Maryland hasn't beaten a ranked team on the road. They've not beaten a ranked team on the road in the Mark Turgeon era. I believe that's the statistic. Right, Corvin? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So they've got a chance Friday night to beat Wisconsin on the road as the 24th ranked team in the country, a Wisconsin team that's won four in a row, including wins over Michigan and last night on the road at Nebraska. The last game they lost was to the Terps, a game in which Maryland controlled most of the way, and then Wisconsin made a big run late.

Big game, 9 o'clock, Friday night. I'm assuming it's a Fox Sports 1 game, FS1 game, and big game in the Big 10. You know, you look at the Big 10 standings. The Illinois loss is going to be one of those you look back on, and it may be the difference between finishing second and finishing fourth or fifth or something like that. Who knows? Maryland right now is in fourth place in the Big Ten behind Purdue, Michigan, and Michigan State with a lot of big games coming up. I look at Maryland's schedule, and I see home games against Purdue, Ohio State, and Michigan,

and then Minnesota to close the season. But you got a Purdue game on February 12th, 630 start, hate those. And then a Michigan game on the weekend, late afternoon CBS game on March 3rd. That right now looks like it has the possibility to be one of those special days in terms of what Xfinity will be like on that day. But you've got more opportunities. If you haven't been out to see this team, Purdue coming up, Ohio State, coming up at home, Michigan at home, Minnesota at home. home. This is a team that still has a chance to have a really good season despite last week's results. The Michigan State loss, not a big deal. The Illinois loss painful. As far as the

Wizards go, didn't see the game last night because I was at the Maryland game, but I did certainly read about this comeback. The Wizards were down in the fourth quarter. At one point in the fourth quarter, I think they trailed by 27. Was it 27 or 25 in the fourth quarter? Hold on here. They were down in the fourth quarter by 23 at one point. 23 with 6.51 to go. 25. I'm sorry, here it is.

They're down 25 points with 658 left in the fourth quarter. They were down 15 with 3 and a half to go. They were down, where is it? They were down 11 with 42 seconds to go. And they had a chance with the ball down three to tie the game at the end. So I didn't see it. I can't spend a lot of time talking about it. I just will tell you this, can't lose to Cleveland.

If you want to be the eight seed or seven seed, these are the games. You've got to win. You got to beat Cleveland. I don't care if it's on the road or not. They've got three or four games in a row coming up at home, but Milwaukee's one of them. I think they've got Atlanta and maybe Indiana without Oladipo now. You know, it would have been nice had they gotten Cleveland, come home,

gotten a couple of those. But not a good loss for the Wizards who really are struggling on the road this year. They've got one of, I think they've got one of the worst road records in the league. They are six and 20 right now away from home. Not good enough. And now they're three and a half out of the eight spot. I think they're only a game and a half the other day. All right, that's it on that.

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that I sent you. All right, let's welcome in Jimmy Patsos, who is one of my favorite people. You've heard Jimmy on the radio show and, you know, lots of radio shows around town and he's doing work for NBC Sports Washington, a lot of wizard stuff, and he's working for Under Armour, and he's one of my favorite people because he's curious, he's interesting, he's smart, and he's a great guest whenever anybody has him on their show. God, I love you. You're my favorite. Well, you know I feel that way about you, but the best thing that Jimmy's ever done in the course of his long life at this point, middle-aged man at this point, is he's the greatest bartender in the history of third edition in Georgetown. I'm never going to shake that, am I? Never going to shake that. And that's what many of us will remember him for. But of course, a lot of people, you all know,

Jimmy from being on Gary's staff and, you know, and being a part of a lot of those great teams. So, you know, for those that have lost touch a little bit, and I know a lot of people are watching you on NBC Sports Washington, break down Wizards games, and you're into that right now. What are you doing? You know, what's your day job? It's fine. It's not an adjustment, you know. It's a transitional thing where I started helping Kevin Plank.

I've known Kevin Forever, one of our favorite Washington's. success stories who's got Under Armour rolling up here in Baltimore into, you know, it's the third biggest apparel company in the world, however you shake it out. You know, our competitors, Nike and Adidas have been around a lot longer than us, but we are on their heels in basketball. You know, we have Steph Curry, we have Joelle and Bede, we have Dennis Smith Jr., we have Will Barton who plays for the Nuggets, Terence Ferguson, who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder. I'm learning.

You know, you want guys wearing your shoes that have high character, that win games that are in playoff, but it's a process. And so I have been out watching colleges because we have, of course, Maryland, UCLA, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Auburn, South Carolina, Boston College, Sheaton Hall, St. John's. They go to those games. And then this summer, I was with the grassroots. And D.C. and Baltimore with their tremendous, you know, the DMV high school population of players, the success that they've had is unmatched by anybody in the country. So it's a little bit of a connection, Kevin, where you do grassroots, and then I see high schools up in Gonzaga and St. John's and Damatha and Paul the 6th, etc. Where does that all connect and how do kids buy shoes and what do

kids like? And it's been a learning experience. I really enjoy going on the road. Seeing the AAU up close was interesting. There's a lot more good than bad. Sometimes it gets a bad rap. seeing the NBA Summer League up close, how guys go to the Combine, where Thomas Herder, I mean, Kevin Herder, Thomas is his dad, and I coached his brother, Thomas. Kevin Herder plays his way into a first-round pick

and proves he can play. And on the other hand, Bruno comes back and makes the right decision. You know, some guys have come back from the Combine, and people said maybe he should wait another year, and I think Bruno is going to be a first-round pick. So connecting the dots, focusing on college and grass,

roots, but learning a lot about the NBA, and that doing the Wizards has been fantastic. Chris Miller's a good buddy of mine who's teaching me a lot of the ropes. They're in the throes of can they make the playoffs. So it's just been an interesting to step away and watch from a professional standpoint, as opposed to when you're in the eye of the storm coaching or recruiting, et cetera. It's been a learning experience, and I talked to Gary Williams a lot. We have the 100-year anniversary of Maryland basketball. Everyone's coming back for the Michigan game March 3rd.

In other words, so I jump around in basketball, like I like to jump around in life. So it really piques my interest, and it's been a great learning experience. But the Wizards is the focus now, and they are, after losing to Cleveland last night, they're trying to make one of the seven to eight playouts, and that's one of the topics we'll talk about. You know, you are, you're a competitive dude. I mean, you and Gary together, it was always fun watching, and anybody that loves competitors and watching people compete. You know, you guys were the, you guys were the, you're, you're a competitive.

the top shelf of that. And I'm wondering, does the business that you're in, does it satisfy the competitive Jones? Great question. In the NBA, I probably learned early. My wife's like it's the third game and it's the wizard season. You're not on the staff.

I know you work for NBC Washington and are close to the team, but go to bed. You know, you're thinking about the loss. You woke up at 4 a.m., and we're talking about the last second play that the keep got a bucket on us and the last second play that the Raptors

we didn't convert and they did and we're 0 and 2 she's like it's not we that's the Wizards, it's over, slow down. And you get that, you know, with the Terps, clearly I get a little emotional still when I watch because we'll always be part of the family. And Walt Williams and myself, you know, we discussed stuff as Walt

works or Chris Nakkeye who does the games but you know Mark Turson's been great to me and I'm around the program Greg Manning who worked for me for 10 years at Santa, played at Loyola, is on the staff. So you get a little emotional, but you don't stay up all night worrying about the losses. So I'm about halfway removed. That's a very good question. But I want to see underarmor basketball win in every phase of the game. I'm really proud we have two all-stars.

I'm really proud. We had seven of 24 All-Americans this year, McDonald's All-Americans, came from our grassroots program. But the Terps, they have a special place, brother. I want to see him go the NCAA final four. I want to see him cut down the nets again and with Bruno and Smith, and they've shown some real promise, and I know everybody gets hiccups. And then the Wizards are, you know, with all out, they, at the end of the day, they're best players out. But when they play with energy and when they play together and when, you know, if Otto Porter can really step into the six-man role, they can have a chance to make

the playoffs and you want to see them make the playoffs. So I'm invested emotionally, but it's not at that level where you're like living and dying with every pass and every shot. That's taken a little bit of an adjustment. I want to get to Maryland and the Wizards in more detail, and we'll talk some Super Bowl, too, in Patriots, which I'm sure you want to talk about. When's Flacco coming to the Redskins? That's what you should take. Well, I mean, I'm actually a Flacco fan. I may be the only one. I've always said about Flacko. I don't think that if you look back at the big games that the Ravens have had over the last 10 years, and you look at Flacco's performance in almost every one of them, they were typically his best performances.

Anyway, I wanted, you mentioned, you know, being at high schools, and, you know, I've been involved in the high school basketball scene over many years, coaching and being involved in it. And, you know, you're at Gonzaga and you're at DMAath, you're at the WCAC games, and the talent in this area, has it gotten better? Like, from when you were recruiting at Maryland, and you were recruiting these schools heavily, and you did the same at Loyola and Siena.

as well to a certain degree. Has it gotten better, and is there an area anywhere, Jimmy, that's better than this area? And I'm talking about the combined area of D.C. and Baltimore. Yeah, because St. Francis is really good up here. Yep. This year. Mount St. Joseph, who's, you know, Pat. St. Joseph is awesome, yeah.

Has just handed out players all over. I just saw Eric Adkins, who came from there who played at Notre Dame. It's a unique bond. In other words, you go around the country and everyone's like, oh, how's this guy doing it? at the WCAC. How are the twins doing at Wilson? How's everything going? How's Justin Lewis up here at Polly,

who I think is like a Ron Art Test type player? I really hope he goes to one of our schools, specifically Maryland would be great, but because he's got an intangible thing. And that's what I was going to lead into. The intangible, the teaching, the coaching, the WCAC has as good of coaches in the country at the bottom of the league.

Forget about the top of Mike Jones to Matt and Steve Turner, what Glenn's doing at Paul. sixth and all the way down. It's just a tremendous place to watch basketball. And I've had people from Philadelphia sit next to me and go Phillies down this year. Or New York go. New York's good, but the kids leave and go to Oak Hill or Montverde or IMG and stuff. Or Chicago say the just was there and their league's down a little.

This league is not down and it might be better. But the coaching is great. The programs are great. Kids stay here. They don't transfer out very rarely. you know, if they had anything, they did they do a fifth year. And it's, but it's the coaching. And I think that goes back.

You got to give Morgan Woodford. Yeah, right. You know, it just fell off his tree and it made everybody catch up. You know, you weren't just going to catch Morgan, so you had to become better coaches. And there's recruiting now. You know, there'll be seven to eighth grade games. We have a top 40 thing in an underarmour, you know, we have a little underarmour circuit. And kids are trying to get on that circuit.

But there are high school coaches recruiting seventh and eighth graders at our events, and that's become different. That's what's changed. High school coaches, they always did a little bit of recruiting, or, hey, you want to come here because it's a good school. They're actively recruiting six, seventh, and eighth graders. Therefore, they get better players, and the kids are advanced, and they can really play the game, and coaches are doing situations.

And a lot of these coaches are really in it to win. And I don't say that in a bad way. They're just, this isn't rolling the ball out, or it's a second job, so I can pay for my week down in the city type thing. This is their profession. This is what they do, and they're excellent at it. So it's a high level, and I encourage people. It's all heating up, you know, how's it going to go in the WCAC,

who's going to win the Baltimore Catholic League? You know, the city title game will be impressive again because Wilson's really good. These things are bred from an area that just has continually gotten to be better and better, and I think that that's really a tribute to the play. the parents, but the coaches is what I would give that to. Yeah, I think you're so right. I think that the WCAC is the one league that top to bottom for so long has had the best coaches,

and it's probably the best high school basketball league in the country top to bottom. And to your point, they don't all go to Oak Hill and IMG and, you know, all of the basketball factory schools. You know, the thing that's changed, being a born and raised Washingtonian and having grown up here, and, you know, when I was a kid, my dad would take me to DeMath as St. John's games, you know, when they were bigger. I remember watching Hawkeye Whitney play Jojo Hunter and a DeMathomacken game, you know, in the mid to late 70s. And the thing that's changed, Jimmy, completely,

is what you were referring to. It's the recruiting. When I was in high school, not every talented public school kid left. Now virtually they are all picked up, and they're in the Catholic League, they're in the WCA, they're in the IAC, they're in private school situations, and it's created this huge difference between public school sports, basketball and football in particular, and the private school sports. I've witnessed it up close. I've watched some of the scrimmages, you know, before the regular season starts, and it's like varsity and the freshman team when you compare them. And for me, as a public school kid, I've always been in recent years disappointed about that because there's an atmosphere in these public school games with cheerleaders, with bands,

that you don't get all the time at the private schools. Nope, I would agree with that. And there's nothing wrong. The public school game is good. I will be critical of, I don't really know who runs it anymore, and I don't want to say anybody's name, but they fell behind about 10 years ago

when they had to make decisions to let the really good public schools play more than 22 games. They wanted to make everybody make the playoffs, and that's fine. I mean, that's the world we live in. There's nothing wrong with that. But right away, you want to play your basic little schedule, or do you want to go play nationally? You want to go to tournaments.

Do you want to play 32 games or 22 games? Do you want to travel? Do you want to go to Vegas for a tournament? Do you want to go to the City of Palms tournament? Do you want to go to the Chick-fil-A down in South Carolina tournament? They have not adapted the rules of the state system enough, and I know it's not an easy one, but let the kids play a little more games, and if the team's really good,

and that's the problem of how you regulate that. But, like, when teams are really good. And I remember that was the beginning of Dunbar, the end of Dunbar and Baltimore. Right. Was when the state legislation and the city rules said, you guys can't go to these tournaments anymore. Well, sorry, because if you go to St. Francis,

you can go to, like, two of the coolest tournaments around. They played Memphis East. They played Simian. They went and played, you know, a couple of powerhouses. people go up to, DeMatha just went up to Springfield to the Hall of Fame for two days. Kids want to play that.

Coaches are going to tell them that. They're going to get more exposure. And what it leads me to tell you, Kevin, is forget the stars in Baltimore and D.C. That's easy. They're going to go where they're going to go Clemson, Virginia, Maryland, Duke, wherever. But the secondary and third kids get seen

and all of a sudden they get a full scholarship to Sienna. Or all of a sudden, like Gary Williams said, he made his living at AU and BC off of Mackin kids that were in the third. third best player. In other words, you see those kids and they get to go play it, places like American, places like Leola, places like George Washington, et cetera. And it's okay to have the second, third, and fourth best players on those teams because the programs are so strong. So it's a win-win for us as college and coaches that are recruiting to come to these games. And the travel part

and playing in the high-end tournament is something that these young players want to do. Plus, it's fun. Who doesn't want to travel? You're like, you feel like an NBA player. You feel like a like a star and you're playing in arenas and you're on TV now. So the Maryland state system, I don't know much about Virginia system, but the Maryland state system has to allow these guys to do a little more of that. Then you have a chance to keep them, you know, the young men or young ladies in women's basketball. Carol Lawson is a friend of mine.

But the players want to play more games. The players want to play these elite tournaments. And that is besides the coaching, besides the gear, besides the great schedule and the great education you get because, hey, Montgomery County's get as good school, as good as academic schools as anywhere in the country. Yeah. But if I can't go play all these teams, I'll just take a little train line and go to good counsel, Sidwell friends, or wherever I have to go.

And I think that's been a factor. All right, let's get to some hoops, although real quickly before we get to the hoop, the hoops, one of the things that those of you who know Jimmy and, you know, have followed his career, when he's taken his teams to, you know, road games and places where there are, you know, historical lessons to be learned. He's always taken advantage of that over the years. And I'm going to ask you in a moment what your favorite all-time trip was with the team, but I saw you tweet it out when you were at Duke Notre Dame the other day.

You decided to take a side trip to the home of the Jackson 5 in South Bend. How can you not? Yeah. It's in Gary, Indiana. In Gary, Indiana, right. Look, I'm like John Travolta, that movie. I'm like, hey, world's largest frying pan, or here's a ball of string over here, largest book.

Why wouldn't you go? I found out I was rare. As I see coaches, I probably should have done today's day and age, you know, guys are watching tape, guys are getting rest. It's a long season. I just, I always like shoot around 10 or 11 in the morning and then let's go do something because you can still get, you know, then you eat and get your sleep. I just thought it's fun to show the kids the world, you know?

The Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King was shot was just an emotional moment. going to the church down in Charleston, you know, where the shootings happen. And I hate to bring up two things that are negative with shootings, but that's historical. We coach a lot of different people. When you went to the Lorraine, were you playing Memphis? Yes, we played Memphis. We did that twice. Okay.

With Loyola and Seattle, you go play Memphis, you do that. That's probably the, you know, the 9-11 memorial, and I knew two people who were in that situation. So that those are touching moments that kids need to. And then you talk about how it happened. and how the world changed. Those things. But, you know, Michael Jackson was a fun one just for me to see. But the young men, the players, they might not say they enjoy it right at the time,

but they do. Niagara Falls up close and in person is incredible. You know, and how it changed the power industry in Edison. That's why the car is named Tesla. Tesla lived in Niagara Falls. It's unbelievable to see that in person. I just think the players should see that. And talking about, you know, going to see Google.

We saw Google in the top $100 on the Chicago trade. We should have all bought it. You know, teaching the players that the market opens at 930 and closes at 4, that the commodities market is only open from 11 to 1, and they're trading soybeans in orange juice and things like that. It's very interesting to see the kids' reactions, and then some guys go into that business, you know, going to studios to see, you know, a news broadcast up person,

close in person, et cetera, seeing Scott Van Pelt. Those are all things, I think, the young men like to see, the managers like to see, even the assistant coaches

who haven't done it, Robert Frost's tour when you went to Dartmouth, you know, how it all happened. Well, of course you wrote walking through the woods in the beautiful snow

because that's what it looks like there. Right. Those are things you just try to, we're about educating kids. It's probably has a lot to do with my Catholic University Division III mentality. You know,

it's not all basketball all the time. And I just always enjoyed that. You know, and if I had to become a high school teacher, I was going to be a history teacher. So after my first grades of accounting and microeconomics came in, Jack Brun was quick to clean out. So you're working camp this summer. We're going to switch to history. You're going to be a teacher and a high school coach, and you're going to make money on the weekend's bar, cousin. And I got your job at Georgetown. Back then, see to that, Kevin. He brought me in and told me, this is how your life should go. And I said, okay, coach, you did it. Told my mother. And my mother

I was like, if that's what Coach Bruin thinks best, you should do it. You know, nowadays there'd be a lawsuit. You know, you're telling my kid he can't be the CEO of, you know, a company, and I'm going to sue you. It was a different era. Coach Bruins just said, you know, your math skills are a little low, and I don't think Wall Street's for you. I think you should do this, and I listen to them.

And thank God I did because it's been a great journey. You know, the experiences that you, you know, the exposure that you gave to all of your players with all of these trips, I mean, you know this about young people. You dealt with them for so many years. It may not sink in. It may not be appreciated in the moment. But for 90% of them, it will be, you know,

five years from now, 10 years from now. And they'll remember that stuff. Yeah, that's your job. You know, you go to Montreal and the team you're supposed to. We took an all-star team to China with the Great Walls, wasn't it? But you see the terracotta soldiers buried under the ground for all those years. These armies of clay figures that are in the... I went into players that I took on the tour

and they still talk about stuff like that. So, you know, going to Maryland and Rosegrave when we were in L.A. and things like that. You just, I'm a culture guy, you know. Yeah. And Americana culture is big in our lives and political stuff, you know. That's why I said the MLK stuff, teaching that lesson, going to where, you know,

he gave the speech. Remember, George Ravling has the actual speech, talking about Bayard Rustin, you know, a black gay man back at the time that wrote the MLK speech how hard it was for him. Then you go down and you see the Vietnam Memorial Wall and what that did to this country and, you know, united yet divided, things like that. I just want to understand how it's going because sometimes the kids today can be a little aloof.

You know, they have more information than we ever had, but I'm not sure if they're always as dialed in as we are, and that's kind of what I try to make them understand. Yeah. Your tweet, though, from Gary, Indiana in front of the Jackson Five, you know, home, First of all, it looked pretty cold, but the question that I had is, what was that board attached to that iron rod fence? What was that? You can sign it. Oh, okay.

You can sign it. There's really two little houses that are gated off. It's at the end of a dead end street, and then there's a little park behind it. But just to see that all those kids came out of that little house and, you know, Joe Jackson, whatever he did, he drove them to be the most successful pop stars from a young age all the way. You know, it's hard to be a kid star these days and sustain it all the way through when Janet Jackson's a successor. Came out of this little house, you know, in this little town. And Gary, Indiana is not the most flourishing, beautiful place in the world. But that's where the King of Pop came from.

You know, it was just interesting to see. His music still resonates today. I'm a music guy. So when you're on the way to know today, and I'm going to see Digger Phelps and I'm going to see Jay Billis, and I can't wait to watch Zion, why not stop and see where Michael Jackson was born and raised. All right. Let's talk some basketball. Let's stick with college. You've seen and you've been to several Maryland games this year.

I think, and I've had Naki on this show the last couple weeks, I had Walt on the show last week. I think it's Turgeon's most talented team and potentially his best team. Do you agree? Yes. I mean, he's had some talented teams because he had super many of those guys, you know, that went to the Sweet 16th. They were pretty, Mello could really get, you know.

Cowan is more of a two-guard to me than a one guard is like, concern. But I really like I yell. I said this on a radio interview. When I get on that bus, if I'm the coach, of course, I'm looking for Bruno and sticks. And then Collins, my guy, the fourth guy I'm making sure is on the bus is Aiella. You know, is he on? Because we need him to win games. He's really poised for a freshman. He shoots the ball well off the catch. He's got some size. But he's got swagger and savvy and he's not afraid. You know, Wiggins is coming. He doesn't always do it. You know, he's a young guy. And Marcel's more of a Swiss Army knife type guy. I don't know if he shoots it quite as well.

I love Shirel Smith. And Lindo, Ricky Lindo, that's when grassroots is good. Ricky Lindo didn't get seen that much last year at Wilson. Plays on a for D.C. premiere who wins the Under Armour Grassroots tournament. You know, we have like a whole NCAA-type bracket.

AAU was actually much better than I thought as I watched it up close. And now in the old days, just playing games to play. Now there's a whole tournament format. Sweet 16. Ricky Lindo was like a glue guy that played really well for his DC Premier team. And the twins who were going to

Maryland more on there. There was a lot of talented players out there. Nico Mannion, who plays for West Coastal League, he's going to Arizona, Brian Antoine and Scottie, Lewis who are going to, they're going to Florida and Villanova respectively. This is like an interesting thing

the grassroots as it goes. Ricky Lindo emerged from that. He showed he could play. Maybe he was a little bit of a late bloomer. And I liked his decision and I thought Kevin Brodus was the lead on it. said, why don't you come playing out? Don't go to prep school. Now, we don't know how many minutes we're going to have, but you could earn them.

And clearly, Bruno is going to leave for the NBA, in my opinion, which is great that he didn't, you know, he went to the combine. Right. They told him to come back. He's now a first round pick, clearly, in my opinion. Lindo's going to have a lot of experience for next year. I think that this Terps team can go far. They have to shoot the ball well. And they have to get ready for every opponent.

Clearly, they took Illinois, you know, whether they took him light. or they didn't believe. I know it was a strange time to go to Mass and Square Garden, but bad time. I'm just worried about this. Bad, bad timing to go there. Yeah, I mean, how do you get, I mean, I was, I was really upset before the game and then on Monday, you can't give up a late January conference game to go play in New York. You play that game in November against a non-conference opponent. If you want to play, and we both know it, there are a ton of Maryland alum in the New York, New Jersey, you know, Fairfield County, Connecticut area. but that's a November non-conference game.

I couldn't agree with you more. However, being in those rooms, you know, and I was never in the ACC rooms, but I've been in the back rooms where, hey, this is a chance for us to go here and play. Or you have to go to Advocare down and play all the biggies in Orlando for three days and get your brains beat out. You sit there and the commissioners and the A.Ds are in there,

and they say, who wants to go to Madison Square Garden and give up a home game? Who wants to go to the United Center and give up a home game? Who wants to go to Indiana? And it's May and you're tan and you probably had a couple drinks the night before with somebody. And you're like, oh, well, we have a lot of alarms and I'll take that game. That game was probably done in 2016 in May, if that makes sense to everybody listening. And so you're like, this isn't that big a deal. We'll be fine.

Our fans will be there until you lose and realize you would have definitely won had you played at home. I agree. You know, with your students back and stuff. And that's one of the, you know, one of the criticisms of Maryland. and I'll jump on the bandwagon a little is the lack of scheduling. And if you play Kentucky in the Garden in November, then maybe you say I don't have to do that. But Turs is very cautious with his schedule.

Nothing wrong with that. He's got 17 wins. He played Virginia at home and Seton Hall at home. I know they were tough losses. I'd like to see him play. Here's one of my things. It's so easy to fix the schedule, Kevin. Both them and Georgetown need to play each other.

And I don't mean that rivalry-wise or image or. attendance-wise, the energy, the buzz, national television game, the first week of December, they both need it, in my opinion. What do you think? 100%. I've advocated, I mean, I used to have this argument with Big John at the radio station, who would say, you know, you know that they didn't want to play Maryland for a long period of time. And I would say, and he would say, you know, go back and look at the U.S. Air Arena game where Gary, where you guys won it was the first big win. know, of the Gary era in overtime. And he said the building wasn't full. And I said it was played

at 12 noon the day after Thanksgiving and Maryland was coming off probation. I said that game's a sellout every single year. You switch it back and forth. Personally, as a Maryland guy, I wouldn't even have a problem. Jimmy, if they played it at Capital One every year and you just split the tickets down the middle, you split the revenue down the middle, you play it on the Saturday where you know the Army Navy game is on, you don't want to, you don't want to head, you go head to head with the NFL on a Sunday in December. You don't want to go ahead to head with a big college football championship Saturday deal, you know, on Saturday. It's the week of Army Navy, and you play it there at a 6 o'clock start on national TV. You give everybody a chance to go

down and spend the day in Chinatown, Maryland fans, Georgetown fans. It would become, in my view, I've always felt this, if it were a traditional thing, you know, one of the top five to seven or eight dates on the on the local sports calendar i don't know why they don't do it you have my vote and believe me okay so you only get 16 000 it's a lot better than the seven or eight georgetown was getting and that's and that's being generous in november and december you'll sell it out every year you'll sell it out yeah and it's like cincinnati's aviuchesia you've already said it you have to do it every year so it becomes an event in church town of maryland guys that are friends go to dinner at the palm or wherever they're going to go or down in china town and it becomes an event like

just said. And it's also Cincinnati's, because there's very few rivalries locally that aren't in the same conference. In other words, USC, UCLA's same conference, Cal, Stanford, you know, and it's in you know, St. John Seaton Hall, same

conference. It's one of the few ones that's really viable to just take right off, but I do agree with you. Play it on exactly the same day, pretty much at the same time. I'd like to still see that, you know, Maryland's got to get a home game once in a lot, but that's okay.

If you had to go down, there becomes issues like whose floor is down, and you can put the Wizards floor down. But if that's what you've got to do. But in other words, it answers both of those teams right now have asteriskers next to their names. Look, there's three ways to make the tournament, Kevin, you're a smart guy. There's the preseason, like Arizona State did last year. When you beat Kansas and you beat 50s, there's three weeks. You can do it in the preseason, then you've got to win your conference,

and then how do you play in the conference tournament? You know, if you go three for three, you have like a top seed. You go two for three, you have like a fourth through nine seed. If you only be one of the above, you're sneaking in on the bubble. Both Georgetown and Maryland right now, the albatross around both of them. And I know Georgetown went to Illinois and all that, but it's their schedule. Therefore, you both help each other's, you both get rid of the albatross by playing each other. And so what if you lose?

It doesn't really hurt you because you're both supposed to be really good and get the RPI ranking. Yeah, I, well, I couldn't. I couldn't agree with you more. I've had this conversation on radio and on the podcast about their scheduling. And look, you know, I know what Mark will say now. We've got 20 Big Ten games, including two of them, you know, in December. And I get that. But, you know, the Seton Hall game, there are a couple of things.

The Seton Hall game was played 11 days after their previous game. They played the fewest number of times during that finals, break of any team in the Big Ten. And it was on a Saturday where the Redskins were scheduled to play, the Ravens were playing. It's like you got a three-quarter filled building. Those are the games you got to try to avoid. Just like this Illinois thing, I completely agree with you. They beat Illinois if that game's at Xfinity. I think they've had opportunities in the past where the start times, look at Maryland Jimmy. It's the only big city team in the in the Big Ten. I mean, Minneapolis is a bigger city in Northwesterns in Evanston, in Chicago.

But I'm talking about major traffic issues city. I don't know why they can't go to the Big Ten and say, we can't play a 630 or 7 o'clock game. And if you're going to make us do it, do it when our students are back. Let us have these games when our students are back. There's a lot. You know, there's 14 teams now. So they've got to get that. Then there's TV.

And then where they're East Coast. So they want us to play. I'm in Chicago, which runs the league as an hour behind. So there is a lot of stuff that goes into that. But I'm more, look, if Kentucky and John Calipari or Kansas, where Mark Clay come into this building, everyone will get there. You know, that's just the way the world works now. Everybody's, it's a top-heavy world.

That's true. I don't disagree with that. They'll all be there. And if you get the right, you get the right, you know, Beyonce comes, we'll find a way to get down to the arena, okay? But the Georgetown thing is just a natural for the whole area for the longevity of, like you said, the area. And there's no travel.

It's easy travel. It's a great game. And then, you know, he's got to return to Seton Hall next year. Seaton Hall's three-time then. I have no problem with that. The Virginia game, I'm glad we played Virginia. I was there. It was a great atmosphere.

Bentley was before the game. Everybody was all fired up. I just want them to see, with 20 marks right, I just want to see one more. You know, they didn't play in a tournament. I liked going to the Maui. You're going to play two big teams. Why haven't we been to Maui in forever? Why haven't we been to Maui?

I don't think they're bad. You have to take the challenge, but those are tougher games. I don't care. And Mark gets nervous about it. Right, but he's trying to win and build the program and make sure he has a young team. He wants them to get confidence. But I think it's time to step to schedule up just one notch.

And like I said, being you were in agreement, Georgetown answers all those questions, and it's an easy travel game. It's an exciting game. TV wants it. You know, Bill Rafter, We'll be doing that game on Fox if that's what you want. That's how you've got to do it.

Will they do it next year? I don't know what their schedule is like. There is 20 league games, and that's tough. That's one of the things that the 20 league games does is a boost your RPI. It's now called the NCAA Net Rankings. And it gives you some more points towards making the NCAA, which is the goal. But if you win those big games, your seating becomes better. And it's just Gary Williams and I used to look at Gary and say,

We're playing Kentucky. We had one home and one away every year. Oklahoma, Kentucky, stuff like that. Gary Williams is unbelievable. I'd say, hey, Kentucky's got everybody back. They're really good. He'd yell at me and say, yeah, that's going to be great when we beat them. It shows you how good we're going to be.

I'm like, you've got to kind of have that edge. That's why we're doing it. Yeah. But the Georgetown thing would be a natural. And then, you know, whether it's Kansas, Kentucky or, you know, a Texas with Shock is smart, or, you know, when UCLA gets their situation and straighten out. You don't want to do what UCLA didn't play too many. Steve Alfred got fired. Their schedule was out of control.

They went to Cincinnati. They went to Ohio State. They played Kentucky. They played Carolina. They played too many. You can't. And Turgis is right on that. It's just, I just want one more really national game. You know, one home, one away every year. And then you get your big 10-ACC matchup, and then you kind of go with it. So it's a combination of things. But I'm with you. There's a lot of factors that go with it. You know, I know you know this intuitively, but when you just said something a minute and a half ago, when you said, you know, I walked into Gary's office and I said, Kentucky's got everybody coming back. And any Maryland fan, longtime Maryland fan, can see and envision this exchange of Gary looking at you,

probably with a couple of F-bombs, saying, saying, good, we'll effing beat them. That'll be a really good win for us. And that, honestly, you know, for people like me, that's the stuff that makes, you know, the hair on the back of your neck stand up a little bit and just you yearn for those days. But anyway, enough nostalgia here for a moment. On this particular- And that's what I mean. When you find Calipari in campus, we can play that. This guy Calapari is on to something. There's a lot of energy around their program.

Gary's like, good, let's go kick their app. Yeah. I'm like, all right. But we got them in the tournament. And they come walking out with like, ah, cute. NBA and Lou Roe on them, and I'm like, why do we schedule this game? So I understand both sides, but when you do win, and it's for the fans, the fans love those early games that are like that, you know? Yeah. Real quickly, on this particular team, here, first of all, I think Turgeon's doing

a good job with this team, and I think that the development of Fernando has been just remarkable from one year to the next. I mean, his patience, his footwork, is everything. But here's my one gripe. And I just want your reaction to it. I don't think Maryland plays fast enough. I think they dominate the glass in most of these games. They block shots. They've got a chance to run a lot more than they do. You and Gary and all of Gary's teams,

he wanted to try to score 85, 90 against everybody. This team is fine walking the ball up, playing grind it out Big Ten style basketball. And I just think sometimes against these lesser opponents, we should be throttling some of these teams. And even pressuring. Yeah, Gary came to, went to practice a couple times, and Turs went to him. I know.

Gary went around more than ever, which is nice and talked about the press. Just we're all back. We got Turses back. You know, it's underarm of school. We're all in on the family thing. It's the 100-year anniversary. I'm my second does an event in Baltimore, and then the third. Everybody comes back, alumni game, lunch, and et cetera.

When we play Michigan, you can play fast. I think you gave the answer. The Big Ten may have caused some of that. know, Ters knows what he's doing. The ACC was a running gun league. You were not, I mean, once in a while, Barnes and Clemson, those guys could roll you by playing their slowdown game. But overall, you had to keep up with the Joneses in every way, you know, possible,

whether it's recruiting, image, how you travel, marketability, and also scoring. You had to score to beat Carolina. You had to score to be Duke. Wake Forest could really score. Georgia Tech running gun. You had to, you know, and that's Jeff Jones will tell you. He kind of grinded it out in Virginia. and at the end of the day, that may have gotten him a little bit,

you know, when they finally let him go, and Jeff's doing a great job at Old Dominion. Great job. If you – there's – again, Williams always said that. If you play slow in the ACC and don't win, they will have your ass because everyone else is playing fast and winning. Now, if you play fast and lose, they can say, okay, at least you're trying and all this.

If you play slow and lose, fans don't like that, you know, and that was an ACC. The Big Ten mentality – And Tursian, hey, he signed up to come on to the ACC. Right, exactly. He's handled the Big Ten adjustment very well. But it is what it is. Michigan's going to grind.

Michigan State's going to grind. Ohio State. You know, Indiana with Crean was a little bit thuggy. Wisconsin plays a slow pace. Fran McCaffrey, who's a good friend of mine who I followed at Sienna, who helped me get the job. He's the one guy that really tries to play. Yeah, he does. But it's a fight every night to play fast.

I think is those playing fast now. I think Izzo's playing fast now. He's got that plate guard. He's got that plate guard. Right. Tertrish has done a good job. Colin is not a true point guard. He reminds me Andre Collins who led, when I had Andre Collins in Loyola,

J.J. Reddick led to, Adam Morrison was one, JJ Reddick was two and Andre was three in scoring in the country, 28, 27 points a game. Collins really a two guard. So you've got to hide that a little. Maybe that's why he doesn't want to push in the ball as much. But my thing is as long as Bruno touches the ball every. No, I hear you on that.

I hear you on that. He'll pass it. He's passed. I just like when he touches the ball, and he's got to get a few more shots. Jalen Smith's the next guy that I think turns is bringing along slowly but brilliantly, and I expect him to have the big February. And I'm assuming at this point that the lean with sticks, Smith, Jalen Smith, would be to come back for a sophomore year.

Definitely. He should go to combine, have a good time, get the gear, Under Armour runs the combine out there. We own the combine. Go have a good time in Chicago, get measured, do all that, and then play while. The fear is that you don't hope he does what Hurt or does, and he shoots the ball well, and he's a little tall than they thought. He gives great answers, and he's a very smart kid. All of a sudden, everybody's like, Kevin Hurtr.

It's 6-7, not 6-5. I just saw Zion Williams. He's really good. He's electric. He's unbelievable. He's 6-5. Okay? I'm giving him 6-6 max.

He's not as tall as Rodney Rogers was. Rodney Rogers. A Wake Forest reference. That can be tough. But I think Sticks should go the combine and see what they say, but he should come back and be an All-American and be a lottery pick. So what are you saying about Zion? Will that 6-5, not 6-7?

So what do you think that will mean and how that will be viewed? Have to take him number one because of his name. It's just the Zion factor. He's electric. He can score. He can pass. He's very left-handed. I don't know if he shoots it well enough yet.

He's 6'5. Charles Barkley was 6'6 with long arms and had an unbelievable athletic ability. So Zion, but not everybody. Clarence Weatherstone didn't make it, you know, a lot of guys that are a little small in that NBA over 82 gauge. You better be able to shoot it. You know, are you long enough? You know, it's not, here's the thing. Janice Ante Cucco is the 15th pick.

Okay. Markell, folks, I haven't even seen his name. There's no perfect science, okay, in the NBA. Zion isn't going to go into the NBA and be the next Bill Russell I'm just telling you that he's not going to be the next LeBron it's not going to happen that way because he can't score the ball

but he is a tremendous athlete he does move his feet defensively he's a great person I love his whole image he just was a little small than I thought and 82 games as you know is an interesting you know test you know it's interesting because

the length thing to me is always the you know the differentiator in terms of a physical characteristic, you know, and you're right about Barclay. Who do you like that you've seen? This guy, Kelton Johnson, that Marilyn was on, that he went to Kentucky, he's turning into a monster. And I love the kid from Tennessee, Grant Williams. I don't know if you've seen him play yet. Of course. No, they're not more, you know, Barnes, Barnes, how's Texas doing with Rick Barnes? They get him now. He's a great coach. Don't you think he's

been underrated over the years. Great coach, great guy, and he's smart of than all of us. He loves football schools. Clemson, Texas, Tennessee. Two weeks after the season, they want to know who's playing quarterback in the spring game. Great. You know, the message boards are too busy with football to worry about

basketball. He's done a great job. That kid's good. I like Jared Culver from Texas Tech. I spent time down there for three days. I do like Kelvin Johnson's getting better. I was at Kentucky's practice. I went to Kentucky's media day. There was only 170. media there. 170.

So I like him. No, I like, look, I take Zion. Hey, the Wizards would be great to have Zion. He's just, he does pass it. He's a quick jumper. I just worry about him long term. I mean, I might take sticks over him for 10-year career. Sticks can really shoot the ball.

Yeah, he can. This is a great, he's just got to mature a little bit and get a little older. In other words, Lonzo Ball is really struggling right now. I mean, do I have to bring up Yon Vesely's name? Right. Yeah. In other words, I'm just saying the science of the draft is not. Of course.

Michael Beasley, Michael Beasley had a lot. Maybe Zion's character and coaching and all that. Jabari Parker doesn't play. They hate Jalia Locafer. I mean, not hate him as a person as a player. There's no easy answer here. But Zion is Zion. It does have a great image.

I hear tremendous things about him. We knew him a little down in South Carolina because Frank Martin's one of our programs down there. He does have all the intangibles. stuff. Can he be the productive player? 100%. He's going to be a good player. Can he be an off-star? Not sure. Not sure. All right. Well, you've solidified now that you're going to be my NBA draft expert when we get to June. I was out there last year. I know. I'm taking so much of your time, but I've got a couple of other things I want to get to. The last exit question on Maryland, what do you think their upside is this year? How far could they go if things broke right?

you know, draw, they shoot it well. What's their upside? Final four. They got to throw it inside. Final four. They can beat anybody. I mean, they've showed against Virginia that they caused problems by coming back. Now, I mean, they played, I want to see what they do against Michigan twice.

You know, the first half against Wisconsin, and I just saw Wisconsin, and perhaps a great college player, not sure I dropped him either. They can go as far as they want to go. But the losses to Illinois, the loss to Seaton Hall, who, Seaton Hall, who, Seaton Hall, was playing really well at the time. They're struggling now. I just worry about feeding, Kevin. Like one through five is all the same.

Gary would yell at me right now. But like one through five, you've got a chance. You know, at five you're going to have to beat four. I get worried six, ten. I get one at seven, eight, nine. You know, first of all, your first game's tough, then your second game's really tough, you know? So those are things, you know, to get out of the first weekend.

If you get to the second weekend, hey, once you're in the sweet 16, it's anybody's ball game. Now, because I think when they have, time to prepare, they're great. And they will not take a night off. Young teams, they saw themselves get ranked. They got beat by Michigan

State. Okay. They probably thought, okay, we're going to go into Illinois. They stink. They're no good. They were up 10. And, you know, that happens to young teams. But Turr's seems good. Turs does one thing really well. It doesn't seem to me make the same mistake twice. In other means, they got caught. So what?

They won't get caught again the rest of the year. He'll use that as a teaching tool. You know, they haven't had a lot of time to practice because they have so many games in a row. Their ceiling is high. I also think, and I want to give Georgetown some shoutouts. I went and saw them play. They lost the St. Jones when I went, but I've been watching them on TV.

Their backcourt's really good. Ewing can coach. This guy's not some just, you know, I totally agree with you. Yeah, I think they do a good job. Really good job. I think their future is right. I hope they make the tournament because I think they could do something. Look, Jay Wright's team is really young,

but they've all of a sudden got them playing better, them and Marquette, the rest of the league's a little even. You know, I got to see Michigan in person. USC's starting to put together a little run out there, my friend Andy Infield coach. There's some teams, but the Tennessee thing, the SEC has done a great job. Dan Lieberwitz that hired him three years ago

to become their basketball guy. You know, the SEC has always been football. The SEC, to me and the Big 12 with Kansas, Texas Tech and those guys are the two strongest conferences. I want to see who come more. out. But it's, do I think the terms of having a shot at making a real noise? You have 100%. You know, it's in play here, and I mentioned this a few weeks back. You know where the East Regional is this year? Where? D.C. Capital One. And Maryland is eligible to play a sweet

16 game in Capitol 1 arena. In fact, Lannardi's, you know, a bracketology thing, he's had, you know, until the other day when they lost Illinois, he's had Duke is a one, Maryland is a four. Maryland is a in the East Regional. Can you imagine if Maryland figured out a way to win two to get to the second weekend and they were playing in D.C. and the advantage that that would give them. Because we both know what... I'd love to be playing Duke, too. Oh, that would be... See, that's the game I want to see.

Oh, me too. Well, we all do. You know who's sneaky good this year is Carolina is sneaky good, too? They're playing better now. Okay, they had a little pickups. They are. They got talent. They got a lottery pick, too. And he hasn't really taken one and done, you know. It's interesting what's going on.

Yeah, right? Shashefsky has and... Yeah. And Caroline has. So I'm interested to see, but the Wizards is my most main focus. Can we make the playoffs? Do you want to make the playoffs, Kevin, if you're the Wizards? I mean, I'm such a big fan, and I have become apathetic about this team.

I'm disappointed because I really felt, you know, going back to 2013, 14, 15, I thought we were in the midst of a 10-year run of being a top-four-seous. seed every year, not necessarily a championship contender, but a piece away. Well, but getting to play in the second round. Yeah, and, you know, John's injuries have obviously hurt, and, you know, what do you think will happen before the trade

deadline? Do you think they'll make a move? I think it's a critical time for them. Ted Leone's said that our tanking. I saw him at the Warriors game. You know, Otto Porter hit some jump shots, you know, Otto Porter's been a little banged up. I like him when he makes jumpers. I wish he was a little more enthusiastic about the game, but It's just not his personality.

Right. I love Bradley B.L. I've really become a Bradley Biel fan. And Thomas Bryant and Satteransky, they're doing all they can. They play hard. They're good. The question is, in the next 10 days, or I guess six days, tonight's a big game against the Paco's.

They have to win. You know, the last of the Hawks once, the Cavaliers, I mean, the Cavaliers twice, come on. You know, the Bulls, they lost at home. Yeah. You win those games. You're in the playoffs right now. And if you're in the playoffs, that's what they want.

great goal. Why is that a goal, though? Because let's be fair, there's a massive limit on this team without John. And I know that the team looks different and plays differently. And there's actually at times a more appealing aspect of watching them play here over the last few weeks than there was early with, you know, John seemingly at times disinterested, perhaps hurt, whatever it was. But it's not that I'm in the tanking, you know, mode. If they get into the postseason, and they got a 7-2 matchup. It's not going to be with Indiana anymore because they're probably going to fall back here a little bit.

But they can't beat Toronto in a best-to-seven, Philly in a best-to-seven, Boston and a best-to-seven, Milwaukee in a best-to-seven. That's where in this league you get into, you know, is the goal trying to win a title? And maybe in the NBA, the goal can't even be winning a title with Golden State being what they are. But, you know, you want to be in a conference championship series at least.

No, you do, but with wall out, that's not going to happen. No chance. Hopefully Wall gets healthy and hopefully, I hope John Wall misses the game who wants to really play it every night next year. He's a tremendous talent. He's played really good against some good teams. Let's face it, there's some nights I thought he would be better. Now we find out it was his heels, which is, you know, according to Larry Bird,

the beginning of his downfall was his bonespurs. It just hurts when you're walking. It hurts when you run. I don't blame the guy. So, but do you want to get to play? First of all, does Leonis and those guys? want to make the cash for a couple of home games, probably. Okay?

But it does give Saturday. I like Satteransky and Brian a lot for next year. Troy Brown has a huge off season ahead of him. Last night he should have passed the ball. When he caught him with 10 seconds left, he was going to try to make the hero three. Let's not sugarcoat it. That's what was going on. He should have passed it.

But this is a huge off season. He was the 15 pick in the draft. He's only 19. He's very young. But he's got some size and he has the ability to pass the ball. Because they can't go out in the free agent market and get anybody. You know, they kind of have the team they have. Now, would you create Otto Porter?

I don't know enough about that. You have to ask Bernie Grenfeld. I don't know how that works. And I don't think anybody's going to take Yan Bihini. Can you make him any better? He's your backup center. And you still have, does Dwight Howard next year come back and play? Because they're paying him next year.

They got him for $6 million, I think. So they could be really good if Fowal, you know, becomes healthy. And then, like you said, you know, Beal and they got the pieces. And if Otto Porter, and I like them, Marquif Moore, I wish this team right now had Marky 4. I'm a big fan. There's a lot of dirty work. He can make jumpers,

and everyone on the other team is scared of them, which I like. But do those guys getting playoff experience help you for where you want to be in three years? I think it does. Because now, look, if then had 11 wins and we're going to get to the one, two, and three pick, I know what we're all thinking? But what is getting the 10th to pick two for them, really?

I don't know, you know? Yeah, I mean... In other words, if our goal to have wall back and Saddle have more experience and Troy Brown have more experience. But Thomas Bryant, who's playing good, have more experience. What do you trade? You know, this is the question.

Are we using Jeff Green are people want them right now? People want them from the playoff runs. I don't know how much they're going to give them, but that's who they want. Did you know that that's what's going on? Sort of like it's green and a Reza are like valuable to a team that's, you know, fifth place. Like you said, Indiana, right? Now that Olimo's out, they die to have green in ERISA because they could make a run. I don't know what you do there.

Well, I mean, I've been the biggest Trevor Arisa fan. I thought it was a big mistake when they went all in for Durant. I never thought Durant would come back here. And I think Arisa would have been a huge difference maker in the years that they were in the postseason. I mean, you're a coach. You know the value of a player like him. But, you know, when they're ready to actually contend at this point, you know, and let's just push it down the road two, three years. I mean, Arise is going to be 36, 37 years. old. So they missed out on... Oh, yeah, they should have got him when he was younger. Well, they should have just kept him. Yeah, Ernie needed to pay him instead of let him go to Houston where they miss him, actually, I think, this year. But, um... I agree. That guy Hardin. Hardin's up close. Who's your favorite player to watch right now? Is it Hardin? I liked Hardin in person up close, but I was really impressed with Russell Westbrook on and off the court, too, you know, the way he rebounds.

I, Yonis sat out when I was here. Kyrie Irving put on a show. The Celtics won. I'm from Boston. I mean, the Wizards is the team I love because I work for them. And I've always enjoyed watching them. You love the Celtics. But I grew up a Celtics fan.

No, no, that's what I was going to say. The Celtics is my hometown of what Kyrie Irving did, falling out of bounds. And Wall played really good that night. He just, Kyrie Irving got him. And then he hit a half-quit jumper to seal it. I like watching those guys in person. I think the Celtics have some issues. They may try to trade for Anthony Davis.

I think that Jaylen Brown, draft pick, plus Terry Rozier they could get them. That's going to be an interesting sweepstakes that's right here in everyone's face. But I want the Wizards to make the playoffs. I like Ted Leonis. I like his thoughts. I like his, you know, get the A spot, the seven spot, because the other ones are all taking.

You know, you're not catching the nets have done a good job, developing guys. I do want to play Troy Brown a little more because I think if you're going to be Spencer Dinwiddie of these guys, you have to play them. But I like to make the playoffs. And then a healthy, mentally healthy, physically healthy John Wall, you know, sometimes the guys sit out. They respond differently. They miss the game. They realize how lucky they were to be playing all the time.

And that would be great because he's really talented guy. But you can't lose Sataransky. You know, that's the one you're going to have to keep. And I think Trevor and Jeff Green, that's a decision that the management is going to have to make in about a week or so. All right. Look, two things, and we'll cover them quickly. One NBA, and then I'll let you weigh in on the Super Bowl. I think you and I've had this conversation before.

I love Russell Westbrook, and I just, you know, no one tries harder in sports than him for me. I mean, there's just nobody that has more energy and tries harder than he does. I have watched a lot of them this year. I think that Paul George is the best fit for him, and he is the guy that he trusts more. than anybody else, and that's going to serve them well. Not against Golden State. Nobody's beaten Golden State in the best of seven. But I think the Thunder are really good this year.

They're in third place, and the Nuggets have good players, but they don't have the superstars which you need. I got the Thunder going to the finals against the Warriors. Now, the Warriors, I mean, we love Steph. And I think Duran, I think Paul George is like Duran. He's better being the second guy. I think Kevin Durant's going to stay in Oakland. You know, I don't, I mean, you know,

obviously San Francisco, they're moving to the new arena. I think he's going to stay. My bet is the Durant stays. Maybe Clay Thompson leaves because he wants to be his own guy. He's just, you know, but, and if Boogie Cousins likes it, that guy's huge in person. I like seeing him in person. He's a really good player. Boogie Cousins, I know he's had some issues in Sacramento, but it can really play.

But I like the Thunder. I agree with you, Westbrook, in person. He doesn't just get rebounds because they fall in and he's going and getting them. He is athletically gifted. He's a little tall. See? Zion Williams is a little small than I thought. Westbrook's a little bigger than I thought.

He's a little longer than I thought, you know? Yeah. He's really super athletic. And it's funny watching that stuff, but I really liked them. You know, the Warriors Thunder I got, and I probably have Toronto versus Milwaukee. You know, Boston, you can never count them out because of the coach, and they've got talent, but they might be a player short. Interesting, yeah. Toronto, Milwaukee.

Toronto's just this guy's better than I thought, you know, and the GM's done a great job. I love Kyle Lowry Spunk and all that. The new coach might give them a little hump to get, you know, the little mental edge to get over the hump. And I just, that's like a Toronto, Milwaukee, Golden State, Thunder. That's interesting because I would have thought you would have said Boston, Philly, Boston, Toronto. I like Toronto. I think Kauai Leonard is a top five, top three player, and that's, and he's going to put him over the top there. All right, real quickly before we run, because already this is by far and away, and I've enjoyed every single second.

of it, but it's the longest interview I've ever done because you and I could, and we could probably do another hour and a half. We could go for, we, we could do another, I know. We got to the napkin, why Harper, why is nobody signing Harper? We all, well, we always said anytime, like, we, we, we did a couple of those years where we did the, you know, the tournament shows, and we did it a third edition, and I think we did a couple of other places, and we always said, we could do this together. I mean, it's, it might only, we may be the only two people that enjoy it, but who cares, but, um, you are a page. Patriots guy?

No, I'm not. I'm a Ravens guy. You're a Ravens guy, I know, but you respect the Patriots and you respect the hell out of them. What happens Sunday? I got 31, 24 Rams. I think the Rams defense, I think if you knock Brady down, I love Brady, I love his competitiveness. He loves to play sports. He competes. He'll take a three-point shot contest right now. He was a great catcher in high school. I've met him before. Belichick, clearly, while he's had some luck, you know, with with Carol's thing throwing the pass

and the Falcons and all that. No one's going to outwork them. I was impressed when they went into Kansas City. Beating the charges was one thing. Yeah, I love Lamar Jackson, the Ravens. I'm a Ravens Sky. I was a South guy in Boston.

But the rest, I never liked the Red Sox because they have the worst fans ever. The Bruins were the Bruins, and the Patriots played in Foxborough was a metal stadium. I went to two games out there. I didn't care. But you've got to respect what they're doing,

and they have two weeks to get ready. But I think athletically, and I just think it's the young guy's time. I wanted to see Mahomes versus golf, kind of in the new blood. But after what Brady did and the enthusiasm showed and how happy he was when they won, that was impressive. So I think it's close, but I think the Rams get him 31-24. Yeah, I like the Rams too.

And the Lamar Jackson thing, that's going to be fascinating to watch here the next few years. Yeah, he's going to have to learn how to pass it a little better in the off season. The Ravens has always got a little work to do, but he got a lot of valuable experience. and we didn't tank. We went for, you know, the Ravens went for the playoffs. They changed to Jackson. You know, Flacco's available.

I'm with you. If I was the Redskins, I'd take him. He can still sling it. I wouldn't. I don't know. I wouldn't take him if I were the Redskins because I think that they're just, and he wouldn't come here. He's got to go to a contender where they've got a defense like in Jacksonville or Denver

where, you know, he can get coached. The Redskins, in November 15th, you were going to Super Bowl. Stop. It was chaos with anarchy down. Yeah, it always is, isn't it? As usual. I enjoy it as per usual. I'll see with that.

Yeah, we'll do, we'll do Bentley's before. I'll see you somewhere else between now and then. Thanks so much. Thanks, brother. See you, Kevin. Bye. That was, that was an all-timer right there. In the short life of the Kevin Sheehan Show podcast at this point, it was by far and away

our longest interview. and you know what, if it wasn't for you, you just can fast forward or go to another show. It was for me, though. I enjoy it. And every single time Jimmy and I end up talking off the air or on the air, we've never been able to do it that long on the air, but off the air, it ends up being a two-hour conversation all the time. He is one of the best dudes you will ever meet. And he is smart and he's interesting.

And you can tell he's into sports. And the Zion Williamson thing was really interesting. You can tell that he's a little bit, he's not as in awe as everyone else is, thinks he's a little bit smaller. And those are the things that coaches notice, and he's had a chance to see a lot of those guys up close and live. Real quickly, Ferrisch, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Fairfax. Please consider them if you're considering a Chrysler, Dodge Jeep, or even a Subaru, head out to Farish, Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Fairfax. They're right there in the heart of Fairfax and Fairfax Circle. ask for Ralph Perkins. He runs the store there. Tell him that I sent you. You'll get a great deal, I promise you. Right now, best rebates of the year, lots of inventory. The Jeep Cherokee, the Grand Cherokee, the Jeep Wrangler, best deals of the year on those three vehicles. Same goes for the RAM pickup. They've got a ton of RAM pickups on a lot. It was actually out there earlier this week. They've got a used car a lot, too. It's overflowing with vehicles. You'll get a great deal on a used vehicle. If you're interested,

in that. Farishcars.com for all the information you need, including live inventory, live pricing, and their best deals. That's ferrishcars.com. Also, I want to tell you about launch workplaces in Bethesda, but launch workplaces, they've got places all over town as well. Go to launchworkplaces.com to get all of your information. And if you call 240-86714, you'll get a free two-day trial. They've got fully furnished offices right in Bethesda if you live in that area and you're looking to work from outside of the home and you're looking for a small office or just a co-working desk or you need a conference room. Go to launchworkplaces.com or call 24086714. Mention my name. You'll get a free two-day trial.

Fully furnished offices, conference rooms, co-working desks, high-speed internet, complimentary drinks, a cafe, free parking and 24. 7 access. They've got locations all over town. Just go to launchworkplaces.com to find out where they are. All right. One thing just to finish up with real quickly, somebody tweeted, we talked gambling yesterday on the show, sports gambling. A lot of you enjoyed this story that I told about my buddy from Maryland, my freshman year, who was a close friend of mine, and he and I both lost a ton of money gambling, and we owed the bookie, you know, a couple thousand dollars and he split. He vanished. And when I say vanished, he just left school and didn't pay and I didn't hear from him for nine, you know, seven, eight, nine years, something like that. And then he called one day and it was, I'm just

interesting. But if you want to go back and listen to it, I think it was at the 49 minute mark yesterday. It was in the midst of Tommy and I talking about sports gambling. And then somebody sent me a link to Ted's take, which is Ted Leonis's blog. and he had linked, and actually, you know, I followed Ted on Twitter, and I think sometimes he sends out some really good links to some really good stories, and a lot of times they're about the D.C. area, which I enjoy. But anyway, he linked people to a story in the New York Times Magazine about sports gambling, and then he wrote something on his blog.

And, you know, I've mentioned Ted a lot in recent weeks and months. He's really pushed the legalization of sports betting and how much fun it can be. And it's going to be an opportunity for him too because Capital One Arena will obviously be one of those places where you will probably be able to go and wager on games and possessions and plays. And he writes in his blog as he's linking to this story in New York Times Magazine, the more data a fan has about a player or a team, the better he or she can predict the outcome of a game or a possession or a play. And as our data analytics have gotten better,

sports betting has only gotten more popular. And that's, you know, that was along with a lot of other things. And it's really sort of what his message has been since the legalization of sports betting went through last year. He's really pushing this. And, you know, and at times, I mean, for people like me who have, you know, experienced, you know,

both personally and by extension with friends, et cetera, you know, the pitfalls of gambling and understanding like most people who have bet before and almost anybody that's bet before that, you know, 99.9% of the people lose. You don't win money gambling. They didn't build all those places in Las Vegas because people won money. And that, you know, more information is great, but it doesn't give you an advantage when it comes to sports betting because the other guy, the house, they've got the same information and it's factored into the price and I tweeted out this morning Ted's link and hit the quote from him and I just said translation sports gambling is easy kids the house is a sitting duck just waiting to be taken down easy money I didn't have to say

sarcasm with the people that for most of you you know how I feel about that but there were some interesting responses that I wanted to read real quickly first of somebody said all of Ted's analytics would have told you to take Kansas, Virginia, and Mississippi State last night. That's probably true. And I gave out Texas against Kansas City, against Kansas last night because that was such a major contrarian play. But this was the tweet that I wanted to read. It came from Brian who said, I love your pod, Kev, but your own smell test disproves your theory that data can't outsmart. Less so with football. small sample size, et cetera.

And what Brian is saying is that my smell test over the years has won. It has one now nine out of 13 years. And I use data. Of course I use data. The data that I use, though, I use as a way of admitting that I'm not going to take all of the available statistical data out there, crunch it, and create some sort of predictive predictive outcome model. That's a joke.

The people that think that they can actually do that, and I think Ted actually thinks people can do that, they're the marks. They're the people that my friends who live in the Caribbean and take bets for a living, they will be fighting themselves to get that business. Those are the people that haven't really had access to betting because they just don't know the right people to do it locally,

and they probably dabbled in it here and there. But those are the people that never think they're wrong, and they're going to get crushed with all of their data and all of their analytics. That's an absolute given. Now, on my thing, yeah, I use data. I do, but the data I use is data that admits that I don't know. It's an admission that the people on the other side that have, the same data, all of the stats, all of the analytics, and have factored it into the price already

that they know. And that very occasionally, there is some data out there that suggests that the public thinks that they have figured out the game and the point spread that they are going to win big on, and the house then needs aside. And when I have that data that the house has a big need, then I fire in. That's true. But, you know, even though the smell test, Brian, has done well over the years, nine years of wins and four losing years, and even the four losing years were like 48, 49%. But the winning years haven't been 70%. I think I had one year that was 64%. You know, so that's a big year. But, you know, the years where I'm, you know, at 54, 53%, you know, you're barely making it. You know, you're barely making any money. And here's the problem that no one's disciplined when they bet. So not only have they bet,

you know, 10 straight bets on a Sunday, you know, on an NFL Sunday, they have, you know, they've categorized in their own mind their five star and their four star. And so they put a certain amount on this game and a certain amount, you know, a little bit less on this game and a lot less on another game. And that never works either. And you end up, you know, in a situation with, where you're not only losing the VIG, but you may be losing your big bets and winning your smaller bets, and then they're going to work them into parlays, and they're going to work them into two-and-three-team teasers.

And by the time you get done that Sunday, you may have gone six and four on your 10 games using the smell test, but you probably lost money with all the teasers and all the parlays that you fit it into. That's just a reality. But yes, you are right. I have used data. But it's not the same data that Ted and all of the AOL, you know, smart guys are thinking about using.

They actually, I believe, think that they've got models and they've got data and they can crunch it to a point where the house hasn't figured it out and they can take advantage of that. I don't believe that that's true. That's just my position on that. But anyway, I liked a lot of your responses to it. And I also just want to say that I don't. think he's doing it as a way to just push, you know, betting. I think, I don't think he's, you know, I think there may be a naivete there with people who haven't bet before. I don't know if he has or hasn't or the people around him have or haven't. I think that, you know, there's a lot of

excitement around the legalization of sports betting. I think it will benefit businesses like Ted's sports businesses. I think it'll benefit in the increased interest in the games and specifically and directly, they'll benefit from having available in their arena the ability to take bets. And trust me, if you want to be on the side that makes money, be on the taking bet side. That's the side that makes the money. The placing bet side doesn't make money. Anyway, I've gone on long enough. It's cold.

It's getting colder. Tomorrow on the show, Tommy, you'll be here. We'll do some Super Bowl trivia. I'm also going to have a discussion about whether or not, it makes sense for the Redskins to be thinking about trading up. I think John Kime wrote about this yesterday, and the pitfalls of certainly the RG3 trade back in 2012. I'm not against trading up,

and I'll go into that in more detail tomorrow. Have a great day.