The Kevin Sheehan Show - Terps' Win an All-Timer

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

Kevin and Aaron opened with some NBA All-Star game discussion and then got quickly to Maryland's huge Saturday night win at Michigan State. Was this Turgeon's biggest win? Where does Anthony Cowan's close-out performance rank on the list of the greatest Terp finishes? Lots of Redskins talk off the news of the cuts on Friday and Kevin did a quick XFL vs NFL pace-of-play study and shared the surprising results. <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. Did you like that All-Star game last night, Aaron? That was fun. It wasn't bad. I was actually, for those of you that didn't watch the All-Star game last night, and I would bet that most of you did not. I didn't see any of the Saturday night stuff. I saw the highlights of the era, you know, the Gordon Dunk over Taco Fall. I just couldn't care less about that stuff anymore, and there was a good college basketball on, featuring, of course, from 6 until about 815 on Saturday night, Maryland, with an all-time memorable comeback win against Michigan State, which we will spend some time on here shortly. But the NBA All-Star new format delivered.

I mocked it, remember, a couple of weeks ago. Yes, you did. You know, I thought, just play the freaking game. Who cares? It's an exhibition, and it really is. I mean, the All-Star game, last night, for the first three quarters, it was what it always is. It was essentially, you know, some sort of exhibition that approximated basketball.

It wasn't really basketball. It was like a continuation of the skills competition, but with 10 players on the floor. That's what it was for three quarters. But then came the fourth quarter. And the new format was. was that at the end of the third quarter, the aggregate score, because they were playing quarters, but they were keeping an aggregate running total of the score.

When they got to the fourth quarter, they did this thing where they added 24 Kobe's number to the team that had the highest aggregate score through three quarters, and that became the target, and they played the fourth quarter without a clock. So as an example, at the end of the example, The example last night, what happened last night, was that Team LeBron trailed Team Janus by nine points at the end of the third quarter. Team Janice at that point had 133 points. They added 24 to it. The target became 157. So they played the fourth quarter with Team Janus up 133 to 124,

with the first team getting to 157 declared the winner of the game without a clock. It could have taken two hours to play because they actually really got after it in the fourth quarter. They defended. They ran offensive sets and plays. The referees called fouls because there were fouls. There was significant complaining about the officiating to the point where I thought that they were going a little bit overboard and trying to create the illusion that this was important. But clearly, they got after it.

They really did, and it became entertaining, and it got really close. With Team LeBron coming back from that nine-point deficit, they got to 157 before Team Yonest did, and the final score was 157 to 155. In fact, the final play of the game was a pass inside Anthony Davis, who got fouled, and he went to the free throw line, up 156 to 155. He missed the first, made the second.

That ended the game. Yeah, that was the one flaw with it ending on a free throw. But other than that, it was great. Well, if you've got a target score, you can't, you know, I get it. You can't prevent it ending on a free throw unless you want to just say, well, they just get the ball, you know, they get possession of it. Well, then they'll just keep fouling on anything that's close.

It was the most competitive we've ever seen All-Star players behave. That was the difference. This fourth quarter was a competition, a legitimate competition. For what? Charity, but for pride? This All-Star game, I don't know at what point it became truly like this ridiculous exhibition of no defense, no fouls, just trying to create the most incredible dynamic shot or pass or play. but whenever that happened, it became unwatchable,

although the athleticism actually is pretty cool to see. But last night in the fourth quarter became a competition. It was actually, it was entertaining. I had people, my phone started to blow up in the middle of the fourth quarter that game. Various people who, friends of mine that love the NBA, they're like, are you watching this? This is awesome. I'm like, yeah, it's pretty good.

It's actually pretty good. You know, this is something they're not going to go away from after last night. And think about next year's All-Star game. They will really, you know, promote the fact that did you see last year's fourth quarter? Because if you missed it, it's not an All-Star game. Like, there's something to this. Now, with that said, it's still an All-Star game. It doesn't mean anything.

People are going nuts this morning, you know, on Twitter and on morning programs and on TV, you know, about how great this was for the NBA. I don't know that it's great for the NBA. I'll just say that for me, it was much better to watch what they did in the fourth quarter than anything they've done in the All-Star game in years. Apparently, this was Chris Paul's idea. This was his idea to change the format for this game. And Adam Silver listened. Chris Paul, you know, I think we've talked about this before.

I have heard, I think most of you who are NBA fans have heard that he's a very difficult guy to get along with a difficult teammate. In part because he's the smartest guy in the room. Well, I think he is smart. I think he's actually very bright and very thoughtful. But I'm sure that he doesn't have much patience for dumb-dums. And there's probably a lot of those in the NBA, which may be why he can be a little bit difficult.

Anyway, it was exciting. Fine. You know, I told Greg this this morning, Aaron, on the radio show. the first three quarters, I really wasn't watching a lot of it. You know, I was flipping back and forth with the El Camino Breaking Bad movie. Have you seen it? I'm, you know, Breaking Bad was always one of those shows. I was waiting for it to finish before watching. Oh, you haven't watched Breaking Bad?

I haven't watched Breaking Bad because I was waiting for it to finish. And then once it did finish, I just haven't had the time to Benjamin. I know. I know. That right now, I don't know what else you haven't seen. that is your single biggest miss and whiff. Yes. Because to me it is, now I didn't watch it while it was on.

I binged it, you know, maybe a year after it ended. I binged it maybe three or four years ago, I guess. I think it's the greatest show of all time. Over the wire? I didn't see the wire. I knew that was, I thought that was the case. I know. I know. But, you know, I think Tommy actually likes the wire and the Sopranos more than Breaking Bad.

I could be wrong about that. But anyway, El Camino is the Breaking Bad movie with Aaron Paul, Jesse Pinkman. I haven't seen it yet. In part because I heard it wasn't that great. So I was flipping back and forth in the first three quarters. So anyway, I can't ask you about the movie. Greg said it's okay. A lot of people tweeted me this morning saying it's not worth it.

Anyway, the other part of the All-Star game, I just want to mention this real quickly. I've been a massive fan over the years. Most of you probably don't know this, and that's fine. but I'm a huge Shaka Khan fan. I think she has one of the most spectacular, effortless voices of all time. And that rendition of the anthem last night was tragic. It wasn't Fergie bad, maybe. It was bad.

Now, she's 66 years old, and I know that at times in recent years, she hasn't been healthy, and I was glad to see her healthy and out there last night, but, oh, God. That, I mean, it's a subjective thing. I understand somebody out there right now is saying, oh, dude, I thought it was excellent. I would bet most people didn't think it was very good.

For those of you of a certain age who don't know who Shaka Khan is, trust me. In her younger days, she could belt it out with the best of them of all time. What were you going to say about it? I mean, just looking at the reactions when they cut to the players during that was everything. It was not good. All right. Let's get to, for Aaron and yours truly, the sporting event of the weekend. Anthony on the left wing, 27 seconds to play.

Cowan pulls up. He'll fire the three ball. Got it. Three consecutive threes for Cowan. And Maryland's up 65 to 60. Anthony Cowan with an all-time Maryland finish to a regular season game. He is fast becoming an all-time Maryland great. Yes, he is, Anthony Cowan.

Going to get to that in his finish here momentarily. That game Saturday, Maryland's win at the Brezlin Center against Michigan State. They trailed by seven with just over three minutes to go. They scored the last 14 points of the game, and they beat Michigan State 67 to 60. It felt to me very much, Aaron, like for the first time, for the first time since we've in the Big Ten. It felt to me like one of those wins that we would get at Carolina or at Duke at Cameron & Doran. Maryland won at Duke more than anybody during Gary's tenure. Maryland won at Carolina about as much as anybody else in the league did. I mean, Maryland won

big games under Gary Williams. They went on the road and they knocked off Carolina and Duke at home and on the road a lot more than any of the other ACC teams did. And there was that satisfying feeling of when you went into Cameron Indoor and won a game, whether it was Gravis, you know, winning a couple of times there, right? Juan Dixon winning on Shane Batti, A, senior night, which is an all-timer for me in that particular year. That felt like it on Saturday night. And the only difference is that Michigan State wasn't ranked, but it really didn't matter. You know, Michigan State's Michigan State.

They're the behemoth of the Big Ten and have been for 20 years. Breslin Center is one of those places you just don't go in and win very often. Maryland hadn't won since the first year in the Big Ten at Michigan State, the year they did it with Des Wells and double overtime. And they'd gotten blown out a couple of times in recent years there. And being down seven and coming back and winning that game, man, did that feel satisfying? It felt big. You know, it was the ESPN high-profile game at 6 p.m.

The ESPN Game Day site, all of that. The Brezlin Center was ginned up. They wanted that one. That crowd was into it. It was a heavyweight college basketball game. Forget Michigan State's non-ranking in the game. You know, people... And by the way, they would have been ranked had they won that game because they had...

I mean, first of all, if they had updated rankings every day, they were a top 25 team because they had just beaten Illinois. Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, nobody, people think Michigan State has a legit chance to go to the final four. You know, despite that there's not a number next to their name this week. They were the number one team before the season started in the preseason rankings. That felt like, really, like for the first time for me, it's like, wow, went there and won a game, and it felt like the old days in the ACC when you won at Duke or North Carolina. Did you feel the same way?

Yeah, I mean, that was just a wild feeling because not just for Maryland, but, you know, just watching college basketball. I mean, how many times have we seen it? The road team has a good first half, then the home team who is a very good team, you know, gets going in the second half and just steps on their throat, and that's what happens, because that's how college basketball works. And I thought that's what was happening when they went up big in the second half. And then they went on a 14-0 run to end the game, and that doesn't happen. Doesn't happen against Michigan State. It doesn't happen in the Breslin Center. It was wild to see. It was a huge win. And for the first time, And we had talked about this, I think on Friday, about how Penn State has the much easier schedule.

And I was kind of, I wasn't conceding the Big Ten, but I kind of realized, uh-oh, Penn State has the tiebreaker. They have an easier schedule. They're probably going to win. And, you know, oh, no, you know, not a big deal. They won a big deal. They won this game. They're in control of the Big Ten. And I want that Big Ten title.

I want it to. I want it to. I feel the same way. You know, in this league, the Big Ten regular season title, is the big deal in this particular conference. In the ACC, for a long period of time, the ACC tournament was a bigger title. It was considered, you were considered ACC champions if you won the ACC tournament. And you were considered just an ACC regular season champion if you won the regular season.

The Big Ten has not been about the tournament. They were the last big league to go to a conference tournament. You know, they were hesitant to do that. Their regular season was everything to them. There was a long period of time, you know, in the 70s, in the 80s. You'd have to look up the history of the Big Ten tournament to tell me when it started, but there were many years, certainly in the 80s, I remember, where the Big Ten was the only conference in the country without a postseason conference tournament.

You know, they would end their regular season the weekend, the ACC tournament, the Big East tournament, you know, was finishing up. They would have regular season games that weekend. So I feel the same way. I feel like, wow, I want to win the Big Ten. And by the way, just as a quick aside, I don't think, I think if Penn State and Maryland finish tied, I think they're called co-champions in the Big Ten. I think the tiebreakers for the tournament.

Right. I think they would be, yeah, considered co-champions. Even though Penn State played Maryland once because it's the unbalanced schedule. Just like 2010 in the ACCC, where Maryland and Duke were technically co-champions. Well, but they split their regular season games that year. But Duke was the one seed. Duke was the one seed based on the tiebreaker, yes, but they had split their regular season games. I don't know exactly how.

But I think it was coach just because they tied in the record. I think the unbalanced scheduling that, you know, the tiebreaker determines the seating for the tournament. But I don't think, I think if Maryland finishes tied with Penn State, even though they only played once and Penn State won the game, I think they're considered co-ch champions. I want it outright. That's what I want to say. I want it outright. Me too. And by the way, it actually would be sort of, I don't know, sort of wrong if Penn State won the Big Ten basketball title before Maryland did.

I mean, they're a football school. They're really good, though. They have a really good team. And right now, Maryland is three losses, three ahead in the loss column ahead of everybody but Penn State. You know, they're three ahead in the loss column to Iowa, Michigan State. Rutgers, Illinois, Wisconsin, all of whom are basically tied for third. They're only one ahead of Penn State in the lost column. Penn State, it's really, right now, it's a two-team race for the Big Ten regular season

title. Yes. It's Maryland or Penn State. They don't play again. Penn State, you know, has, you know, their schedule is easier than Maryland's the rest of the way. Their road games are at Indiana, at Iowa, and at Northwestern. Their home games are Rutgers, Illinois, and Michigan State.

They're playing awfully well. They've won eight games in a row as well. The game itself, so, you know, it was one of those situations where when they went down seven after blowing the 15-point first half lead, the 15-point first half lead was a little bit misleading from this standpoint. The standpoint of Michigan State must have had four shots go halfway down and come out on threes. Like they just could not buy a bucket.

and Maryland was hitting shots. Now, they missed a couple of dunks. Sticks missed two dunks in the first half. But Maryland was stagnant offensively, I felt, in the first half. But here's the difference this year. They've got playmakers. You know, Cowan's a playmaker. Iyala can make plays.

Wiggins can make plays. Obviously, sticks can make plays. And even though I didn't love their movement in the first half offensively, they had guys that were making plays. But when they went down seven, Aaron, at 60 to 53 with just over three minutes to go in the game, it was one of those situations. And I was watching the game, actually, was Stanford Steve from Scott Show, who was in town this weekend with his wife and his kids and his in-laws. They're moving down here with Scott, Sports Center, when the Scott Sports Center show moves to D.C.

So Steve was in town. And we got together on Friday night, then we got together and watched the Maryland game together on Saturday at Tommy Joe's. Poho was great, set it all up. Dan, Hunter, all the people there were great, gave us a big table right in front of the TV, which was very helpful. But anyway, I was sitting there when they went up seven, and I just said to him, I go, well, you know what, it was a pretty good effort. They needed it more than we did, which is true.

But, you know, seven-game win-street comes to an end. It's going to be harder to win the Big Ten now, but, you know, they still got a legit shot to win the Big Ten. and end up with a super high seating. It wasn't that I was like really crushed that they weren't going to win the game. They weren't supposed to win that game. They weren't, they were seven point underdog people. You know, I had somebody text me after the radio show or during the radio show this morning,

said, dude, you beat an unranked team. You were number nine in the country. Maryland was seven point underdogs, which tells you all you need to know about what Michigan State was thought to be coming in. By the way, they're not as good as some of the Michigan State. teams they've had. We've talked about that a little bit, but they're still a top 15 type of team. Yeah, I mean, the computers still love them. They're still going to be pretty, they do seem like they're missing something, but everything about- They're missing some scoring.

Yeah, I mean, and Cassius Winston's not as good as we thought he would be this year. Like, it's amazing. He's had some tragedy, you know, he lost his brother and. And maybe that's it, but it's amazing that he could, you know, he was pre-season, you know, consensus preseason player of the year, and now he might not be first team big 10. God, the first team Big Ten is going to be so impossible to figure out. I had Izzo on the radio show Friday. You can find it on the Team 980 app or the Team 980.com. He was great.

But he said, you know, we lost some players early. They lost Langford early. You know, what Cassius has been going through has been really difficult. Xavier Tillman is about to have his second child. He's married. They're about to have their second baby. He said he's dealing with things that are wonderful, you know, with respect to Tillman. and then also tragic from a family standpoint with Winston.

He got into the whole thing because Winston's brother actually committed suicide, and it's been a really difficult thing for Winston dealing with it. But you're right. Cassius Winston was the player of the year last year in the Big Ten, right? I think he was the National player of the year last year. Well, he was definitely the Big Ten player of the year last year. And this year, you could make the case that he won't be first team Big Ten. You could make that case.

Yes. Because right now the best players in the Big Ten have been, Luca Garza, probably first and foremost, and he had another really good game for Iowa yesterday. They scored the last 11 points of the game on the road at Minnesota and won that game. You have the kid O'Turo from Minnesota, who's at a great year. He's not going to be a player of the year. Obviously, Anthony Cowan and Sticks Smith are in the conversation. Lamar Stevens is in the conversation.

Who am I forgetting? Caleb Wesson early on looked like he'd be in the conversation. Xavier Simpson's not in the conversation. Ayo Dissumo from Illinois. Yeah, he was hurt, did not play. I mean, he got hurt at the end of that last game. He's been good. It's going to be an incredible just figuring out the first team, you know.

Garza, I think, is going to win the player. Yes, I think, but I'm talking about just first team overall. He may not be in it. I think Cowan and Sticks should be on the first team based. I mean, you still have six games left. Yeah. You know, a lot of time left. Anyway, getting back to the game.

So down seven, I sort of felt like, okay, I mean, I hadn't given up, but it was like Michigan State had all the momentum. By the way, they pounded the floor, you know, sort of after they went up seven, which was a big mistake. They didn't score again, and Maryland won the game. Seemed to fire Maryland up. There was also a pounding of the floor right in front of Morsell, and I think he took it personally.

But anyway, everything went perfectly. First of all, you know, Turgeon runs a really good play to get Stick Smith wide open for a three. And Smith buries it to get it to 60 to 56. That's a massive shot in the game because without that, they're down seven and don't have the ball and we're approaching two and a half minutes left in the game. He hits that and then their defense was exceptional down the stretch. I thought Sticks played great defense. Morsell got switched on to Winston, Cowan off of Winston,

but they doubled Winston off of ball screens in particular with sticks. And then it was three straight threes from Cowan. The first one came off of Morsell penetration. This guy, Rocket Watts, had done a really good job on Cowan in the second half. Cowan didn't have any points until the final 11 points of the game over the final two and a half minutes. His first three was the contested three off the Morsell penetration, where Watts helps, shouldn't help, should have stayed on Cowan. And now it's 60 to 59.

They get a stop, and then Wiggins drives, draws Watts to help off of Cowan onto Wiggins. Wiggins finds Cowan knocks down a second three. Maryland's got the lead 62 to 60. They get another stop, and now we're inside of a minute. And Cowan, again, gets a high ball screen from sticks, and Watts, for some reason, decides to go underneath the screen. Most of you know this who know basketball, right? If you're guarding a shooter and somebody's setting a screen for him with the ball, you don't go underneath the screen. You fight over top of it.

You don't want to give them any space to shoot a three, an open three. Watts goes underneath the screen and then gets taken out by Tillman, who's trying to chase Smith off the screen. And Cowan lines it up and knocks home a third straight three. They're up five. That's game over. He got fouled. He added two free throws. he scores 11 points to end the game, and they win 67 to 60, in addition to it feeling like maybe one of the biggest wins of the Mark Turgeon era.

And it felt like that. I asked him about that. He was on the radio show with me, and you can listen to that on the Team 980 and the Team 980 app. Team 980.com. Turgeon came on with me at the end of the show in the third hour. And I said, you know, for all of us that have followed this and, you know, have lived, lived it our whole lives, Maryland basketball. That felt like a massive win. Maybe one of your biggest did it feel that way to him? And he said, you know, right now we're in this run, but yeah,

I understand what that meant. You know, that's Michigan State in their building, you know, and I think even he recognized that was, that goes up there, Aaron, on the short list at this point of Turgeon's biggest wins since he's been the coach at Maryland. Yeah. You know, you can talk about, you know, beating Wisconsin that first year in the big 10. when they were number three in the country or Iowa was two or three or whatever they were. Some of the home games, you know, that they've won. Certainly the biggest road win. That's the biggest road win.

Without question. No doubt. And then we have to talk about the finish, the Cowan finish. And I'll just say that I've watched Maryland basketball my whole life. I went to Maryland, but I grew up as a Maryland fan long before I went to Maryland. My father went to Maryland. We went to a lot of Maryland basketball games. Maryland basketball was huge in my family.

And I've watched a lot of Maryland basketball over the years. That finish by Cowan ranks up there with the all-time Maryland finishes. What Bias did in the Dean Dome in 86 was certainly one of the great individual performances in Maryland basketball history. Dean Smith had not lost at the Dean Dome. Maryland went in there. Carolina was ranked number one. and Leonard put on one of the great individual shows of all time. He had 35, he had multiple blocks, had double-digit rebounds. Many of you remember the iconic, you know, steel on the inbound

pass and the reverse dunk over Warren Morton, and then Bias had the dunk, I'm sorry, had the block shot on Kenny Smith at the end of overtime to secure the win. Not only did he block the shot, but he grabbed the ball away from Kenny Smith. That's an all-time. Ernie Graham scored 44, still holds the record for the individual most points in the game in Maryland basketball history. He had 44 on a night in 1978 against NC State. This was long before the three-point line. Anybody that tells you that they were there will say that Ernie Graham would have had 54 with a three-point line. Juan Dixon's performance on senior night at Duke on Shane Batti, a senior night, was an all-time performance and an all-time closeout. he was phenomenal defensively. I think he went for 28 in the game. Vasquez had some unbelievable performances.

Remember the triple double against Carolina when Carolina was ranked two in the country and he went for like 35 Aaron 14 and 10. Oh yeah. And they were down nine with like two and a half minutes to go and Gravis, you know, in Eric Hayes basically closed it out. Vasquez nearly had an all-time performance in the tournament against Michigan State where he scored 12 of the team's final 14 points before Corey Lucius scored to end Maryland's season in his career. There have been a lot of great individual performances. That one's up there. We'll never forget Anthony Cowan going for three straight threes and 11 straight points to beat Michigan State. Seriously, it goes up there. And now, you know, Cowan all of the sudden, by being here all four years, and hitting, like, this is not new for him. He's hit so many clutch shots.

for this team. You know, I go back to that freshman game against Georgetown at Capital One Arena when he had, he had a couple steals, had all those free throws at the end that brought Maryland backs in stunning fashion to shock Georgetown in their supposed building, even though it was mostly a Maryland crowd there. And he's been clutch the whole time. And I've gotten in so many debates with friends about Cowan, because I have been on Cowan. I've loved him from the jump. I've thought that he's a clutch player. He's a very underrated defender and that, you know, he's going to continue to get better. I mean, this notion that he was going to go into the draft last year was really ill-conceived, but whatever.

He got that experience. He should have come back. He did come back. And now, you know, he's ninth on the all-time scoring list. He's steadily climbing his way, depending on what happens here over the rest, over the next, you know, month and a half. Month and a half to, you know, about a month and a half. He's going to be considered on that, you know, top 15 list of Maryland Greats. It's a tough list to be on.

I mean, he just passed Keith Booth. He's, you know, up there on the assist. We talked about that last week. Where is he third on the list? On the assist list was, I mean, nobody's going to catch Blake. And then Gatlin's second or. Gravis. Gravis is second?

Is Gatlin third? I'm blanking on who's third right now. Yeah. I'm going to pull that up because all that stuff. I mean, Maryland's had some, most of you understand this, they've had some great players in the history of their programs. So he is right now, he is ninth on the scoring list, okay, ninth on the scoring list. And by the way, he's going to end up more likely than not.

He's going to end up seventh. He'll probably pass, well, he's going to pass McMillan and Baxter. But Blake is first, Vasquez's second, yeah. He's fifth on the all-time assist list. So he's going to be, yeah. He's probably going to be fourth. He's not going to catch. Nobody's catching Blake.

He's 200 ahead of Vasquez, and he's not going to catch Gatlin more likely than not. So top five in assists, he's going to end up top six or seven in scoring. Like just that alone makes him rafters worthy, probably, especially if he leaves them to a Big Ten title here. Yeah, because, you know, bias did not get Maryland to a final four. You know, McMillan, Elmore, et cetera, didn't get Maryland to a final four. But they're all considered, Albert King didn't get Maryland, Buck Williams didn't get Maryland to a final four. But they're all considered among all-time Maryland greats. Dixon is the champion.

Blake a champion, Baxter, a champion, obviously, in Final Four, you know, two Final Fours. Lucas, you know, got Maryland to the Elite Eight. McMillan and Elmore and Lucas played in an elite eight for Maryland. The problem with Cowan right now is they got to make a tournament run, you know, for him to really be considered because if one sweet 16 is all you have, you know, and let's face it, that one sweet 16 wasn't really with Anthony Cowan being a significant part of it. Right. You know, right? Or was even a part of it? He wasn't even a part of it. No, yeah, that was before.

Yeah. So that was Mello's sophomore year. Yes. Was Cowan on that team? Why am I blanking now? The 2015-2016-16. So this senior, yeah, 17, 18, 19-20. So, yeah.

He came in the 16-17 season. Yeah, so he was not on the sweet 16 team. Correct. Yeah, so he's got to, you know, they got to get out of the first weekend at least. Well, I mean, bias was in multiple sweet 16s. Ravis never got out of the first weekend. That's true. And I consider Gravis on that list in the top 10 list.

I think I've had Gravis when we've done this before, like, number seven. Cowan's not, Cowan's not going to be in the Juan Dixon. No, of course not. Buck Williams, John Lucas, Tom McMillan, you know, Albert King, Len Elmore. You know, he's not going to be on that list, Gravis list. He's going to be in that next tier. He's going to be in that next tier with Keith Booth and Johnny Rhodes and, you know, and Walt Williams and, you know,

I, like, I don't have my list in front of me. I'm just going off the top of my head. To me, I can just tell you that my list has always been, Bias 1, Dixon 2, Lucas 3, Buck Williams 4, and I think I've always had Albert King 5. Albert King's junior year may be the single best season by a Maryland player in Maryland basketball history. And then, you know, I think I'm with like McMillan and Gravis and, you know, getting into that group.

Anyway, Cowan, he just created an all-time Maryland basketball memory on Saturday night without question. I hope there are three or four more to come. Jalen Smith is the best player on this team. Anthony Cowan, if they go deep, is going to be the reason. I'm saying that right now. Yeah, I mean, I sticks, well, Sticks is working his way into the lottery at this point. And Cowan may not get drafted, okay, so let's understand that. but we're not talking about pro potential.

We're talking about college basketball players. And Anthony Cowan's an exceptional college basketball player. And Sticks is an elite college basketball player right now. So they're both, I mean, they're both so significant to whatever happens. You know, they've got the right mix, right? They've got a senior point guard who is clutch. They've got a big man who is blowing up in having an unbelievable season and is a factor on both ends.

They have, you know, I wouldn't even call some of their guys just supporting guys. Like Wiggins is, you know, potentially can have a 25-point night in a tournament game and lead them. Darryl Morsell is the toughness and the spirit of this team in so many ways. Eric I. Alice playing much better. He had a really good first half the other night. You know, and Scott, you know, their freshman has been fearless, you know, for them. don't have a lot of depth. You know, I think their depth is maybe a little bit better than perhaps they're getting,

I mean, he doesn't play many. I mean, Lindo barely play. Sorrell Smith, did he even play the other day? I don't think he played, Tomaj played briefly. Yeah, I don't remember him playing. It might have been briefly. Yeah. Smith, Smith did have one minute.

One minute? Yes. And what did Lindo play? Eight minutes. Yeah. So Wiggins, you know, with his 25 to 30 minutes per night, you know, he's playing starter minutes off the bench. But that's really it.

man. I mean, he has shortened up the bench in terms of playing time. I think Sirel Smith and Lindo give you something, I think Smith gives you something defensively. I think Lindo gives you something from a rebounding standpoint. And obviously Wiggins gives you both. And Wiggins and Iylla were guys that have struggled with confidence here and there. But look, bottom line is, Maryland is a legitimate Final Four possibility. If you're looking at college basketball right now and you're saying wide open, they're 10, 12, 15 teams that could win it. Maryland is easily one of those 10, 12, 15 teams that could win the whole thing. No doubt about it.

And in addition to threatening to win a Big 10 regular season title, they are going to threaten before all is said and done if they continue on this role, a number one seat. Yeah. You know, and I think I said this to you on the podcast or maybe it was off the podcast. If they can get to New York for the regionals, it's going to be, it's a big difference for them. There will be, you know, thousands of Maryland fans in Madison Square Garden if they're playing there versus an Indianapolis or a Houston or I don't even know where the West Regional is this year. L.A., I believe.

Okay, so being in the Garden, there are so many Maryland alum in the New York area, not to mention, it's a train ride to the game. So if they can get into the New York regional, the East Regional, and get there, getting through the first weekend, which, you know, Albany and Greensboro are the two East Coast sub-regional sites. Right. So Maryland, more likely than not, it would play in either Greensboro or Albany in the first. Greensboro looks very likely right now. Greensboro looks good. Yeah, Greensboro, you know, four-hour drive. Here's the situation as far as to get that route. Be better than Duke. End of story. You'd be better than Duke. Almost certainly you go to New. Duke is playing. I watch some of that game against Notre Dame.

They are annihilating people right now. The Carolina game withstanding, you know, the comeback win in that rivalry game. Anyway, real quickly, just finishing up on some college basketball, Georgetown went to Butler and won. You know, Georgetown is still alive. They're bubbly. They are in Lennardi's latest next four-out, not the first four-out. at the next four outs. That put some sort of in the final eight teams with the other eight teams that get in. They're on the bubble, you know, and they have opportunities. That's the thing. They have

games at Marquette and at Creighton, who's playing really well, and a home game against Villanova. They're going to have opportunities with some wins down the stretch here to get into the NCAA tournament. And one other quick mention, and I can't believe I didn't mention this this morning on the radio show, because I know there are some UVA fans out there. Virginia all of a sudden, you know, is they put together a nice little stretch here. They can't score, but they've won five of six games, and the one loss was a game to Louisville that they were in late in that game. They barely beat Carolina in Chapel Hill, and it's rare when you're able to say this, but it would have been a bad loss to lose to Carolina in Chapel Hill this year. But they didn't lose that game. They

won that game, and they've got some big opportunities. They play Duke again. They play Louisville again. You know, Virginia's one of those teams you don't want to see in the tournament, you know, with their defense and their style. You don't want to see them, but you also don't want to put them far in the bracket because, as you said, they can't score. They can't score. But are they? They're going to be in the tournament. I think, honestly, if I had to bet right now, they end up in Dayton. In the first four? Yeah. That's my guess right now. As a 12 seed or 12 or 11 or whatever it ends up actually being, are they, to your, the biggest disparity between their offense and defense in, like, I can't think of a team ever that has that big of a disparity where they're that good on defense. Let's not, let's not sugarcoat this.

They're not just bad on offense. They're legit, like, bottom of the barrel bad. They've won three games this year, scoring less than 50 points, okay? They beat Syracuse 48 to 34. That's a college basketball game. They beat Arizona State 48 to 45, and they beat Maine 46 to 26. Okay, that is your son or daughter's seventh grade middle school game score. All right?

And that's what Virginia does. I mean, they've done that a lot. I mean, obviously, they've been very efficient offensively on their better teams. Exactly. They were efficient. It was that they were slow, but when they needed to score, they could score. They don't do that now. I don't know that there is to answer your question.

I can't imagine that there's a team that is as good defensively as they are and as inept offensively as they are. Obviously, they lost some big time players off their national championship team. But, you know, he's fighting through that. He can coach, man. Tony Bennett can coach his ass off. And that team right now, with their streak here, they're back on the right side of the bubble right now. They've got some tough games left. They've got Duke.

They've got Louisville left. They've got to go to Virginia Tech and two Pitt, who's played well at times this year. not going to be easy, but I think they're sitting there in fourth place in the ACC. And right now, according to Lenardi, the ACC is only going to get four teams into the draw. Duke, Florida State, who's good, Louisville, and Virginia. That's it. And the Big Ten could get 11. I don't think they're going to end up with 11. I think they'll end up with 10. Minnesota's out now. I mean, Indiana's getting close to being on the wrong side. Indiana is right on the bubble there. of the bubble. So there you go.

Great college basketball this weekend. I want to mention that if you want to listen to us on our new app, the Kevin Sheehan Show app, is available. Just download it. You don't have to change from what you're doing right now. But if you like to listen to it that way, that's available now. Our website is another way to tell people who want to listen to the show, who don't know how to listen to podcast. Just tell them to go to the Kevin Sheeonshow.com. All right.

A couple of Redskins things before we get to a discussion about the XFL over the weekend, because I did a back-of-the-envelope study research on something that I want to share with everybody, so that's coming up here shortly. So the Redskins made a bunch of cuts on Friday. I forget if that was during the podcast or after the podcast. I believe the first one, the Norman one, was during. It was during, and then everybody else was after. Yes.

Yeah, so they released Josh Norman, not a surprise. You know, big cap savings there. They later in the day released receiver Paul Richardson, ill-conceived. Both of those deals, you know, the Richardson, so the Josh Norman thing was a Bruce Allen thing. Wrong fit defensively for the Redskins. Paul Richardson was very much a Jay Gruden thing, I was told at the time. He loved Richardson's speed, and he wanted some speed on the outside. But Richardson was banged up in Seattle a lot of the time and ended up being too banged

to contribute here. They also released Chris Odom and Kenny Ladler. So it created on Friday about 15.8 million in additional cap space, which puts them at like 54.8 million in total cap space. The next one to come is the Jordan Reed situation. Jordan Reed would be an $8.5 million cap savings if they release Reed. But there is one issue with Jordan Reed. And Riannon Walker from the athletic reported this this morning. She had a story with Ben Standing, I think, and also one by herself, where Ron Rivera in Charlotte over the weekend, actually he had a yard sale where they generated $30,000, which is going to go to some sort of charity in Charlotte. He and his wife did as they're moving from Charlotte. But anyway, Ron Rivera revealed that Jordan Reed is still in concussion protocol.

I mean, that hit that he took in that preseason game was last August in Atlanta. He is still in concussion protocol. That is scary. You know, the concussion thing, I have a little bit of experience with it because I had a son who had multiple concussions playing football and basketball. all. And it really is, like, in many ways, like the testing is it relies on the answers from the participant, and in some ways there's some subjectivity to it. It's crazy. But anyway, bottom line is, you just want Jordan Reed to live a healthy, normal life more than anything else. But what isn't spelled out in this story is whether or not the Redskins can release him, a player who

potentially is going to get paid because of a salary that may be guaranteed for, you know, for injury. And he's still in this protocol. And whether or not that impacts the cap if they release him, I don't know the answer to that. I'm going to have J.I. Hallsell, I think, on the radio show tomorrow to sort of get him to walk through it. So listen to that, and then I'll have the answer to that on the podcast tomorrow. But assuming they can release Jordan Reed and get the full cap savings, because I think he counts 10-3 if he's on the roster, but the dead cap is like 1.8 million, They release them, so it's an $8.5 million cap savings. The Redskins are going to basically be in the $60-plus million range of cap space.

You know, that's top six, top seven in the NFL. So that gives them the opportunity, obviously, to easily handle the Alex Smith contract for next year. And to spend in free agency. Now, if Jordan reads the next sort of off-season domino to fall with respect to cuts, then you get into Trent Williams and Ryan Carrigan. And there are a couple of things over the weekend that I read that I'll share with you that came from different places. First of all, Matt Bowen, who Matt Bowen, you know, former Redskin, you know, covers the NFL for ESPN. basically said that the Redskins should be trying to trade Trent Williams. There were a bunch of predictions, moves predicted on a story on ESPN.com.

And Matt Bowen said the Redskins should be moving Trent Williams to Arizona for a second round pick. It would be a good trade for both teams. and Bill Barnwell, who writes for ESPN.com and a very long-winded writer. I actually like Barnwell a lot, though. In his story over the weekend, he suggested the Redskins should move on from Ryan Carrigan, either trading him or releasing him. Those are the next two decisions that are going to be made here. And to me, it's like really simple.

If you're the Redskins, you are thinking, you know, about two potential paths. And I don't know that they're thinking about this way. I'm not really even recommending that they think about it this way. This is the way I'd be thinking about it. I'd be thinking about, hey, you know, we're going to compete next year. We're going to be a better football team next year because we're going to have young players that are a little bit older and more experienced. We're going to add young players to the mix through the draft and potentially free agency.

And we're going to be a better coaching staff. And so we're not winning three games next year. We may win six, seven, eight. You know, who knows? Maybe, you know, we're six and six, seven and six, you know, entering December with a chance to make the playoffs. But more likely than not, we're not going to contend for the Super Bowl in 2020 and probably not in 2021 either. I mean, I'm not going to say not in 2021. It's the NFL.

It changes so quickly. And you can turn it around so quickly. We've seen that over the years. Look at the 49ers this year. Of course, their situation a little bit. bit different because they didn't have their starting quarterback the year before when they won four games. Garapolo was hurt and they won four games. Garapolo's back and they add, you know, Nick Bosa, etc. And they go to the Super Bowl. But I think that there are two paths. There is the path of long-term,

you know, roster building. And if you're thinking long-term and you're thinking about getting younger, acquiring dry powder to get younger through the draft, to create even more, cap space to potentially go out and sign young players that are available, then you move on from Trent Williams and from Ryan Carrigan. You get what you can get for Trent Williams. You get a second round pick because I don't think a first is available anymore. In fact, there was a tweet from Dane Bruegler, who we've had on the podcast, I think before. He covers the draft for the athletic. And Bruegler tweeted out over the weekend, allow me to be hyperbolic for a moment. This year's offensive tackle draft class is the best collection of high-ceiling offensive tackle

prospects the NFL has seen in a long time. We've talked about that in recent weeks. That's going to drive the price down on Trent Williams. The one year left on his deal, the fact that he didn't play for a full year, the skin's missed out on the opportunity to be sitting there in 2020 with two first-round picks. I think we all understand that. Okay. Blame Bruce Allen, blame Dan Snyder, blame whome, the organization did what it does, and that has had no vision, was petty, small-minded, narrow, and blew an opportunity to really add to their draft prospects and potential in 2020.

I think you still could get a second for Trent Williams. I'd do it. I would take Ryan Carrigan, and I'd move him for a third. I think you'd get a third for Ryan Carrigan. I do. and I would clear out another significant amount of space cap-wise, and I would add picks, and I would be thinking about the future. By the way, one path does not preclude the other from happening.

If I'm going to compete in 2020, I'm going to do it while simultaneously building with the future in mind. I'm not going to extend Trent Williams, extend Ryan Carrigan, sign Greg Olson, sign a another couple of older players, sign a Philip Rivers for a year and say, hey, we got a chance to win the NFC East in 2020. You know, we can spend some money, we can extend some of our veterans. We can win the NFC East next year, you know, at 9 and 7 or 10 and 6 and host a playoff game. You're not going to win the Super Bowl next year. So I would be thinking long term. Again, doesn't mean that with your young, you know, nucleus on defense in particular, with Landon Collins and pain and Ionitis and Allen and adding a chase shirt,

and Montez Sweat being in a second year. And Ryan Anderson and the performance that he, you know, the way he performed last year and keeping Quentin Dunbar and adding a corner and free agency and having a much better coach defense, you know, potentially puts you into a competitive position anyway. But you're building for a chance to make a run that sustained success starting in 2021, 2021, 2022. We're building something where we are going to be young. We are going to get talent.

We're going to stockpile picks. We're going to stockpile talent. And in 2022, after we've gotten better in 2020 and even better than that in 2021 and maybe even played a playoff game in 2021, we're going to have a chance in 2022 to go on a five-year, six-year run of being really, really good. You know, you got Trent Williams in 2022, 2022, 2023, 2024, 24. or he's not playing at the top of his career. You got him in his mid to late 30s now.

Same thing with Ryan Carrigan. So that's the path I would take. What path they take? We're going to find out. I'm also not discounting the possibility that Ron Rivera and Jack Del Rio and the coaching staff look at Ryan Carrigan and say, man, the way they've been playing him here

for the last five, six years with Joe Barry and Greg Munisky. So stupid. We like Ryan Carrigan. We think he's a perfect 4-3 defensive end. And maybe even an interior pass rusher on pass downs, you know, in a four-man front. And we think we can get a lot more out of them. Okay. I'm not discounting that they don't think that.

I'm not discounting the possibility that Ryan Carrigan comes back and has his best year of his career because he's on a better coaching staff with a better defensive scheme. But I personally think with sweat, with young, with ionitis, with Alan, with pain. And I'm never going to stop adding to that. That's a critical area of your team. You get settled. You know, you've got other possibilities to add to that.

I don't know. Somebody's going to give me a second or a third. See you, Ryan. Ryan's been a very good player for the Redskins. Never an elite player. Never. It's not the way Snyder and Bruce Allen saw him. I promise you that.

They see him as an all-time Redskin. They see him as, you know, Redskin Ring of Fame guy and a guy that I guarantee you Dan Snyder does not want to see end his career anywhere but in Washington. But Ron Rivera might think differently. And if he does, I hope he's got the ability to move on from Carrigan. Anyway, Jordan Reed next. And then probably the decisions, you know, with Dunbar and Williams and Carrigan. That's sort of what I think is lining up here. Olson is a, you know, it's Buffalo or Washington. or Fox Broadcasting.

Those are the possibilities for Olson. I still think Olson's going to end up here. They need a tight end. Scott Turner, if he designs an offense like his father did, the tight ends a big part of that. I had this guy Chad Forbes from at NFL draft bites on the radio show. He's actually really good. You know, has a lot of, you know, thoughts on,

we went through the whole quarterback carousel thing. He thinks the Redskins should, you know, use like a Dunbar guy in a trade to acquire somebody like Austin, Hooper. Somebody like Hooper from Atlanta. Well, Hooper's a free agent. He is, but they're going to likely tag him. So Atlanta tagged him and traded him, you know, maybe with some picks involved. How about O.J. Howard? Don't you, doesn't Tampa want them?

They don't use them. Who do they use, Brate? They don't use their tight end much. But Howard's a talent. Exactly. That's why he's always, whenever I hear tight-end trade, that name always pops up to me as I feel like if you offered them something they'd at least consider. You know, the other thing this guy, Chad Forbes, said to me this morning on the radio show, he said he thinks Teddy Bridgewater is going to end up in Washington. And I just said, really?

If Teddy Bridgewater ends up in Washington, man is the shit going to hit the fan with a lot of you? because to me, Teddy Bridgewater is going somewhere in signing a contract, even if it's in New Orleans, if Breeze retires, and Taysam Hill, he can't come to an agreement with Taysam Hill. He's going somewhere where he is going to be perceived as the starter in 2020 and beyond. He's only 27 years old. At worst, someone who's in a legit 50-50 quarterback competition, at worst. So if you bring Teddy Bridgewater in,

I mean, I don't know. Do you think Teddy Bridgewater is going to come in where he thinks he's going to have to compete for the starting job or he's going to go to a Carolina or an Indianapolis or stay in New Orleans where he knows he's going to be handed the starting job? I think that's more likely. So do I. So if he ends up in Washington, it means that they're telling him he'd be the starter. Or it means that the market doesn't develop the way that they thought. Either way, he's not going somewhere to be a backup.

That's for sure. By the way, for your buccaneers, this guy said, you don't tell a guy to go out and get LASIC surgery and then move them. I kind of agree. Meaning James Winston's going to stay in Tampa. I'm leaning that way right now. All right. Happy birthday, Daryl Green over the weekend.

He turned 60 years old. I can't believe that Daryl Green is 60 years old. I mean, doesn't that make a lot of you feel old? Like Daryl Green not only was here 20 years, obviously. played all 20 years of his NFL careers, Hall of Fame NFL career in Washington. He never looked old. Even at 42, he looked young. And to consider him at 60, and he looks great at 60. I bet he can still run 4-4-4-5, you know, if you turned him loose.

I put out in a tweet on Saturday his birthday, happy birthday to the greatest defensive player in franchise history. And a couple people pushed back my good friend Joe Yashro. So what about Ken Houston? Well, you know, Ken Houston, it's a debate. I mean, Ken Houston, some think maybe the greatest safety of all time. Darrell Green's never called the greatest corner of all time. Okay, so I understand that.

To me, Mike Haynes is the greatest corner I've ever watched. Dion's certainly close. But Darrell Green was a first ballot lock hall of famer and is one of the great cornerbacks of all time. Ken Houston, though, is called, by some, greatest or second or third greatest safety in the history of football. He also played half of his career in Houston and half of it here. But whatever. Daryl Green, an all-time grade. Just crazy to think of him at 60 years old. All right. I want to finish up the show with this. So I'm not watching a lot of the XFL.

I'm not. But I'm tuning, you know, if I'm in front of the TV, I'll flip it to, like I flipped it to the Defenders game Saturday briefly. They're playing the New York Guardians. You didn't go to this game, did you? No, I did not go to this game. The attendance was down from week one, but not by much. Yeah, I think I saw 15. It looked a lot less. I mean, when I was watching on TV than week one, but whatever. They beat the New York team 27 to nothing.

They are 2 and 0, the D.C. defenders are. The only other undefeated team through two weeks is Houston, the renegades, I believe they're called. On Saturday... Houston Roughnecks. Oh, it's the roughnecks. Okay. Or, yeah, Dallas Renegians. You stand your Rolf next.

Yes. Okay. Come on. Get your XFL team names showing no respect. I'm not going to really study them. Eventually, it'll sink in, you know, who's who. They held New York to 137 yards and five first downs in the game. So I don't know what made me look at this, but I looked at the box score of that game.

And I think I just happened to have come across the. total number of plays in the game. You know, one of the XFL's big things is pace of play, right? And that we're going to play faster and we're going to have more football than an NFL game has. And so I was looking at the box score from the DC Defenders game from Saturday against New York. And one of the things I noticed was the total number of plays in the game. And, and And the total number of plays in the game was like 100 and 12. Like the Guardians had 47 offensive snaps and the defenders had 65. So this was late last night.

It was actually after the All-Star game and I hadn't gone to sleep yet. And so it took me on this, you know, boondoggle of, you know, basically checking the box scores of all eight of the XFL games so far that have been played, four in week one, four in week two. So just one of the reasons that the XFL says faster pace, more football, more plays, the whole thing, is because they have a 25 second play clock. The NFL has a 40 second play clock. But the difference is in the XFL, they don't roll the 25 second play clock until the ball is spotted.

So it's really more like a 32 or 33 second play clock. You know, by the time they get the ball and they get it spotted and then they roll. The NFL's 40 second play clock. starts at the end of the previous play immediately. So I went and did just some very rough back of the envelope, you know, addition, division, getting an average or plays, you know, per team, per game. The XFL through two weeks, each team, the average number of offensive snaps per team per game, is 61.25.

The NFL average in 2019 was right around 65 offensive snaps. So the XFL, in total number of offensive plays, actual football that you're seeing, is actually less than the NFL. So I just, I wasn't sure what it would lead to. I was thinking, well, I'm going to find a lot more snaps in the other games. And there was a game, I think the St. Louis game last night, where they had 88 offensive snaps. But I think the reason, I think the number of plays and the actual amount of football,

here's what I don't want to hear from somebody through two weeks. Oh, you get so much more football in the XFL. You know, the NFL, you've got all that time between snaps and the long play clock and the whole thing. And the XFL, they're going right at it. Well, you know, they're actually not, okay? They're actually averaging fewer snaps offensively per game than the NFL did in 2019. With that said, I think a lot of it has to do with,

they're still figuring out offensively, the plays, the players, the communication, that when there's more cohesion offensively, the ball's going to get snapped faster than it's getting snapped right now. And so that as we get to the end of the year and there's more comfort in the offensive system and the play calls, et cetera, that they'll probably be up to a higher number. But through two weeks, less football, the XFL is actually providing you than the NFL, which I guarantee you they're not producing as research from their league. I'm not watching it really other than tuning in every once in a while.

I did tune in, though, to hear the following from Saturday's D.C. Defenders, New York Guardians games. So Matt McLaughlin was the starting quarterback for New York. You may remember him. He played in the NFL, played with the Raiders. I think some other teams, too. I remember him starting some games for the Raiders. I think I'm right about that.

One of the things you're getting from the broadcast is you're getting, you know, miced up coaches, play calls, and immediate interviews with players and coaches on the sideline. And Diana Rusini from ESPN, and we all know Diana from D.C. And she was on the radio show this morning with me as well. You can find that on the Team 980 app and the Team 980.com. Diana interviewed Matt McLean, the quarterback of the New York team, heading into the locker room, okay? after they had produced nothing and were really discombobulated offensively.

And you're going to hear first Diana's conversation with Matt McLean, and then you're going to hear added on to that. Diana coming back at the beginning of the second half talking about the conversation that she had had with the head coach, Kevin Gilbride, about the conversation with Matt McLean. So here's Diana with Matt McLean at the end of the first half of Saturday. XFL, D.C., New York game. Matt, what does this team need to do on offense to get something going here?

We need to change the whole entire game plan at halftime. What do you need to change about the game plan? What are you frustrated about? There's just a lot going on right out now. It's embarrassing for us here as an offense, so a lot of things we want to fix and correct. Thanks. Wow.

I talked to head coach Kevin Gilbride about Matt McGloid's comments saying that the play calling is an issue. And I said, coach, in all my years of covering football, I've never heard a quarterback say that. says, well, that makes two of us. I need to go talk to him and figure out what the problem is because he needs to play better. And they benched him in the second half. Diana basically told Kevin Gilbride that Matt McLean had thrown the coaching staff under the bus heading into the locker room. All right. Instead, you know, essentially we need to change the entire game plan.

There was also McLeon miced up with Kevin Gilbert earlier in the first half throwing a couple of teammates under the bus, saying that they weren't playing well, that they don't get it. And so when Gilbride was told by Diana that McLean had said what he said at the end of the first half, you heard what she said Gilbride said to her, and then Matt McLeon did not start the second half. They came in with their other quarterback. I don't even know who that was in the second half, and McLeon was benched for good. But you don't get that in the NFL. That's probably the most entertaining part of these conversations on the sideline. But the sideline reporters, Diana, the one thing about Diana, I've known Diana for a long time,

she'll ask anybody anything. Like she is fearless when it comes to reporting. And so the follow-up question was perfect to find out exactly what he was really bothered by. And, you know, his answer being, you know, we need to change the entire game plan. She went right to Gilbride with it and Gilbride benched him. Pretty funny. That's pretty great. There's actually, there's another thing I noticed, again, kind of broadcast.

wise in it because you can hear the play calls and everything. The commentary teams at times were able to say, all right, I hear, you know, ex post or something like that. Let's watch this guy, watch the route he does, watch Cardale Jones look towards him in the end zone there. So that's something I think that a lot of, especially the more casual fans would find really interesting and something that wouldn't shock me at the NFL. Did you hear what Jim Zorn said last week?

Oh, last week. Yes, that he was. He didn't know that he was miced up. Everybody knew that, though. He was taking the play sheet and covering his mouth with it. And I understand that. It's a very Jim Zorn thing. It's a very Jim Zorn thing, right?

But everybody knew that was the thing. Oh, he really is the nicest man. He's weird, nice man, but I don't think brilliant would be the way most would describe him. How do you not know going into this new league that you're miced up and everybody's hearing your calls? He claimed that he didn't know and claimed he felt it was, you know, an invasion of privacy. That's hysterical. Oh, man. All right.

What else? You know, the Carlos Correa stuff from over the weekend, I mean, claiming that in particular, Altuve did not cheat. I did find it interesting, the interview that ESPN did with Manfred, him really being emphasizing, that this buzzer thing, the buzzers, you know, that they thought may have been attached to the chest of, he said there's absolutely nothing, you know, witnesses, anything that would, that, that, that, that, that, that backs that up as a true assertion and said he'd actually be surprised if that ever came to the forefront. He also said, was not happy with the way Houston handled it last week. Who was? No. I mean, it was defiance, nearly. Anyway. But Manfred also came out really poorly in some of that stuff.

I mean, just the way he defended his decisions. He says the punishment was enough. But, you know, he said, you know, he was asked why didn't some of these other staff members get punished, the guys who were actually banging on the drips? Well, they did that at the discretion of the players, but none of the players were punished in the process. Like, things like that just do not come off. And then, of course, everybody made a big deal of him saying, that, you know, the championship was just a piece of metal that everyone got all up in arms.

I don't care about that. We've been talking about for years how the NCAA, when they strip banners, when they strip jay, it's completely meaningless. So that's not, I don't really care about that. But every time Manfred talks, he makes his decision look worse. Yeah, I don't, you know, the truth of the matter is I don't have a strong feeling about him one way or the other. I think when I've watched him interview to me, he is clearly a smart guy. I don't know what the right answer, but this is. I think the Astros position is very interesting to me.

The borderline defiance is interesting to me, because I do think we have this ability in this country to overreact to things and to overreact to things that lack total substance. I understand there was a cheating scandal. Don't get me wrong. Mike Fires was the whistleblower on this, and they cheated. They had a system, but I think ultimately some of the other stuff, it gets carried away into buzzers, and maybe, you know, in terms of the actual impact, maybe it's been overstated. I don't have an opinion one way or the other on that right now, but I think what you're seeing with the Astros, to me, it's sort of representative of somebody who thinks, an organization that thinks a lot of the discussion has gone past the point of what reality was.

But then again, it could be pure arrogance. It could be total and utter arrogance and lack of remorse, like sort of missing the overall importance of this. Yeah, I think it's a combination of that. And I said this when they hired Dusty, there's nobody better in baseball. they could have hired to help portray them as the victims in all of this. And I think that's part of this, is that they're consciously making an effort, maybe not the players, but certainly the management, that they're going to actually be the victims.

They've been targeted. And this is somehow going to be a comeback story when they come back and win this, that this is going to be a rehabilitation. This is going to be, you know, a wonderful story. Look at them being down in the dumps. And now all of a sudden, here they are in the playoffs, winning the division again. Hey, one last thing before we run. I saw this late last night.

John B. Lines out. He's basically going to be out as the Cavaliers coach one year. Unbelievable. God, we taught, didn't we not say this that what is he doing? Don't go. John Beline should not be going to coach in the NBA. He had the perfect gig at Michigan. He's a great coach, certainly a great college coach.

Some team is going to get very, very lucky this offseason. So who's that team going to be? Is Texas moving on from Shaka Smart? I think, but they're going to make a hard run at Beard. I don't know if he will go, but they will make a hard run at Beard. Beard's excellent. He is excellent. Yeah, they're going to make a hard run at him.

That's going to be their first, second, and third. Where are the big openings this year? UCLA filled their opening. Roy's not going anywhere with that recruiting class. You know, Texas would be one. I'm staring a little bit. I like him as a coach. so I think it would be a little premature.

I wonder about Indiana. It's too early. I actually think Archie Miller is a good coach. I think he's a good coach too, but I wonder if they see, oh, my God, we can get John B-line. You know, if he wants to be in the Big Ten again, okay, in the Big Ten, which, by the way, his style of play has always worked best in, I mean, there's just so many good coaches right now.

nobody's leaving the Big Ten after this year, right? Minnesota, I mean, is Richard Petino going to leave Minnesota? You know, Nebraska, Hoyberg's in year one. Northwestern Collins isn't going anywhere, is he? I mean, although Beeline would be perfect for Northwestern. It would be perfect for any. I mean, those are the openings in the Big Ten. And the ACC.

Georgia Tech, maybe, Passenor. You know, he's actually done a good job coaching that team this year. I know, but he's been there a while. They haven't really done anything. But there are probation next year, aren't they? Are they next year, too? I think major scholarship restrictions. I could be wrong about that.

What about Boston College? Yeah, I mean. BC, you know what? You can win in basketball at BC. I just feel like if I'm him, I'm not taking the BC job. You can win, but I feel like if he took me. You're in the ACC. I feel like you could take a year off and do better.

Maybe. Maybe. I don't know. I can't think of the other openings. I don't think they're going to be, I mean, of course, if Bill Self gets ousted at Kansas, that would be the big one. Yes. You know, something were to happen there. Of course, I would also likely come with sanctions and various other things, but I do, the other one, I don't think this would be the case.

But I feel like he's always on the, we wouldn't kind of, we wouldn't be completely shocked if he's fired list. Mike Bray. Nah, he's another guy this year. You know, they lost a bunch of players. They had a couple players leave. They lost that one key player that got hurt in the Maryland game. You know, in the ACC Big Ten game. He's done a good job this year.

This is... Without a lot of players. I understand that. But this would be, what, three or four years without an NCAA tournament? Is that what it is really for Bray? I think so. Because he didn't make it in 2018. They were terrible last year.

They were under 500 last year. You know, it's funny about Mike Bray. Everybody that I know that knows him and a lot of guys around here know Mike. You know, because he's from here. and he's always, you know, in Dewey and Bethany, Rehoboth, whatever, Starboard hanging out in the summer. A lot of guys I know know him really well. I don't know Mike at all, actually.

I think I've had him on the show once or twice over the years. No, he was in the tournament in 2016, 2017. Okay, so, but I'm saying... By the way, that followed two Elite Eight appearances. Right, no, I know, but I'm just saying that would make this the third straight year. He doesn't make it this. That's correct. This would be the third year.

of not making the tournament. They were in the NIT in 2017 and 2018. They had a losing record last year. And this year, you know, with all the injuries, there's no way he's losing his job with the injuries they had. And with the... Okay, I'm trying to think of what schools might say, not necessarily, oh, we have to fire this guy,

but oh, man, John B-line's available. Yeah. That's just, that's one name that kind of pops into my head. You know, I'm looking at Bray's record. God, he's been at Notre Dame now for 20 years. Yeah. I mean, that's unbelievable. that it's been 20 years. And I remember when Gary retired, you know, Bray, my understanding is that Bray

really wanted the Maryland job, but that a lot of the big people involved in Kevin Anderson at the time, they were more interested in Sean Miller. Sean Miller, I think, really would have taken the job, but apparently the meeting with Kevin Anderson didn't go very well. I don't know that a lot of the meetings with Kevin Anderson went particularly well. But they ended up hiring Turgeon, and it's been Mark ever since. I'm sure some Maryland fans would have rather had Bray. Bray was going to the tournament every year with Notre Dame. They went to elite eights, but there was a whole lot of years of some good Notre Dame teams,

Aaron, not making it out of the first weekend of the tournament. Before they finally had those runs to the lead eights. I'm looking right now, he made a sweet 16 in his third year at Notre Dame. and then it was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years of not being out of the first weekend in the tournament. 11 years, 11 years, and then he made back-to-back elite 8s in 14, 15, and 15, 16. When they, you know, right when they join the ACC, as it turned out of it, they joined the ACC, and they were pretty good early on in the ACC. Anyway, that's it for today.

Thanks. Have a great day back tomorrow with Tommy.