The Kevin Sheehan Show - Thom's Turtle Shocker!

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Kevin and Thom got sidetracked to open the show talking about the legendary ABC Wide World of Sports show. Thom gave out his NCAA Tournament Bracket picks which included a first-round stunner. Kevin also talked about the rumors swirling around Kevin Willard to Villanova.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheon Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's back. I am here. The show's presenting sponsor, as always, is Window Nation.

86690 Nation, Window Nation.com if you need new windows. Tommy, I got this from Derek. Derek writes, good evening, Kevin. I live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and I am an avid listener to the podcast. Today I went to D.C. to show some friends of mine the sites they had never been to the mall before. After a long day of walking and travel, we ended at Shelly's. We couldn't have stopped at a better place to rest our feet and enjoy my first cigar. Thank you, Tom, for the recommendation.

P.S. I am 35 and can't use the new name I just stick with Washington. and then he signs off, go caps. Derek Shelley's is the real deal. Tommy hasn't been lying all these years. Yes. There's no, there's, everyone's a satisfied customer who goes there. Everybody. Everybody.

This isn't just, you know, this isn't just a pitch. This wasn't just, you know, an advertiser, a sponsor that came along and said, hey, we'd love to be a part of your show. Tommy, will you come down here once? Tommy's down there all the time. time for years. It's his favorite place other than the panhandle of Florida and a certain karaoke bar. Other than that, Shelly's is at the top of the list. How are you doing there, pal, friend? I'm doing great, buddy. Doing great. And just a reminder of everybody,

the Cigars and Curve Balls fundraiser for the D.C. Grays is set for Monday, May the 19th at Shelly's back room. All right. Hold on. I got to put it in my calendar, Monday night, May 19th. This is the first I've heard. That's a little bit later than usual, right? Well, it's usually on the date and that or off. Okay. Yeah. You know? Yep. So. Okay. So it's usually sometimes in May. No, it's usually in May, but for whatever reason, I think it's usually very early in May, because it's always like that first week of the NHL playoffs. I feel like we've always got a caps game on at your fundraiser every year. Yes, you're right.

Absolutely. So, and I think the playoffs start much before May 19th. If the caps are still playing on May 19th, I think that would be a good thing. I think so, and I fully expect them to be. You do? You're picking hockey games these days. I'm trying. I'm trying to be a well-rounded individual because I have certain responsibilities I've learned.

you know, so I need to live up to those responsibilities. And we'll get to that in a minute. Yeah, we will because you do have a bracket to pick. That's not even what I'm talking about. Oh, that's not the responsibility you're talking about. Okay. Well, I picked my bracket on the show yesterday, and I've already gotten a lot of feedback to it. And I will read some of it, but not a lot of it.

But I picked Maryland to win the whole thing. and some people thought that that was just a bit much because they actually wanted a legitimate bracket from me. There are no such things as legitimate brackets. I mean, honestly, haven't we learned about this tournament that anybody can win a bracket pool? You don't have to know anything to pick a bracket pull. Maryland's a four seed, by the way.

I didn't pick a 14 seed to win the championship. All right. Well, I've already, you know, weighed in on some of the feedback I got from picking Maryland. We'll get to your bracket. I have smell test picks coming up here in the opening segment for day one or the first round now that the first four are over. Let me just mention, man, tough break last night for Dwayne Simpkins and AU. They lost their best player, Matt Rogers, early in the game to a knee injury. And that was a shame because he was their best player all year. They fought, man, they got that thing back to four or five at one point in the second half. But can you imagine, you know, all season long, by the way, this player Matt Rogers has essentially, you know, waited his whole career.

And he was playing in his fifth season at American University. He's been one of their best players for the last three seasons, finally gets to the tournament. and then early in the game he gets injured and he's out. You know, he came back and then he got injured again. It's a shame for A.U. And for Matt Rogers and Dwayne Simpkins, but a hell of a season for those kids. But it ends last night in Dayton. To borrow the famous ABC Wide World of Sportsline,

the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. That's some agony right there. Wasn't Wide World of Sports awesome? Oh, you know, how can it be that we have sports 24-7 now available on multiple channels? Yet that little, what, an hour and a half or two-hour window on a Saturday afternoon, seems so much better than what we've got now. What a fantastic open to that show. Now, it was Jim McKay, right, that pretty much hosted it all of those years.

You know, they had everything. I mean, as a child of the 70s, wide world of sports on Saturday afternoons, especially, you know, it wasn't something you watch during football season. It was an off football season show, right? I don't think they had college football on ABC on Saturdays during the the fall. It was year-round. Well, how could it have been when they had college football games?

On Saturday afternoon? Yeah. I don't know. But it wasn't a seasonal thing. It was one of their most popular. Back then, ABC was the third network. They were well behind CBS and NBC. They were?

Back then. Oh, yeah. Yeah, ABC. What put ABC on the map, you could argue was Monday night football. Well, that was 1970. 70. I know. But ABC was always like the red-headed stepchild of the three networks compared to NBC and ABC.

I mean, some of the things they would have on that show, you know, the car crashed, you know, the crash derbies. first of all, I think almost every evil-can-eval jump was a wide world of sports, you know, spectacular special, except for Snake River Canyon and the Rocket, that was a paper, I think that was one of the first pay-per-view events. Or no, it was closed-circuit TV. It would have been in the 70s, right? Not pay-per-view. Yes.

Would have been closed-circTV. But they ran it on wide world of sports like a week later because remember, I think I have this right. Frank Gifford and Evil Caneval were the best of friends. And Gifford did almost every Evil Caneval jump. He was the guy there, you know, interviewing a banged-up and barely alive Evil Can-Eval after, you know, jumping 13 double-decker buses or whatever it was. God, Evil Can-Ceval was such a star of the 1970s, wasn't he? He had his own lunchbox. I remember seeing it once. Of course he did. He had his own pinball machine.

Yeah, so yeah, you're right. He was a big star. And you know who the promoter was for that Snake River Canyon thing? A young Vince McMahon. Was he? Really? Wow. Before he ever made it big in wrestling, his father's wrestling business. He was the one who tried to put the money together. I think Bob Aram was the money man behind that. Well, he pulled the shoot.

He pulled the parachute on the ramp. I mean, that thing came out really quickly because there apparently was no real shot of him getting across the Snake River Canyon. And somehow he survived as that thing came down and crashed on the, you know, on the shore closest to the ramp. He never got to the river with that thing. No, he never did. He just floated down.

What else was a big, I mean, we always do this, but wide world of sports, for those of you who don't know, it was this, was it two hours? I forget. I think you're right. It was probably two hours. I'm pulling it up on Wikipedia right now just to see when it started and how long it was. But it basically was a sports show because I guess there wasn't enough sports on TV. and ABC thought, wow, we're going to do a sports show. Imagine. People might watch. I mean, there was football. ABC, ABC was in a situation where they needed to try different things. So that was it, huh? They needed to get people, yes. We needed to get people to pay attention to them. But Tommy, I mean, my recollection, again, my earliest recollection is the 70s and really kind of the mid-70s for starters would be that ABC,

was the home of college football and Monday night football. You know, every Saturday in the fall, there was a college football game. You know, back then, that was it. It wasn't, you know, every single game on 30 different channels. Obviously, we had four networks, three networks, you know, major networks. Fox hadn't even been born at that point. And it was the home of college football and Monday night football. And, by the way, the professional bowlers tour.

I mean, you always got bowling on ABC. Well, bowling was started because of an event they showed on the wide world of sports. They showed two championship bowlers going against each other, and the broadcast was so good that that's when they started covering the bowling tour. And since then, according to Wikipedia, they covered the Oklahoma Rattlesnake Hunt, championship. And that spawned the American Sportsman. Oh, with Kurt Gowdy. Yes. Right? It wasn't Kurt Gowdy, the American

sportsman? Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. There's a state park out in Wyoming named for Kirk Gowdy. I've got a Kurt Gowdy story to tell you here in a moment. But reading from the Wikipedia on wide role of sports, it actually debuted in 1961 and ran all the way through 1997, primarily on Saturday afternoons, hosted by Jim McKay with a succession of co-hosts beginning in 1987. In 2007, Wide World of Sports was named by Time magazine on its list of the 100 best television programs of all time.

90 minutes in length. It was an hour and a half every Saturday. Saturday. Yeah. That seems better than 24 hours of ESPN. I don't know. Well, I don't know about that, because I remember how excited I was when ESPN came out. But yeah, the open to that show, the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat is legendary in terms of the video, the music, the whole thing was great. But I have a quick Kurt Gowdy story to tell. I was working. Very first job was, as I've mentioned, many times before, working at Channel 5, WTTG Channel 5 for both Steve Buchance and Ernie Bauer.

And Joe Yasharoff, a good friend of mine, you know Joe very well. Joe was in the business for years. Joe now teaches, actually, out at the University of Maryland. Joe and I were tasked with picking up Kurt Gowdy from the airport and bringing him to Channel 5 because he was going to broadcast one of the Redskins preseason games. And I think it was the summer that we were carrying the preseason games. And somehow Joe and I got lost trying to get to National Airport.

So we were late picking him up. And then we got lost driving back to Channel 5. But he was the nicest person and he never picked up on any of it. Had no clue. And I'm telling you, it was one story after another. A lot of the stories, though, I remember specifically were about the American sportsmen and the different places and the different fishing spots and hunting, spots it, you know, he went to.

And, but it took us. People, people don't realize, I don't think, that you're a fisherman, right? You've been a fisherman. I, well, I was. I mean, I grew up trout fishing. I can still, because I did it with Coolly two summers ago, I can still fish with a fly rod. I was taught how to fish with a fly rod as a very young kid. My father is a huge fisherman, outdoorsman, fishermen, really, more than anything else.

And I grew up fishing on trout streams in Frederick County, you know, and in Washington County, Maryland, until, you know, sports started to dominate, you know, weekends and summers. But I, yeah, I really haven't done it much as an adult, though. That's also true. But, God, Kurt Gowdy and Tommy, he was old. Like, he was older at that point. What year did Kurt Gowdy pass away? 86 years old, 2006. So this would have been 1990 or 1991.

1990, it would have been that we picked him up. So he was at that point 70 years old. He seemed older. But just one story after another. as Joe and I were frantically trying to figure out how to get back to Channel 5, which should have been about a 20-minute trip from, you know, Washington National Airport to Upper Northwest Wisconsin Avenue took about an hour and 20 minutes.

But he had no clue. And he called, I don't, I forget who he called the game with, but he called one of the skins preseason games. All right. Wide World of Sports. Legendary. You said before we started to record that you had an email to read. Well, I don't have an email to read.

I'm going old school with you. Okay. I got in the mail a pile of cards and letters, the old mail, the old way it's been done, because I did a Zoom speech, a Zoom talk recently, to sixth graders at St. I'm in St. Jude School in Westchester, PA. You did? Really? Yes. My sister-in-law is a teacher there, and she had me do a Zoom call session for all the sixth graders there,

and in the mail a week later comes a pile of cards from all these students. Out just read one of them. Dear Mr. Tom Levero, thank you so much for telling us about your job. It was so interesting. I helped to hear more about you. in the near future. You know? So I got some nice stuff here.

Dear Mr. Tom, thank you for talking about the sports players you've seen and about your book and dreams. Very nice. Yes. Very nice. I got a whole pile of them. But the teacher was there, right? She didn't, or he didn't call in sick?

There wasn't like an excess of sick leave days that were being taken in Westchester County? They wouldn't leave me alone, even on Zoom with six graders. Right. That's what must have been fun. Were there any, could you tell via Zoom whether or not you would capture their attention? Because that's a young age to kind of sit through listening to somebody older, talk about anything. Yeah, I couldn't tell. I'm thinking not.

Yeah. I think even at Georgetown, sometimes you'll lose the audience. Hey, hey, hey, hey. That's a paying gig, buddy. Watch it. All right. Let's get to my NCAA tournament smell test. Kevin looks where the John Q public is putting their cash and does the opposite.

It's time for the smell test. All right, the smell test, as it always is, is brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie.orgie. And use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. They'll give you a cash bonus on your. initial deposit. You've got to use my promo code, Kevin D.C. If you're getting this in time, and that would be before 12 Eastern, and I don't know if you will, you can still enter MyBooky's $100,000 bracket contest. They'll have follow-up bracket contest. They always have a Sweet 16 bracket contest.

That'll come next week. But you're never out of the action with MyBooky. They'll have every game, every total, every money line, every prop bet opportunity on each game. You can bet the tournament right now in terms of the winner, in terms of final four, Elite 8, sweet 16 odds, MyBooky.ag for all of your March madness needs. Go to my bookie.orgie.org, use my promo code, Kevin, D.C. All right, I'll be honest with you. I know that I've won more years doing this than lost. I just don't remember what years those were.

I have my football record smell test very much documented to the actual almost pick over the last, you know, nearly 20 years, believe it or not. And I've only been doing the smell test picks for the NCAA tournament for, I don't know, five, six, seven years, something like that. Last year, I did go 13 and 13. 500 for the tournament, but I'm pretty sure the two years prior to that I did really well. And I'm like 95% sure that I've had more winning March Madness smell test picks than losers. So let's get to it. This is just for today's first round, the 16 games today that start at 1215.

And actually, I do like the very first game of the first round. Creighton plus three against Louisville. A lot of public action on Louisville. They got to the ACC championship game. Played Duke pretty well. No Cooper flag in that game. And Louisville's playing as an eight-seat. They should have probably been seated higher.

But they got a chance to play in Lexington. That does not seem fair. The public's backing Louisville, I like Creighton, plus the three. There are some favorites here that are the right sides, I believe. You know, there's something about the NCAA tournament, Tommy, where you get the public better to think more seriously about underdogs. You know, the public typically likes favorites more often than underdogs, not in the NCAA tournament, especially in the first.

round. They love to try to identify the upsets, and they play a lot of underdogs. So one of those underdogs is High Point. They're playing High Point at a ridiculous rate. I'll take Purdue and lay the seven and a half. There's sharp money on Purdue in that game as well. That's an early game today as well. That starts in that 12 o'clock window. High point, Tommy, I may have told you this story, not that you're going to remember it. I took one of the boys. I can't even remember which of the three boys I took to visit High Point.

But it was one of the most beautiful schools. I told, I called Kara moments after arriving and said we just checked into the four seasons

in High Point, North Carolina, but it's the school. And there was this guy that had taken over school. His last name was Kaibine or Kubine or something like that. He was a professional speaker. He came from the financial industry. He raised a ton of money and he totally turned that school around. The dorm rooms were literally like sweets at the Ritz Carlton. It was a beautiful school. And, you know, in the middle, by the way, if you don't know this, the furniture capital of the world is High Point, North Carolina. That's where all of the furniture.

companies are based. But anyway, Purdue minus seven and a half over high point. Then we go to another favorite. Missouri is playing Drake. Drake is definitely a public darling heading into this tournament. I think a lot of people will pick Drake to win outright. So lay the six with Missouri against Drake. Kansas is not a good team. They haven't played well. They're laying five against Calipari's Arkansas team. Lay the Five with Kansas. The public's pounding the hogs in that game. Texas A&M's another favorite.

They're laying seven and a half to Yale. People love Yale. Texas A&M's the play. And then the only other dog other than Creighton that I have is VCU. People really love BYU, laying the three. I'll take VCU plus the three. So, Creighton plus three, Purdue minus seven and a half, Missouri minus six, Kansas minus five, Texas A&M minus seven and a half, and VCU plus three. Those are your smell test plays.

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done a ton of research. This is a responsibility that you have every year. This isn't the responsibility that, you know, speaking to a young elementary school classes, but this is a big deal. People will be hanging on your picks here, so do your best. Try hard. Okay. Should I just read to you? You want me to go through every single me? No. We're going to do it the same way. We've done it now for about 12 years. We're going to go region by region, and you're going to give me the lower-seeded teams that you have winning in the first round. So we will start in the South region where Auburn... Let's not start in the South. Let's start the East. If you want to start in the East, we can start in East. Duke is the number one seed. How many lower-seated teams

do you have? Winning. I have... I have I have two in the east. Okay. I have Akron. Got it. Over Arizona. And I have VCU over BYU. I like the VCU pick.

I also have VCU in that. Okay. So now we move on to the second round. Duke, Mississippi, State, Oregon, Akron, VCU, Wisconsin, St. Mary's, Alabama. Who advances to the Sweet 16? I've got Duke. over Mississippi State, Oregon over Akron, Wisconsin over VCU, and Alabama over St. Mary. All right. The Sweet 16 matchups are set. Who advances to the elite eight?

I've got Duke versus Wisconsin in the elite. And then who goes to the final four? Duke goes to the final four. All right. You've got Duke out of the east. Is there a preference for the next region? Let's do the Midwest. All right. Let's go to the Midwest. where Houston is the number one seed. Give me your lower-seeded teams

over higher-seeded teams in the first round. I have just won. I have McNeese State over Clemson. McNeese State, by the way, coached by Will Wade, who just, I think, took a job somewhere yesterday. I think Will Wade is leaving for the NC State job? Well, I didn't know that.

Will Wade was the cheater at LSU and was basically caught on tape, you know, cheating. And LSU ended up firing him back in 2022, but he's done a good job at McNeese State. Yes, he's got the NC State job. So there you go. Well, that's not a good pick, then. They're not going to win the game for the old coach. Well, they might. I mean, it is kind of weird, right, that he's taken a new job, and he's a new job,

and he's about to coach a team in the NCAA tournament. Yeah. All right. But that's who I wait with, McNeese. There you go. That's a 12 over a 5. In that packet. All right.

So then of your second round four matchups, who do you have advancing to the Sweet 16? I've got Houston over Gonzaga. I have Purdue over McNeese. I have Kentucky over Illinois. And I have Tennessee over UCLA. All right, who gets to the elite eight out of those four teams? That's all chalk.

You've got one through four seeds. Yes. Houston and Tennessee. All right, the one versus the two, and who's in the final four? Houston. All right, so you got two number one so far in the final four, Duke and Houston. I will tell you, I also have Duke and Houston on that side of the bracket in the final four. All right, so let's move on to which region would you like to go to next?

Let's do the south. All right, the south, where Auburn is the number one seed. Give me your lower-seated over higher-seated first-round upsets. I've got one in that bracket. I've got Creighton over Louisville. Okay. Let's move on to the next round. Who do you have advancing to the Sweet 16?

I've got Auburn beaten Creighton. Yep. I have Michigan. I have Texas beaten Michigan. Texas A&M, right? Over Michigan. I have Ole Miss being Iowa State. Okay. And I have Michigan State beaten Marquette. All chalk there too, one through four. I know.

Wait, wait, did you have Iowa State or Ole Miss winning? Ole Miss. Oh, okay. Ole Miss is a six, so not all chalk. All right, who makes it to the Elite Eight? The Elite 8 is I've got Auburn over Texas I have Michigan State over Ole Miss Okay

I've got Florida And that's it Hold on Auburn and Michigan State They're going to play in the Elite 8 Who goes to the final four Okay Michigan State Okay All right Michigan State into the final four

Average minds Think alike Because so far you and I have Duke Houston and I also have Michigan State in the final four. Now let's move to the West bracket where Maryland is the four. Florida is the one. Give me your first round lower seeds over higher seeds. Okay, I have three of them.

I have Colorado State over Memphis. I have Arkansas over Kansas. I'm listening. I have Grand Canyon over Maryland. You too? Yes, I do. Oh, my God. Why?

Well, because Brand Cagging can score and put up some points. I think they can match Maryland offensively. Okay. My national champion knocked out in the first round by Tommy. This would be so terrible if you're right about it. All right. Let's move on to the next rounds, the second round, to get to the Sweet 16. Who do you have in the Sweet 16?

I've got Florida over Yukon. I have Colorado. No, I have Grand Canyon, Colorado, I have Missouri over Texas Tech, and I have St. Johns over Arkansas. All right, you got a 13 seed into the Sweet 16 facing Florida. Does Grand Canyon do to Florida what they did to the Terps? No, no, they don't.

Okay. I've got Florida with. winning that game, and I have St. Johns beating Missouri. I bet you have St. Johns in the final four. No, I don't. You've got Florida. Okay, so your final four, Michigan State against Florida, Duke

against Houston, give me the national championship matchup. The next Washington Wizard, Cooper Flagg leads Duke to the national championship. Against? Uh,

Florida. Duke against Florida. Who cuts down the nets in San Antonio on Monday night, April 7th? Duke. Duke. All right. So what's yours? Mine, I did on the show yesterday, but I had Duke in Houston in the final four,

and I had Michigan State and Maryland in the final four, and I had Maryland beating Duke in the championship game. I think my biggest upset was, you know, early in the, the first weekend, I had Auburn a one seed going out in the second round. I had Creighton beating Auburn in the second round of the tournament. I think that would be, I also had Utah State upsetting Tennessee in the second round. Those were the two big stunners for me in the tournament. I'm not a big Auburn fan. I like Bruce Pearl a lot. I think he's a great coach. I don't think they're at the same level. And I've been saying this now for about a month and a half

once I started to tune in and watch college hoops. I don't think Auburn's at the same level as Duke, Houston, and Florida. So I picked them to go out early. But obviously Maryland is a hopeful, wishful thinking pick. But again, and I've told you this now, you know, for going back to late January, early February, the Terps are capable of beating anybody in this field. when they play their best basketball, they're as good as anybody in the field.

It's just whether or not they can put it together for six straight games or at least four straight games to get to a final four. All right, Tommy's in with Duke, and his stunner is Maryland out in the first round against Grand Canyon. By the way, I had Bryce Drew, the head coach of Grand Canyon,

on the radio show yesterday. You can listen to that, TURP fans. if you want to on the team 980.com. He was Tommy, of course, one of the, you know, highlighted every year buzzer beating, you know, miracle game-winning shooters in the history of March Madness. And we talked a lot about that play 27 years later. Didn't he play for Valparaiso?

Yeah, that was it. Valpo beat Ole Miss in the 98 tournament. It was such a beautiful play that they constructed, you know, a length of the court pass where the guy went up, caught it and in one motion touch past it to Bryce Drew who caught it in shooting motion and knocked down the three at the buzzer. And, you know, I said, you know, he's probably been, you know, asked every single question 58 times, you know, every March he gets the same questions. but I thought, you know, my memory was we had never seen that play. We've seen it, you know, so many times since. But it really, you know, is always thought of as the Bryce Drew, the Valpo play. But he said that his father, who was the coach, that he got it from the Indiana Pacers,

that the Pacers had run it and he had kind of taken it from them. But it may have been the first time that it was successful. Just to set the record straight. I'm sure the Pacers got it from someplace else. Most likely, Danbury Park and East Trousburg. I used to hit that shot all the time. Before your career. Yeah.

Yes. All right. Let's get to Kevin Willard, who there are rumors flying out there that he is potentially the leading candidate now for the Villanova job. Tommy's got a few other things. We'll finish up the show after these words from a few of our sponsors. So most of us wear underwear every day. But when was the last time you changed the type of underwear that you wear? I had someone tell me recently that they hadn't changed the brand of their underwear since

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You deserve a victory cigar for not losing a kid probably that day, and you deserve a drink off their top shelf liquor that they've got available. At Shelly's Backroom at 1331 F Street Northwest, find out more at shelley's backroom.com. Okay, so I want to just mention Kevin Willard, the head basketball coach at Maryland. There is a lot of buzz out there about Willard and Villanova. Villanova fired their head coach, Kyle Neptune.

They have an opening. Villanova has a ton of money. They've got a ton of money to pay a coach. They've got a ton of money for an NIL budget. It is an attractive job, certainly. It also resides in the Big East, where who the hell knows what the Big East is going to like in a few years. But there is a lot of, you know, a lot of, it's not necessarily credible sourcing, you know, depending on what you think of various people who are out there. Willard's been

listed as one of the top two candidates by a guy like Adams Zagoria who, you know, is a contributor to the New York Times and the athletic and Forbes sports. But, you know, it's certainly a among Maryland fans. And it sucks that it's coming up right now, but this is just the nature of the sport. You know, these guys fire their coaches right when the season ends, sometimes, you know, in advance, and they're trying to nail down, you know, coaches right now because the portal opens up in a few weeks. So you've got to have that guy on board. Here's my personal view. I just don't see Villanova as the same job as Maryland. I think Maryland's a better job. job. I understand Villanova's won much bigger more recently. I mean, Jay Wright did a phenomenal

job winning multiple national championships at Villanova. They haven't done anything since Jay Wright retired. But I just don't see Villanova as the same job as Maryland other than the incredible resources Villanova apparently has. But to me, Big East basketball like ACCBassie basketball, like ACC basketball, you have no idea where it's headed. No idea where it's headed. You know in the Big Ten, you are solid. In the Big Ten, in the SEC, and I would say in the Big 12 as well, you are good for years to come. I mean, the only thing that's going to happen to those leagues is they're going to get bigger, maybe.

They're not going away. They're not shrinking to basketball-only schools. So I have a feeling personally, and I don't know anything, so I'm not reporting this. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if Kevin Willard, who, by the way, was getting bashed by many in the fan base last year, and even early this year, can't win on the road, can't win close games, all the typical stuff. And look, he hadn't won on the road in the league since entering it until they got hot on the road this year and one of the five, you know, won five games on the road, five of their final six on the road in the big ten. And they did lose a bunch of close games.

Their last four losses were all essentially at the buzzer or with less than five seconds to go. But it wouldn't shock me. And by the way, I certainly wouldn't begrudge it if this is, you know, an opportunity for Willard to leverage himself into a much bigger and an even more secure deal than the one he signed a few years ago when he took the Maryland job, which was a pretty secure deal to begin with. I mean, coaches do this all the time. It appears to be legitimate interest from a school that's won national championships, plural, recently is considered a basketball power,

not a blue blood, okay, for those Villanova friends of mine out there that always want to kind of refer to Villanova as maybe the newest of the Blue Bloods. No, you're not a Blue Blood. You're that next year. Maryland's capable and has been in that next year before as well. But it would not shock me if this is, you know, an opportunity for him to get more security and more money from Maryland. And if he does that, good for him. This happens all the time this time of year. Let me just point out that I think I've taken care of that possibility with my pick here in the NCAA. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, if he loses to Grand Canyon, I don't think he's heading, he's heading to Pennsylvania anytime soon. Look, you know, the Maryland fans out there

know that I have been big fans of their coaches recently. And it's not, you know, because I'm just, you know, a suck-up, it's not that at all. I know that Mark Turgeon

was an excellent basketball coach. I know that Kevin Woodard is an excellent basketball coach. But let me just mention that Kevin Willard, in all of his years at Seton Hall, he went to the tournament, I think, five times. His best team was the COVID team, just like Turgeon's best team was the COVID-year team. But he's never coached a team in the NCAA tournament that's gotten to the second weekend. You know, he's been a first or a second round loser every single time, including at Maryland two years ago, when they beat West Virginia and then lost to Alabama.

I asked Gary Williams about this yesterday. This feels not from a job security standpoint because they just won 25 games and finished second in the Big Ten. But it feels big for the program and the momentum that they've kind of created here this year to get to the second weekend. a first or a second round loss Friday or Sunday

would be really hard to take for a lot of people in the fan base. Yeah. If they lose to Grand Canyon on Friday, it's disastrous. And he coached his ass off this year. He did a phenomenal job in the portal. He got Derek Queen to commit to Maryland.

he's already lining up what looks like maybe a pretty decent squad for next year, even though they're losing Reese and they'll probably lose Queen and they'll lose Miguel. I like Kevin a lot. I think he can really coach. I like Mark a lot. I think he can really coach. I would predict that Kevin Willard is the Maryland basketball coach after this year and does not end up at Villanova.

I could be wrong, though. Do you have anything else? I got nothing else for you, boss. All right, are you going to watch the tournament? You're certainly going to watch the Grand Canyon, Maryland game, no doubt. Yes, yes. I'll be watching. Okay.

Then I will talk to you on. I'm looking forward to it. I'll talk to you on Tuesday. Okay, you got it. Back tomorrow, everybody. Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sport, the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. Human drama of athletic competition.

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