The Kevin Sheehan Show - Wizards Blown Out + Moses Trade Reaction

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Kevin opened the show recapping the Wizards' 118-100 loss to Boston in the "play-in" game with Chris Miller/NBCSports Washington. Kevin reacted to the news that came out late yesterday that Washington is ready to move on from long-time right tackle Morgan Moses. Jeff Ermann/Inside MD Sports joined the show with updates on the Terp "draft" entrant players (Wiggins, Ayala, Morsell) and to discuss who DeMatha might hire to replace Mike Jones as its basketball coach. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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 Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Podcast today brought to you by MyBooky at MyBooky.orgie. If you use my promo code, Kevin, D.C., they're going to match your first deposit all the way up to $1,000.

So if you deposit $1,000, you'll get an extra $1,000. You'll have $2,000 to bet with. We've got the NHL playoffs. Got a great NBA game tonight. I'm going to stay up and watch it, Warriors, Lakers. I don't know why it's at 10 o'clock Eastern. We're going to ask our first guest about that here momentarily. They've got everything, though, including all of the NFL futures odds.

And if you want to, you know, play online craps or online blackjack, they've got a full-fledged casino at MyBooky where weekly blackjack tournaments give you and your friends a crack at prize pools of up to $50,000. Go to mybooky.orgie.org. Sign up now. Use my promo code, Kevin D.C. get your first deposit matched up to $1,000. Again, Kevin D.C. at mybooky.ag. Three topics on the podcast today. One, we will start with the Wizards.

Two, we will get to the Morgan Moses news, the Morgan Moses news from yesterday. And lastly, we're going to talk a little bit, and we can do that with our first guest as well, about a very interesting situation at Dematha High School, where Mike Jones is moving on after 19 years. In 65 years, DeMathas had two head coaches. Morgan Wooten, legendary iconic, all-time high school basketball winner, and Mike Jones. And what will DeMatha do next? Jeff Irman will join us.

We'll talk about that. We'll talk some torps with him, too. But Chris Miller from NBC Sports Washington is my guest to open the show to talk about the game last night. By the way, real quickly, because you had a son who played at Dematha. So I am assuming you got to know Mike pretty well at DeMatha. Were you surprised that he decided to move on? And do you have a sense of who's next? I have no clue who's next.

Yes, my son Donovan was in the class of 2020. He was a team captain. Went up the ranks, started freshman basketball. Sophomore year played JV. And the final two years at DeMatha, he played varsity. Mike is a fantastic person first, great coach second. And what he did for my son, my oldest son went there for a year, played freshman and then transferred.

But I would say Mike helped me raise my boys. That's the kind of endorsement I want to give him on your podcast, Kevin. And what I mean by that is teenage boys have ups and downs, right? and Mike just a few just a few and Mike was the type of coach where it wasn't just X's and O's it was teaching them

life lessons through the game of basketball and I can't be more thankful for him what he did for my boys and he will always have a reading endorsement for me I was shocked that

he left because it's just like a legend replaced a legend i said that to a friend of mine yesterday mike is a legend over there class 91 one over 500 games i think eight wcacac titha is a national brand let me give you a quick story kevin my wife was out in la a couple years ago at lax she's walking to get get on her plane and she had some demath gear on and a lady stopped her and said won dematha and And my wife was shocked. She kind of like did a double take and was like, what?

I'm in L.A., who would know about this? And she was like, yeah, my son graduated whatever year it was. And that just kind of tells you the scope of that school, right? That's a little small school in Hyattesville, Maryland as a national brand. I wish Mike the best. Great guy. Virginia Tech got a really, really good coach. Yeah, and we're going to get to the Wizards, but it just occurred to me as we started

because I've known Chris, and I know. know Chris had boys that went to Dematha. I mean, what you said about him in relation to the non-basketball stuff is so, it's so great to have that feeling. And I've had that feeling a couple of times with my boys. And I, you know, and, you know, I think the coaches that get that they're there for more than just teaching these guys how to defend a pick and roll. are the guys that really, you know, look, at the high school level, even at a Dematha,

most of those guys are not going to play in the NBA. Now, Dematha, your chances are better, but most of them aren't. And the life lessons are so important. And to have, you know, your sons in the care of somebody who gets that, I think, is always so important because, as you and I both know, and we've seen it, more times than not, that's not what the coaches sort of understand. and get. And it sounds like,

Kevin, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, I'll, I'll tell you

how much Mike still resonates with my, uh, with my son Donovan. Um, due to him, you know, due to COVID,

and came back home and did the rest of his studying, you know, in his room. Every day he leaves like around like noon. And like, where are you going? You know where he's been?

He goes back over to Dumatha. Place pickup. He's in the cold tub. He's like, I'm going to go get in the cold tub. That's the kind of, that's when you know it's stuck with him. He got it, right? Because when you go back, how many times do we hear about former teammate, former athletes going back to their schools and stuff like that?

And he's not the only one. I mean, Earl Timberlake, Hunter Dickinson, all these guys have come back. There were his teammates. And that should tell you something about, what that school represents. When they say one to math, they mean it over there. I mean,

it is a brotherhood. And it's not just the football players or the basketball players or the band members. They all know each other. And that was one of the main reasons why, you know, we send our boys over there. And obviously a large part of it was like, come on,

the math of basketball, Mike Jones, all of that. And that's why I say it still resonates when you could be a 19, 20, 21-year-old, 30-year-old, keep going back over to the school. It's, well, not to mention the fact, and we're going longer on this, and I promise we're going to get to the Wizards here, because I know not everybody is into the local high school

basketball conversation, but those that have been listening to me for a long time know how much I love talking about it. But the league that DeMath is in, you know, the level of competition that the WCAC is and has been over the years. For those that don't understand it, this is the best top to bottom high school basketball conference in America, not in the city, which it is by head and shoulders over number two, which is probably the IAC, but it's head and shoulders over the IAC. It is the number one basketball conference high school-wise in America with just phenomenal coaching and it's always been that way. And that's why the best players in the area end up being

there. All right, let's talk about last night. I'll give you the first swing at it and then I'll follow up. But they got absolutely torched in the second half. Jason Tatum goes for 50, 11-100 losers in Boston, never really had much of a chance after the first few minutes of the third quarter when Boston jumped out to a 70, they had a 17 to 2 run to turn a two point deficit into a 13 point lead. They get another chance Thursday night at home against Indiana. And I'm just going to say it up front, I actually like their chances to win that game and snag the eight seed and face Philadelphia. But your reaction to the loss last night in Boston is what? Before the game, I just reminded our listeners that, you know, strange things happen in Boston.

I've been covering this team for 14 years, Kevin. I've been up to TD Garden more times than I want to admit because I hate the Celtics. It's just if you know me, you know I hate the Celtics with a passion. And every time we go up there, it seems like something weird happens. I'll give you a couple examples. So Jason Smith and Brendan Haywood last night wanted to wear black. And I was like, we were in our production. I was like, don't do it.

I was like, just don't do it. And they did it. And I said, guys, the basketball gods, I just have a funny feeling. Jason told me a story one time in the Celtics locker room. He found a snake in there. I was like, what? He goes, the showers are cold. There's just things happen there, right?

It's red. It's red just doing his magic up in heaven. right. So I just had just a bad feeling about last night. I wanted to play the Celtics because it would be nothing better than to end their season. Right. And then Jason Tatum happened. And it's like, here we go again. And it wasn't one particular player that got the Jason Tatum experience, Kevin. Every player that was out there got a piece of that fit. Nobody had a chance. Nobody had a chance. Nobody had a chance. And it was, I felt for Brad, because. because, you know, the competitor in him and the knowing of Jason Tatum because of their friendship being for sale.

All that stuff is great. But Brad is nowhere near 100%. Jason Tatum has five inches on him. And it was just like, Tatum could just do no one. Here's the ones that I said last night. And it was just amazing to me. Tatum went 17 for 17 from the free throw line. The Wizards went 17 of 20 from the free throwout.

he has the same amount of free throws made as the entire wizard's team. That was really the difference. Yeah. So by the way, you know, no one could check Tatum. I, you know, it's easy for us to sit back and you're going to remember some of these regular season games in recent years against Tatum more than I will. But I was screaming at times. I'm like, look, Scott, you've got to get the ball out of his hands.

he's unstoppable. He's torching everybody. By the way, the switches on the picks where you end up with Bertons on him. I don't understand why you have to switch with Tatum in the pick and roll. I wouldn't do it, but they didn't have anybody that could guard him.

And Brad's not 100%. And Brad got completely torched by him at times. But you've got to, you know, you maybe go some zone, you double them and you say, let's hope. And that's a tough team to double because Tatum will make the right play and so will Marcus Smart on the next pass,

and then Kemble Walker or Evan Fornier or somebody's wide open, and you almost just have to pick your poison. You couldn't stop them, but I was frustrated by that. But I thought this game was really sort of easy to break down after the fact. Number one, Jason Tatum. Not only was he the best player on the floor last night, he's the best player on the floor. He's a legit all-around superstar.

I've said this for a while now. I see a future potential MVP, legitimate contender, if not winner, in Tatum down the road. I think, you know, I've had over the years on the air on the radio show arguments with people, you know, saying, oh, you don't think Beal's a top five or top 10 player. I don't. There are 10 or 11 players that I would pick ahead of Bradley. It's not a criticism of Bradley. Bradley's developed into an elite scorer in this game.

But if you told me I get Jason Tatum or Bradley Beale, I don't know. have to think long to make that decision. He was brilliant last night. Number one, takeaway. Number two was that, you know, there was this foul differential, which you spoke to, but in many ways, you know, Chris, I think Boston earned it, and I think they earned it. I mean, too. Because, first of all, Tatum was a difficult check. So, you know, and the wizards are not very good defensively, and they're late defensively, but more importantly, what you see this time of year is the teams that move the basketball offensively and you get more touches and you get better spacing and then you have a superstar like him. Okay, let's mention that as well. You're going to get a defense moving

and you're going to catch them where they're, if they're not a good defensive team and they don't rotate well, you're going to catch them in situations where you're going to get to the free throw line. You're going to draw fouls. And then on the flip side, and this would be sort of number three for me, the Wizards are the number one ISO team in the league. And when the game slows down as it does this time of year, and you're not getting in transition what you typically get and what they have over the last month, which is where obviously Russ excels. And even a guy like Bertons benefits from transition, because he's able to spot up in transition. And not every shot is contested. And a lot of the shots, and he was terrible last night, but a lot of those shots were

contested, but when you don't move the ball offensively and you're facing a set defense consistently waiting on you, you're not going to draw as many fouls, no matter how aggressive you're being. You know what? I didn't see this stat, Chris, so maybe you know it. I think the Wizards had seven or eight charges last night. It seemed like there were at least six, seven, eight charges, and some of them were in transition, but others were, you know, were, we're, we're, we're spacing the floor, we're going to allow our playmakers to try to make plays against a set defense, which is essentially their half-court default, other than a couple of downscreens, a couple of flare screens.

And it doesn't play well with Russ. Russ was a disaster offensively last night. And I'm not taking away from what he did over the last month, because without it, they wouldn't have been in the game last night. But the game changes this time of year, and this is the big topic when it comes to Russ, right? is Russ in transition, Russ, when the game is fast, is different than when the game slows down a little bit.

And I think we saw some of that last night. I thought the Wizards played right into Brad Stevens' hands. And it was a byproduct of the early fouls by the bigs. Rui got two files with 705 left in the first quarter. Gafford had three files in five minutes. Brew he picks up his fourth file. Then he gets fifth. So it takes you out of whatever you want.

wanted to get accomplished in terms of your bigs. And the charge thing that you talked about, Marcus Smart took a charge on Bradley Beale for he even half-course shot. Yeah, at the end of the first half. I was like, oh, they're dialed in, right? I think the fouls, and I'm not saying they were bad calls. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the files that were called impacted how the wizards wanted to deploy their

bigs. So then when the Wizards went small, that's exactly what the Celtics wanted. They wanted the Wizards to go small because now Tatum, like you said, on those switches, Kimba got hot. We haven't even talking to Kimba yet. Kimba had them. Listen, they only had three players of double figures, Kevin. And the other one was Tristan Thompson, who I thought was a man last night, right? 12 rebounds, six offensive.

He was a force. We got postseason, Tristan. Yeah. We got Tristan with LeBron. and him, yeah, he even had LeBron's shoes on. I was like, yeah, this is, this is old Tristan. But really, nobody else on the Celtics bench did anything. And the Wizards actually outscored them 45 to 20 in bench points.

Thank God for Isch Smith last night. I thought Ish was terrific. The best player. And there was a moment late in the game where they're in the huddle and Ish is trying to get his teammates going. Normally, that's Russell Westbrook that does that. But that was Ish in a moment saying we're still. in it let's keep fighting um i thought if it wasn't for ish it could have been really ugly last night 17

points eight assists uh coming off the bench and i thought he just dominated anybody he got to the rim kevin that that that blow by john wall type speed that was ish last night getting to the cup it just wasn't enough and now they find themselves having to try to beat indiana four times in one year that's daunting yeah the good news is there's no jason tatum um on the other side And they're not going to guard. And maybe you'll end up with a regular season-style game where you can get the 138-134 kind of a game that the Wizards have thrived in down the stretch

that was not that you could tell from the jump, Chris, last night, that the defensive intensity, by the way, I'll give the Wizards credit. I thought they were intense defensively to start the game. I actually thought, and I'm curious as to what you thought. First of all, Marcus Smart's one of my favorite players, because he's a guy that does nothing but make winning plays all the time. But he rolled his ankle twice. The second time, the real big roll, he had actually done it, I think, two possessions earlier.

And I thought he went down and then Robert Williams went down. And the Wizards had taken an eight-point lead. And the Celtics had gone eight minutes making one field goal. And I thought, you know what? Maybe the Celtics just are going to hang it up. They've played poorly down the stretch. No Jalen Brown. They're not going anywhere, even if they win this game.

This is the opportunity. And I did think, even though it ended up being a lopsided game, late in that second quarter, when they took that eight-point lead, I thought Boston was on the verge of saying, eh, just not our year. Did you think that in the moment? I did. And you started hearing the crowd. By the way, they said there was 5,000 in there. Man, that's the loudest 5,000 I've ever heard in my life, right? I thought that they were ready to tap out.

I was like, well, here we go. Me too. Could a three, could a three really get them going like, oh, well, it's a great season. Let's move on. But, you know, it was funny. I tweeted out thoughts, Wizards fans at halftime, and they were up too. And everyone was like, I'm nervous. I don't feel good about this because as well as, you said,

Kevin, they played. They only went into the showers up to. And then you know what happens. Adjustments start happening. And then Jason Tatham happened. He had 23 points in third quarter. Again, like you said, that was the number one topic coming out of that game was there was no, you know, we've seen Brad this year get face guarded, boxing ones. You would have thought since the Wizards have seen that so much happening to their player, they probably would have did that to him like a boxing one like let's face guard your job is to stand in front of his face and not allow him to get a shot and that just didn't happen he could he he did anything he wanted on the floor last night and he hit some shots that should have been and ones that weren't called I mean I think

he could have gone to the free throw line even more yeah and you know coming off of screens and that inside out dribble on Lopez I was like oh my god Lopez is in quicksand like when he went down heels like there's nothing you can do and he hits the reverse layup and it was just like whatever he wanted to do last night i mean it was one of those offensive clinics it wasn't one specific thing like oh he dominated into paint or he was really good in the midrange or man he knocked down some really good threes no it was all three levels scoring uh to get that fit yeah the the other thing too about that is when they went on that super cold snap in the second quarter when they, I think Fornier had the only bucket over an eight minute period. Now, they got to

the free throw line a few times, but when the Wizards took that eight point lead, if you, all of his attempts that missed were going halfway down and coming out. It's not like they were bad looks. How about the one shot where it was literally down and then it came out? I was like, whoa, that was weird. I think the other thing too, and this is what concerned me, and I talked about this going into the game, not just on the podcast, but on radio, because I've really enjoyed the last month plus. I really have. You know how much I love this team, and I want it to be good. But I do believe that there is a limitation. And I believe that as great as Russ is, and by the way, the leadership that he's brought and the work ethic and setting the example and all of the things that Tommy

Shepard has told me, told you, you know, all those things were a revelation on some level for me about what an example set or what a leader he was. And without that, they're not here. I understand that. But I've also watched every single game of his postseason career because I've always been a big fan. And he can't slow down when slowing down is the right thing. And baked into those triple doubles are a lot of bad plays, too,

that are magnified this time of year. And last night they had 15 turnovers in the game. That's not like a ridiculously high amount, but it's too many. And they happened in times where, look, I think there were like another four or five near turnovers that were somehow balls rolling around that were picked up and thrown in. I think Bertons had one. I think the one shot he made, the ball was rolling around and he sort of picked it up and threw in a little jump hook.

You can't turn the ball over 15 times in a game like this. and take the shots that they took. And by the way, he missed shots badly. Like badly, he missed shots. And they were three for 21, but a lot of those misses were contested. I would say that Bertons, he was 0 for 7 and 1 for 8, and he was terrible on defense. But I would say unlike most nights when he's been off,

last night, it was defensive forced most of the night. They were all contested. A lot of them were anyway. But it comes down to this Russell Westbrook conversation. It's a very, it's a very nuanced conversation, and it's sort of complex because there's so much good, and yet we know what over the last five years, the playoff performances have been, and I think we saw that last night. I think it's fair because he is such a force and a force of nature.

I mean, he just competes so hard, and like you said, he's just, he's so fast with the ball. and when you get into a situation where you have to slow down and you have to be methodical in your half court sets, that's when the turnovers happen. The Wizards lost by 18 points last night, Kevin. Off of those turnovers, the Celtics converted 20 points. Yeah. So that tells you everything you need to know.

Like limit your turnovers. Don't let them get points off of it. You lost by 18, but you gave up 20 points to the seas off of your turnovers. And I think slowing it down is a great. point. It is very nuanced. And unless you have watched Russell in the playoffs to see this, it is a thing. So I'm curious to know what happens Thursday night. I mean, are we asking an old dog to learn a new trick? I don't know at this point of his career. Can he slow it down? Do you really want him to slow it down? Yes, you want him to slow it down in certain instances. But

yeah, we're not here if it wasn't for him. It's just point blank period. No, we're Wizards are not playing basketball this late in the season if it wasn't for him. If this guy wasn't on the team, look, the trade now I think everyone can admit that the Wizards want it because John got shut down. He was really in and out of the lineup, injured. Russell, once he got healthy, just went on this run. Breaking Oscar's record is awesome, right? But I, you, you hit, you hit on something. And it's a talking point that I think I want to touch on, you know, tomorrow also is can you slow Russ down enough where the turnovers are not an issue? But it wasn't just him. Yes, he's the leader. He's the, he was the guy last night,

like he was just off. And yet, Kevin, 20 points 14 rebounds. I know. Well, it's, You look at his stat line and you go, yeah, he was off, but he's still in past the game. Yeah, but it's not, it's the turnovers that are also just a result of overall decision-making issues when the game slows down. I don't think he can slow down. I think you have, first of all, you've got to get stops. You've got to get out in transition. You can't settle for the ball going through the net and then walking it up the court. you've got to, you know, part of it, and I used to say this about Oklahoma City, part of it I never thought was Russ's fault because there was no real movement.

You know, there's a lot of ISO, even back then, whether it was with Durant or whether it was with George or Oladipo or any of them, you know, even under Billy Donovan, same thing, you know. But I don't know that he's capable of playing with a lot of structure. And I think maybe the coaches would tell us that, that this is, you know, what he is, is he is a tornado. of compete, of energy, and it's going to lead to 45 to 48 wins a year. And next year, if he's healthy and they're healthy, they're going to win 45 to 48. And they're going to be the four-seed or the five-seed. But when you get to the most critical portion of the year, which is now, there's going to be a limitation.

There's going to be limits. And, you know, one of the things that would be nice is if, you know, Hachamura had played more in the second half. I don't know why the three fouls at halftime. he's the one guy I thought maybe he can guard Tatum. You know, he's long. He's got, you know, he moves his feet better. But whatever. There's one last thing that I want to mention to you, because it's maddening to me. I just, because Brad has turned himself into an elite, elite NBA score. Whether or not he's one of the top 10 or 12 players all around is debatable. What isn't

debatable is he's a top three to five elite score in this league now. He's got to stop complaining after every single miss shot or made shot. Last night there were multiple times. He didn't get back on defense. And Russ does the same thing. It's maddening to watch because Brad to me over the years has been a great competitor. He's been a clutch performer for them in the postseason. I'm talking about the post seasons with John when we were thinking that, wow, this team, you know, is good and it's, you know, and it's getting better and these guys haven't even reached their prime yet. But he has gotten it in his mind that he deserves LeBron calls on every single shot attempt. And you know what, Chris, he's wrong on like 80% of them.

He's right on some of them, but most of them he's wrong on. I think it's a league problem, to be real honest. Okay. That's fair. It is something that I see every night and I'm just like, come on, come on, guys. I mean, like it's like in football where they say there's holding on every play. Like you feel like you get filed on every play that's out there. And I get it.

Some of it, Kevin, we must admit, is gamesmanship. Okay, I didn't get that call, but I'm going to bring it to the officials, you know, I want them to understand that I got filed. So hopefully the next time I get that call. coaches do that. It's it's the game within the game. But at some point, you have to lock in and just say, look, I got filed, whatever. Because like you said, if you're sitting there complaining and the other team is running the ball down your team's back and they're getting easy layups, that thing could have been avoided. They could have been avoided if you didn't just went back on the other side of the floor. But it's not just a Brad thing. It is the entire league. And I don't know. know what the perfect balance is, you know, you can't argue balls and strikes in baseball, right? It's very defined. There has to be a little bit of middle ground there, but I will tell you this, Scott Foster doesn't put up with it and Malloy doesn't put up with it. There's

certain officials in the league where you start doing that and you're going to get wrong. You're going to get teed up. And Scott Foster last night is one of those guys that doesn't put up with that Silver Spring, Maryland native. A lot of people listening to this podcast, no Scott, no Scott's brother, and everybody else in town that knows Scott. Hey, I think you're right about that. I think it is a league problem. But specific to Brad, what really infuriates me is I think sometimes he lets it impact his defense. And I thought he did last night.

There were multiple occasions where he was late getting back, lost Walker on one particular three got late to a defensive set. And this team is struggling enough on defensively. You got to get back. And the thing, too, is that there is an element of if you're going to bitch about every single miss shot, especially the ones you're dead wrong on, you know, bitch about the ones that you're right about. Like there's no doubt, you know, that you got fouled.

But he, I mean, he's he's waving his arm. on made shots with no contact one in the hand one. And he's such, he doesn't need to do that. But I do agree with you. I think it's a league problem. Exit question here,

as old John McLaughlin would say. Do they beat Indiana tomorrow night? I'm worried about three players for Indiana. You're going to be like, one of you're going to be like, Chris, what's wrong with you? I'm worried about subonis is one.

It's number one. Yeah. I'm worried about Brogden. He's back. He actually looked pretty good. Hi, I do. Hi. And Goga, Bataze, I am worried about him.

They have two guys in Sabonis and Bataze that double-digit rebounds, tough, Patazze can stretch you out, shoot threes. Sabonis is just, I like Indiana better without Miles Turner. As crazy as that sounds, I like Sabonis at the five. I don't really like how they play with each other when Subonis is at the fore and Turner's at the bottom. I like Sabonis because the spacing, it opens it up more. Dougie McBuckets was really good yesterday. Listen, they absolutely, see, Kevin, this is what I keep telling people about the NBA.

You don't win with young people. Charlotte yesterday, in a game that they had to have, gave up 144 because their young people were not ready yet. Lamello Ball is rookie of the year, had a great year. He was terrible yesterday. Miles Bridges was pretty good, but the rest of the young guys, look, you don't win in this league when you've got those many young players in Indiana took advantage of it. Now, tomorrow, it's winter go home time. I'm curious to see what the disposition of this team is. But again, Brad is not 100 percent, Kevin.

Is he a decoy? Look, he had 22, 9, and 6 yesterday, really on one leg. but he's going to have to be real special to keep this season going. And oh, by the way, Kevin, the consolation prize for winning tomorrow is, you go get to get the Philadelphia 76ers who I think is going to represent the East in the finals. And Joelle and Bid is going to be a difficult cover. I'm glad we've got four sinners because you're going to need all of against B. Let's get through.

I really want them to win tomorrow night. I want to see a best of seven. You know what? Look, selfishly, you know how much I love hoops. I want to talk hoops on my show for another week or week and a half with people caring because, you know, at least people get into it this time of year. I'm a little bit concerned. You know, the Charlotte thing, you're 100% right on. This league is the league where the older teams win.

And by the way, it's always been that way. You know, they are physically mature men who know how to play the game, who understand it at this time of year, and those are the teams that always win. Charlotte, I was worried about because Charlotte plays a ton of zone, and when you are an ISO team primarily against a zone and the ball doesn't move, I think that's one of the reasons they've had issues with Charlotte, you know, this year. And I thought that it was one of the reasons they had issues through three quarters on Sunday. Thank God for Ish Smith in that game. He was the spark in that game as well. I think I like them against Indiana. Indiana can't guard at all.

And this, you know, look, if you can get an up-tempo game where you're taking it out of the net and pushing it back at Indiana, you're turning them over a little bit and getting out into transition. You're rebounding if Gafford can, you know, play more than 17 or 18 minutes, and you get Russ out in transition. and you get Berton spotting up instead of having every shot contested. I could see them hanging, you know, a buck 30 plus, even in this postseason kind of format and winning.

Indiana is terrible on defense. The Wizards are too, but Indiana is really bad on defense. But you made a really good point about a young team. Young teams don't do well in the postseason in the NBA. You know, and by the way, when you say older, it's like 30 and older. you know it's the guy you know it's like looking at tonight's game between the warriors and and the lakers yeah like the older guys are going to make the difference uh it's step it's lebron i don't know if lebron's going to be able to play 40 minutes but watch that game tonight 10 o'clock it's going to

be the veteran team look both of those teams have championship dna okay so i mean look draymond is probably going to play the five and be physical uh this lakers team is a mess I just, I don't like their reserves. I mean, last year's team was so much better than this year's team, and hence the reason why they're in the position that they're in, I don't know about you, Kevin, but I don't see the Lakers lasting long. They might get to the first round. They'll get to the first round and lose.

I don't see it this year. I think a 7-2 matchup against, by the way, a team that doesn't have the experience with the exception of one of my favorite postings. season players, even though the results, the team results have never been there. But I think Chris Paul knows how to play this time of year. But I do think that they're young, and that could be a tough matchup for Phoenix. But I don't know. Actually, I think I disagree with you. I think if they get in, they're going to be really tough to stop in Best of Sevens. I don't, I'm rooting against

them. I'm rooting for Kauai. I really would like to see Rondo and Kauai. put together a run here, but they haven't looked good. It's wide open this year. How many times have we said that in the last couple of years? It really is. It could be six teams. What do you think, Kevin? I mean, I think Milwaukee, I think Philly.

Milwaukee's got the tough road, right, because they're going to have to play Brooklyn in the next series. I think I'm with you on Philly, but it's not going to surprise me if it's Brooklyn. But obviously, you know, you've got three guys. guys that you don't know what to expect. I mean, Kyrie may just say,

I don't feel like really playing tonight. I'm much more concerned with what's going on over in Gaza. And he may decide. By the way, do you know what the nickname is? Do you know what the team nickname is? What? I call them run DMP. Run DMP stands for.

Did not play. Yeah, did not play. All right. Run DMP, yeah. You know, it's tricky. It's tricky. It's tricky. It's tricky.

I see what you did there. But, but, But Brooklyn, certainly with those three players. But God, like the 76ers, you know, it's going to be interesting about the 76ers, is to watch a team that's basically, I'm not saying they're anti-analytics, but they've got a big, they go through their big, to see if they can, you know, shoot fewer threes than a lot of teams.

And by the way, Milwaukee with it with I, I don't know. You're right. It's more wide open. I think the West is really interesting. I'm rooting for one team other than my team, and that would be for the Clippers, because I love Leonard. Me too. And I know he's Mercurial, and he's often an issue with teammates and coaches and everything else. Nick Nurse, by the way, I had Ryan Rusillo, who's, you know, was Scott's radio partner for seven years.

And Ryan's got a really successful podcast, and Ryan was on with me last week. And he had interviewed Nick Nurse, and Nick Nurse told some stories about Kauai that had not been told before. during that finals, during that championship run, Kauai was out during his normal rest, and the other team was making a big run, and Nurse came to him and said, hey, I want you to go back in now, and Kauai just looked at him and said,

I need another minute. Like Kauai basically does what Kauai wants to do. Like he is his own guy and doesn't give a shit about what anybody else says. That was a really interesting interview. By the way, I think Nick Nurse is a really good coach. I did too.

I did too. And, you know, came through the mud, man. Yeah. I mean, you know, nothing was given to him. He wouldn't earned it. You know, I talked to him in Vegas, this summer after they won it.

And, you know, my first TV job out of college was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And he's from Iowa. We just got a conversation going about Iowa. And I was like, man, it's really cool. You know, where you came from and, you know, grind it to get here. And he's just a really cool dude. The only thing that was really funny,

Kevin was he had a NN hat on, you know, Nick Nurse. He had his own, I think he has his own clothing line. I was like, that's pretty cool. You got your initials on your hat. Seriously? Yeah. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. By the way, one last thing. The NBA really fucked up tonight because Warriors, Lakers, Lakers should be a 9 o'clock tip at the latest. This would have been the highest rated television game until the NBA finals. And they're starting it at 10 o'clock. And I understand, you know,

at 7 o'clock West Coast time. But when we get to the Western Conference finals, if the Lakers were playing the Warriors in the Western Conference finals, this game wouldn't be starting at 10 o'clock. And that's what this playing tournament is. It's made for TV. Yeah.

And the reason why we're doing is, well, yeah, yeah, they've got a lot of make goods from last year. Right. So they came up with this playing tournament. By the way, I like it. I'm a fan of it. But I wish they would have done it.

it next year because the problem with this year though is you've put so many games remember remember kevin we were playing either every day or every other day like it's just too many games and they're trying to get this season over with so they can get ready for the olympics i get all that next year and you can get some rest and you could actually have two or three days off in between games i think the playing tournament next year's so fascinating i think it's good now uh but we you know we saw two blowouts just But I think next year it's going to be really interesting who those teams are. Because you got to remember, you know, 7 through 10 next year, that 10 seed is going to have a really good draft eat on that team because I love this draft, by the way.

We can get into that a little later like down the road. But Kevin, huge fan of this draft class. By the way, I think they should look at doing it differently. I don't have a problem with 7 versus 8 and 9 versus 10. and then 9-10 losers out, 7-8 loser isn't out, gets another chance, double elimination versus single elimination. And by the way, I like this. I don't think it cheapens the regular season at all.

This is a sport that's got more than half its teams in the postseason. You're guaranteeing 12 of them spots and you're making two more battle a little bit at the end of the season, giving the 7- and 8 seed an advantage. But I think there's another way to do this. I'm not saying it would be more entertaining, but I think it might be more fair to the team that's in seventh, and that is go seven versus ten in a two-game set where seven wins, tens out. If they lose against ten, then there's another game against ten. So seven gets the benefit of playing the weakest team needing to only win one game. And then the eight gets the nine

in a two-game set, where the eight gets an opportunity to play a weaker team twice to get in. I'm surprised. I'm not surprised. I don't mind the way they're doing it right now, but I think you actually competitively give the team that earn that seven spot a better chance, potentially, of getting in because they get to play the 10 twice. Are you getting two chances? I like that. I like that better. I just like that better. I think Adam Silver should call you. I always have these ideas that everybody thinks are completely dumb and wacky, but I don't, and that's all that matters. At C Mills, NBCS on Twitter, Chris Miller is one of my favorite people to talk Wizards and NBA with and is just a phenomenal person altogether. I loved that you weighed in on Mike Jones,

too, and I sort of thought about that just as we started and remembered that you had boys that had played it to Matha. Take care. Hopefully we'll have another chance to do this over the next week and a half. Oh, I hope so because, you know, I, I crowned Philly before the season started to represent the East. I just am a big fan of Doc, kind of Jedi mind trick and Simmons and Indeed to work together. And we saw it this year. They were really good. And defensively, it's going to, it's going to pose a real good matchup if the Wizards can get this taken care of tomorrow against Indiana. Yeah, I agree. They're very good. And, you know, it's as like you said, it's probably, as wide open as we've seen in a while, but Philly and Brooklyn are exceptional.

And Janus hasn't done it yet, you know, this time of year. So that's going to be interesting to watch too. Appreciate it. As always, I'll talk to you soon. Okay, take care. Chris Miller, everybody. We will talk the Morgan Moses situation right after this word from one of our sponsors. So yesterday after the show, the Morgan Moses news broke. Ian Rappaport had it first.

He wrote, they tweeted, the Washington Football. team is likely moving on from long time starting offensive tackle Morgan Moses, giving Moses the ability to seek a trade. Moses is due $7.75 million in 2021, and if a team trades for the dependable player, it picks up the salary. He followed that up with another tweet. The Washington football team acquired Eric Flowers, Charles Leno, along with drafting Sam Cosmy. That trickled down to Moses, who may be released if he can't be traded. He started 16 games. a year since 2015. The beat reporters all followed up on Ian Rappaport's breaking news on Morgan Moses with sources confirming this to be true. I was surprised, I'm not going to lie to you. I

hadn't heard anything in any of the conversations with the people I talk to, anything about Morgan Moses potentially not being on this roster next year. Obviously, they have added a ton of offensive linemen in this offseason. You know, they drafted Sam Cosmy in the second round, right? That's not a fourth round selection or fifth round selection. Second rounders are supposed to start, and he's a tackle. You know, he can probably play right tackle. I was told when they drafted him that they loved him and they think that he'll be ready to start when the season begins. Now, I was assuming that they were thinking left tackle. Maybe they drafted Sam Cosme as a rookie to start at right tackle. Then they went out and signed Charles Leno. They had Cornelius Lucas from last year.

They traded for Eric Flowers, who's more of a guard, who's played tackle, but really he made his money. When he came here, they moved him to guard, and then he signed the big deal with the dolphins. They have plenty of offensive linemen. I think a lot of us thought, well, they're trying to make plans for when Brandon Sheriff leaves after the 2021 season. They're trying to find their left tax. They're trying to create competition at left tackle. But, you know, the solids on the offensive line are Chase Ruiy at center and Morgan Moses at right tackle in terms of the, you know, immediate future and even, you know, perhaps the distant future. No, they're ready to move on from Morgan Moses. So I want to give you what my reaction was in the moment.

And then I want to tell you a little bit about some of the things that I have learned. since sort of having some reactions in the moment. My immediate reaction was one of surprise. And the first thing I did, and somebody tweeted to me, why did you tweet that Moses had an up and down year? Is that your view or Cooley's view? Well, to be fair, it's more Cooley's view. When it comes to a lot of this stuff, film breakdown,

yes, I really rely on Cooley's evaluation. He's not good at this. He's great at this. You know, he is objective. He has much more insight because he played, but really where his true talent in evaluating performances comes from with respect to this team is really understanding in recent years what the team's trying to do and having the ability to understand what specifically on every play they were trying to do, meaning what the player's responsibility was. So I went and I pulled up because I saved all of them.

And to net it out, Moses started really strong. He coolly graded him as an A-minus in the Philadelphia opener. In week two against Arizona, he graded Moses as a B-plus. In week three against Cleveland, he had Moses as an A on the offensive line. And then against Baltimore, he had him as a B. And then against the Rams, remember, that was the game in which Alex came in and was pulverized for an entire half. Moses had a C grade, but the best grade was a C-plus, which was Schweitzer. Martin had an F. Christian had a D-minus. Ruier and Moses had C's, but he basically

said the offense was an F and the offensive line was an F because they didn't game plan for Aaron Donald. And he said, Scott Turner did not do a good job in that game. Remember, that was a game, in which Brandon Sheriff was out. And then he had a B-plus in the first game against the Giants, a C-plus in the win over the Cowboys, and then his performance started to dip a little bit. He had a D-plus performance against the Giants in that loss. He had a B-minus against the Lions,

and then had a C-plus in the route of the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day, and then a D-plus in the win over Pittsburgh. So, you know, it went on and on that way, sort of up and down the rest of the way. The net of it was, you know, per Coolie's grades, he had sort of an up and down season. You know, he had some really good games, and he had some games that weren't so good. So that was the first thing I did. And so I tweeted out that, you know, he had had an up and down 2020, had two years left on a very reasonable contract, which automatically

makes him a more attractive trade possibility. You know, one of the things this organization has done in the past is try to trade players when it was not a leverageable situation for them or not nearly as highly leverageable for them as it could have been. You know, obviously trading guys with franchise tags or, you know, guys with, you know, no years left on their deal is not the optimum time if you want to move on from a player. Now is because he's got an attractive contract with two years left on it. What can they get back for him?

I have no idea. Can they get back a fifth rounder or a fourth rounder for a starting right tackle for five years without missing a game? I think they can get something back. They're telling him to go seek the trade, which ironically is exactly what they told Trent Williams to do. But he's got more of an attractive contract that somebody would be acquiring. But one of my other immediate reactions was that this clearly is an indication that they believe in Leno, in Cosmi, in Lucas, who knows, maybe even in Christian, maybe even in Sadiq Charles as a right tackle. But I've been told that they like Sadiq Charles more as a potential guard. I also thought of the Morgan Moses backing of Trent Williams when Trent Williams was going through his whole thing with the organization.

He had a quote where he said, it's about time someone stands up to the team. You know, that Trent Williams thing was a very contentious thing and still very much a situation that the team went through that they thought. was brutally unfair to them in the way that it was framed. They had a real problem with Trent Williams and the way he described it. Remember, Trent Williams injected race into the conversation when he finally returned in that October of 2019, pissed everybody off. You know, the organization feels that they weren't negligent in the Trent Williams situation and that their version of events is much different than his.

and so people that were backing Trent Williams, Morgan Moses was one of them, you know, I just thought maybe people were still upset about that. But, you know, that really wasn't Ron's issue. Ron didn't want Trent Williams clearly after having a conversation with him and him saying that Trent Williams felt like he was owed something and Ron wanted people that would earn something. I also thought perhaps that Moses was looking for a new deal. Maybe he wants a new contract and the team doesn't want to deal with somebody that wants, you know, a big contract. Maybe, as I said, with the other players, they believe that guys like Leno and Cosme and Lucas are his equals at right tackle or even better. In the case of their contracts, much better contracts. And then I also thought about one other thing, and that was that they could be clearing space for a new contract extension, like John Allen, which I believe will happen. I believe that they have certainly reached out to John or John's agent to say, we want to get to you and we want to discuss a contract extension.

I think Ron Rivera likes John Allen a lot. I think he is perfect for the culture. I think he's a Ron Rivera culture kind of guy, and I think he wants him back. I do. I think that he is definitely a player that he would like to have back on the team. So I wrote that. Somebody on Instagram, and I don't know who it was because somebody told me this, but I got a couple of calls yesterday saying, did you report that John Allen is about to sign a contract extension? No, I didn't report that. What I said is, in relation to Morgan Moses, the team could be clearing space for a new John Allen deal, which will happen and soon.

I do believe it'll happen and soon. The only thing that I have as sort of a source is that they've reached out to John to say, we want to talk to you about a contract extension once we get through the draft and the mini-camp, et cetera. So I think they're going to sign John Allen to a contract extension. I think it'll happen before the season starts. That's my guess. And it's an educated guess, but it's not necessarily a report.

Now, let me tell you what I learned about the Morgan Moses situation. First of all, a lot of people out there are saying, man, Ron's really shaking things up. A lot of people had issues with this Morgan Moses deal. I don't really have an issue with it. I mean, I would like to hope that if they have a lot of injuries along the offensive line, that they were starting to build some depth and they were building a situation where they could overcome some of that. We've seen the disaster in recent years when they've been banged. up along the offensive line. And I think Morgan Moses has been a warrior and been available and

played hurt. By the way, the most entertaining thing about Morgan Moses the last few years is all of those false starts that didn't get called. Like he always seemed to be just a nick ahead of the snap and it never seemed to get called. Good for him. Maybe it was just perfect timing. But Morgan Moses, come on, like he's not an elite right tackle. Like they're not losing like one of the best right tackles in the game. You know, they were seven and nine last year. They were three and 13 the year before. Like, there should be a lot of roster changing going on.

And I heard a lot of people that were upset about Morgan Moses, and a lot of people upset with sort of the impression they have that Ron Rivera, he's moving on, man, from the guys that were here before he got here. He is, I mean, look at the list of players, Trent Williams, and Dwayne Haskins and, you know, Adrian Peterson, and Ryan Carrigan and Quentin Dunbar, and, you know, Nick Sundberg, and then people in the front office like Eric Schaefer

and Kyle Smith and many other people. There was a mass firing of a lot of people in the organization late last week and over the weekend, including Ms. BJ, for those of you who don't know who Ms. BJ is, she has been at the front desk at Redskins Park for 30-plus years and has been truly one of the most pleasant people in that organization, because you could count the number of pleasant people on one hand. And she was just first-rate as a person, as a first-face when you walked into the building.

She knew everybody. She was just a pleasant person. I can tell you a lot of people, especially former people, are upset about that. But Ron's cleaning house. I don't have any problem with Ron cleaning house. He's taken over a terrible organization. organization with a lot of terrible people in it, by the way, Miss BJ not being one of them. I don't give a shit about all that. You know, for those of you that say, Sheehan, you're always so

bought in to Ron Rivera as if he's Bill Belichick. No, I've never said that. He's not Bill Belichick. He's not Andy Reid in terms of the coaches of today, but he's a good coach. You know, he's in the top half of the league of coaches. He did pretty well at Carolina. And you can talk about all the losing seasons. I'll tell you, you know, I could go back and tell you in terms of those seasons, Ron Rivera basically had four playoff seasons in eight seasons as a head coach. That last season, he was fired during the season, but Rivera made the playoffs four times, three times as a division champion in eight years. So every other year he was going to the playoffs. The first year, he inherited a two and 14 team with a rookie quarterback, went six and ten, then he went seven and

nine. Then he won three straight division titles, went six and ten with a banged up quarterback, went 11 and 5 and got to the postseason, and finished 7 and 9 in his last full season with a banged up quarterback. I think he's a good coach. You all know what I feel. I think they outkicked their coverage when they hired him. I think he's a disciplinarian. I think his teams are tough. I think they're typically well-coached on defense specifically. And I think that given the state of the organization, they got about as good as they could get. Did they? get Andy Reed or Bill Belichick? No. Okay, Sean Payton, no. And they were never going to get somebody like that. They could have done a lot worse. Now, it doesn't mean that I'm going to chalk up seven and nine

to, see, I told you so. I'm not saying that, you know, and I'm going to sit here and I'm going to contemplate the decisions he makes. And certainly, you know, over a period of time coming up in the next year or two, we're going to be able to tell whether or not he's got a track record here of making good decisions. But, you know, when it comes to offensive line play in particular, this is one of those areas. We don't have any idea. We just don't know when it comes to offensive line play. You know, this is an area of the offensive line that most of us, you know, just don't know. We're clueless about it. I know a lot of people like to get out there and they like to talk about PFF grades and they like to talk about what they saw and, you know, he was beat here,

but you don't really know when it comes to offensive line, you know, guys. I've got some friends out there that played football and have coached football that I rely on in addition to Cooley, my good friend Pat Murphy, who played at the D3 level and is coached forever. Scott Whittier, who played at Maryland, who's one of the best defensive coordinators and best coaches in the area right now. there are guys that, you know, can tell me and have told me whether or not a guy on the interior, you know, line played well and whether or not the technique was good. I trust those guys more than anybody in the media or a lot of you that weigh in. And I have to on this trust Ron and trust, you know, John Matzko, the offensive line coach.

You know, they evaluated Leno, they evaluated Cosmy, they know what Cornelius Lucas was, they know what Charles might be at guard or tackle, who knows. They know what Jaron Christian was. I also like the fact that if they are convinced that they've got as good or better, that they're trying to move on from them now. I prefer that. Now, here's the one thing that I will tell you, that I did talk to somebody, actually talk to more than one person, who said, the one thing Ron wants and the one thing that Ron is going to get,

whether it's people that were here under a previous administration or not. And remember, there are lots of players that are going to continue to be here that weren't his choices. You know, Terry McClure, Cam Sims, Chase Ruiy, Payne, Allen, Ionitis, Collins. How about the kicker, Hopkins? If he really wanted to move on from a previous administration's decision, he hasn't moved on from Hopkins yet, or Tressway, who's, you know, maybe their best player. Morland, Everett, these guys are sticking around. They're Ron Rivera guys, even though they're not Ron Rivera choices or picks.

So it's not everybody that's getting purged. But here's what I've been told. You've got to be in on his vision. This is Ron's show. And there's a little bit more of dictator authoritarian than maybe he makes it out to be. And it's his culture. He's changing it to his culture. culture. Be happy about the fact that right now he's being allowed to do that because it could be

some young new coach, which was the only one willing to accept the job with Dan continuing to be involved or another general manager of Dan's choosing that ends up, you know, having Dan, you know, being a Dan puppet. So be happy with the fact that Ron appears to be very much in charge right now. but this is his show, and he wants people to buy in. He does not want to be questioned about how he and his staff are doing things. And Morgan Moses may have been one of those guys, bright guy, super bright guy, that, you know, didn't make it clear all the time

that he was totally bought into everything they were doing. Look, I can tell you right now, Sam Mills, who's one of the D-Line coaches, a lot of players early in the season last year had major issues, and Ron was like, too bad. this is the way we do it. You either get in line or you can go. I know that there were guys like even John Allen and Matt Ionitis that had major problems. A lot of the D-Line guys had a lot of problems with the way they were being taught,

the techniques they were being, you know, coached to use. But it worked out and hopefully it'll continue to work out. The defense will continue to rise and become, you know, an elite defense. It was a good defense last year, massively improved, hopefully on the way to much better than that. But, you know, I think Morgan Moses, is a bright guy who may have given off the vibe, maybe, that, you know, he's not, you know, he's not all in on the cult. I hate to call it a cult, because it's not, but you know what I'm saying.

There is a movement going on here, and Ron Rivera is in charge. And if he has any sense that you're not all bought in to not only him, but his staff, well then if there are guys there that are as good as you are and cheaper than you are maybe that are bought in you can go seek your own trade one last thing on this I saw Ben Standing my good buddy Ben Standing

tweet this out and it just made me laugh and I totally agree with it he tweeted out let's talk about some of the WFT Washington football team narratives and takes floating around this platform and elsewhere today. And the first one, it's wild how many players Rivera has purged from the building. It's staggering.

As Ben writes, the team went 3 and 13 the year before he arrived and zero winning season since 2016, and that winning season was 8, 7, and 1. Why wouldn't anyone consider turning over the roster reasonable? Yeah. look, he may not be the right guy. He may just be what he was at Carolina,

which would be a hell of a lot better than anybody else has been here. You know, to go to the playoffs every other year would be a massive, massive improvement from what it's been. But he could also end up being a guy that goes seven and nine last year, and we're 17 games, 5 and 12 this year, and then maybe 8 and 9 the next year, and all of a sudden, we're back to where we were with Dan's fingerprints all over it. Anyway, I hope you're not losing your mind over Morgan Moses.

Please. I mean, this is not what you would call, like, an elite player on the roster. Like, if we were to break down the way Cooley used to, like, you know, A players, B players, or, you know, blue ribbons and white ribbons and red ribbons, let's keep it with A's, B's and C's. I mean, he was a B player. He was basically a B, B minus player. Reliable, available, tough. And he's been there for a while.

But if they think they've got better and he's not totally bought in to, you know, the way in which they're doing things, see ya. Jeff Irman, who writes a lot about Maryland sports for inside Maryland sports, but is also following this very interesting, Mike Jones leaving DeMath a story.

He will be my guest next right after this word from one of our sponsors. All right, let's finish up the show today with my friend Jeff Erman with Insidemaryland Sports.com. Follow Jeff on Twitter at Jeff underscore ermine. If you're a Terps fan, you know Jeff very well. He does the best job of covering Maryland sports, specifically Maryland football and Maryland basketball. And that's actually not the reason. having Jeff on the show today. I'm having Jeff on the show today because, you know, we talked to Chris Miller earlier about Mike Jones leaving Dematha after 19 years, one of two coaches over the last

65 years to coach at Dematha. That's pretty amazing when you think about it. Morgan's 46 years and Mike's 19 years. And I wanted to talk to Jeff about, you know, his thoughts on this because he's very involved in following it from a media perspective, not only Maryland, but the high school scene here. And there is a tie to Maryland, and it is the lack of demath of players in recent years that have come to College Park. But before we get to that, I do want to just ask you real quickly, on Wiggins, Ayala, and Morsell,

where are we on those three players returning or not returning? Yeah, Kevin, that's a million-dollar question, isn't it? I mean, they've got a while to decide, first off. They've got until mid-July. I think, you know, still, I don't think a lot has changed. I think still Darrell Morsell is likely to go ahead and begin his pro career, wherever that might be. Although it was interesting, there was a list of seniors who had declared for the NBA draft

so far that came out yesterday, and he wasn't on it. So I'm doing a little digging on that. That's an interesting little side story. all along I've been told it's highly unlikely, and Mark Turgeon actually came out and said he thought it was highly unlikely that Morsell would return to college. Wiggins is still, I think, the most likely to leave somewhere in that 65 to 35 maybe percentage ratio, you know, toward leaving. Still could come back.

I know his parents are very big on education. They'd like to see him get his degree. Clearly, he's not really popping up on any of these mock drafts in this. in the second round, let alone the first round. He's not popping up, period, in the mock draft. So, you know, that might be a reason to come back. Eric I.L. I think would really like to go. He'd like to start his pro career.

But, you know, his stock is lower than Wiggins. He's not popping up, and he's not a guy. You hear a lot about, obviously, he's a really good college player. There are questions about him as a pro. So, long story short, it's really still all up in the air, and it's, you know, it's going to determine you see Maryland, in the top 10 or so of all these early rankings for next year, and it's going to determine whether, you know,

if you get one of those guys back even, then maybe you are inside the top 10. If you lose all three, then the prospects really diminish. So that's going to determine a lot of the expectations for next year. I want to make sure I heard you clearly on Wiggins. You think it's 55-45 that he doesn't come back, like 55% chance he doesn't come back? I would say more like 65-35 that he leaves.

Yeah, in favor of him leaving. I'm sorry. Exactly. I mean, it's 60, 32, you know. But he would have to be, unless he's willing to start his career overseas, right? Yeah. He'd have to have a herder-like NBA draft camp where he blows up to make it into the first round. To make it in the first round, yes, that's unlikely.

But if you have some strong workout, you can still go in the second round, have a team give you a two-way deal. They're a lot more proactive right now about putting guys in the G League and bringing them up quickly. You're seeing it on teams everywhere. You know, guys you didn't expect to be who in previous years wouldn't have been playing or would have been overseas immediately are getting call-ups kind of like, you know, baseball, minor league baseball style farm system has become more like that. But, yeah, I mean, the thing is guys don't have to necessarily have that NBA.

future or immediate NBA future to stay in the draft. We've learned that, right? Mello Trimble, Robert Carter, you know, Justin Jackson, Diamond Stone. Those guys also didn't have much of a chance of being drafted in the first round, and they all left. So that doesn't matter as much anymore, especially when you're on the older side.

Both of these guys actually have the exact same birthday. I believe it's in January. I'll and Wiggins do. So they're both 22. So if they stay another year, there'll be 23 and a half. half or so by the time they start their pro career. So that's clearly a factor. But, yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody really knows for sure what they're going to do.

And obviously, if you're Maryland, the dream scenario, you get both those guys back, and then you might be a top five team heading into next season. I mean, how old are Brad Davidson and Jordan Bowen at this point? I mean, they've got to be pushing 24. Brad Davidson's grandfather. I mean, you know, that's the thing about this year. I know that players maybe get self-conscious. about some of this stuff, about being older and ready to start earning money and, you know,

looking at the players that they're in, the people they're in school with, looking at the players they play with. But this is an odd year where a lot of people will be coming back at a much older season. Look, we both understand the significance of Wiggins in particular. If Wiggins comes back, this is a preseason top 10 team. You know, if Wiggins and IA both come back, it may be even higher than that. And, you know, the Morsell thing is very interesting. right? I mean, Morsel was the defensive player of the year in the Big Ten, and he was the heart and soul of this team. And at the same time, they're somewhat limited offensively at times when he's on the floor. But I would imagine they'd welcome him back if he doesn't get the transfer he wants or he doesn't get the pro-career opportunity that he wants. And he's older than Wiggins and Iala. So it'll be interesting. I'll tell you one thing, my boys, and I've got two of three who live in. die with this particular team, the thing that they've been most upset about is that Michigan's not a home game next year.

Yeah, a lot of people where they want to get their, with the full capacity, they want to be able to get their jabs in at Hunter Dickinson. You know, you'll have a full crowd next year and you don't get to kind of give them some payback. A lot of fans were upset understandably about that one. Yeah, I think I told Mark a while back ago, I know you don't have control over this, but a Michigan game next year with two highly ranked teams, it would be about as bloodthirsty a crowd as we've had since a Duke game.

You know, it probably would have been. Yeah, that would have been a game of the year. Yeah, the Michigan State game, you know, in 2019 was, in 2020, was outstanding. 2020, yeah, 2020 was outstanding. But that would have been phenomenal. All right, let's talk about Dematha. in the situation there. Mike Jones taking the associate head coach job under Mike Young at Virginia Tech.

I would imagine that this is a move that he's making because he wants to be a college head coach and perhaps even wants a bigger shot at bigger compensation. Nobody can blame him for that. How sought after has he been and why this opportunity versus others? First off, he said it's been 19 years since he was hired, which is amazing to me because I remember like he was just a few years ago writing about the Morgan Moon retiring for the PG Journal and writing about who they might now defuncts PG Journal. And Mike's done a great job there. I don't know, you know, which schools have come after him.

I'm sure he's had some offers over the years. I do know this is a really well-paying job that he's getting at Virginia Tech. you know, associate head coach is a little bit different than just your run-of-the-mill assistant coach. It comes with some more money, more prestige, you know, a little more control, I'm sure, or leeway in recruiting. So, you know, you can't blame him at some point. You know, if you've been a coach, high school coach for 19 years, it's not like there's that, there's only so many things to chase as a high school coach.

I guess, you know, there is a national championship, which are usually won by the prep schools as opposed to a private or public school. but, you know, there's only so far you can necessarily go with that. So if you have ambitions of doing more, eventually, you know, an opportunity like this comes along, you might not have a better one. And Mike, you know, somebody mentioned to me, maybe he goes here, and then in a few years goes back to Old Dominion where he played and, you know, the head coach there, or maybe even at a higher level if things go well.

So, you know, like you said, you can never blame a guy for chasing, looking for more compensation, accepting his big break and things like that. And, you know, I have no doubt knowing Mike that he'll do a great job at Virginia Tech. He's a man of high character. He has a ton of local connections, obviously, as well as deep connections in the Nike system. Dematha is, you know, if it's not the number one high school, you know, reputation program in America, it's certainly way up. there and has been for, you know, 50 years, basically.

This is a sought-after job. This is an important job, and it's high school. And I know a lot of people out there listening are like, you're talking about high school basketball. Yeah, but we're talking about high school basketball. In this area, we're talking about high school basketball in the WCAC, and we're talking about Dematha. Where do they go?

What names are you hearing? Yeah, it's a big-time job. You know, when you can say that there are, more than a few college assistants who would probably drop their job to take it, then you know it's a big high school job. You know, the first few names are, you know, there's a couple of assistants who've been there for a long time, Sam Anstead, and Reggie Vini, both Boyle, Mike Jones guys who've been around to Maffa forever.

So if it's, you know, they kind of have that North Carolina keep it in the family kind of vibe there so I could see them, you know, much like North Carolina with Hubert Davis, keeping somebody from the current staff. Joe Wooten is an interesting name. Obviously, the son of legendary former DeMathoge, Hall of Fame Demathic coach, Morgan Wooten. He played there. He went to school at Maryland, which is another,

if you're a Terps fan, you'd love to see him get the job, I think, because he's at Bishop O'Connell in Arlington, Virginia right now, and he's had a great relationship with Mark Turgeon and his staff at the one WCAC school where Maryland has gone. consistently been able to get recruits in recent years, including Mellow Trimble, obviously. So that's another name. Corey McCrae, a former Staggs player, is an assistant at Delaware. I've heard his name thrown around.

So, you know, the thing is, it's hard to say because they are going to get about as many resumes for that one as he will ever get for any high school basketball job. And there will be immense pressure on whoever it is, you know, to get it done. the first few years from Mike Jones, he really struggled. You know, DeMatha was winning 28, 30 games every year, and he was in that 500 range. It seemed like he might not. And then he found his legs, and he rebuilt it into a powerhouse. So it's definitely a high-profile, attractive job, but it's also one where whoever gets it,

you know, there's going to be pressure to keep on a very high level of success and prestige. Yeah. It's such a big job. By the way, was Dave Neal, who was one of my favorite players there for a couple of years? He was O'Connell, wasn't he? Yeah, he was O'Connell, yep. Some really good teams they had with Marcus Gignard, who ended up in North Carolina, and Brian Johnson, those were both under Joe Wooden.

Yeah. So that leads to this final question for Jeff Herman. You mentioned, you know, Morgan's son, Joe's been at O'Connell for a long time now. If he were to go back to DeMatha, presumably Maryland would have a better relationship with Dematha. Two-part question. Why hasn't Maryland recruited well at Dematha over the last many years? Travis Garrison, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, was the last Dematha player to sign with Maryland. and why was that the case?

And then B, how, you know, how will it change? And I guess Joe Wooten would be the answer as to how it would change immediately. But a lot of Maryland fans are sort of hanging on the next tire at Dematha. Yeah, the answer to the first question, I think, is a confluence of things. You know, people like to blame Mike Jones. I don't think he's just specifically telling all his kids, don't go to Maryland. but when you are a very a Nike Blue Blood program, you know, he was,

it wasn't just that there were a Nike program, he was a Nike employee. He was coaching the USA team sponsored by Nike. He's one of the top guys in the Nike grassroots organization. So just generally in business, when you're part of an organization like that, you're going to be dealing with and having relationships with people

under the same umbrella as you. So, you know, the Nike thing is, a factor, I think. And then the other thing is Maryland really hasn't, you know, they've had a lot of good players at the MAPA, but just for various reasons, there haven't been that many that Maryland really, really wanted. You know, Gary even admitted, as I think we've discussed before, that he, yeah, exactly. Biggest mistake. I think that that was his biggest whiff in recruiting of his career. They wanted Mark L. Fault. That was a different kind of deal. Just, you know, that just wasn't going to happen. No need to go farther into that. And then, you know, guys like,

they wanted Jeremy Grant, but then Jake Lehman committed. I think they had a chance. Jeremy Grant, I think, is the one guy who they really probably could have had that they wanted if they hadn't taken somebody else during that span. And, you know, there's been a few others,

obviously, the kid, Villanova, Justin, sophomore kid of Villanova. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, so they wanted him. But anyways, in general, despite how many good players the math has had,

Maryland hasn't really prioritized a ton of them for various reasons. Second answer is I think no matter who it is, Maryland will probably be in slightly better shape there just because it's not a thoroughbred Nike team. I don't know what their contract situation is at Nike, but I can definitely see them switching at some point maybe to Under Armour because they're already an Under Armour's high school and every other sport.

Basketball is the only sport that they have that they've stayed in Nike, and that was obviously because of Mike Jones' contract with Nike. So whoever it is, they probably should have a better shot. You would think if they go under Armour, Maryland clearly has better. They're an Under Armour School. They have Under Armour Relationships. And Joe Wooten has been more than happy to send kids to Maryland. So, again, that's the – and Justin Moore, by the way, is the player.

I was talking about it. But, yeah, I mean, and they really, they wanted Quinn Cook, too, even though Cook never had any desire to go to Maryland. But there have been some players that they would have loved to have had. Yeah, and those guys on the Quinn Cook level have simply been Maryland. It's not a demath thing. It's a Maryland isn't really getting five-star players. Of course. They go to Duke in general, regardless of where they're from.

Last question. Does Under Armour help or hurt more at Maryland? I think it hurts more, to be completely honest. You know, the top players are on the Nike circuit for the most part. Under Armour tried to make a big push in basketball a few years ago with Steph Curry, and it kind of fizzled out. They're still doing it, but the EYBL, which is Nike's summer AAU circuit is clearly the dominant force. You know, kids who come up in Nike programs are more likely to go to Nike colleges,

whether that's because of their coaches, you know, the programs they came in or just simply because they like Nike, you know, they like wearing Nike's or it's branded with them. So I think Underarmers hurt them, you know. I really think that it would be wise of them to look at that, revisit that, and consider making a move when that contract's up. Jeff, thanks. As always, we'll obviously have a chance to talk as we approach football season and see where Maryland stacks up in the Big Ten East against all of those teams.

but I appreciate the time as always. Thanks, Kevin. Good talking with you. Jeff underscore Erman on Twitter, back tomorrow with Tommy.