The Ringer NBA Show - March Madness, Players to Watch in the Tournament, and Kentucky Talk | Upside High

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks look forward to the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament by reminiscing about their favorite individual performances from years past. They then focus on the current bracket and discuss the matchups they are excited to see.(11:02) Next, they analyze the potential stars and under-the-radar players who could raise their draft status with breakout games on a national stage.(16:51) They wrap things up by detailing the state of Kyle's beloved Kentucky Wildcats and the legacy of coach John Calipari. (41:51) Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Production Assistance: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you ever curious what's going on behind the scenes in Hollywood? You watch a Netflix show or a Marvel movie and you wonder, why was that person in it? Why did this movie get made? I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, on the Ringer podcast network, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight

on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, we're going to bring you short, Digestable episodes featuring some of the smartest people I know breaking down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Follow the town now and listen on Spotify. Folks, basketball is so very, very, very good. I mean, it's incredible, it's impeccable, it's exciting, it's thrilling.

Welcome to Upside High, where we talked about basketball, specifically young players within basketball, the youth movement, college basketball, grassroots, the draft, all that applies. My name is Jay Kyle Manning. And I am joined, per usual, by one of the brightest minds in the sport, I would argue. A thought leader, a gentleman, a scholar, a liberal arts guy, as we found out a minute ago. Jonathan Charks, John, how you doing, buddy? Let's just go with minds.

I am a mind. Let's kill the adjectives. I will say this week, basketball isn't just really good. It's great. It's March Madness. I'm beyond excited. I can't wait. It's just going to be awesome.

If you like volume, you know, it's a time where there's just a lot going on. It's, you know how Red Zone is kind of a popular thing in the NFL, the like, I want to see like crunch time. There's a lot of crunch time in March and you just see guys go into a different gear. And the one game scenario thing is big too. Can you imagine what the NBA would be like if we had like one game scenarios in some of these playoff games? What's what Darrell Morey wanted? I don't know if you saw that. He was trying to push.

That's the way to go for to get maximum viewer engagement. But yeah, I mean, it just brings me back to like, you know, high school, middle school, like watching games between class. It's just so exciting, man. It's just the best. Yeah, when I was like in elementary school, I remember they would wheel in. You remember like the AV carts when we were growing up? They had like the TV.

Yes, with the old school TVs. Yeah, for sure. There'd be some dude who just kind of that was their gig or a student, the student technology program. I was part of that. You know, they'd roll it in and we would watch like the SEC tournament or something. Kentucky's ridiculous like that.

I don't know if they did that in Texas. No. It was literally they would roll in the thing. Not even the NCAA tournament. The conference tournament is still your breaking class for that. I love it. We did the NCAA tournament as well, but we would do the SEC tournament too. And I specifically remember watching like Tony Dell, even as like a little kid, like Tony Delk and Ron Mercer and all these like during class if the SEC tournament was on. Speaking of the SEC tournament, we're going to talk about Kentucky a little bit today. They flamed out in their tournament. Your Texas Longhorns didn't quite get it done in their tournament either. There's not much to say about them. Your cynicism always kills me. John is like, we're like in that way. When you ask us about our team, we don't go the normal way with a fan where you're like, no, no, they're good. No, but your team is actually good.

Texas is not even good this year. They were top five before the season. They're just not very good. What do you think was disappointing? I mean, have you quickly, just your Chris Beard stock. Like, I know he came in as, it was a controversial move for him to go from tech to the, the flagship Texas school. Don't come at me for saying that, Texas people.

But what do you think about Chris Beard so far? I mean, you have to keep in perspective. It's year one. He basically just signed a bunch of free agents. And like, it's a transition year. He has an elite class coming in next season. That'll be a much better barometer for how he's going to do than this year. This year is just kind of like a make work year.

Like all the players, all Shaka's players left are transferred or graduated. So it was kind of always going to be a transition year. And they just, a lot of the players he brought in were overrated nationally. And I don't know if that's his fault or not. You mean like Devin Askew hasn't delivered for you? You haven't been excited about the Ask You experience? There's not enough time on this podcast to talk about the Devin Askew. Maybe I'm overrating it by calling it an experience.

It's sort of in the void of an experience. But, you know, March is, the games in and of themselves are really, really fun. But March is a time when the stages, I think, lend themselves to big performances. And we have a way of meeting new faces, you know, meeting new players. You know, I call them Hello World Games, where, and sometimes these, you know, we get to watch these players more frequently as we've talked about in the past because a lot more games are on TV. But you think about big performances where we meet guys for the first time, a lot of times those guys will go on. It can be an indicator of things that they're going to do in the future. Some of my

favorite ones were like Wally Zurbiac. That's reaching way back to like 1998. People literally had no clue who this guy was. Do you have any like favorite performances from throughout the NCAA tournament history where a guy came out and like really made a name for himself? and introduced himself to the world. The one that's always stuck out to me, it was Kemba Walker. So it was the year before he kind of, they went,

I think they won the national title this next year. But his freshman year, he was coming off the bench and barely playing. And then Yukon was in the elite eight against Missouri. And they were losing.

And then like Calhoun's like, okay, bring the freshman in. And all of a sudden this like five foot 10 guy is just start absolutely dominating. And it was like, how is this even fair? How does Yukon have like this NBA guard just chilling on this?

the bench all season. And he had like 25 points in like 20 minutes. And I was like, what the heck was that? Yeah, it's nice when you're a high major program like that. And you can have those guys that are like highly rated recruits. And that's something to watch for in the draft that the stats aren't always indicative of. It's like some of these high major teams will have these younger players that could potentially become sophomores a little early, you know, like they they have like spent the season acclimating to the college environment, the speed of the game. they've learned what a good shot is and what it isn't, and then they have their moment where they're ready to kind of bust out. I mean, obviously, like, Steph was a person that people knew about

prior to that 08 tournament. That was, like, an incredible run to go back and follow. I don't know that that was necessarily, like, the public, usually it's like the general public is learning about these players. One of the worst ones for me was Dwayne Wade. I feel like Dwayne Wade had his, like, absolute, like, burst on the scene game against Kentucky in that regional final in 2003. For sure. Elite eight. That was a painful one that I try to forget about. Gordon Hayward in that 2010 tournament, John Morant, I think a lot of people learned,

you know, the draft community knew about John Morant, but I think the general public got a good sense of, you know, holy shit, this guy can really play. Did you get to experience those games in real time? Yeah, I remember the Dwayne Wade game. That's a good example because it's just funny looking back on it. I'm pretty sure that game, it was this big showdown. It was Dwayne Wade mid-major star versus K.

Keith Bogan's, like Captain of the Kentucky, been more highly touted. And that's something to always keep in mind with like draft stuff. You kind of got to hold it with an open hand in these tournaments. Because sometimes it just takes guys time to catch up. Another example of that is C.J. McCollum. Lehigh knocked off Duke one year in the first round. And Duke's big star in that game was Austin Rivers. And now looking back on it, it's like, well, of course McCollum beat Rivers.

But at the time, Rivers was like a top five pick. and no one's really talking about McCollum, and all of a sudden that one game just flips everything. And that's what you're so exciting about March sometimes. Yeah, there are tons of them. I mean, Larry Bird kind of burst on the scene. Of course, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. That one doesn't really count.

This is one that I would recommend. If you're hardcore hoophead, I brought this one up to John, go back and watch. In 1989, Tim Hardaway was playing for Utep. And he played against LSU, Chris Jackson, later Mahmoud Abdul-Rawoof. That matchup of those two. guys, if you can go find that on YouTube, it's unbelievable, like the skill between those two guards.

And Hardaway just like makes my knees hurt watching how fast he was back then. Steve Nash in 96 was another really good one. So these surprises are really fun. They're one of the most fun things about March. And speaking of surprises, some fans assume that the draft won't be interesting for them if their team doesn't have a first round pick. But when there's a deep draft class and trades are on the table, there are always surprises for teams getting players that match exactly what they need. These surprises are one of the most exciting things about March for me, John. I really look forward to them. Yeah, I remember one year, one of the all-time great upsets. It was Missouri. They had been dominant all season. They had like three or four guards getting

NBA buzzed. They played a really fast, uptempo style, really fun to watch. And they're a two-seed. And people are saying, oh, Missouri is the team this year, final four, maybe even national title. And they're playing a 15-seed, Norfolk State. No one's heard of this. no one knows what they're even from. It's just like, who are these random guys? And then Norfolk State pulls the upset. And then, oh, actually, they had this big man named Kyle O'Quinn. Who you've heard of.

Very versatile, very skilled, played like 10 years in the NBA. And as it turned out, Kyle O'Quinn was the best pro in that game. And that's what's so fun about the tournament sometimes is sometimes the 15 seed has a guy no one's even heard of. Now he's on the map. And it's like it just changes everything for his whole career. And sometimes these games can be indicators. they do mean something sometimes.

And those surprises are things that you can say, hey, that guy played really well in that scenario. And I was talking about Santa Clara beating Arizona back in the day. Arizona had Chris Mills, NBA player, and Damon Stoddimer, NBA player, but this little-known freshman named Steve Nash came in there and controlled the pace of the game. Who would have thought? And that surprise actually meant something. So even when you assume that it won't be a big year for certain teams,

there are always a few surprising moves out there in the NBA draft to keep an eye on. And it's like that with people when they're assuming that they can't afford great insurance. So then they discover that State Farm has surprisingly great rates. And that's a great thing for them. And it works out. So like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Get a quote today. This to me, like the first day of March Madness, this is how I think normal people feel about Christmas.

We're just so excited. And for me, it's like all these players. It's like the Christmas gifts. You never quite know what's in the box sometimes. And it's just so exciting to see what could have. Like for me, March, what are March 15th, that is like Christmas Eve. It's like, let's go. I can't wait for these games. Open them up and see what's there. Definitely. And like you said the other day, we get, we both get really excited about

setting up a bunch of TVs. I was curious, I don't know that we really talk much about our brackets. Did you get to take a look at my bracket before we hopped on here? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Do you have kind of a template for what you think a team needs to win a title today? Because I kind of have some ideas, offensively at least, about what I think a team needs to have to go the distance. Do you have any kind of basic? These principles usually show up in a team that makes a run. The big thing I like to look at is just the overall personnel. I think you need a very balanced team. Talk about winning a title. You've got to have some size up front because you've got to figure at some point you're going to face off against a big man with real skills. So if a team doesn't

have at least one 610, 611 guy who can protect the rim matchup, that's going to get him at some point. You got to have size on the perimeter. You got to have shooting. And number one for me is you've got to have a point guard. And that's one thing I feel like I've learned doing these over the years is when I was younger, I would just always kind of pick the more talented teams. Like, oh man, this team has three NBA first round picks. Let's run. It's fun to watch. Let's ride them far. But now I'm like, man, if you don't have a point guard, if you don't have somebody who can control tempo of the game, get your best players the shots, and just not turn it over, you're going to get upset at some point.

And that's just like, there's just no way around it, really. And the teams that don't have that floor general, I think there's always a much bitter chance them getting upset. If you don't play smart, it's just not going to matter. I think that's the big difference between the NBA and college is that there's no bar for competence. And the NBA, all the guards are competent. they're not going to butcher the game and lose it for you. In college, you can have an absolutely stacked team

and if your guards can just blow the game. And we'll talk about that with some of these top teams this year, especially in the conference tournament, you kind of saw the weaknesses of their guard play, and that could probably rear its head in March. Yeah, I think that the guard thing is absolutely right. I kind of look for half-court efficiency, and this is a similar thing from regular season to post-season play.

If you're a team that really depends on certain types of, like, offensive generation. Like if you really depend on like using turnover generation to create your offense, if you're a team that is like afraid to get into sort of a half court execution driven kind of a thing. And that's true at every level of basketball, I think. But you just don't see a lot of teams that are like heavily dependent on transition. I think you need to be balanced. And I think that you can generate turnovers and get into transition. But I think that you don't need to like heavily depend on it. But jutting off of that, a sort of qualifier to fit that mold is to have multiple ball handlers, in my opinion. Because if you

look at the past few NCAA champions, they've had like three guys that were pretty, you know, interchangeable in terms of like spot up and maybe some pick and roll like Baylor last year with like Davy on Mitchell and Jared Butler and Macy O'Tig and then just going back like some of those Villanova teams had three guard situations. Virginia did with Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy. That That's another one that I see. I'm trying to think, you know, the teams that fit that mold this year, UCLA has a few creators, but they're not as, like, balanced. I feel like Villanova and Gonzaga both fit that mold to me.

I've picked Gonzaga to win it all. You picked Arizona to win it all. Who is your final four? I was curious. I'm going to have a West Coast this year, Arizona, Gonzaga, UCLA, and then I'm still trying to figure out. I think the Midwest, that to me, that's going to be whoever picks that one, correctly is probably going to win your bracket. It's so wide open. I could see any of the top five or six teams winning it or those teams losing in round two or round one. That's the one I'm still trying

to figure out. Yeah, I spent a lot of time hovering over that one and just sort of pondering. Did you have any like dramatic upsets in the in the first round here real quick? The big one I'm leaning on right now. I like Chattanooga over Illinois. Chattanooga's got two pretty high level college guards, one of the Malachi Smith getting NBA buzz. And what's cool about Chattanooga, they have an big man from Power 5 conference named Silvio DeSouza. And that is just so big because that's really what separates a lot of times early on. From Kansas. Yeah, Desuza was the guy almost got Bill self-fired for paying him on the table.

But that's a whole different story. And hitting someone with a chair. I mean, that's like one of the most famous photos ever. I said there should be a painting of that. It was like the most like. Oh, from the K State game. Yeah, yeah. It looked like a Renaissance painting.

He like had that big stool. cool up over his head. I was like, it just was so majestic, but scary. And then that woman down cowering under him, I'm sorry, I just really enjoyed that. But you're right. Yeah, they have, they have some players. Because a lot of times in these, what you want to have, if you just got have at least one big man, if you're going to pull the upset off, because these low major, mid-major teams, a lot of times that's where it separates them from the high majors is like your supply of quality bigs runs out pretty fast. And so, yeah, okay, this conference does one bid, they might have like one seven footer in the entire conference or one guy over six eight

who can play. You got to have that guy so at least to match up with the high major teams because they're just way more bigs and the bigger teams. I have Loyola, Chicago over Ohio State, but I don't really think that's a very controversial pick. I was talking with our buddy Ross Holman about this. I feel like everyone's picking that one and then Ohio State's going to win and then Chris Holman will stay at Ohio State and it just seems like one of those situations. The one that everyone picks never happens that's why i'm worried about like providence south dakota state like that's the one it's so obvious it's like that one never ever comes through with what everyone has doesn't only make an upset at that point so the tournament like we said is a time where we see you know

we see new stars can be born on that stage at times uh i wanted to talk to you really quickly about like some gyms just some players this is a thing maybe guys that don't necessarily make the NBA but guys that could potentially affect an upset or guys that could surprise a higher-seeded team in like a one-game scenario. We've seen that happen throughout, I mean, like, I feel like Thomas Walkup is like one of the all-time ones for Stephen F. Austin. Do you remember that game when he just absolutely dominated? I remember that. I remember that. Yeah, I mean, he just couldn't be guarded. There are a few names here. I was curious, though, first, do you, do you have anybody like a lesser-known, maybe guy that's off the radar that you're excited for people to see for the first time?

One of the games I'm most looking forward to in the first round. And these are two guys who I've been talking about a lot this year. It's Colorado State v. Michigan. It's the first game of the tournament that Thursday morning, which is always the most fun. You know, you're watching like Price is right on CBS. Then boom, at 11 o'clock, it switches to the tournament and you just get into the action. So this one is David Roddy. He's kind of like your mid-major superstar.

He's like all stats. And he had this really goofy looking. And right about college basketball, this guy is 6-5-250 point forward. Like, just body types you don't see in the NBA very often. I'm going to say you're stealing mine, by the way. I was passionate about David Roddy, and you're just swiping my bit. It's March Madness, baby. You've got to take care of the ball.

You give it out there. Someone's going to take it from you. And what's going to be fun about that, Roddy, is he's going up against Michigan, which has this really big front line. And most people in Michigan are talking about his guy Hunter Dickinson. He's like a 7-foot-2 old school center. But the guy I think in Michigan is a ton of talent Is this guy named Musa Diabati

And he is a guy who was a top 10 recruit in his class And he's kind of been stuck under the radar Playing behind Dickinson in Michigan But he's 6 foot 11 And he can really move He's got a lot of ball skills Like you just don't see a guy his size With that combination

And the same kind of thing as Roddy So he's 611 210 And that's what I love about the March Madness Because you have these wild body types And what that's going to look like these, you know, a smaller school from a small conference versus big power school underachieving. And I remember one year there was a game where I think it was like Florida State played somebody and they had a seven foot four center and nobody else here in a team was over like six foot five.

And it was just like, this is what makes March great. It's just wild style style fights. Can you imagine being a mid-major and for the first time seeing a seven foot four guy like that? That's just so, that's so incredible. I will say like, but playing ball growing up, I remember the first. first time I put a seven footer. It was just so shocking. He blocked my shot like three times because I had no idea. Like you're just not used to it. Like you see it all you see it. But when you're on the court, a guy that tall, it's like you have to adjust your angles to play basketball. It's just so

shocking. Yeah. That that skill, that angle adjustment skill is something that I think you have to learn early because if you if you haven't like faced that, it can be really jarring. Like in a one game scenario for sure. Like I know anytime we play against like people that were a little bit bigger, it kind of starts to eat into your mind a little bit that like this shot that is usually there is not available to me this past that i thought was there is is not available to me uh those things i think are factors i think you're right about david roddy though man um roddy might be my favorite sort of uh off the radar guy in this tournament because we were talking about comps for him what to expect you said george and yang i i think that that's fair i kind of got some like royce white kind of vibes of this

like really just heavily built lower body guy who can face up and shoot it. And can also like when he's facing up, he can attack you and then just go into his post-up game, which is crazy crafty. And then he has like, I'm pretty sure he has pretty big hands. Like he can like explode with that physicality and finish through contact. Maybe kind of a Jarrell Brantley kind of body type too. But he has some ball skills and he can shoot it. I think he's like a 46% shooter in spot up.

he's a guy that I think if he got in crazy shape could be an interesting NBA possibility. Just some other names for people to watch. Nellie Cummings is a really interesting player. The other one I think that is interesting. I don't think this guy's an NBA guy because of the nature of his game, the speed of his shot. Baylor Shireman is an interesting player for South Dakota State. Just a really methodical, steady pick and roll player. I don't know that they're going to pull an upset.

I think that a lot of people are going to be picking them in their game, but that's another guy that I think would be interesting to watch. Some people are going to be just using the tournament to catch up on general, not off the radar, not hidden gym, guys that are sort of in the middle, maybe not the mainstream names, like the Chets or the Palos or the Jabari's. Who are some interesting players for you that you're excited to see on this stage, like maybe in the middle of the draft?

I think the guy we should talk about is Keegan Murray. He's getting a lot of buzz. He had a great Big Ten tournament. We've not really hit on him too much. this year, but he's a guy who could really make, kind of talking about a hello world game. He's a six-eight combo forward for Iowa. One thing that's pretty cool is his twin brother backs him up. And his twin brother is pretty good too.

So they'll usually close game with Keegan and Chris Murray. And it's kind of like watching The Matrix with the with the agent Smiths. And there's these two like Terminators running around the court doing the same kind of stuff. And this is definitely, it's like Keegan's near this year. I'd expect Chris next year will be the same kind of thing. And Kagan's like 6-8, 225, just NBA body, NBA skills. And what's cool about Iowa is, like, they know where their bread is buttered. A lot of times in the tournament, a team will not always feature their primary guy.

And I think one thing to watch out for with like Jabari Smith and Paolo Bonchero is Duke and Auburn, they don't always know who their best player is. And they'll, their guards will start taking bad shots. their best player gets out of the flow of the game. He stops impacting things. But at Iowa, it's like, no, we have Keegan Murray. And if we're going to lose, he's going to take 25 or 30 shots. Like, this guy who's going to take a ton of shots.

What do you think about Murray? Where do you kind of land on him? I've had a hard time kind of dialing him in. I figure he's probably, for me, he's probably more, I was talking to Chad Ford the other day about this. Name drop. I love it. I love it.

There's a little drop for you. Hey, do you like that? Very sly. No, I was thinking, I kind of think of him as like a 10 to 20, but I might have him in that like 8 to 12 kind of range. Like I feel as I could have him as high as 8. He's a really well-rounded player. That's what people should know.

Like you said, he has good size. He has some pop when he's at the basket. He can get up and finish. Underrated shooter, I think. On the season, he's been a 40.5% shooter from three. And in the last five games, actually, I like this whenever I look at prospects, you know, in the draft. I like when I see their recency is stepping up.

You know, I don't like when guys just like fall off of. a cliff 48.5% from three actually in his past five games so and iowa actually won the big 10 tournament against indiana sorry matt dollinger well he had a3s in that game against indiana and he just like he really let him know i have other things in my back because kegan attacks the rim so much if kegan has a physical advantage he's going to press it like if you can't guard me i'm not going to let you off the hook and just jack a shot i'm going right to the rim i'm powering through you but indiana pushed him out he's like all right i'll let's make three three reason if I have to. And with Kagan, it's hard because I wonder sometimes if you put a ceiling

on a guy because he wasn't being talked about earlier in the season. And it's like, I had an NBA guy asked me, said, look at the numbers, Keegan versus Paolo Boncherro. They did the same role in the team. And Kegan's numbers are way better. So like, what's going on here? And my comp for him, I think this is kind of a little bit of a lazy twin comp is like Marcus Morris. It's like a six-eight guy. Very versatile. Going to have a long NBA career. Can have huge offensive scoring nights, but maybe not a primary option. But it's like, I don't know, maybe a six-hate guy with his kind of skills.

Maybe he might wander into a role like that one day in the NBA. I don't know. I've heard people talk about the like, you know, comparing him to Palo. I mean, he's significantly older than Palo is the thing here too, almost two years older. Yeah. That's the big difference. I mean, if we just like, you know, claw machine pick Palo up like on roller coasters. tycoon and just dropped him into the big 10 on Iowa. I mean, he would average 24 points a game,

I bet. I mean, like, even now, I bet he would have because, you know, as we said, Duke's team is kind of weirdly built, and I could see that affecting some of their offensive efficiency, but I am not ready to use that. I understand weighing these players against each other. Another player that I think that people are going to be seeing for the first time that I think that we, and the age thing is interesting, who's improved a lot in the past year is Johnny Davis for Wisconsin. Do you think that Johnny Davis has, well, what would be your elevator pitch for Johnny Davis before we get into that for it? So for people who aren't familiar with him. Well, John Davis is kind of like Kegan Murray and that he's the guy at Wisconsin. And Wisconsin

knows he's the guy. He gets a ton of shots. He's about 6.5 by 210, 215, just overpowering physically dominant two guard. And he's really fun to watch because he kind of has more of an old school game. and you know it's so great like Wisconsin you know they have they have such a brand and like they're sticking on brand like oh we have an NBA guard put them on the block back cut five foot from the rim posts them up brutalize a smaller defender and Johnny Davis when his shot is falling he's super competitive he's very athletic he's very strong it's like kegan murray that he's just not going to let you off the hook he just punishes you physically and when he's he gets going he's unstoppable he really be like his hello world game for the draft world came when he

dropped 35 on jade and ivy in a kind of Wisconsin Purdue game earlier this season and that's I mean that's the elevator pitch is this is a guy pretty versatile pretty skilled physically dominant and just like really aggressive I'm a little dubious of him honestly I think I'm a little more worried about him because sometimes when I watch him offensively like you said I think the pitch is sort of crafty middle game like face-up, jab step, similar to what Jabari does, but a lot shorter. You know, he likes to kind of create his own shot in that range. He's not as efficient, a three-point shooter, consistent as I would like. And you talk about going up or going down in the recency of like the postseason. He's actually falling off quite a bit lately. I think that he needs to be able to shoot. An offense doesn't necessarily

move through him the way I would like. I wonder sometimes when I watch him, I'll see people like physically imitating things I've seen. I wonder if he likes Devin Booker. I kind of wonder if he likes Tyler Hero, which Tyler Hero likes Devin Booker, so there's sort of a chain reaction thing there. He's like a pretty rugged player. He doesn't mind physicality, but I see him sometimes burning more calories than I would like scoring at the college level. I was interested to compare him to a guy playing for Michigan State, also in the Big Ten. Max Christie. What do you think about Max Christy. Have you gotten to see him much? I have. Max Christy is really interesting. I think he could be an example of a guy because Michigan State is really the opposite of Iowa and Wisconsin.

Michigan State is we're not going to feature anybody. I think they have like four or five guys who average 12 points a game. It's a very balanced. I love teams like that. Well, it's very, yeah, it's very balanced. They're not writing anyone. And Christy, you catch them on the wrong game and like, you're just not doing anything. Like, he's spotting him off the ball. He's not really. a big part of the offense, but he'll have flashes. He played really well against Johnny Davis when he played Johnny Davis. He's much longer. He kind of has that combination of really long 666, 6, 6, 7 and very long arms.

And he has a beautiful jump shot. Like when it goes in, it's textbook. And I think Chris, he's definitely a guy. He's not as good as Johnny Davis now, but there's some traits he has that make you wander two, three, four, five years down the line how it's. going to turn out. I actually got a comp for you for Johnny Davis. I wanted to try to guess it. Can you give me a hint? Okay, you're talking about like powerful two guard without great size, very competitive player. Bain? I have a different guy for Desmond Bain next. We'll get to him in a second. I was going to

say the guy that plays for San Diego State reminds me of Bain. Matt Bradley. I had him listed as baby Bain built like a truck. What's your, uh, go ahead with your comp. Uh, Josh Hart. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'm not trying to act like I'm like way, way down on Davis. I'm still just, I'm, in a like i need to have some things win me over though so i'm i'm in a state of of just kind of pessimism with him but max christie wait that Josh hart was your comparison for johnny davis yeah okay he's a guy who's a little raw offensively in terms of like you know we talked about davis the facilitating skills aren't quite there yet he's more of a like catch and shoot but he's more fluid to me like you said he has better size i i just think that he is more more of a like

fluid upside athlete than Davis. So I wouldn't be surprised if somebody like a team takes a chance and takes Christy this year, maybe a year early. I've heard percolating in the draft circles, this idea that Christy might be a guy who surprises folks by going out after one year and then kind of rises. Like we were talking about before, sometimes you only have one or two big games and you have the traits and team just fall in love, even though no one's been talking about them all season. Yeah, because it's an opportunity to steal a player for good value. You know, we talked about Josh Primo a year ago, and there's been a lot of- Yes, that's a good example.

We've heard a lot of debate in draft Twitter world about this idea of pre-drafting, which is just like taking players early and pulling them out of their developmental situation so that you can basically steal a player who would be more valuable a year later. Like you and your wisdom are reading in between the lines and saying, we need to get ahead and just take this guy now because he won't be. available here next year. I think Primo's a perfect example because if we were doing this pot at this time last year, it'd have been the same kind of thing. It'd be like, well, there's this guy, Josh Primo. He doesn't play a lot for Alabama, but there are some traits. And then four months later, he's a lottery

pick. Like that happens all the time. Yeah. Whereas like this year of Primo were playing college basketball, I think we had this discussion out in Vegas when we were talking about it. It's hard to, I mean, he might have been a top 10 pick. I don't know for sure. I'd have to, I mean, I know Alabama has certainly hurt without him being there. Two more guys. is talking about coming out early. Baylor is a team. They're a one seat in this tournament. I haven't heard a lot of people say they expect them to go the distance again because they're not as good as they were a year ago. Kendall Brown is a guy, a big six-eight athlete. You know, Baylor has a pair of guys. And I feel like I've seen the narrative kind of going opposite directions for these two dudes

because Brown was a little more highly touted. Another player is Jeremy Sohan, a player who is from the UK of Polish descent. Where do you value those two guys? Do you have those guys as first rounders? Do you think Sohan should come out this year? What do you think about the Baylor guys? Sohan would be a good example of like pre-drafting. Yeah.

Because he hasn't had the buzz. He has really interesting background. Sohan grew up overseas. Actually plays in the Polish national team. You would necessarily expect him to be Polish, but one side of his family is from Poland. His mom's a coach like we talked about. We like that.

Sohan's like six, nine. kind of like a combo hybrid big man, very skilled, very smart player. He's been coming off the bench most of the year. So he just hasn't been talked about as much as Brown, whereas Brown is very much your prototype. He's 6'8, elite athlete, jumps out of the gym. And it's a weird contrast because I think they're both players, if they had been in last year's team where there was more consistent point guard play, might be being

talked about more. but Baylor's a very weird team this year, and it's kind of hard to totally figure out what's going on. There are a lot of games like Kendall Brown just does nothing, and he's just out there. And it's tough because it's one thing to do nothing and be out there if you can shoot because then you're still providing value. But if you're just out there and not shooting and not being a threat,

like you're just out there. And I think that's a differentiator between Sohan and Brown right now. Sohan very much is in the same category of he's not a table setter right now. Like, he's shown some flashes of that. The shooting has been kind of inconsistent. Those are things that you're reading into, and maybe you assume you can get him in. And, like, he's been pretty brutal lately 16.7% in hit from three in his last five games. He's been tough as half-court defenses are kind of ramping up.

But he doesn't penalize you when he's not being involved, like you were talking about. I'm speculating a little bit, but I just feel like American players frequently don't do as well with that. And I sometimes wonder if, you know, the American sports primarily are football and basketball, in baseball, obviously. I feel like players that grow up in other countries a lot of times have that understanding of playing within these patterns of like three, four, five players at a time. They just seem to understand that more, whereas some American players, whenever they're not on ball, they just kind of go into low power mode and don't impact the game.

You're talking about soccer, basically? Is that what you're saying? Soccer is the big one. Yeah, I feel like the spatial. learning is just a little better if you're around soccer when you're growing up. That's interesting. That's an interesting idea. I remember like playing soccer one day. I didn't barely ever play soccer. But the guy I was playing with like, oh, you're actually playing pretty well because it was all about like moving off the ball and spacing, creating space for somebody

else to move in soccer. But yeah, in soccer, if you're in low power, you just kill on the team. Like, it just absolutely kills you. Yeah. And Brown is a good weapon. I went and say that he's, I just think that So Han is interesting. I've heard people talk about him as, like, like a connective piece right now that just does a little a little of everything you know i've heard i saw smiths say you know he's when he's at his best he's functioning as sort of a d'iow i was telling you i i wouldn't be surprised if people talk about like a batumi type player but i don't know that he has the same type of ball skills at the same time so arizona's the team that you put money on in the Vegas sports book when we were out there you believe in them Arizona's you know player who has

generated the most buzz in the draft is benedict matherin benedithering benedict matherin is a really interesting player. What do you like about him so far? Matherin, I really like because he has this the rare intersection of he's a very good athlete and he's a very good shooter. There's so many guys who, when they're coming out, it's like, oh, he's got the jumper. He used to work on that. Matherin from day one is going to come into the NBA and just be a threat from deep.

Like he has all the numbers. He has all the tools in terms of this is a guy who's going to put up six. six, seven, eight threes right away. He's listed at six, seven. He's probably more like six, five. I mean, it's one of the more egregious height liars I've seen in a while. But he's six, five. He's like, he gets up threes really fast. He defends probably both backcourt positions at a pretty high level. And what I just love like players like math are he's not going to eat off anybody else's plate, right? Like the ability to get up a ton of threes means he can play with almost anyone. He'll be plug and play right away at the next level.

And you look at Arizona's team, the reason Arizona, I love them all season, is because they have so many weapons. They have so many different guys who can score, create, pass. And when you have a ton of weapons, you got to be able to have guys who shoot threes. Because everybody's going to the rim all the time. There's just not enough room on the court. And Arizona's got him, Dale and Terry, they got two bigs. Arizona probably has four NBA players on it.

Matheron's the best prospect of the bunch. Mathern was the guy I was going to give the Bain comp to, actually. Oh, okay. That's interesting. I think the main selling point for if you were going to compare him to Bain, the excitement of that I think would be in, you know, crystallizing like the signs that we've seen of on ball creation. Do you see him?

I think that's something I've seen people talk about with Matherin. Let's pit him against each other. I mean, what do you see in terms of upside for on ball creation? let's say if you were comparing Matherin with Johnny Davis, who would you say has more creation upside between those two guys? I would take Matherin because this is where for me, I'm not sure Matherin does good at college player as Davis, but I'm looking at what skills can be brought to the next level

and how do we translate that into the context of an NBA team. I look at Matherin as a guy. I can plug them in somewhere in the NBA, maybe like a Gary Trent Jr. type, a Norman Powell. Just like straight up, I'm going to plug him in, 6-5, he's going to get up a ton of threes. I think that's a huge skill for a smaller player.

You talk about Giant Davis, he has to kind of learn. Giant Davis has the game of a bigger player in the NBA. Like the way Wisconsin uses Johnny Davis, to do that, to have that role in the NBA, you kind of have to be like 6'8, 6'8, 6'9 because it's the Atlanta Giants down there. Whereas the way Mathrimons uses Arizona, that's the way that's going to translate immediately.

And he's like he's going to fly around screens off the ball. If you give him any space, he's going to knock down a three in your face. And he's really athletic, too. He's not just a shooter. His two point percentages are as high as like Jaden Ivy's. Like he'll punish you athletically on top of everything else. Yeah, pretty high energy player in terms of a two point field goal percentage. As a cutter, he's basically a 67% finisher.

I could see him being a guy who could generate foul. He's a decent shooter in the pick and roll, which is something I think. is promising, you know, in small doses, 35.1% from three. You do have him ahead of Johnny Davis right now? You haven't made your board yet, though, have you? No, but in terms of like comparing positions, I would put math from above Davis. So we mentioned Malachi Smith is another guy for Chattanooga that's interesting. I wanted to say Jordan Walker is a really funny player to watch if people want to watch a little guy that could get hot for UAB. He's just like little mini Kimba. He might go off. I wanted to talk a little bit about some matchups, just a couple basic matchups for people

who maybe don't follow college basketball closely. Is there a matchup that you're excited about in the first round or the second round? I think one to watch is the Baylor guys versus Marquette. Marquette's got a player named Justin Lewis. And what's interesting is when you have six foot eight NBA players, that's such a big transition from college to the NBA. In college basketball, there might be 10 to 15. 15 6 foot 8 players who are going to play in the NBA at the whole country, right?

You might see those players once or twice all season. You go to the NBA, you see them every night, right? Every NBA team has three or four six foot eight forwards. And those are the players just you never really see in college. So when they match up, I always love those matchups of like the big guys. You're saying there are no six foot eight guys in college. Is that what you're saying? With NBA skills, not very many.

I was going to say there are a few of them. out there. I think that that's going to be a good matchup. Justin Lewis is a big, solidly built kind of player who has a little bit of shot creation. That matchup, I think, is going to mean more for him than it will for Baylor. He'll have a chance to kind of make a name for himself there. If we get to see it, this is the one that I'm really excited to see because this guy is rising up boards. He's rising up in my rankings as well is if we can get Memphis Gonzaga in the second round, Yeah. Jalen Duren versus Chet slash Timmy is going to be appointment television.

I cannot wait to see that. Jalen Duren is a guy about 6'11, super long arms, explosive. Like he's physically like Bam out of bio like we've talked about, but a little bigger. And he's a really interesting player. I think you're underselling that physically. Physically like Dwight Howard. Yeah. Like he's physically like Andre Drummond.

Physically, he's one of the best players come in the league in a while. DeAndre Aiton. This is what we're talking about here. Against Chet, obviously, you want to see what Chet's going to look like against some kind of just... Talk about guys she's never going to see in college. Something about Dwight Howard just doesn't happen very often. I'd say he's played Duren before. I'd have to go back in, like, the summer tape.

You know, I'm sure somewhere those two have played each other. So I'm sure he won't be, like, shocked by playing Duren. But that matchup is a chance for both of them. You know, I think it's a chance for Duren to kind of... I suspect this is going to happen. And we do this every year where like we zig away from a top rank guy and then we just kind of slowly come back because we were too harsh on them. We're like, you know who's underrated? Jalen Duren.

Meanwhile, he was like number one in his high school class. That shit just wears me out. We do it every single year. Kyle, you've been trying to run out the clock here. I told you I demand. I'm not trying to run out the clock. There's just so much, man. We need Kentucky talk.

We got to talk to Wildcats. We could do a part two. We're doing Kentucky talk right now. I have some questions for you. You ask me questions. I'm ready. Okay, so first off, how good is his team this year? Like, where can Kentucky go? Kentucky is a really good team that functions as a whole, but like all the pieces kind of need to be going together. And I think the story of the year, you know, they have a post presence. I kind of have eaten Crow on Oscar. Sheeweigh, he was a guy that I didn't particularly love coming out. I didn't want Cal to sign him coming out of high school.

No, he's national player. I ate shit on that one pretty big. But I mean, there were some intangible things about him that I just underrated. I mean, he was. his motor and his hands. I didn't, I didn't expect those things to translate as much as they would. You know, in terms of being an NBA prospect, you know, we'll have that conversation later. But the story this season for me has been the Cal thing, like we've talked about before, Tai Tai Washington is their most talented shot creator. He's their most talented on ball creator, period. And they signed Xavier Wheeler for the transfer from Georgia that played with Anthony Edwards, who is like a five foot, he is not five foot 10. He might be five foot. seven i mean he is small i saw him in person and he's not he's a non-shooter so kentucky just kind of

getting their balance of their guards they have shooting will davion mince play well enough in march will kell and grady get out of whatever shooting funkies in keon brooks will he be relied on too much i mean i could answer all the way down the line they're good i have them getting beaten by peru which is the thing that i've expected because i think Purdue is a terrible matchup for them and you talk about Hello World Games, I wouldn't be surprised if Jay Navi had a Hello World game against Kentucky. So I kind of see them as like an elite eight level-ish team. They could go a little further,

but I would be surprised if Kentucky wins at all. I hate to say that, but I would. So if they lose, how mad would you be? Like, as a fan, like, where is your fandom at? Like, can I make fun of you? Or like, how are you going to be upset if they lose, like, on one to 10 scale, if they lose, like, early, like, what's, if they get upset in round one or round two, like, how are you going to feel?

Oh, man. The if they lose question, I've already begun, I've already begun to kind of cope with that. At the beginning of the year, I was skeptical and then I moved into like, I'm pretty positive. And now I'm back to like pretty realistic, I think, about what they could do. If they lose early, I'll be pretty annoyed with that. But if they, I mean, if they lose in like the Sweet 16 elite eight range, you know, whatever. I move on. I can get heartbroken.

Like I was pretty sad when Luke May hit the shot, you know, in 2017, UNC. I was obviously absolutely devastated by the 2015 Wisconsin game. I actually sat in silence in my car for like 25 minutes after that game. And it was a serious, I know you're making fun of me. I have a UK head on because I knew you were going to be making fun of me. But like, I called my dad after that game. And I was like, dad, I think I'm like maybe done being like a fan. I was like, I think it's over for me.

That was pretty brutal because it was like such a historic team and to lose in that fashion. It's just, oh my gosh. because I'm looking at the bracket and I just, round two, they could face Murray State. And I'm not going to lie. If they lost to Murray State, that's one of the things I would just never get over. I'd just be laughing about that forever. Chris Vernon will probably hit me up about that, I'm sure. For those who don't know, Murray State, that's where Jha went to school.

And Murray State's like a mid-major powerhouse where, because they take basketball so seriously there, Murray State is like there's way more resources invested in basketball at Murray State than the kind of schools they normally play in like the OVC or the MVC. So Murray State went like 30 and 2 this year. They have an NBA prospect. And it's one of those things where because Murray State's so good at basketball within the state of Kentucky, Kentucky's never going to schedule them non-conference. Right?

Because they already have Louisville. They don't want to elevate a team in their state. It's the same reason like Kansas never schedules Wichita. state during the season. It's the same kind of deal. So obviously, Wichita beat Kansas when you're in a tournament. It's one of these all-time great games. My boys at Texas,

we lost to Abilene Christian last year. And it's just like, we'll never live that down. One of my best friends went to Abilene Christian. And like for the rest of his life, he has it over me that they beat us in the tournament. And so, yeah, if Murray State beats Kentucky, I don't know, should I text you or just like not even say anything?

Is it best to just radio silence? What difference does it make? everyone's going to text me yeah go ahead anytime i'm the i'm the i'm the kentucky person for a lot of people that i know in like other cities across the country i'm the person so whenever there's like anything kentucky related they're like hey did you see this i'm like yes i saw this it's like they they just it's the way it goes but i think you're right as the kentucky expert then so cal everyone knows about kow cal obviously national reputation very long history in the spotlight what's your Cal take?

Is he a good coach? Is he a great coach? Is he good in March? I think does he get underrated? Like where is, where do you land on Cal ultimately? I think it's evened out a little bit. I mean,

there was that time where everybody was like, you know, Cal rolls the ball out, that kind of thing. He's a cheerer, blah, blah, blah. All those things have normalized and become accepted in college sports. Yeah, you can pay the players.

Anyway, get over it, babies. But I think Cal's been an innovator. I mean, he moved towards the dribble, the Vance Walberg, dribble drive movement, if you want to go investigate that you can. He's been a little bit stubborn about types of shooters. We talked about, I would criticize him, like, his roster construction.

Got a little lazy, I think, from like 2017 to 2020. He got a little, just, he wasn't putting teams together well for modern basketball, in my opinion. He doesn't like to let his big shoot threes. That can wear me out. I think Cal is an incredible defensive teacher. I think that he doesn't cut corners in a way. He would rather see his.

team struggle early in the year and learn defensively then to cut corners and try like gimmick defenses you know i've seen that's one thing i would compare him against coach k in that way coach k gave up a couple times and just say we're going to run zone cal is just extremely stubborn about that kind of thing he won't do it and i think you're just insane if you think that he's a bad coach because to do what he's done every year to take new personnel every single year we've seen some of these other schools really struggle with it and cow has other than the little hiccup he had has done well and I think that he's an early adopter. I think that he has done a really good job of shifting in this new era. So we'll see this. I feel like we're moving into a new act of Cal's

career. We'll see if you can win a title during it. I was going to say this is a different he's playing older guys. Just not really, Ty Ty is really the only one and done guy in this team. It's a very different kind of Kentucky team than before. Do you like watching these guys a little more because they're older or does it matter to you? I said this on another podcast recently. It's just We just cut out the like December, November, December malaise of like watching 18, 19 year olds figure out how to play defense or like not to run good offense. We cut all that out. They were better in the year. Now, the floor is higher.

Is the ceiling higher than if we had those younger guys? Like if this team had played like a 2014 Kentucky type team in the tournament, would they lose? Possibly. I mean, it's probably likely if they played that team. But it's been a more even ride, I would say. There's been less turbulence. So I think that that's something that he can kind of like split the difference with these transfers and make it a little less. Because man, some of these like freshman heavy teams that he had, they were not fun to watch early in the year.

You know, that 2019 team with like PJ Washington and Tyler Hero, like, people were pissed off. They lost like Seton Hall at the Garden and stuff like that. I think this is a time where he's probably going to be able to have more veterans who are like ready to play with freshmen instead of like all freshmen. And that for me, it seems like it's going to be more enjoyable. Do you think Cal needs one more title, like to be like a Kentucky great? Or is he already done? Like is his legacy secure or does he need more titles? Because he only has one right now.

I think to level up and to move into another conversation, he needs to win another one. Because he's left some on the table, I think. He has. He for sure has. In 2010, that was just an epic botching of, you know, you can't build teams that want to grind in a half court that also can't create or shoot or, you know, things like that. John Wall team lost that way. 2014 I think they should have won it 2015 I think they should have won it

2017 they could have won it 2019 they could have won it he should have two at Kentucky he should it's possible that he'll get another one I can see it happening give me a percentage this year what's the percent chance they make the final four and they won it all well they have a good bracket you know I always get nervous whenever people start talking about how good

the bracket is you know because then it's like you lose in like second round or something like that because you only play a team in front of you it's like it doesn't really matter the outside of your bracket more often than not. Yeah. I think that the bracket is pretty good for them other than I've worried about the Purdue matchup, like I've said.

I think they could play with Baylor. I think that we know they can play with North Carolina, UCLA. A lot of those teams will see if they could grind with Kentucky. I'm not so sure. But final four, if you go above 20%, that's pretty good. I'd say it's probably, for me, I'm so cynical, though, like you talking about. When in the title, I'd say there's like a 10% chance. Maybe.

Okay. But you've got them losing to Purdue and Sweet 16. Yeah, just because I'm a cynical, joyless person. But they could absolutely go to the final four if things start to click. But there are some scenarios that worry me about teams that get them into a half-court game. Can they continue to score? But it could happen. I'm just, I'll be surprised if they win the title.

That's where I am at this point. What about Texas? Do you think Texas is going to do anything? No. It's tough. They got a really tough matchup. They're a very small team in their first rounds. they're playing Virginia Tech.

They've got a guy who's 6'8, 6'8, 6'5-9, Kiva Aluma, who they run their offense through. That's what I was worried about with Texas is. They're a team that needs to play a smaller team because their best lineups have like a 6-foot-6 guy at center usually. And it's just going to be very tough for them. Even if they get past Virginia Tech, they're going to have to play Purdue in round two. Purdue has a 7-foot-4 guy we've talked about. Texas has no one over 6'7 in their rotation. It's just hard to see them.

They got a really tough draw. I'm actually a little worried. It might be the tournament of ex-Texas coaches. I kind of like Marquette this year. And Tennessee is pretty good. So it's very possible. And Texas Tech is really good, too. Beards Assistant.

It's very possible. This is an egg on your face here for Texas. But it's all good. Oh, man. Tennessee's got a squad. I always hesitate to pick the team that is playing well in the SEC tournament because they'll just burn me. Tennessee is famous for this.

Yeah, man, this Rick Barnes team is good. We talk about the three guard thing with, With Viscovian, with Kennedy Chandler, and with Ziegler, that's a team that has, you know, they have some size, they have the guards, they play, they guard the crap out of the ball. They could make a run. They could. The Villanova Tennessee game is something that I hope happens. I hope we can get that in the Sweet 16. It's a thrilling time.

It's very exciting. You know, if you have your picks, if you disagree with our picks, if there are players that you're excited about, hit us up, let us know. Subscribe to the ringers podcast feed. Let's do it on Spotify. We'd prefer you do that. You know, we have a lot of good shows. We have the real ones. We have the Ringer NBA show.

We have weekends with Waz. We have The Answer with Chris Ryan. Sir Tsohe. We obviously have Bill's Pot. So there's just a ton of NBA coverage. And we come at it from all angles. We'll be back to next Tuesday. We'll be talking about all these games.

We'll see. I really hope that Chet, Paolo, and Jabari are still alive next Tuesday. I'm a little worried about that. But we'll see if they aren't. We'll break it all down. I cannot wait for this weekend. I can't either. It is just candy.

John, it was good to see you. as always