The Ringer NBA Show - The Worst Kentucky Loss Ever, Chet Holmgren Under Pressure, and More Tournament Reactions | Upside High

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks start the pod by revisiting Kentucky’s stunning loss to Saint Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA tournament. They then pivot to Chet Holmgren’s performance in Gonzaga’s win over Memphis and how NBA teams may be looking at him as the draft approaches (10:39). Next, they analyze some of the other big games that happened over the weekend: Auburn-Miami (19:46), Duke–Michigan State (27:57), and Texas-Purdue (33:42). They wrap things up by looking forward to their favorite matchups coming up on the bracket (37:32). 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, digestible 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. Basketball is very good. This is, as we have said, the craziest time of the year for pre-MBA basketball. The NCAA tournament is a pumping and a going. And my name is Jay Kyle Mann, and welcome to Upside High,

a show where we talk about things adjacent to that. We talk about the youth movement and basketball, the NBA draft, prospects, and things of that nature. I am joined by one of the brightest minds in the sport covering the sport, Mr. John Charks. Jonathan Charks, how are you doing, buddy? So you're still saying basketball is very good after what happened this weekend? I respect that. Well, we're just getting right to it, aren't we?

Yeah, not a good weekend for me. Not a good weekend for me, I would say. It was tough. I don't know. Should we just go right into Kentucky talk? This later in the pub. I guess you could hold off. Well, people were curious.

I had people hit me up. I had people saying they were like, it almost sounded like. you were prepping yourself for that to happen, maybe a little bit. I mean, for people who don't know, Kentucky lost in the first round to number two seed, losing to a 15 seed that's only happened how many times, like three, four, like, I mean, it's like. Not many. Yeah.

St. Peter's, they were ranked in the hundreds in, like, defensive and offensive efficiency. Kentucky has a bunch of like tier one wins this year. On paper, they should have been able to beat this team. Okay, let's just get, let's just get into it now. Let's just knock it out early. Yeah. I think we're already in it. We're in it.

Okay, so I had some questions for you. So number one, did you know anything about St. Peter's, the basketball team before the game? Did you, like, research them? Were you aware of, like, their personnel at all? I didn't go out of my way to, like, scout them. No, I did not. I mean, I've done that in the past. I've gone through and, like, just hopped on synergy and watched some of the teams just to get an idea of what to expect.

I knew Shaheen Holloway, obviously. I followed those Seton Hall teams back in the early 2000s with, like, Shaheen Holloway. the teams after that with like Eddie Griffin and Sam Dallembert and Marcus Tony L that's going way back one of the first really good recruiting classes but I didn't know a ton about St. Peter's no virtually nothing to be on okay so as you were watching the game at what point did you start to think okay they could actually lose this like at what point in the game were like this is a legit upset threat I would say the under eight media timeout like they kept like getting ahead and then it became obvious like getting back cut had been an issue all season like

towards the end of the season basically. And when that kept happening and, you know, they were fouling them on threes and it just looked like Kentucky wasn't dominating them inside. I said aloud to my friend that I was sitting with at this bar, I was just like, they're going to lose this, man. I was like, they're going to lose this. In the first half? No, the under eight in the second half.

I didn't think in the first half they'd lose. I was like, eh, they'll party ugly win. They'll pull this out. Second half under eight, I said that aloud. My friend was like, why would you say that? He got really mad at me. But I'm like, I'm one of those cynical people that, like, I would. rather be surprised than disappointed. So I dart for the worst case scenario so that I'm protected.

You know what I mean? Like I have this like fight or flight instinct where I'm always like that. This is what's probably going to happen. And then I'm like if I'm surprised, great. So down the stretch of the game, you're thinking, oh, they're going to lose this. Or are you like, are you holding out hope? Or you're like, they're probably going to lose this. Let me prepare for it now. Or like, where is your emotions as like four minutes, two minutes down the stretch? hoping on all hope they could win, but thinking they very well could lose. I was just somewhere in the middle looking for any reason to be positive. A lot of their warts just kind of came out in that game, man. I mean, I don't know how quickly you want me to be big picture here about this,

but I think the team was put together in a way where all the pieces needed to be there. I worried about their shot creation all season. I was like, they're really lacking. It was like Taitai was the only guy who could create anything off the dribble, and that was usually dribble pull-ups. Once he hurt his ankle against Florida at home, I think it was in late February, he was never the same.

Anytime he came back and he got back into traffic, he looked scared. He looked like he was babying that ankle. Mince isn't a shot creator. Grady just fell off the face. That's another thing. Grady just fell off the face of the earth. They didn't get anything from him.

He was terrified to shoot it. I put some screenshots on Twitter after the SEC tournament that he would catch the ball and just not shoot it. And he wasn't attacking. So you just lose all the fluidity from your guards. And then you have Oscar and Keon Brooks making decisions. And they're not decision makers. They can't dribble the ball.

So you just, you lost all your offense. And I don't know, man. And that's what you end up with. And a team like St. Peters that spread you way out. And they were running those like, they were spreading you way out and running those back cuts to start the game. It was like they were in trouble. I mean, I probably should have seen it earlier, honestly.

They were, that they were going to be in that level of trouble. So what was your reaction after the game? So you're at a bar, at a Kentucky bar, obviously. Like what happened? It wasn't a full-blown Kentucky bar, but I was sitting, you know, I live in Louisville. I would say it's probably close to 50-50 Kentucky and Louisville fan. That's another thing that we can get into here in a minute. Louisville is another part of this.

We were at this, like, long tabletop, and I did for a minute just lay my face down on the bar. How long did that go for? Just a couple minutes? Yeah, I mean, it went on for probably 20 seconds. And then I got up and I was like, I sat in my car for a minute. And I came home and I told Megan, I was like, Kentucky lost, and it almost sounded like... Does she watch?

Did she even care? No, she doesn't care at all. I mean, the bottom line here is worst loss in my lifetime. For people who don't know, that's probably the worst Kentucky loss ever. And you're pretty old, so that's counting a lot of losses. Yeah, thank you for that little jab. But I think it's the worst. I mean, you can't count the Wisconsin one because they were undefeated and they were in the final four.

There's like, you lose in the final four. That's a good team during the final four. You lose the St. Peters. It's just a major seismic kind of moment for Kentucky, I think. And the fact that Louisville hired the guy. who was responsible for like, I don't know, 60, 70, 75, 80% of the NBA talent that swears by Kentucky, Kenny Payne. They hire him in the same day.

And it's just a jarring thing. Cal has a lot of questions to answer. You were asking me if Cal is on the hot seat right now. Lowest approval rating ever for Cal at Kentucky. No one is happy with him. He tweets out this thing that says like, don't blame the players, blame me. We're like, well, no shit, buddy. We all blame you.

What the hell are you talking about? It's personnel. People are griping about the stuff he runs and things like that. There's a lot of teams that run the sort of three handoff thing before they, the dummy action before they go into pick and roll. I don't think it's that. I think it's personnel. You put guys out there that can't attack, can't shoot. I just want to say this to John Caliperi. If you somehow listen to this, if you somehow hear this, stop recruiting point guards who don't shoot. Stop it. I feel like Bob Newhart in that mad TV sketch. Stop it. Stop doing it. it and don't and if you're going to do it don't recruit one that's five foot seven seriously when they signed him back in the summer charx this is like if we had recorded like but game we would have gotten an epic version of me when they signed that guy back in the summer i was like this is not good this is like enabling his worst instincts which is like cal is defined by like the transition mow you down point guard he is like that's been a big part of his career derrick rose john wall de erin fox he's had a bunch of those guys time has

has moved on. You're not going to win a title with that kind of point guard anymore unless you have like incredible shooters around them. So he goes and signs a five foot seven version of that and he's going to have to figure out a way to get more talent on the roster, the creation talent. And, you know, I think style plays less of a thing for that. The talent issue is big for me. This is, this is going to be a huge swing year coming up for Cal. Yeah, that was Mike watching the game. And at the end of the game, it becomes a severe wheeler show. And like you were saying, this guy is like 5'7. He only goes left. he can't shoot. I wouldn't even say he's like a crazy athlete.

Like he's a decent athlete for his size, but he's nothing special. And like this like mid-major point guard just dominating the ball for Kentucky. I was like, this is not going to work. And he was holding the ball so much if like the rest of the team got out of rhythm. It was a tough watch. And I think to wrap it all up,

I guess you kind of saying like this is a big year for Cal. Like if Cal doesn't have a talent advantage, like what is he really? That's the other thing as you're watching this game was like, this team is not crazy talented. He's kind of moving away from the one and done method. I'm not sure if that was by choice or he was forced to. Because, yeah, his recruiting has kind of dried up in the last couple years.

Like, we're going to talk about all these top players coming up in the draft. They don't go to Kentucky anymore. And if Cal's not getting these top five picks, like, what is he? Like, what's the future for Kentucky? Yeah, he's not getting the guys. I mean, the difference is you're either where you are now or your Duke. And he was getting the Palos and those types of players. He was having, this Duke team's a very.

Kentucky-esque kind of a team, big athletic bruising. You can play that way if you have the talent. He hasn't been able to figure out how to like enable the personnel, the right type of personnel to want to come here. He doesn't want his fours and five shooting the ball. He doesn't like have a three-point shooter at the point of attack, which is nuts. Anyway, it's a frustrating time. And yeah, I mean, I was pretty out of it for a while. It took me a minute to kind of reboot and enjoy the tournament. I'm fully back and I'm fine. Well, I got to ask too, how was the state of Kentucky? Like are people, it's like the president was shot, like in the other newspapers like front page? I think people are just in a shock, man.

I really do. I think people were just stunned. You know, it was, it's kind of an embarrassing loss, I guess you could say. Yes, I think you can say that. We're going to hear about it forever. I mean, that's just what it is. The bottom line is, and Rucillo told me this the other night too. And just from his fresh eyes watching Kentucky, he was like, you had more than two guys out there that they weren't guarding.

And I was like, there it is. I mean, you can't get in the middle if you have that. Other than that, we were lucky, though, from a draft standpoint, that a lot of the top, well, the top four guys were in play in the first two games. We got to see most of them play two games. You and I were really excited about the Chet Holmgren versus Jalen Duren game, Memphis versus Gonzaga. How did you feel about that game? That game was awesome.

Like, that game, if you're not going to be into, like, college basketball, like, if you didn't enjoy that, you're just not going to be into it because that had the feel. Did you kind of feel like it was like a heavy? I was like a prize fight. It was in Portland. The atmosphere was absolutely electric. Gonzaga had so much on the line. Memphis had so much on the line.

One and done. And I love that like the first color plays at the game, Memphis went right at Chet. They're like, we don't respect you. We're bigger and more athletic. We're just going to put you under the basket. It didn't really work. And that's one of the things I like about Chet is Chet's how to target on his back his whole career. And that Memphis game was the perfect example.

I think they ran like post-ups for Dura in like three possessions. And Chet blocked them every time, but they're like, we're going to go right at your heart. We've got a top five pick on our team too, and we're coming at you. And that set the tone for the whole game. It was like back and forth. That was awesome. Well, you said it there. I wanted to say, too, that like these eight, nine matchups versus the one seed,

they occasionally have the ability to get to this level of like really high stakes. Like sometimes you'll end up with talent in that game that maybe it's a team that couldn't quite put it together, and then they find a way to put it together for this game against the one seat. And that was kind of the profile that this game fit for me. You saw this Memphis team that had kind of struggled all year. They kind of put it together. And Monty Bates actually comes back to the team later after leaving. But you said Duren, you said they have a top five pick, too. Do you think that Duren did anything to help or hurt his stock in this game? We'll get to chat in a minute. But I'm curious about Duren specifically, because you even said a whole lot about

Duren. I guess I was kind of getting excited. I don't think he's really a top five pick. He has that kind of talent though you know what i mean like in terms of when you're watching him out there this is a guy who can go physically athletically toe to toe with chet and like we're trying to establish him early and let him know and and to go back to what you were saying like you look at gonzaga and this is a team realistically this is probably their peak they're never most likely never going to have a player as good as chet again they're probably never going to have someone as accomplished as drew timmy like they've got to win this year and you can feel it like the pressure they're under is just enormous. And you had Memphis, and Memphis, they're trying to get back on the map.

Memphis is a program, very proud program historically, used to be like a final four contender every year under Calipari. And they've been kind of when the world was for 10, 11 years. And they were like, this is the game that puts us back on the map. We're going at it. Didn't quite work out for them, but it was, it was just an awesome environment. I guess we should get into Chet now. I mean, it was a weird game for Chet. Like, I liked how physical he was with them. He probably got like five blocks. because they were going at him the whole time. And he was holding his own.

Four blocks. Nine points, four blocks to assist, nine rebounds. I think my thing with Chet, like he had that play early in the game where he dribbles into the lane for a spinning fadeaway at seven foot one.

And you're like, wow, this is the skill set. No one else has. This is why he's so highly touted. Also should say that was like a busted play where he attacked a close out and spun and hit that shot too,

which was cool. But then that was it, though. And that's the question with Chet, right, is he didn't really force the issue much on offense the rest of the game. He kind of moved the ball, played off Timmy. He made some good passes,

but he got most of his points on, like, garbage points. For the Chet doubters out there, that would be the concern, right? Can this guy take over games on offense? Because we didn't see it in Memphis for sure. Yeah, he definitely didn't force it. I noticed a few times you were talking about the passes. He had a couple times where he had the opportunity to kind of force it and go after it, and he made like a couple, like really nice interior passes, like, like low bounce passes across the lane. You were talking about Durham was really going at Chet. And the strength is something that is the big hang up for people when they talk about Chet. They're like, this guy's too skinny. Why do you think physically he's able to, and you've said that like people have kept coming at

him over, over time. Why has he been able to continue to leverage his length and not just get bold over? What is it about his physique that is, that allows him to get by? Like, why should people believe in him in terms of his body type? What do you think? Well, I think the key for Chet is just timing. Like so much of blocking shots is not just about physical abilities. That's the guy like Andre Drummond has never blocked a lot of shots, even though he was probably the best athlete in the league for a while in terms of his size. It's a good example.

It's about timing. It's about like understanding, okay, when to jump, when not to, when to stay on the ground. And like what makes Chet so special is he doesn't really have to jump all that often given his wingspan. So he doesn't have to buy the pump fakes. He can just wait and wait for the guy's going up for sure. and then extend and block his shot. I would say it's a combination of length,

basketball IQ, and toughness. I don't think we mentioned this, but like we were talking about Chet. It's funny with Eminie Bates is in that game. But what I always go back to with Chet was he played Eminie Bates last year. I was one of those like made for TV. You know what I'm talking about?

Price by high school. And at one point he like crosses up Emmany and then dunks on him. And he's just yelling at eminy and pointing at his heart. And it was kind of silly, but I was also like, that's true. Like, I'm tougher than you. Like, I have more heart than you.

And that's a lot of what makes Chet good. Is he just, he said to come up the hard way. Nothing was ever given to him. He had to take it. I wanted to play a really quick game with you. So this is called Believer, agnostic, non-believer. So Chet as a shooter, John, are you a believer? Are you agnostic or are you a non-believer?

And Chet as a shooter at the next level? Because he was 0 for 3 in this game. Notice a lot of his threes lately have kind of been back rim. What do you think about Chet as a shooter? You believer? I think so. I think a good. good enough shooter. I don't see him as like a floor space necessarily in the same way that

Jabari Smith, who will talk to about later. I do think he can make the shots he needs to make. He can step out and hit it when he needs to. He can be a threat at 20 feet. So I'll say I believe, right. I don't think he needs to be like a Carl Towns to be successful anyways. Okay. Chet as an off-the-dribble threat in the NBA, you a believer? That is the one. That is the question. I guess I'm agnostic about. I'm a believer, but I understand why people might not be a believer because I think that is the swing skill. If you're drafting Cheta 1, you have to believe he can create his own offense when he needs to. And he hasn't really done it much in college. So this one, I want, what's your opinion? Because I think this is the question about Chet,

is the off the dribble stuff, is the shot creation. Where do you follow on that? I think it's situational in matchup. I think what we saw in that Memphis game was he attacked some mismatches. I just want to see more proof that he will attack mismatches aggressively because, you know, some of his efficiency can kind of fool us a little bit because it's like, well, there's the absence. He's on such a good Gonzaga team, and this is going to tie into another prospect on the board that I wanted to ask you about context with. You'll probably know who it is. But he's on such a good imbalance Gonzaga team that it can kind of hide some of that. What if he was forced to attack some of those mismatches more frequently? I want to see it. I really do because you were saying like in high school, we saw him attack in Monty Bates off the dribble. We saw things like that.

I'm leaning positive. Like I think that he has a great handle for his size. But sometimes these guys that are really big and long, the question is, is it functional? Because I don't know if you remember Thon Maker. There were all those clips of him like going behind the back and stuff like that. And it's like, that's great. But I'd like to see whether or not it's functional in the game is a different thing.

I'm leaning towards believer, agnostic leaning believer there. So I think we're kind of in the same camp. Do you think he overpasses sometimes? Like he's like forcing the pass instead of just taking the shot? I guess why would he do that? Maybe he's leaning towards playing within the flow of the offense. He would do that, I think, just because Gonzaga's offense is so proven. I don't think there's been a ton of situations for him where it's been like,

Chet, we need you to score because Timmy is just, he sucks up all the scoring ambition in the room. You know, against Memphis, Timmy was dominant at times. I mean, he looked like 92 Christian Leitner in that game at times. He was unstoppable. The other thing I'm curious about, too, as a Kentucky fan, like remember AD's year? AD actually, it's kind of funny, AD and Shet both averaged 14.2 points a game in college. And AD, it felt like a lot of times like, I don't need to score. This team is so stacked.

If I just do defense, finish and move the ball, will be like more than good enough. Do you see the connection there? Is it kind of similar or what? Where did you fall on that? No, I absolutely see the connection. That was something that crossed my mind. I was watching him this weekend. I was like, this is kind of AD-esque.

AD was a little bit more of an out-of-area, like disruptive shot blocker than him. and a more active like finisher. But in terms of the scoring, yeah, he could kind of recede to the background frequently in a similar way. 80's frame, I think, is the thing that maybe gave people a little bit more. But Chet also is a way better ball handler

and can get kind of lower. I feel like he's a more flexible athlete. Not everybody played well this weekend. I don't know if you got to check out Miami's upset of Auburn. What do you think went wrong for Auburn? I think first off, so you're someone who's watched a lot of Auburn battles.

basketball this year. Quite a bit. Like from a scale of zero to 10, how surprised were you about that performance? I'm just curious. If we're going just kind of by, you know, the integer kind of thing, I'd say negative 16. Bill, who had never watched Auburn, like, with totally fresh eyes, texted us on that Saturday when Auburn was playing. It was like, I hate Auburn's guards.

I was like, it's just like, you can watch them for just a few minutes. And, like, Kentucky was, like, trapping them and picking rolls and stuff. I was like, let these dudes beat us. And, you know, Zep Jasper and Wendell Green. And then Katie Johnson, I just don't know what he's doing half the time. Like they get so excited and they just take terrible shots. I came up with a nickname for Jabari after this weekend. I said we should start calling him Katan because of how much he settles.

What do you think about the nickname Katan? That's not bad. You had to explain. I was like, no, I get it. I know what Katan is. I'm not living in a cave. That's not bad because like I asked that because like I don't want to give Jabari too much blame for what happened.

Because like those guards were terrible. they've been terrible all season. I actually bet against Auburn. That's how sure I was they were going to lose this game. The way these guards play, if they play a veteran experienced team like Miami, they're going to lose. I remember, it was like early in the game

and they're running a set, and Wendell Green just jacks up a 30-footer in the middle of a possession. I was like, okay, this is all you need to know about Auburn. They're just not even playing basketball with half the time, these guards. So all I have to say is like, I don't want to blame Jabari for what happened.

because his guards set him up to fail. They were going to get exposed at some point in the tournament. I think that was pretty much a given if you've watched them all season. And obviously, you don't want to overreact to one game. I think the pro-Jabari camp is just like, well, it's just a game. It happened. Throw it out. But I do think when the way he played in this game corresponds to some of the issues he's had all season,

there is something to be gleaned from it. What was his line ended up being? It was really bad. this game 10 points he had 15 rebounds but you know a lot of missed shots four assists three blocks two turnovers but he was 25% from the field and he was 12.5% from three but like how many shots he'd take oh he was one for eight from three that's what I wanted to know and from two point range he was two for eight so he was it was not good and you know you're talking about the guards I think it's both of those things his guards are terrible I think the context thing is absolutely a question with him what

what you've looked like but I don't think that you can let him off the hook totally because I sent you a few screenshots, well, one I know of, where he catches the ball in space and absolutely wants no part of dribbling the ball. Multiple times of the game, he caught the ball with a guy. Miami news. Yes, you could tell. Laranaca scoured that team well. He's a good code. You said, this guy doesn't want to dribble. We're going to sell it in the jump shot. He's not going to drive them out of what we do. He would turn the corner and just take weird, like his shoulders weren't squared, which are shots that he's made throughout the year. But Miami was playing more uphill on him than most teams I've seen this year, they were all over him. And you know, you hesitate to penalize

a guy for what he is right now, you know, because we don't totally do that with Chet. We have to speculate about what they're going to be. Six, seven years from now, do you think it's really bad? How bad is it, I guess, is what we have to gauge when we're comparing with other guys in this draft. When we see basically no signs of him attacking off the dribble. Like if you watch Chet, even Chet, when he faces up, he tries to carve out space and get in the middle of How low? Same thing. How much should we penalize him for that? The fact that we just have not seen it. How much does it lower the projection of his ceiling in your mind? I think for me, and this is something just in the last couple of years, I've kind of changed my opinion on. As much as three-point shooting is important. Much of space on the floor is important. When I'm talking to top of the draft, when I value more than anything, is the ability to get downhill to put pressure on the rim, to be a two-point score. To be a star.

If you're going to be a star, if you're going to be an offensive hub, and your drops to the guy this high, I think that's what you want more often than not as an offensive hub. It's just very hard to be an offensive hub if you cannot efficiently create two-point shots. If like your game is just based on throwing up threes, it's just a really tough way to make a living. If you're like you can't be the primary mode of the offense, if you're just going to catch the ball and shoot 25 footers constantly. Especially if you're not a guard, if you're a forward. And that's the thing too.

they were talking about it in the game, they're like, this guy's 610, 220. He can go with the basket. He's bigger and faster and he's just not doing it. And I got a stat for you kind of to tie this back in. I was looking at two point percentage, like what you're shooting on twos, you're throwing out threes all together, just what you shoot on twos, guys drafted in the top five in the last 10 years who played college basketball. So I ended up being like 45 or 50 guys. If you had to guess, where do you think Jabari would land on that spectrum of two point percentage? I would say probably in the bottom third. That would be my guess.

Where is he? Where does he rank? Dead last. Ooh. Not only dead last. Dead last by a significant margin. I would not have expected that. Wow.

Jabari Smith shot 43.5% from two. Jesus. No one else in the top five has ever shot below 45%. There's only been six or seven guys who shot below 50%. Most guys drafted that high. are efficient scores. Who are the other guys? Can you tell me just a couple of them? Yeah, so Cade Cunningham, Chris Dunn, DeAngelo, Russell, Trey. So a lot of point guards. Yeah. Like there's just not a lot of forwards you're going to shoot that low from the field around the

basket as Javari shot. All that to say is he could add this to his game because he's such a good shooter, because he's so athletic. Just right now talking today, I just don't really value that type of player that much is where I'm kind of leaning. If you're just going to shoot threes, if you're not a threat from two point range, that to me is a massive red flag. Yeah, and I think we should clarify, whenever we talk about like an offensive hub, a lot of that just it ties into the geography of the floor. If you're trying to be like the center of an offense, like, that can like flip the ball to your teammates whenever the defense sells out to you, it's a lot easier to do that when you're in the center of the floor. That's just like basic geometry. So like if Jabari's going to spend a lot of

his time facing up and jabbing at the elbow, it's going to be harder for him to be that type of player. Is there a team that you would rather see Jabari on? What's like an ideal team that you think Jabari would look a lot better on? Or is it better that we're seeing him in this situation that's kind of revealing his warts? You need to have a good point guard. You need to have someone who's going to set him up for shots and create offense for him. And that's what you're talking about in terms of the areas of the floor that he's at. And I think that's where you even go beyond the two-point shooting. It's like, okay, two-point shooting to me naturally leads to assists.

Because if you are getting good shots around the basket, the defense will collapse on you. And then it's a pretty simple pass. And like, that's the other thing with Auburn, too, is when you're watching that game, is there's nobody on this team who's creating easy offense for anyone else. everyone's just going one-on-one basically and that is where like it hurts Jabari but also you know if I was putting a top two top three pick I want my top two pick to be able to create easy offense for others

so that's where I think I get worried about Jabari is he's got to add two things to his game that's why to me like we did our top fives I feel pretty good about having Chet and Paolo above him because I think the road for Chet and Paolo to create offense for others is so much shorter road Jabari is going to have to take. We're speculating about a lot more when we talk about Jabari.

If those other two guys fail to get there and Jabari ends up being like an elite floor spacer and like a good team defender down the road and then he kind of sprinkles in a little bit of playmaking and ball handling, that could happen. And that's been the dilemma for me is measuring those two things against each other. But Paolo on Saturday, I told you I watched it in a stomach bug fog, but I went back and rewatch it again. Paulo, I thought, looked fantastic. Like I said, you and I had kind of been.

move in that direction. I hate that we're agreeing on it. We're trying not to influence each other all that stuff. But what really stood out to you? What do you think pop the most for like, I don't, I don't know that we necessarily like learned a bunch of new things about Palo, but I think we solidified some things that were trending in a certain direction. But like, what's popped to you about Palo in that game? One, he was really locked in. Sometimes Palo has a lot of fat in his game. We kind of talked about like sometimes he'll just jab all day and just settle. Palo was like, I'm here to win a game. I'm going at the basket. And he just made so many nice dump off passes. That's what really stood out. And like, that's what's been impressive to me over the course of the season is he's

really improved as a passer. He's really like, he's been coached well. He's improved his game. He's not settling. He's making sure to get a good shot for himself or others. I feel like he's really gotten better over the course of the season. And I think like Paolo started off so strong and there was like a market correction where I think I think now it's going back the other way people are like oh yeah this guy is six foot 10 250 guard who can get his own shot all the time who's developing as a playmaker who's pretty solid defensively like this guy's got incredible talent and we saw that he played great I mean he was awesome against Michigan State yeah you start to you start to like look around after the sample grows and you're like wait a minute why do why are we

mad at this guy like the ill-equipped primary initiator kind of thing thing has been the problem that's been the question, but I think that he has answered that question. As much as it pains me to say over the course of the season, he has been very well coached. I mean, and I think that his poise in that game, you talked about the dump-offs, there were a couple different times. He bullied when he should have. He attacked when he should have. He dumped it off when he should have. He's got a great finisher playing next to him in Mark Williams. He did the things that he should have and he sort of had a more complete game. Now, if he's going to be somebody who, can balance and angle his game more towards that of like attacking like that and bullying and getting

to the rim, drawing fouls, being more of a creator and not leaning so much on like I have to create my own offense. That's where my value comes from. Like you were talking about him spamming the stutter rip like we joked about. If he can make that shift, I'm pretty solidified with him at number two. From my opinion, like it's them two in the top tier. I would put Jabari a step below, Paolo and Chet. It is funny. So I got to say, I don't know if you saw this. After the bracket came out, there was this big kind of thing. Why is Duke a two seed in Tennessee a three seed?

Let's look at their quadrant one wins and their net rating. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, I think it's okay Duke was a two seed. Like sometimes people forget this is a made-for-TV event. We're here to grow the sport. We want to put Duke in matchups. People want to see. Oh, conspiracy.

Okay. It's not even a conspiracy. It's common sense. It's the reason why these things are done. behind a closed door. Like my theory always has been with the college football playoff committee, it takes them like five minutes to come up with the actual games. The rest of the time is like, how do we sell this?

What kind of BS do we got to spin? It's just obvious. Like we got to create a good matchup. We want to maximize the ratings. College basketball especially needs this. The culture needs Duke versus Gonzagin, the elite. We've got to have it. No disrespect, Texas Tech in Arkansas.

No disrespect. The very solid programs. We've got to see Duke and Gonzaginley. That would be like the biggest game in a long time in college basketball. They're the two biggest college programs right now. Like I say, it hurts me to say it, but they really are. They're the teams that are getting the highest level of talent. The real question really is, like, is Paolo going to get enough juice?

Let's see, he finishes this out strong. Seems very in play that he could potentially, somebody could value him above Chet. Doesn't it seem possible? I mean, it seems very possible. I'm a Chet guy, but the way Paolo's playing, I can't even be mad if you took him above. Because he's playing great. This is a little bit lazy because they're both Duke guys. I just feel like Paolo is Jason Tatum if he played downhill more.

Imagine if Jason Tatum went to the rim a lot more. It didn't settle for like those 20 footers. It's the same kind of player, but much bigger and more able to just get to the basket. And I think the shooting upside with Palo is like not unrealistic at all. We're not speculating about like this could happen. Like there are nights where he can really shoot the ball. And it doesn't seem that far fetch to me. And on the Duke thing, man, if Jeremy Roach is going to play like this, Duke might,

Duke might win it. I mean, I was receding my kind of confidence rankings. Like, granted, Michigan State isn't a perfect team. They were scrappy. They did their best. They wasn't the most talented. Another note is Max Christie looked pretty good in that game. And I wouldn't be surprised if he climbs in the rankings, we'll circle back to that at some point. But Duke, Duke looked overall pretty good. Who do you expect to win based on sort of after the first weekend the way it's looking for you? I mean, I got to ride my Arizona guys. Like, I already got I got the money on them. I'm just going to believe in him. Curr, Krista is absolutely killing me. but that's not really NBA draft talk.

I will say like with Duke, the Texas Tech game, it's going to be awesome. Texas Tech has like five, six, seven guards, basically, and they all like switch every screen. And they play a super tough, super physical brand of bat. It's going to be a bloodbath. That Texas Tech Duke game. If Roach plays well, like I said, it changes things for Duke. But they could get them. Yeah, for sure.

I could definitely see that. I think we need to talk about your Texas Longhorns before we wrap up here. Big eye roll there. How are you feeling? I mean, did it make you? you, did it pain you? I was feeling anxious about Jaden Ivy having a big game against Kentucky kind of went your way instead. How did you feel about J. Nivey in that game? I thought Texas played great. I was like, I couldn't believe it was as close as it was. I was going to text

you if Texas won, be like, Chris Beard is Bobby Knight. Like if he had won that game, given the disparity in talent, it was preposterous. Bobby Knight disciple. He is a Bobby Knight disciple. It's like this guy, like you forget that because the team was so up and down this year. Pretty disappointing given they were a top five ranking but man that guy can coach in march man like he is getting the most out of a pretty limited what did they say like the juice like there ain't a lot of juice and that orange he had this season and he squeezed every last they almost won and they're they're putting a six foot seven guy on zack ed and trevionn williams and they almost won the game they they pressed up on ivy really well they did a great job that for a while it was like they might actually

win this game and it was like absolutely preposterous given their talent level I'm like this Chris Beard guy, man, he can really coach in March. He was living Matt Penner three times. I was like, my God. He beat him at Pennard, Arkansas, Little Rock. He beat him at Tech. And he almost beat him at Texas, probably each time with less talent. I was like, this is incredible. I'm really excited, actually. Are you an animated watcher? I can't picture you getting up and pumping your fist. Like, I feel like I'm a little more out there with my emotions. Like, what kind of watcher are you? I mean, it's hard because I haven't had a good team to root for in a long time. So it's hard to have too much expectations. Football or basketball. No, it's been a rough decade. So it's just like house money.

I was really excited for Texas. One thing with Jaden Ivy could talk about, the thing I noticed in that game especially, so Texas's guards are not very athletic. They're kind of like they just jack a lot of shots. What really hurt them all season as a big 12 teams would just get into their dribble, make them uncomfortable. Purdue does not do that. You just get to walk the ball up against Purdue, run your set with very little pressure. It doesn't feel like Ivy really defends very much. Not that he doesn't have the physical abilities, but you would think with a guy like Jaden Ivy, you would pressure the ball and like use that athletic ability to speed the game up. And Purdue just did not do that at all. Like that's the thing with Ivy, he only really

plays one side of the floor in a lot of games. That's an interesting thing to posit there. You would think that you could use him as like a perimeter stopper type player. I don't know that I'd have him like in in terms of like going forward to the next level, that's what he strikes me as. As sort of a chaser, I think is what they call him today, somebody that's going to be like coming off ball screens and staying attached. I don't know that he has the physical build. I was pretty impressed with his shooting in that game and had a couple nice passes. Ivy, I feel pretty firmly about it. I could see him going to five. I don't, do you expect him to fall past five in this draft?

No, but I think for me, Tier 2 is going to have like four or five players. and it would not shock me if some of the guys below him jump him. It's kind of the same with Jabari that he's got the talent, he has the tools, but there's a lot of things he's going to have to add to his game that he doesn't have right now. And like Purdue, for me, they shouldn't have let this game be so close. And what it is is they just don't play much defense. They let Texas just get into their sets, stroll. And that was the same thing with Ivy and the Johnny Davis game.

When Davis went off from the regular season, Ivy barely guarded them. It's like your top five pick, you got all the tools in the world. like compete on defense and get after someone, turn on national title, and he wasn't really doing it. Yep, that was something that you had kind of brought up throughout the year about Purdue trying to sort of quell my worries about having to play them. But, you know, never happened. The game never happened. Shout out Shaheen Holloway, you know, breakout star of March Madness. Oh, good Lord. So there's going to be, we're going to circle back and talk more about

matchups as they come. Real quick, with Sweet 16 Elite 8, what are you looking forward to? Like, what are the games you think are going to pop for the, for the fan if they want to catch some of these guys. I think you hit on one. I think the Texas Tech Duke thing is going to be a really interesting clash of styles. Duke has had this kind of, I just think that they're going to be they're going to be a really interesting matchup, like I said, stylistically. I think North Carolina and UCLA, that's a game we didn't get to talk about, was their matchup with North Carolina's game against Baylor was an epic one. There was just so much to hit on. Carolina's playing extremely

well. It's amazing. I think that Hubert Davis really should gloat, honestly, because people were pretty mean to him after that hire. They're just like, what a lame duck higher? They could have done so much better. And he's really turned this team around and has him playing better. That's it. That's one that I want to watch. And Villanova, Michigan, rematch of the 2018 final. That should be a good one. Michigan, I texted you and said Michigan stinks and they have made me look like a moron over the course of these couple games here. Yeah, Michigan, that'll be a real interesting style fight. Michigan has two seven footers. Nova has like a team full of six seven guys. I think the Arkansas Gonzaya game will be fun. So Arkansas has an NBA big man and Jalen Williams.

And I'd assume he's going to guard Timmy. This will be a game for Chet. Chet's going to have like a 6-6 wing on him a lot of the time. Does he press that advantage? Does he look for it? They should beat Arkansas, but like this is a game you expect Chet to go often. And it'd be a little bit of a concern if he didn't. Because Arkansas plays one big and four guards, basically.

And that's like the selling point with Chet ultimately is like, you're playing two bigs, but you also have four guards in the floor. Like you've got a seven foot one guard next to a big. And this should be a game where he goes off. And then obviously, Duke and Zaga, like, that's like an emergency podcast. Like if that happens. Because like the last game, it was like on a Friday night, like a Thanksgiving weekend. It was like a 10 o'clock at night.

It was like really tucked away. Yeah. Yeah. This would be prime time. Like if Duke and Zaga happens, like as I was saying before, college basketball needs this. We need this. NBA draft content needs this. Like, let's make this happen, please.

Yes, yes. I'm very excited. This is a great time of year. It can also be an utterly devastating time of year. So I'm rebounding. I'm recovering physically and mentally. So anyway, John, you got anything that you're working on right now that you want to push? I just NCAA tournament.

Just talking next week. We'll be here to talk about Sweet 16 Elite 8, get ready for the final four. I'm excited. This is the best time of year, even if Shaheen Holloway makes his, name off your school, you know, it's tough. Yeah, that's the way it is, man. Everybody's going to try you. That's how it is. What about you, Kyle? What are you working on? Finishing up a video still. I've been kind of coming in and out of it, but we're trying to nail it down. Are you not going to tell us what it is? Like, you're just going to leave us in the dark here? Nope. Mainly to annoy you now. That's why,

just because you always want me to say. That's a good reason. Well, hit us up and subscribe to all the other Ringer NBA podcasts on our feed. Oh, shout out the draft guide. We should do that too. Yes, Kevin O'Connor put out his annual draft guide, and it is very good, and there are a lot of great comps in there, and it's always just chalk full of goodies, and he's going to be updating that fairly frequently as we go closer to the draft. So we will catch you next time, John. It was good to see you. Yeah.