First, (3:00) Colin explains how the legendary ‘Air Jordan’ marketing campaign still shields Michael Jordan from criticism that all other athletes face.
Then, ESPN College Basketball Analyst Jay Bilas joins Colin to discuss the numerous hall of fame level college hoops coaches leaving the sport (11:00), why so many blue bloods programs are getting upset by relative unknowns (17:00), why Mick Cronin has been so successful early on at UCLA (21:00), if John Calipari’s time at Kentucky has been a disappointment despite winning a national championship (23:00), if the current NIL system needs to be reigned in (30:00), what makes his relationship with Coach K so unique (36:00), which NBA prospect proved him wrong by succeeding in the league (40:00).
Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates, and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! #Herd #Volume
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. It's the Colin Coward Podcast presented by FanDuel.
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(01:51):
Everybody special guest today j Billis will chop it up
for about thirty minutes. On the tournament. I think it's
a tournament that's been led by defense. I don't think
there's a ton of high offensive skill. The scores have
been lower, but that's okay. Marquette Michigan State, Tennessee Duke.
Great defense by the Valls, great defense by Sparty ended
up winning the basketball game, so I've really enjoyed it.
(02:13):
I spent the entire weekend mostly watching basketball games. Northwestern UCLA. Again,
defense reigned supreme. When you don't have a lot of great,
elite offensive players, coaching in defense ruled the day. And
that's what we've seen so far in the tournament. Apparently
I didn't spend too much time on the phone. I
created quite a kerfuffle with my Michael Jordan opinion one
(02:36):
day last week and where I said, you know, there's
a lot of mythology about Michael Jordan because a lot
of people thirty five and under who love him never
watched him actually play. It's just YouTube highlights something to
remember about Michael Jordan, and it's very unique in the
history of basketball. No other player has this. And Michael
is certainly as good as anybody I've ever seen, relentless, great,
(02:56):
in crisis, laser focused, super competitive. Loved watching him play.
I'm still a huge fan of Michael Jordan. But you
can criticize Magic Johnson who ended up in thirty percent
More finals, and you can certainly criticize Lebron James, who
has smashed every Michael Jordan record, Which can't criticize Michael. Why, well,
(03:18):
think about it in these terms. Think about how powerful
just ads are on TV or radio, My career has
been a series of reading ads or ads elevating all
my platforms. They can sell us soda, they can sell
us cars, they can sell us jewelry just by a
thirty second ad. Now imagine how powerful an ad campaign
(03:40):
devoted entirely to you can be. The Air Jordan campaign
is the greatest marketing campaign in the history of our
domestic sports ever any athlete. Nothing's close. Michael made two
hundred and twenty five million last year, still on his shoes.
Just understand and how powerful commercials are. And now an
(04:04):
Air Jordan campaign for twenty years, devoted to one human.
It's created a Teflon shield around Michael, so that when
he punches Steve Kerr, well you know, he's just very competitive.
If Draymond Greene punches Jordan, Pool a cocky, trash talking
reserve throw him out of the league. Draymond doesn't have
(04:27):
the protective shield, the power of Nike. Michael jordan best
friend Charles Barkley fifteen years Barkley goes on the air,
does his job is critical? He ghosts him, no longer
talks to him. Who does that protective shield? Baseball Wizard's
mess failing as an owner, struggling with teammates early pre
(04:51):
Phil Jackson. It's all protected. Nobody's saying. You can criticize Lebron,
you can criticize Kareem you can criticize anybody, Magic, Kobe Duncan.
You can't criticize Michael Jordan. That's why I call it mythology.
It's as if he never missed a shop. He had
lots of bad finals games, a couple against the Sonics,
(05:14):
a couple against the Utah Jazz. He's human. Michael's always
been great at elevating Michael. I said this last week
and I'll say it again. The two fills Phil Jackson, Michael,
you're a selfish player. Do you want to win championships
or be a scoring champ? Trust your teammates more. Phil
(05:34):
Jackson the smartest basketball coach at my entire lifetime, perhaps ever,
probably ever. Michael understood that. That was the first Phil.
The other Phil was Phil Knight, the number one visionary
in American sports marketing in the history of my life.
The two fills. Now give Jordan credit. He was glamorous,
(05:55):
he was great, he was focused, He was capable of
being coached if he respected you. So he deserves a
lot of credit for that. I mean, people all over
this country try to help people and they just won't listen.
Michael listened and became probably the greatest basketball player ever
when he started trusting teammates and winning championships. But just
think of the power of the Air Jordan marketing brand.
(06:19):
It has created a shield around Michael that any criticism.
But Colin, he won at North Carolina. A lot of
people have won championships at Carolina and Kansas and Yukon
and Duke. College basketball has always been lobsided. Six programs
have most of the talent. Well, he won in the Olympics. Yes,
that team was pretty loaded. He had helped beating Tunisia.
(06:43):
Nobody's discounting how great of a college player, how great
of an Olympian, How great of a player, how great
of a marketer. But what I'm saying is there's a
lot of mythology as if he wasn't difficult early pre Pippin,
He's won exactly one playoff series pre Pippin. Is that
he didn't need coaching, or that baseball wasn't a failure.
(07:03):
May I appreciate the effort, or that the Wizards wasn't
a disaster even as an owner. It was classic Michael.
He made a fortune owning the Hornets, but he could
control the narrative as a player. He couldn't as an owner.
People take things that happened to Michael real things like
he punched a teammate. That's a cheap shot. Well, Draymond
(07:24):
punched the teammate. Is that a cheap shot. All of
the issues are oas well. It was just very competitive.
Draymond's not competitive, but Colin Draymond works at the volume.
The point being is think of the power of the
Air Jordan marketing campaign, probably the most brilliant campaign ever.
(07:45):
And for the record, there's a reason it works. Michael's
great looking. Michael's got glamour. Michael the dress, the earring,
the smile, the game, the penash. Michael had it all right.
He's an easy guy to market. But take a deep breath.
You can criticize every basketball player ever except Michael. He
(08:06):
was human two. He had floss two. With the NFL
season over all, eyes in the sporting world turned everything
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It's lowest price guaranteed. Well, we wish we had him
on more often. He's a busy guy. I'm not sure
he's got a law degree. I'm not sure if he's
practicing law. But it's college basketball, it's law, It's I'm
(09:13):
sure a lot of public speaking he is. Jay billis
probably the most area day college basketball analyst of my lifetime.
And my only complaint about Jay billis is I don't
see enough of Jay billis. So he comes on our
podcast and we feel lucky today. First of all, how
are you? How are things? Do you still practice? I'm
still with my law firm. I've been with the same
law firm for coming up on thirty years now. But
(09:33):
I don't really practice anymore. I'm still license to practice,
and I do my continuing legal education every year to
keep my license up. But if you need a name
change or a divorce or a ticket taken care of,
I can handle that. Other than that, I don't. I
don't practice much. Okay, I got about twelve parking tickets.
I'll get back down that. Jay. I think college basketball,
(09:57):
if you take our domestic sports college and pro, is
the top for sport to coach. I think it's really
really difficult when you ask coaches, you know, in college football.
Nick Saban gets a kid for three or four years.
John Calipari gets him for you know, like a semester.
I think it's really hard. That's why Jay Wright, Roy Williams,
Mike Shashevsky. I could see guys saying this is this
(10:18):
is insane. Then you had the transfer portal. It's just
this really difficult Jumbalaya, I think to coach, am I
wrong on that? Or do you sense we're asking a
lot now of college basketball coaches and it's not realistic
to think we're going to see some burnout with these
top coaches. Maybe, I mean, I agree with you maybe
on Jay Wright, that the job has changed, and he
(10:40):
is at the tail end. He could probably go another
you know, five or six years at great health and youth.
I mean, I think Roy Williams and Coach K quit
because they were older. If they were in their forties
or fifties, I think they'd adjust to this in no
time and they wouldn't have a problem with that. You know,
(11:00):
these guys make a ton of money now, so they
can quit when they feel like it. If But you know,
when I was younger, Colin, I don't know exactly how
old you are, but I grew up in Los Angeles,
and when John Wooden retired, I was probably in sixth
grade and he was sixty five years old, and I
thought he was the oldest man that had ever lived.
And now these guys, you know, Jim Bams like seventy eight,
(11:22):
and Coach K's seventy six, and Roy Williams is in
his early seventies, and you know, you got Jim Larnagas
in his mid seventies and Leonard Hamilton. All these guys
are coaching way later. Than ever, and you've got a
lot of old school guys and that's okay. But one
thing that's easier about college now is you can you
can get a good team overnight. You know, you can
(11:46):
lose a good team overnight too with the transfer portal.
But you know, the NCAA was the one to put
that rule in, and they put it in because they
were fighting over money and the transfer restriction was making
him look really bad. It was the equivalent of a
non compete provision and an employment contract, and they want
to say, well, they're not employees. And then they were
restricting them on where they'd go to school and make
(12:08):
them sit out like a non compete. It is just
kind of crazy. So I went back this morning knowing
you were on, and I went back and looked at
some of your teams, and I went back and looked
at I covered two duke final fours of the Denver
game where they lost to the Rebels and then the
following year when they upset them. Grant Hill was the freshman.
(12:30):
But one of the things I looked at was scores.
And if you're twenty years old on a college campus,
you're saying, right now, look at this defense and my
takeaway is, well, the defense was good back in eighty
eight ninety. The differences you had juniors and seniors who
were going to play in the NBA on rosters is
that it does feel like this has been a two
or three year trend where it's becoming more of a
(12:50):
defensive tournament. By the way I've watched every game, I've
loved it. I don't think it's quite as gifted offensive
leak is the great offensive players often pivot to professional basketball.
Is that it feels like to me, Jy, this has
been a defensive tournament. Like I watched Tennessee Duke and
I thought Tennessee's defense is just closing down on Duke.
(13:11):
I saw Michigan State today. They shot twelve vercent on
threes and they won, so that it might take away
in the tournament. It feels a good defensive tournament. Am
I wrong? No, you're right, But but the reason in
my view that it feels different, like I think the
players now are more skilled than they were thirty years ago.
I don't even think it's close now. Do we have
(13:31):
the four year superstars that we had back then? No,
because the true superstars leave early. But these guys are
way more skilled than back in the day. They can
shoot it better, they can do everything. The game is
way more physical now. I mean, it's ridiculous on cuts.
That Tennessee Duke game that you're referencing, that was not
(13:52):
a basketball game. That was a hockey game, and it
was officiated like a hockey game. Um, there were there
were fouls that were flagrant, fouls that were not called flagrant,
and I can't understand why. I've talked to several officials
about it, and all of them seem to agree that
that that that should not have happened that way. But
we're seeing that more and more that the game has
(14:13):
become more physical. And when I say physical, I'm not
talking about physical on blockouts. Like when when I was
playing back in the eighties. You know that people thought
about the Big East. Oh, the Big East so physical,
and it was less physical than this Now. The difference
is they didn't have flagrant fouls back then, so when
you fouled somebody, you put them in the wood and
(14:35):
then a fight started. Now if you do that, you
get tossed out of the game. And now a foul
that would have been a normal subway push back in
the eighties is called a flagrant more often. Um, so
we've cleaned a lot of that stuff up. But the
general contact now on drives, on screening, on cuts is
(14:59):
way more than it used to be. Those would have
been fouls in a heartbeat back in the eighties and nineties,
and now they're they're called incidental contact. So I watched
Duke more than any basketball team college basketball this year.
I watched them about six times, but I did watch
them all at home and then two games in the tournament.
So my takeaway was, you know, I've seen more of them,
(15:21):
and I think they'll I'm going to go with them.
It's very rare one a number one loses early, but
to have three number ones lose early? Is it coincidental?
Are the margins smaller between great teams and good teams?
What do you make of all the number one seeds
getting bounced? Well we've had this year, there's not been
(15:42):
as much separation from sort of great to very good.
So the top seven or eight teams I think remained
in the top ten throughout the year, not because they
were that much better than everybody else. They were just
more consistent. And whether it was per due or Arizona,
you name it. They were more consistent at a high level.
(16:04):
But we expected there to be kind of a turbulent
ride through the tournament. I didn't I didn't anticipate, uh,
you know, Purdue losing to Fairley Dickinson. Um that that
that should never have happened. And and not to take
anything away from Fairley Dickinson. I was trying to explain,
like at one point, you know how in our job,
after a game, if you say, you know, wait a minute,
(16:26):
like Perdue was horrible, that shouldn't have happened. They're going
to give some credit to Fairley Dickinson. No, Fairley Dike,
Fairly Dickinson did everything they needed to do to win.
All credit to them for winning the game. But let's
not let's not gloss over the Purdue sucked. And and
it's kind of like when when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson,
we weren't saying there's one of the great heavyweights of
(16:48):
all time. He just beat one of the great Like,
come on, Mike Tyson sucked and it didn't make Buster
Douglas great, and and that that was sort of the
discussion of that. So we've had some we've had some
teams stepping a big pile of it early on. Arizona
did it with Princeton, but Princeton is pretty good. Like
(17:10):
that was that Princeton played really well and Arizona played
really poorly, and so that was a combination of things.
But Princeton dominated Missouri. They they're actually just as good
as Missouri. You know that if they played ten times,
it would probably be five and five. Um, But I
will see what happens when they move on. But um,
it's just not been one of those years where there's
(17:32):
been great, you know, great teams that have separated like
Baylor and get Zaga did a couple of years ago.
I'm going to mention a coach and you tell me
his strength, uh, and just what he does really at
a high level. If I watched the entire I always
feel like Michigan State's got just length and bigs. And
(17:52):
they did add a couple huge blocks at the end
of the game today that just felt like as big
a defensive plays as the tournament had had. So if
I said to you in a short paragraph, Tomzzo strength is,
I would normally say, first toughness, Like his teams play tough,
they're disciplined in a good way, and he's very astute
(18:13):
offensively great after timeouts, he can get his team a
shot whenever he wants. Defensively, they're usually really good. They've
not been as good this year. They're they're they're solid,
but they're not great, and they're big guys are solid,
not great, so they're not as powerful a rebounding team.
But Tom Izzo is one of the best game prep guys,
(18:38):
best practice guys, and spends an enormous amount of time
with his team off the floor, so he knows those
guys inside now, and he's not like I get a
little tired of hearing people talk about motivation, you know, like,
really good players don't need to be motivated, they need
to be inspired. And Tom's an inspiring type. Now he
(19:00):
can get on him now, you know he'll he'll he'll
hit him to their core. But he builds him up too.
And uh, And I think he's one of the best
that's ever done it in any sport. I think he
could coach football tomorrow, would be just as good of
a coach. A guy that wasn't the first choice of
his school. And I had my doubts, but I think
he's just done a tremendous job. Mick Cronin at UCLA.
(19:21):
Mix surprised me at UCLA honestly when he took the job,
I was I was thinking, I don't know if he's
gonna like it there, and I don't know if Bill
I don't know if Bill Ball's gonna like him. Um,
you know, like like after he hears him talk, you know,
and and all the you know, he could throw an
expletive in there every once in a while in practice,
and Bill would like John Wood, have ever said that. Um,
(19:44):
but he's always been a great defensive coach and talk
about tough like he gets guys to do things, and
at his size, of him to go and you know,
go at a big guy, you know, and get him
to get him to do things they don't want to
do is always amazed me. But the thing that's been
great is like how now that he has some what
(20:07):
I would say, better and more skilled players, how varied
his offense has become where it never appeared that way
to me at Cincinnati. He's always had it in his bag,
but he didn't he wasn't able to use it there
because he didn't have those type of players and now
he does. And you know, I like teasing Mick, like
you probably get a kick out of this. So I've
always teased Mick about his size. I'm a little bigger
(20:28):
than him. I think I noticed. And when he was
at Cincinnati, Raftery and mcdonna and I were coming in
and I would always kill Mick it like rubber chicken
dinners and all that over his size. When I knows
something and I'm walking into practice and his trainer was
given him some aspirin and he's got one of these
tiny little cups to take the water to take the aspirin.
(20:49):
And I walked in. He's got this tiny cup in
his hands, and he's like, oh Jesus, like like you know,
because I'm gonna be able to kill him about it.
You know, he's got to have the tiny cup. And
I love that guy. I just think he's one of
the best guys and truly one of the best coaches. Yeah,
I didn't know how his recruiting would go because I
knew the kind of guys he recruited at Cincinnati, and
(21:09):
I thought, I don't know if it's gonna work here. Boy,
they play hard hard. It Roles reminds me of Tim
Gurgerich and un LV. Everybody thought they were flashy, and
I covered him for six years. I've never seen a
team practice like that. I mean, Mike Shachevski once told
me at a Final four in Denver. He goes, I've
never never played a team that place that hard. It's
(21:31):
just insane. So I do want to go. I want
to talk Calipari for a second. So you know, obviously
the Anthony Davis championship year, he's I think if he
got a second people would back off a little. There's
a huge gap between one and two. But I also
think John does care about the players. I've asked friends
of mine in coaching, Mark Fu and other coaches, and
(21:53):
they're like, listen, John can coach. I watched today. Kansas
State had real players. They got a couple of all
conference guys. So let's not pretend that you know Kentuck.
His players are here in Kansas State down there, they
got Wildcats have real good players. Is it fair though,
to say for the talent um, sometimes they've underachieved. How
do you how do you view Calipari's Kentucky run because
it was wobbly a bit this year, Well, cal shocked
(22:16):
me when he went to Kentucky. You know, I was
still and I've had periods of my life and career
where I get stuck in old school thinking. And when
he got to Kentucky and recruited that John Wall, Eric Bledsoe,
DeMarcus Cousins group, and he was going to go with
all freshmen, sort of the one and done thing. I thought,
(22:38):
can't win that way, Like you might be able to
win regular season game, I'm not going to win a
championship that way. And I was so wrong like like that,
he championed that and it was incredibly successful, and I
think he's an unbelievable coach, and I agree with you.
I think he does care about the players at the
(22:59):
at the high level. Now. You know, Cal can come
off publicly like a used car salesmen of times trying
to explain stuff to people. But he's an unbelievably good guy,
Like he's a really good person and a good guy,
I do think. And I'm not talked to him about this,
and I should if especially if I'm going to say
(23:19):
what I'm about to say, but I think he over
estimated the transfer portal and where the game was headed,
like he was ahead on the one and done thing.
He was first, and then coach k kind of followed
him in that and realized, Hey, we're playing against these
guys and someone want to come here, you might as well,
(23:40):
like we should. We need to start taking them. And
you know, Cal went into the transfer portal last year
and his teams aren't as talented. They're they're good, but
they're not as talented as they've been. That team he
had in twenty fifteen that was thirty eight no before
they lost to Wisconsin. I really believe this Wisconsin was
the only team that could have been them that year,
(24:01):
the only team because of the way they played and
how old they were and the type of team they had.
But you know, how do you how do you have
a program like that that's that's consistently you know, great,
and then if you have a down year, people are
losing their minds because it's not like the guys that
are recruiting, the four year guys are outpacing outpacing Cow.
(24:24):
They're not. But the last two years, you know, they
just haven't been Kentucky because I don't think they've been
as talented, like they've brought in really good players that
came from somewhere else, but they're not. They're not lottery
picks like he's had. The tournament's heating up. No better
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(26:44):
I'm a believer in nil and I'm a believer in
transfer Portalum. One of the things I did say in football,
I said, I think I can be pro something and
there has to be guardrails. I can be pro sports gambling,
but think there need to be certain guardrails. I said
in foot ball, I think you should the first game
starts and the last game ends, you can't transfer. Then
(27:06):
I don't want a Wolverine transferring to Ohio State before
the game and taking like trade secrets. That was my
thing is just just put some guardrails up. I'm good
with all of it. But then again, we've had coaches,
you know, leave, you know before the season's over. You've
been a big proponent of nil transfer portal. Take on
(27:28):
my guardrail comment. Should we just have no guardrails? Are
there anything? Is there anything about either basketball or college
football transferring or nil that that does worry you? It
doesn't worry me. But I think there can and should
be reasonable regulation to everything. And and your point, your example,
and I know was taken to the extreme to make
a point of you know, a player transferring, you know
(27:51):
before a bowl game to there our tribal. We don't
have to worry about that. That's not an issue that's
not going to happen, and you know nobody's going to
do that, just like you wouldn't have an assistant coach
take a job before a game. I mean, they're the
ones that have more trade secrets than the players, and
they move around like crazy, including to their art tribals.
(28:12):
So that's not an issue. The biggest issue that the
nc DOUBLEA has with all of this is on the
legal side. You know, when they act in concert, it's
a cartel and they're running a foul of federal anti
trust law and all this stuff that the NCP is
talking about. About, Well, we can't make the players employees.
(28:33):
Yes you can. These schools employ thousands of students annually,
like there's a school in my home my home state
that employs six thousand of their own students a year.
Of course they can do it. They don't want to,
and they want Congress to bail them out. The problem
we have now is is because they wanted to just
(28:54):
do the nil thing, they can't. They can't control any
of it. And if they just paid the players and
made them employees, they'd be able to control it like
they controlled their coaches, like they control their staff members,
like they control their administ administrators. It's not that hard,
but we're making it really hard because they just don't
want to do it. And we get all these excuses about, well,
(29:17):
you start paying players, then goodbide all these other sports. No, no, no,
none of that's true. They're not going to cancel all
these sports. You know, they always ask where's the money
going to come from? They asked that when I was playing,
where's the money going to come from? And then they
signed these megamedia deals and the you know, so much
of the money that the athletic department that runs through
(29:40):
there goes back to the school. They'll say, well, the
scholarships are so expensive, Really, well, where are you paying
that money? They're paying it to the school. So they
have an athletic department account and they pay it to
the school. They're not out of nickel. That school is
not out of a nickel for a scholarship. And years ago,
what the NCAA schools did was they they basically said,
(30:02):
all right, the athletic departments have to be self sustaining.
But I don't think they imagined that they were going
to make this much money. So the schools are charging
these crazy rates for food service and you know, rent
and maintenance and all this stuff, it's going back to
the school. So they're taking a huge chunk of that
and huge, huge salaries are being paid. Gigantic staffs are
(30:25):
being put together. You know, you mentioned Colin when you
were covering Duke in ninety ninety one. I was a
graduate assistant. I was on the staff that I was
an assistant coach, a grad assistant. When we went on
a road trip, we flew commercial and took one bus
when we got there. So it's one bus. They have
to have two now to carry all the staff, you know.
(30:45):
So the staff and the players are now two of
these gigantic coach buses that you take in Europe, you know,
and these things. These athletic departments are bigger than the Pentagon. Now.
They got plenty of money, and it's not a it's
not a concern paying the players. They just don't want
to and we're gonna do it at some point, whether
it's five years, three years, whatever, They're going to decide
(31:08):
it is cleaner and easier to sign these players to contracts.
They'll retain them better and then they'll they'll have control
over what ANIL deals they can have then if they're
paying them, just like our companies pay us, they can
tell us what we can and can't do. They buy
that right through the employment contract. It's really as simple.
(31:28):
It works for the rest of the free world. The
idea that it won't work for college athletes is kind
of observed. So Mike Shashevski maybe it's because I covered him.
I've said this the other day on my show. I said,
Duke is the greatest team sport success story of my
sportscasting career. In forty years. They've had one losing season
(31:51):
and that was the back surgery season where coach k
couldn't walk. They went nine and three and they just
literally couldn't walk. There's nothing else like it. That's double
the Atriots dynasty, which in itself is absurd considering it's
a regulated violence, players get hurt. Makes no sense at
all to have a football dynasty for twenty years. But
I read the Ian O'Connor book. I love. I think
(32:13):
Ian's just stupendous, and you know it's funny. I read
it and the criticisms of Mike and I and I
have a lot of respect for Ian. He's not out
there to just throw out Haymakers. I found them almost likable.
That you know, Mike is a fighter, you know, the
army background, his size. Personally, it made me dislike Bob
(32:36):
Knight more and like Mike Zewski more, just because the
battle and he wanted to carve his own way and
he didn't want to be seen in the shadow of
Bobby after a while, which is I completely understand that
when you hear that and the hare have been critics
of Mike's offense, wasn't very creative, or he coached the
(32:57):
Olympic team, just one of it lands for me. Maybe
I'm just maybe I'm not, maybe I have a confirmation
bias that I just I've always liked him. Was there
ever a criticism of coach k and you went, that's
on target. Yeah, that's a fair because I when I
read books and articles, I'm always like, it just doesn't
land to me. I think he's authentic. I think he's
a fighter. I think he's tough. I think he's super smart.
(33:20):
As you noted earlier in the One and Done, he's flexible,
he acknowledges when he's wrong. Was there ever any criticism
you heard of him and thought, maybe that's fair I'm
sure there has been. I can't think of an example,
because he's like I love him, you know, I've known
him since I was seventeen years old. There's probably I
(33:41):
don't think this is an overstatement. I wouldn't be doing
anything I'm doing now if it weren't for him. I
might be doing something like it. But I wouldn't have
gone to law school if not for him, I wouldn't
have I don't think I would have been in broadcasting
if not for him. I certainly would have had the
basketball life i've had if not for him. You know,
(34:01):
he made it possible for me to go to law school.
He offered me a spot on his staff, and then
he was very helpful in getting me into law school
and convincing the law school that I could I could
work as a coach and go to school at the
same time. Nobody wanted that to happen at Duke, and
he made it happen. And he told me at the time,
he goes, if this doesn't work out, you can always quit.
(34:23):
And I didn't know whether you met quit law school
or quit coaching, but I still never asked him that.
But when I was coming out of high school, you know.
I was one of these players where you know when
you you know, when you're in high school, you become
a good player. You know, local paper or the LA
Times or something does a story on you and they
ask you what do you want to do after basketball?
And I didn't have an answer. I didn't know. And
(34:46):
so at that time, like Frank Gifford was in broadcasting
and Don Drysdale was in broadcasting, so I said, well,
maybe broadcasting. And all the coaches that were recruiting me
read that, and Coach K did something about out of it it.
Like others would introduce you to somebody at the school
that was in the communications department, give you a tour
of it. Coach K introduced me to Chuck Howard, who
(35:08):
was a big time producer at ABC Sports, and I
got a job working for ABC Sports as a production assistant.
During the summertime, I was a runner basically, so I
did the I did. I did the Olympics and eighty
four in LA. I did Monday night baseball. Um I did. Uh.
I used to do bowling. I did bowling events with
(35:29):
Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Junior, and um I got
I got all this. It was awesome. I got all this,
I met all these people, some of whom I still
worked with today, and that got me. That got me
in the door. And he was very thoughtful about, Okay,
this is what you want to do. Here's how we'll
make it happen. And he wasn't like some Svengali doing it.
(35:52):
He was trying to help you. And and he thought, hey,
maybe I wanted to get into coaching, offered me a
spot on his staff or and but but he knew
I wanted to go to Lass school, so he greased
the skids for that to happen. And h you know,
without him doing that, I don't I don't know what
I where I would have been. I don't think I
would have been selling pencils on the street somewhere. I
think I would have been okay. But but my life
(36:13):
would have looked a lot different if I hadn't said,
you know, I want to play for you, and when
I when I did, when I committed to him out
of high school, he was the least well known and
least accomplished coach that was recruiting me. I had no
idea who he was when he called me the first time,
no clue never heard of him, and I just really
liked him and throughout the four years I played and
(36:36):
after that. He's not like, he is not perfect. He
makes mistakes like everybody else, and he's ultra competitive, but
off the like one thing he never did. He may
he may jump you in practice and you feel like
you're the worst player it's ever played. He does not
carried off the floor. As soon as practice is over.
(36:57):
He may still be pissed off for a while, but
as soon as practice is over, he's he he likes
you again, like he's good. Um, now back on the floor.
You better do what you're supposed to do and the
next day or he'll jump you again. But he never,
like a lot of guys, carried off the floor, and
he doesn't do that. You know, Um, I'm in my
late fifties and you're probably in your fifth lay Yeah, yeah,
(37:23):
it's always hard to guess. Um, Harold Minor Pearl Washington
m iconic and devastating college players doesn't work in pro basketball. Um,
Christian Laytner was better than people think. Keith van Horne
both were actually pretty good scores in the NBA. Whenever
I hear the bus label, like cringe, because they were
both actually could score. Um, go back to all the
(37:46):
years you have done this, name a player who either
surprised you how good he was in the NBA. You
watched him in college you thought he would and then
you watched them as a pro, and you went, instead
of finding a guy that didn't do it, let's find
a guy that J Billis thinks. And I thought, by
the way, I thought one Dixon was going to carve
(38:07):
the league up and he was a twiner, I was
totally wrong. Give me a college guy that shocked you
with his production in the NBA shocked me. When Dwight
Howard came out of high school, I thought he was
unskilled and didn't know how to play, and so I
was thinking, how how's this going to work? You know,
(38:28):
there are certain things he can't do and all that.
You know, he doesn't guard this, he didn't do this.
And I had friends of mine the NBA say, doesn't matter,
like his athleticism, trump's all that like, they don't make
him like that very often. And I was still stuck in.
That's what I was saying before about getting stuck in
old school. Thinking. I was still stuck in. You know
(38:51):
this high school kid, he can't do these things. He's
not ready yet and not thinking long term like he's
going to be ready in a couple of years, Like
this is not that big of a deal, and he'll
learn how to do some of these things. And then
you know he was a you know, all time great
Hall of famer um and that that took me a
(39:11):
while to wrap my head around, and I got over
it pretty quickly to now that doesn't even bother me.
You know, like like some young kid that that you think,
hey man, you should stick around, and they shouldn't stick
around if they're if they're that talented, if they want
to go, Like I think every young person should be
in college. I think that's the best place for a
young adult to be. But you know, these geniuses in
(39:34):
all these different fields, whether it's you're a genius and
coding or uh, you know, business or whatever, or you're
a genius musician, you know, you can leave college and
go back. And it's the same for an athlete. They've
got a finite amount of time and they should go. Yeah,
there's a there's a I remember looking at video of
Dame Lillard and I told Tom Penn, who was the
(39:56):
Gym of Portland. I'm like, he's got kind of a
quirky shot. I don't know, and then and then obviously wrong.
And then Kevin Durant. I remember telling somebody, God, he
weighs one hundred eighty, who's he going to defend? And
he's like, yeah, he's gonna be fine. He's going to
score thirty points a night. Well, this has been fun.
Before we do this, we're going to watch the TCU
(40:16):
Gonzaga game, which starts about ten minutes from right now.
Mark Few is one of my favorite people. You know,
I went to college at Eastern Washington University and watched
John Stockton score forty two against Eastern Washington. You know,
we talked about coaches. Will end with this if I
say Mark Few what sticks for you? What's his strength?
(40:40):
His strength is he's a savant offensively and he is
a true believer. Like you know, I've been friends with
him for a long time. He's one of the people
not only I respect, but absolutely love. And I mean
that truly. I been one of those that maybe ten
(41:02):
years ago or so, said you ought to think about
this other job. You know, job would come open, they'd
want Fewey and say you ought to take that you
can win you can win a championship there, and you go,
I can win one here. I think he was the
only one that really believed that. Maybe some people on
the staff, but he was the only one that really
believed that Gonzaga could do this. So when you were
saying before about Duke, you know, and the Patriots, the
(41:24):
greatest thing you've covered, I was thinking you might want
to throw Gonzaga in there, because you know, few has
gotten a ton of guys fired over the years because
all these presidents think that their coach, they hire this guy,
their coach can make them into Gonzaga and they can't
like what he's done there is ridiculous. It's ridiculous, like
(41:45):
this year, or they went into the tournament as a
number twelve in the country in a three seat and
people are disappointed. People are disappointed, and you go, they're
the West Coast Conference. They almost closed that. You know
this better, you know, having gone to school right there.
They almost close the doors on that school in the
mid nineties, and the basketball program saved the school. If
(42:07):
they didn't go to the Elite eight and ninety nine,
there's a good chance that that Gonzaga might not have survived,
and now it's one of the hottest schools in the West,
and that program is internationally known and everybody now they're
getting bagged on because well, they haven't won it yet.
They haven't won it yet. You know, they've been to
the tournament twenty some straight years and all you know,
(42:30):
they've been to the championship game twice. They've been to
Elite eights and seventh straight Sweet sixteens. They're the only
team in the country that's done that, and if they
do it today, it'll be eight straight. Nobody's done that now.
And they go, wow, they can't win in the tournament, like, oh, oh,
so the West Coast Conference and you want to bag
on that. But then they get to the tournament and
they do something that no other programs done, Like how
(42:52):
does that work? How did they pull that trick? He's
one of the like he's really he's unbelievable how he
is with the players, Like in practice, you know, he's
he's hard nosed and he's tough, but at the same time,
like he's got a sense of humor with him and
he strikes the right balance, like he wants those guys
(43:13):
to fall out, and they're not going to run some
cute little mid major offense. They're gonna they're gonna they're
gonna run what beats the big shots. And because they
are one of the big shots, like they're they're as
big shot as any program they get, you know, they
get players now that anybody would love. Um. They're not
just like, Okay, we got to get a few guards
(43:34):
and make a bunch of threes and see if we can,
you know, throw a rock at Goliath. They are Goliath
now and it's it's I think it's one of the
great stories in sports history. Frankly in this country. I
was on his deck. He's got a beautiful home and
spoken overlooking the valley and name dropping. We were having
a beer and there was a caribou up by his pool.
You know, it's unbelievable, and we were talking about you know,
(43:57):
and he said, first of all, he goes, we have
two great boosts. I can always fly private. He goes
a lot of these big jobs can't. And he said,
you know, the second thing is I can recruit a
three star kid and nobody's crushing me over. And he goes,
some of these kids, they're they're just raw. They just
need love. And he said, I love those players. They
define our program. He goes, you bring a three star
guy into a Kentucky or a Carolt of your boosters
(44:19):
are all over you, and he's like, he's like, I
found you know, I found Oregons come after him. UCLA's
come after him. He's like, he's like, I've found my home.
And it's He's impossible when you meet him to not
root for. I find one of those seminal people in
my job. Impossible not to root for. If you ever
meet Mark Few, I just love him. Yeah, he's just
(44:39):
like the nicest guy and like you can sit out
on his deck. He'll never talk about basketball, talk about
other stuff. And he's got other interests. He goes fishing
and all this. All that, he got a balanced life.
His wife Marcy's great, got a great family. He and
his assistants are all like great friends. Now they're former
players because he's getting up there. He's getting up there
(45:00):
in our stratus age wise, he's older than me. But
he's just a he's just a normal good dude that's
got extraordinary ability and like he's one of the real
good guys in the game. Well, you're a busy guy.
Let's go watch that game. You have so many responsibilities
and family and job, and I just appreciate you taking
thirty minutes for us. I really genuinely appreciate it. No,
(45:22):
it's my pleasure. And I have two families I can
I can hang with either one of them. I appreciate it.
Thanks Jay, all right, brother the Volume. Make sure to
(45:48):
check out the dram On Green Show. I brought Draymond
Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining
voices in sports. Unique perspective understands behind the rope, also
chops up with guests like Gary Peyton, Zach Levine, Tracy McGrady.
Make sure download The Draymond Green Show wherever you get
your podcasts, only on the Volume podcast Network.
The volume. It's the Colin Coward Podcast presented by FanDuel.
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(01:51):
Everybody special guest today j Billis will chop it up
for about thirty minutes. On the tournament. I think it's
a tournament that's been led by defense. I don't think
there's a ton of high offensive skill. The scores have
been lower, but that's okay. Marquette Michigan State, Tennessee Duke.
Great defense by the Valls, great defense by Sparty ended
up winning the basketball game, so I've really enjoyed it.
(02:13):
I spent the entire weekend mostly watching basketball games. Northwestern UCLA. Again,
defense reigned supreme. When you don't have a lot of great,
elite offensive players, coaching in defense ruled the day. And
that's what we've seen so far in the tournament. Apparently
I didn't spend too much time on the phone. I
created quite a kerfuffle with my Michael Jordan opinion one
(02:36):
day last week and where I said, you know, there's
a lot of mythology about Michael Jordan because a lot
of people thirty five and under who love him never
watched him actually play. It's just YouTube highlights something to
remember about Michael Jordan, and it's very unique in the
history of basketball. No other player has this. And Michael
is certainly as good as anybody I've ever seen, relentless, great,
(02:56):
in crisis, laser focused, super competitive. Loved watching him play.
I'm still a huge fan of Michael Jordan. But you
can criticize Magic Johnson who ended up in thirty percent
More finals, and you can certainly criticize Lebron James, who
has smashed every Michael Jordan record, Which can't criticize Michael. Why, well,
(03:18):
think about it in these terms. Think about how powerful
just ads are on TV or radio, My career has
been a series of reading ads or ads elevating all
my platforms. They can sell us soda, they can sell
us cars, they can sell us jewelry just by a
thirty second ad. Now imagine how powerful an ad campaign
(03:40):
devoted entirely to you can be. The Air Jordan campaign
is the greatest marketing campaign in the history of our
domestic sports ever any athlete. Nothing's close. Michael made two
hundred and twenty five million last year, still on his shoes.
Just understand and how powerful commercials are. And now an
(04:04):
Air Jordan campaign for twenty years, devoted to one human.
It's created a Teflon shield around Michael, so that when
he punches Steve Kerr, well you know, he's just very competitive.
If Draymond Greene punches Jordan, Pool a cocky, trash talking
reserve throw him out of the league. Draymond doesn't have
(04:27):
the protective shield, the power of Nike. Michael jordan best
friend Charles Barkley fifteen years Barkley goes on the air,
does his job is critical? He ghosts him, no longer
talks to him. Who does that protective shield? Baseball Wizard's
mess failing as an owner, struggling with teammates early pre
(04:51):
Phil Jackson. It's all protected. Nobody's saying. You can criticize Lebron,
you can criticize Kareem you can criticize anybody, Magic, Kobe Duncan.
You can't criticize Michael Jordan. That's why I call it mythology.
It's as if he never missed a shop. He had
lots of bad finals games, a couple against the Sonics,
(05:14):
a couple against the Utah Jazz. He's human. Michael's always
been great at elevating Michael. I said this last week
and I'll say it again. The two fills Phil Jackson, Michael,
you're a selfish player. Do you want to win championships
or be a scoring champ? Trust your teammates more. Phil
(05:34):
Jackson the smartest basketball coach at my entire lifetime, perhaps ever,
probably ever. Michael understood that. That was the first Phil.
The other Phil was Phil Knight, the number one visionary
in American sports marketing in the history of my life.
The two fills. Now give Jordan credit. He was glamorous,
(05:55):
he was great, he was focused, He was capable of
being coached if he respected you. So he deserves a
lot of credit for that. I mean, people all over
this country try to help people and they just won't listen.
Michael listened and became probably the greatest basketball player ever
when he started trusting teammates and winning championships. But just
think of the power of the Air Jordan marketing brand.
(06:19):
It has created a shield around Michael that any criticism.
But Colin, he won at North Carolina. A lot of
people have won championships at Carolina and Kansas and Yukon
and Duke. College basketball has always been lobsided. Six programs
have most of the talent. Well, he won in the Olympics. Yes,
that team was pretty loaded. He had helped beating Tunisia.
(06:43):
Nobody's discounting how great of a college player, how great
of an Olympian, How great of a player, how great
of a marketer. But what I'm saying is there's a
lot of mythology as if he wasn't difficult early pre Pippin,
He's won exactly one playoff series pre Pippin. Is that
he didn't need coaching, or that baseball wasn't a failure.
(07:03):
May I appreciate the effort, or that the Wizards wasn't
a disaster even as an owner. It was classic Michael.
He made a fortune owning the Hornets, but he could
control the narrative as a player. He couldn't as an owner.
People take things that happened to Michael real things like
he punched a teammate. That's a cheap shot. Well, Draymond
(07:24):
punched the teammate. Is that a cheap shot. All of
the issues are oas well. It was just very competitive.
Draymond's not competitive, but Colin Draymond works at the volume.
The point being is think of the power of the
Air Jordan marketing campaign, probably the most brilliant campaign ever.
(07:45):
And for the record, there's a reason it works. Michael's
great looking. Michael's got glamour. Michael the dress, the earring,
the smile, the game, the penash. Michael had it all right.
He's an easy guy to market. But take a deep breath.
You can criticize every basketball player ever except Michael. He
(08:06):
was human two. He had floss two. With the NFL
season over all, eyes in the sporting world turned everything
from the NBA to college hoops to the NHL. Plenty
of games to watch, are even better, plenty of games
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It's lowest price guaranteed. Well, we wish we had him
on more often. He's a busy guy. I'm not sure
he's got a law degree. I'm not sure if he's
practicing law. But it's college basketball, it's law, It's I'm
(09:13):
sure a lot of public speaking he is. Jay billis
probably the most area day college basketball analyst of my lifetime.
And my only complaint about Jay billis is I don't
see enough of Jay billis. So he comes on our
podcast and we feel lucky today. First of all, how
are you? How are things? Do you still practice? I'm
still with my law firm. I've been with the same
law firm for coming up on thirty years now. But
(09:33):
I don't really practice anymore. I'm still license to practice,
and I do my continuing legal education every year to
keep my license up. But if you need a name
change or a divorce or a ticket taken care of,
I can handle that. Other than that, I don't. I
don't practice much. Okay, I got about twelve parking tickets.
I'll get back down that. Jay. I think college basketball,
(09:57):
if you take our domestic sports college and pro, is
the top for sport to coach. I think it's really
really difficult when you ask coaches, you know, in college football.
Nick Saban gets a kid for three or four years.
John Calipari gets him for you know, like a semester.
I think it's really hard. That's why Jay Wright, Roy Williams,
Mike Shashevsky. I could see guys saying this is this
(10:18):
is insane. Then you had the transfer portal. It's just
this really difficult Jumbalaya, I think to coach, am I
wrong on that? Or do you sense we're asking a
lot now of college basketball coaches and it's not realistic
to think we're going to see some burnout with these
top coaches. Maybe, I mean, I agree with you maybe
on Jay Wright, that the job has changed, and he
(10:40):
is at the tail end. He could probably go another
you know, five or six years at great health and youth.
I mean, I think Roy Williams and Coach K quit
because they were older. If they were in their forties
or fifties, I think they'd adjust to this in no
time and they wouldn't have a problem with that. You know,
(11:00):
these guys make a ton of money now, so they
can quit when they feel like it. If But you know,
when I was younger, Colin, I don't know exactly how
old you are, but I grew up in Los Angeles,
and when John Wooden retired, I was probably in sixth
grade and he was sixty five years old, and I
thought he was the oldest man that had ever lived.
And now these guys, you know, Jim Bams like seventy eight,
(11:22):
and Coach K's seventy six, and Roy Williams is in
his early seventies, and you know, you got Jim Larnagas
in his mid seventies and Leonard Hamilton. All these guys
are coaching way later. Than ever, and you've got a
lot of old school guys and that's okay. But one
thing that's easier about college now is you can you
can get a good team overnight. You know, you can
(11:46):
lose a good team overnight too with the transfer portal.
But you know, the NCAA was the one to put
that rule in, and they put it in because they
were fighting over money and the transfer restriction was making
him look really bad. It was the equivalent of a
non compete provision and an employment contract, and they want
to say, well, they're not employees. And then they were
restricting them on where they'd go to school and make
(12:08):
them sit out like a non compete. It is just
kind of crazy. So I went back this morning knowing
you were on, and I went back and looked at
some of your teams, and I went back and looked
at I covered two duke final fours of the Denver
game where they lost to the Rebels and then the
following year when they upset them. Grant Hill was the freshman.
(12:30):
But one of the things I looked at was scores.
And if you're twenty years old on a college campus,
you're saying, right now, look at this defense and my
takeaway is, well, the defense was good back in eighty
eight ninety. The differences you had juniors and seniors who
were going to play in the NBA on rosters is
that it does feel like this has been a two
or three year trend where it's becoming more of a
(12:50):
defensive tournament. By the way I've watched every game, I've
loved it. I don't think it's quite as gifted offensive
leak is the great offensive players often pivot to professional basketball.
Is that it feels like to me, Jy, this has
been a defensive tournament. Like I watched Tennessee Duke and
I thought Tennessee's defense is just closing down on Duke.
(13:11):
I saw Michigan State today. They shot twelve vercent on
threes and they won, so that it might take away
in the tournament. It feels a good defensive tournament. Am
I wrong? No, you're right, But but the reason in
my view that it feels different, like I think the
players now are more skilled than they were thirty years ago.
I don't even think it's close now. Do we have
(13:31):
the four year superstars that we had back then? No,
because the true superstars leave early. But these guys are
way more skilled than back in the day. They can
shoot it better, they can do everything. The game is
way more physical now. I mean, it's ridiculous on cuts.
That Tennessee Duke game that you're referencing, that was not
(13:52):
a basketball game. That was a hockey game, and it
was officiated like a hockey game. Um, there were there
were fouls that were flagrant, fouls that were not called flagrant,
and I can't understand why. I've talked to several officials
about it, and all of them seem to agree that
that that that should not have happened that way. But
we're seeing that more and more that the game has
(14:13):
become more physical. And when I say physical, I'm not
talking about physical on blockouts. Like when when I was
playing back in the eighties. You know that people thought
about the Big East. Oh, the Big East so physical,
and it was less physical than this Now. The difference
is they didn't have flagrant fouls back then, so when
you fouled somebody, you put them in the wood and
(14:35):
then a fight started. Now if you do that, you
get tossed out of the game. And now a foul
that would have been a normal subway push back in
the eighties is called a flagrant more often. Um, so
we've cleaned a lot of that stuff up. But the
general contact now on drives, on screening, on cuts is
(14:59):
way more than it used to be. Those would have
been fouls in a heartbeat back in the eighties and nineties,
and now they're they're called incidental contact. So I watched
Duke more than any basketball team college basketball this year.
I watched them about six times, but I did watch
them all at home and then two games in the tournament.
So my takeaway was, you know, I've seen more of them,
(15:21):
and I think they'll I'm going to go with them.
It's very rare one a number one loses early, but
to have three number ones lose early? Is it coincidental?
Are the margins smaller between great teams and good teams?
What do you make of all the number one seeds
getting bounced? Well we've had this year, there's not been
(15:42):
as much separation from sort of great to very good.
So the top seven or eight teams I think remained
in the top ten throughout the year, not because they
were that much better than everybody else. They were just
more consistent. And whether it was per due or Arizona,
you name it. They were more consistent at a high level.
(16:04):
But we expected there to be kind of a turbulent
ride through the tournament. I didn't I didn't anticipate, uh,
you know, Purdue losing to Fairley Dickinson. Um that that
that should never have happened. And and not to take
anything away from Fairley Dickinson. I was trying to explain,
like at one point, you know how in our job,
after a game, if you say, you know, wait a minute,
(16:26):
like Perdue was horrible, that shouldn't have happened. They're going
to give some credit to Fairley Dickinson. No, Fairley Dike,
Fairly Dickinson did everything they needed to do to win.
All credit to them for winning the game. But let's
not let's not gloss over the Purdue sucked. And and
it's kind of like when when Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson,
we weren't saying there's one of the great heavyweights of
(16:48):
all time. He just beat one of the great Like,
come on, Mike Tyson sucked and it didn't make Buster
Douglas great, and and that that was sort of the
discussion of that. So we've had some we've had some
teams stepping a big pile of it early on. Arizona
did it with Princeton, but Princeton is pretty good. Like
(17:10):
that was that Princeton played really well and Arizona played
really poorly, and so that was a combination of things.
But Princeton dominated Missouri. They they're actually just as good
as Missouri. You know that if they played ten times,
it would probably be five and five. Um, But I
will see what happens when they move on. But um,
it's just not been one of those years where there's
(17:32):
been great, you know, great teams that have separated like
Baylor and get Zaga did a couple of years ago.
I'm going to mention a coach and you tell me
his strength, uh, and just what he does really at
a high level. If I watched the entire I always
feel like Michigan State's got just length and bigs. And
(17:52):
they did add a couple huge blocks at the end
of the game today that just felt like as big
a defensive plays as the tournament had had. So if
I said to you in a short paragraph, Tomzzo strength is,
I would normally say, first toughness, Like his teams play tough,
they're disciplined in a good way, and he's very astute
(18:13):
offensively great after timeouts, he can get his team a
shot whenever he wants. Defensively, they're usually really good. They've
not been as good this year. They're they're they're solid,
but they're not great, and they're big guys are solid,
not great, so they're not as powerful a rebounding team.
But Tom Izzo is one of the best game prep guys,
(18:38):
best practice guys, and spends an enormous amount of time
with his team off the floor, so he knows those
guys inside now, and he's not like I get a
little tired of hearing people talk about motivation, you know, like,
really good players don't need to be motivated, they need
to be inspired. And Tom's an inspiring type. Now he
(19:00):
can get on him now, you know he'll he'll he'll
hit him to their core. But he builds him up too.
And uh, And I think he's one of the best
that's ever done it in any sport. I think he
could coach football tomorrow, would be just as good of
a coach. A guy that wasn't the first choice of
his school. And I had my doubts, but I think
he's just done a tremendous job. Mick Cronin at UCLA.
(19:21):
Mix surprised me at UCLA honestly when he took the job,
I was I was thinking, I don't know if he's
gonna like it there, and I don't know if Bill
I don't know if Bill Ball's gonna like him. Um,
you know, like like after he hears him talk, you know,
and and all the you know, he could throw an
expletive in there every once in a while in practice,
and Bill would like John Wood, have ever said that. Um,
(19:44):
but he's always been a great defensive coach and talk
about tough like he gets guys to do things, and
at his size, of him to go and you know,
go at a big guy, you know, and get him
to get him to do things they don't want to
do is always amazed me. But the thing that's been
great is like how now that he has some what
(20:07):
I would say, better and more skilled players, how varied
his offense has become where it never appeared that way
to me at Cincinnati. He's always had it in his bag,
but he didn't he wasn't able to use it there
because he didn't have those type of players and now
he does. And you know, I like teasing Mick, like
you probably get a kick out of this. So I've
always teased Mick about his size. I'm a little bigger
(20:28):
than him. I think I noticed. And when he was
at Cincinnati, Raftery and mcdonna and I were coming in
and I would always kill Mick it like rubber chicken
dinners and all that over his size. When I knows
something and I'm walking into practice and his trainer was
given him some aspirin and he's got one of these
tiny little cups to take the water to take the aspirin.
(20:49):
And I walked in. He's got this tiny cup in
his hands, and he's like, oh Jesus, like like you know,
because I'm gonna be able to kill him about it.
You know, he's got to have the tiny cup. And
I love that guy. I just think he's one of
the best guys and truly one of the best coaches. Yeah,
I didn't know how his recruiting would go because I
knew the kind of guys he recruited at Cincinnati, and
(21:09):
I thought, I don't know if it's gonna work here. Boy,
they play hard hard. It Roles reminds me of Tim
Gurgerich and un LV. Everybody thought they were flashy, and
I covered him for six years. I've never seen a
team practice like that. I mean, Mike Shachevski once told
me at a Final four in Denver. He goes, I've
never never played a team that place that hard. It's
(21:31):
just insane. So I do want to go. I want
to talk Calipari for a second. So you know, obviously
the Anthony Davis championship year, he's I think if he
got a second people would back off a little. There's
a huge gap between one and two. But I also
think John does care about the players. I've asked friends
of mine in coaching, Mark Fu and other coaches, and
(21:53):
they're like, listen, John can coach. I watched today. Kansas
State had real players. They got a couple of all
conference guys. So let's not pretend that you know Kentuck.
His players are here in Kansas State down there, they
got Wildcats have real good players. Is it fair though,
to say for the talent um, sometimes they've underachieved. How
do you how do you view Calipari's Kentucky run because
it was wobbly a bit this year, Well, cal shocked
(22:16):
me when he went to Kentucky. You know, I was
still and I've had periods of my life and career
where I get stuck in old school thinking. And when
he got to Kentucky and recruited that John Wall, Eric Bledsoe,
DeMarcus Cousins group, and he was going to go with
all freshmen, sort of the one and done thing. I thought,
(22:38):
can't win that way, Like you might be able to
win regular season game, I'm not going to win a
championship that way. And I was so wrong like like that,
he championed that and it was incredibly successful, and I
think he's an unbelievable coach, and I agree with you.
I think he does care about the players at the
(22:59):
at the high level. Now. You know, Cal can come
off publicly like a used car salesmen of times trying
to explain stuff to people. But he's an unbelievably good guy,
Like he's a really good person and a good guy,
I do think. And I'm not talked to him about this,
and I should if especially if I'm going to say
(23:19):
what I'm about to say, but I think he over
estimated the transfer portal and where the game was headed,
like he was ahead on the one and done thing.
He was first, and then coach k kind of followed
him in that and realized, Hey, we're playing against these
guys and someone want to come here, you might as well,
(23:40):
like we should. We need to start taking them. And
you know, Cal went into the transfer portal last year
and his teams aren't as talented. They're they're good, but
they're not as talented as they've been. That team he
had in twenty fifteen that was thirty eight no before
they lost to Wisconsin. I really believe this Wisconsin was
the only team that could have been them that year,
(24:01):
the only team because of the way they played and
how old they were and the type of team they had.
But you know, how do you how do you have
a program like that that's that's consistently you know, great,
and then if you have a down year, people are
losing their minds because it's not like the guys that
are recruiting, the four year guys are outpacing outpacing Cow.
(24:24):
They're not. But the last two years, you know, they
just haven't been Kentucky because I don't think they've been
as talented, like they've brought in really good players that
came from somewhere else, but they're not. They're not lottery
picks like he's had. The tournament's heating up. No better
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(26:44):
I'm a believer in nil and I'm a believer in
transfer Portalum. One of the things I did say in football,
I said, I think I can be pro something and
there has to be guardrails. I can be pro sports gambling,
but think there need to be certain guardrails. I said
in foot ball, I think you should the first game
starts and the last game ends, you can't transfer. Then
(27:06):
I don't want a Wolverine transferring to Ohio State before
the game and taking like trade secrets. That was my
thing is just just put some guardrails up. I'm good
with all of it. But then again, we've had coaches,
you know, leave, you know before the season's over. You've
been a big proponent of nil transfer portal. Take on
(27:28):
my guardrail comment. Should we just have no guardrails? Are
there anything? Is there anything about either basketball or college
football transferring or nil that that does worry you? It
doesn't worry me. But I think there can and should
be reasonable regulation to everything. And and your point, your example,
and I know was taken to the extreme to make
a point of you know, a player transferring, you know
(27:51):
before a bowl game to there our tribal. We don't
have to worry about that. That's not an issue that's
not going to happen, and you know nobody's going to
do that, just like you wouldn't have an assistant coach
take a job before a game. I mean, they're the
ones that have more trade secrets than the players, and
they move around like crazy, including to their art tribals.
(28:12):
So that's not an issue. The biggest issue that the
nc DOUBLEA has with all of this is on the
legal side. You know, when they act in concert, it's
a cartel and they're running a foul of federal anti
trust law and all this stuff that the NCP is
talking about. About, Well, we can't make the players employees.
(28:33):
Yes you can. These schools employ thousands of students annually,
like there's a school in my home my home state
that employs six thousand of their own students a year.
Of course they can do it. They don't want to,
and they want Congress to bail them out. The problem
we have now is is because they wanted to just
(28:54):
do the nil thing, they can't. They can't control any
of it. And if they just paid the players and
made them employees, they'd be able to control it like
they controlled their coaches, like they control their staff members,
like they control their administ administrators. It's not that hard,
but we're making it really hard because they just don't
want to do it. And we get all these excuses about, well,
(29:17):
you start paying players, then goodbide all these other sports. No, no, no,
none of that's true. They're not going to cancel all
these sports. You know, they always ask where's the money
going to come from? They asked that when I was playing,
where's the money going to come from? And then they
signed these megamedia deals and the you know, so much
of the money that the athletic department that runs through
(29:40):
there goes back to the school. They'll say, well, the
scholarships are so expensive, Really, well, where are you paying
that money? They're paying it to the school. So they
have an athletic department account and they pay it to
the school. They're not out of nickel. That school is
not out of a nickel for a scholarship. And years ago,
what the NCAA schools did was they they basically said,
(30:02):
all right, the athletic departments have to be self sustaining.
But I don't think they imagined that they were going
to make this much money. So the schools are charging
these crazy rates for food service and you know, rent
and maintenance and all this stuff, it's going back to
the school. So they're taking a huge chunk of that
and huge, huge salaries are being paid. Gigantic staffs are
(30:25):
being put together. You know, you mentioned Colin when you
were covering Duke in ninety ninety one. I was a
graduate assistant. I was on the staff that I was
an assistant coach, a grad assistant. When we went on
a road trip, we flew commercial and took one bus
when we got there. So it's one bus. They have
to have two now to carry all the staff, you know.
(30:45):
So the staff and the players are now two of
these gigantic coach buses that you take in Europe, you know,
and these things. These athletic departments are bigger than the Pentagon. Now.
They got plenty of money, and it's not a it's
not a concern paying the players. They just don't want
to and we're gonna do it at some point, whether
it's five years, three years, whatever, They're going to decide
(31:08):
it is cleaner and easier to sign these players to contracts.
They'll retain them better and then they'll they'll have control
over what ANIL deals they can have then if they're
paying them, just like our companies pay us, they can
tell us what we can and can't do. They buy
that right through the employment contract. It's really as simple.
(31:28):
It works for the rest of the free world. The
idea that it won't work for college athletes is kind
of observed. So Mike Shashevski maybe it's because I covered him.
I've said this the other day on my show. I said,
Duke is the greatest team sport success story of my
sportscasting career. In forty years. They've had one losing season
(31:51):
and that was the back surgery season where coach k
couldn't walk. They went nine and three and they just
literally couldn't walk. There's nothing else like it. That's double
the Atriots dynasty, which in itself is absurd considering it's
a regulated violence, players get hurt. Makes no sense at
all to have a football dynasty for twenty years. But
I read the Ian O'Connor book. I love. I think
(32:13):
Ian's just stupendous, and you know it's funny. I read
it and the criticisms of Mike and I and I
have a lot of respect for Ian. He's not out
there to just throw out Haymakers. I found them almost likable.
That you know, Mike is a fighter, you know, the
army background, his size. Personally, it made me dislike Bob
(32:36):
Knight more and like Mike Zewski more, just because the
battle and he wanted to carve his own way and
he didn't want to be seen in the shadow of
Bobby after a while, which is I completely understand that
when you hear that and the hare have been critics
of Mike's offense, wasn't very creative, or he coached the
(32:57):
Olympic team, just one of it lands for me. Maybe
I'm just maybe I'm not, maybe I have a confirmation
bias that I just I've always liked him. Was there
ever a criticism of coach k and you went, that's
on target. Yeah, that's a fair because I when I
read books and articles, I'm always like, it just doesn't
land to me. I think he's authentic. I think he's
a fighter. I think he's tough. I think he's super smart.
(33:20):
As you noted earlier in the One and Done, he's flexible,
he acknowledges when he's wrong. Was there ever any criticism
you heard of him and thought, maybe that's fair I'm
sure there has been. I can't think of an example,
because he's like I love him, you know, I've known
him since I was seventeen years old. There's probably I
(33:41):
don't think this is an overstatement. I wouldn't be doing
anything I'm doing now if it weren't for him. I
might be doing something like it. But I wouldn't have
gone to law school if not for him, I wouldn't
have I don't think I would have been in broadcasting
if not for him. I certainly would have had the
basketball life i've had if not for him. You know,
(34:01):
he made it possible for me to go to law school.
He offered me a spot on his staff, and then
he was very helpful in getting me into law school
and convincing the law school that I could I could
work as a coach and go to school at the
same time. Nobody wanted that to happen at Duke, and
he made it happen. And he told me at the time,
he goes, if this doesn't work out, you can always quit.
(34:23):
And I didn't know whether you met quit law school
or quit coaching, but I still never asked him that.
But when I was coming out of high school, you know.
I was one of these players where you know when
you you know, when you're in high school, you become
a good player. You know, local paper or the LA
Times or something does a story on you and they
ask you what do you want to do after basketball?
And I didn't have an answer. I didn't know. And
(34:46):
so at that time, like Frank Gifford was in broadcasting
and Don Drysdale was in broadcasting, so I said, well,
maybe broadcasting. And all the coaches that were recruiting me
read that, and Coach K did something about out of it it.
Like others would introduce you to somebody at the school
that was in the communications department, give you a tour
of it. Coach K introduced me to Chuck Howard, who
(35:08):
was a big time producer at ABC Sports, and I
got a job working for ABC Sports as a production assistant.
During the summertime, I was a runner basically, so I
did the I did. I did the Olympics and eighty
four in LA. I did Monday night baseball. Um I did. Uh.
I used to do bowling. I did bowling events with
(35:29):
Chris Schenkel and Nelson Burton Junior, and um I got
I got all this. It was awesome. I got all this,
I met all these people, some of whom I still
worked with today, and that got me. That got me
in the door. And he was very thoughtful about, Okay,
this is what you want to do. Here's how we'll
make it happen. And he wasn't like some Svengali doing it.
(35:52):
He was trying to help you. And and he thought, hey,
maybe I wanted to get into coaching, offered me a
spot on his staff or and but but he knew
I wanted to go to Lass school, so he greased
the skids for that to happen. And h you know,
without him doing that, I don't I don't know what
I where I would have been. I don't think I
would have been selling pencils on the street somewhere. I
think I would have been okay. But but my life
(36:13):
would have looked a lot different if I hadn't said,
you know, I want to play for you, and when
I when I did, when I committed to him out
of high school, he was the least well known and
least accomplished coach that was recruiting me. I had no
idea who he was when he called me the first time,
no clue never heard of him, and I just really
liked him and throughout the four years I played and
(36:36):
after that. He's not like, he is not perfect. He
makes mistakes like everybody else, and he's ultra competitive, but
off the like one thing he never did. He may
he may jump you in practice and you feel like
you're the worst player it's ever played. He does not
carried off the floor. As soon as practice is over.
(36:57):
He may still be pissed off for a while, but
as soon as practice is over, he's he he likes
you again, like he's good. Um, now back on the floor.
You better do what you're supposed to do and the
next day or he'll jump you again. But he never,
like a lot of guys, carried off the floor, and
he doesn't do that. You know, Um, I'm in my
late fifties and you're probably in your fifth lay Yeah, yeah,
(37:23):
it's always hard to guess. Um, Harold Minor Pearl Washington
m iconic and devastating college players doesn't work in pro basketball. Um,
Christian Laytner was better than people think. Keith van Horne
both were actually pretty good scores in the NBA. Whenever
I hear the bus label, like cringe, because they were
both actually could score. Um, go back to all the
(37:46):
years you have done this, name a player who either
surprised you how good he was in the NBA. You
watched him in college you thought he would and then
you watched them as a pro, and you went, instead
of finding a guy that didn't do it, let's find
a guy that J Billis thinks. And I thought, by
the way, I thought one Dixon was going to carve
(38:07):
the league up and he was a twiner, I was
totally wrong. Give me a college guy that shocked you
with his production in the NBA shocked me. When Dwight
Howard came out of high school, I thought he was
unskilled and didn't know how to play, and so I
was thinking, how how's this going to work? You know,
(38:28):
there are certain things he can't do and all that.
You know, he doesn't guard this, he didn't do this.
And I had friends of mine the NBA say, doesn't matter,
like his athleticism, trump's all that like, they don't make
him like that very often. And I was still stuck in.
That's what I was saying before about getting stuck in
old school. Thinking. I was still stuck in. You know
(38:51):
this high school kid, he can't do these things. He's
not ready yet and not thinking long term like he's
going to be ready in a couple of years, Like
this is not that big of a deal, and he'll
learn how to do some of these things. And then
you know he was a you know, all time great
Hall of famer um and that that took me a
(39:11):
while to wrap my head around, and I got over
it pretty quickly to now that doesn't even bother me.
You know, like like some young kid that that you think,
hey man, you should stick around, and they shouldn't stick
around if they're if they're that talented, if they want
to go, Like I think every young person should be
in college. I think that's the best place for a
young adult to be. But you know, these geniuses in
(39:34):
all these different fields, whether it's you're a genius and
coding or uh, you know, business or whatever, or you're
a genius musician, you know, you can leave college and
go back. And it's the same for an athlete. They've
got a finite amount of time and they should go. Yeah,
there's a there's a I remember looking at video of
Dame Lillard and I told Tom Penn, who was the
(39:56):
Gym of Portland. I'm like, he's got kind of a
quirky shot. I don't know, and then and then obviously wrong.
And then Kevin Durant. I remember telling somebody, God, he
weighs one hundred eighty, who's he going to defend? And
he's like, yeah, he's gonna be fine. He's going to
score thirty points a night. Well, this has been fun.
Before we do this, we're going to watch the TCU
(40:16):
Gonzaga game, which starts about ten minutes from right now.
Mark Few is one of my favorite people. You know,
I went to college at Eastern Washington University and watched
John Stockton score forty two against Eastern Washington. You know,
we talked about coaches. Will end with this if I
say Mark Few what sticks for you? What's his strength?
(40:40):
His strength is he's a savant offensively and he is
a true believer. Like you know, I've been friends with
him for a long time. He's one of the people
not only I respect, but absolutely love. And I mean
that truly. I been one of those that maybe ten
(41:02):
years ago or so, said you ought to think about
this other job. You know, job would come open, they'd
want Fewey and say you ought to take that you
can win you can win a championship there, and you go,
I can win one here. I think he was the
only one that really believed that. Maybe some people on
the staff, but he was the only one that really
believed that Gonzaga could do this. So when you were
saying before about Duke, you know, and the Patriots, the
(41:24):
greatest thing you've covered, I was thinking you might want
to throw Gonzaga in there, because you know, few has
gotten a ton of guys fired over the years because
all these presidents think that their coach, they hire this guy,
their coach can make them into Gonzaga and they can't
like what he's done there is ridiculous. It's ridiculous, like
(41:45):
this year, or they went into the tournament as a
number twelve in the country in a three seat and
people are disappointed. People are disappointed, and you go, they're
the West Coast Conference. They almost closed that. You know
this better, you know, having gone to school right there.
They almost close the doors on that school in the
mid nineties, and the basketball program saved the school. If
(42:07):
they didn't go to the Elite eight and ninety nine,
there's a good chance that that Gonzaga might not have survived,
and now it's one of the hottest schools in the West,
and that program is internationally known and everybody now they're
getting bagged on because well, they haven't won it yet.
They haven't won it yet. You know, they've been to
the tournament twenty some straight years and all you know,
(42:30):
they've been to the championship game twice. They've been to
Elite eights and seventh straight Sweet sixteens. They're the only
team in the country that's done that, and if they
do it today, it'll be eight straight. Nobody's done that now.
And they go, wow, they can't win in the tournament, like, oh, oh,
so the West Coast Conference and you want to bag
on that. But then they get to the tournament and
they do something that no other programs done, Like how
(42:52):
does that work? How did they pull that trick? He's
one of the like he's really he's unbelievable how he
is with the players, Like in practice, you know, he's
he's hard nosed and he's tough, but at the same time,
like he's got a sense of humor with him and
he strikes the right balance, like he wants those guys
(43:13):
to fall out, and they're not going to run some
cute little mid major offense. They're gonna they're gonna they're
gonna run what beats the big shots. And because they
are one of the big shots, like they're they're as
big shot as any program they get, you know, they
get players now that anybody would love. Um. They're not
just like, Okay, we got to get a few guards
(43:34):
and make a bunch of threes and see if we can,
you know, throw a rock at Goliath. They are Goliath
now and it's it's I think it's one of the
great stories in sports history. Frankly in this country. I
was on his deck. He's got a beautiful home and
spoken overlooking the valley and name dropping. We were having
a beer and there was a caribou up by his pool.
You know, it's unbelievable, and we were talking about you know,
(43:57):
and he said, first of all, he goes, we have
two great boosts. I can always fly private. He goes
a lot of these big jobs can't. And he said,
you know, the second thing is I can recruit a
three star kid and nobody's crushing me over. And he goes,
some of these kids, they're they're just raw. They just
need love. And he said, I love those players. They
define our program. He goes, you bring a three star
guy into a Kentucky or a Carolt of your boosters
(44:19):
are all over you, and he's like, he's like, I
found you know, I found Oregons come after him. UCLA's
come after him. He's like, he's like, I've found my home.
And it's He's impossible when you meet him to not
root for. I find one of those seminal people in
my job. Impossible not to root for. If you ever
meet Mark Few, I just love him. Yeah, he's just
(44:39):
like the nicest guy and like you can sit out
on his deck. He'll never talk about basketball, talk about
other stuff. And he's got other interests. He goes fishing
and all this. All that, he got a balanced life.
His wife Marcy's great, got a great family. He and
his assistants are all like great friends. Now they're former
players because he's getting up there. He's getting up there
(45:00):
in our stratus age wise, he's older than me. But
he's just a he's just a normal good dude that's
got extraordinary ability and like he's one of the real
good guys in the game. Well, you're a busy guy.
Let's go watch that game. You have so many responsibilities
and family and job, and I just appreciate you taking
thirty minutes for us. I really genuinely appreciate it. No,
(45:22):
it's my pleasure. And I have two families I can
I can hang with either one of them. I appreciate it.
Thanks Jay, all right, brother the Volume. Make sure to
(45:48):
check out the dram On Green Show. I brought Draymond
Green into the volume because one of the more entertaining
voices in sports. Unique perspective understands behind the rope, also
chops up with guests like Gary Peyton, Zach Levine, Tracy McGrady.
Make sure download The Draymond Green Show wherever you get
your podcasts, only on the Volume podcast Network.
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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