ALL BALL: March Madness Preview with Field of 68’s Rob Dauster, UWGB Asst.Keil Ganz on 2025-26 Turnaround, Coaching Path

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
We come in. I am Doug Gottlieb. Yeah, it says
behind me, it says it on the little tyron, and
I'm coming to you from Green Bay, Wisconsin, from the
head coach of the Fight in Phoenix of Wisconsin, Green Bay.
We are in your homes and if you want to
watch this, you can go to WFRV Plus and as

(00:28):
we continue to get picked up by other stations in
the next Star Digital Network. Also, obviously you can see
us on WFRV TV as well as we are live
here on a Sunday night of selection Sunday. And of
course you can download this in podcast form wherever you

(00:49):
download podcast on the iHeart podcast network, So we're available
in your ear or on your screen or on your
phone or on your computer. Or you can say that
guys an idiot. I've never liked him, and I don't
want to watch, and you're well within your means to
do so. This time of year, everybody I know on

(01:10):
Earth breaks out their bracket and says, I need a tip,
I need a team, or they have some sort of formula.
I could do a show like that, but in all honesty,
and we'll do other shows throughout the week as we
get ready for the games, which actually begin on Tuesday
and Wednesday. That's the first four. It's technically not necessarily

(01:32):
in your bracket and your Bracket challenge, but it is
part of the tournament, even if it's the play in,
but the bracket itself begins Thursday. And as a kid
growing up in southern California, my dad used to get
me out of schools the coolest thing ever and take
me to one or two of the sports bars that

(01:53):
had the old big satellites that you had to move
and you could watch the games, and it was awesome,
And the only person that we all hated was whoever
at CBS was the guy who decided to switch the
games back and forth. If you only had one TV
and you were watching a game and was coming to
its culmination, and all of a sudden it flipped over

(02:14):
to the Duke game, or to the Michigan game, or
the Kentucky game which rated better, or whatever game in
your area. If you're in California, the UCLA game that
would be played. I have done almost all of what
you can do in this space. I was a fan.

(02:34):
I went to Final fours as a kid. My dad
was a coach, I was a little bit too young
to remember him. As a college coach. Then I played
in the NCAA Tournament three times at Oklahoma State. We
played in the Elite eight, we didn't reach the Final four.
That one I can't get back. And then as a broadcaster,
I've literally done it all except for calling the Final

(02:57):
four games, although I was on the set of the
Final Four with CBS and Turner, and most recently I
got a chance to be the pre halftime in postgame
analyst for Westwood One at Final Four games. And now
I'm a college basketball coach. Ill obviously we have not
reached the NCAA Tournament yet, but that's the goal and

(03:17):
ultimately I know it will happen, and I can't imagine
what that's like to go from a player, a broadcaster,
and then a coach, all being a part of the
NCAA Tournament. It is the best, it's the best, and
it's the most democratic because if you win, you keep playing.
If you win, you keep playing. The tournament has already begun.

(03:37):
It began championship week when ninety percent of the teams
because not everybody qualifies for their conference tournament in some
of these conferences, I disagree with that that if we're
going to have anybody can make it, then anybody can
make it. And the only rule is if you keep winning,
you keep playing, you win your conference tournament, you get
to go to the NCAA tournament, you get the NCAA Tournament,
even the first four, and we've seen this happen, you know,

(03:59):
from the infants of the first four with VCU big
boys have done it. From UCLA in the first four
all the way to the final four. You keep winning,
you keep playing. But what we've put together, I believe
is a really good show. In one of my assistant coaches,
kil Ganz, who's been a top level Division two assistant

(04:19):
and is one of my assistant coaches I believe will
be a head coach very soon, maybe too soon, maybe
this year. He's going to join me. We'll talk about
his path. We'll also talk with Rob Doster, who is
a college basketball analyst for Field of sixty eight. If
you're an insider college basketball nerd the way I am,
you know Field of sixty eight they cover the sport
better than anybody else. But we'll also talk about this year,

(04:42):
this tournament and what you need to know leading into it.
The most important thing I want you to understand is
that forget about whether it's kids and it's fun whatever,
I when you're the actual coach there, as fans or
even as a broadcaster, you have no idea of all

(05:06):
of the things that are going into every decision that
is made. One of the foremost coaches in foreign basketball
is is David Blat. David Blatt has been a famous
international coach, most notably for Maccabi Tel Aviv, and he
of course was the head coach for the Cleveland Cavaliers
for I think of a year and a half with
Lebron James and his one of his quotes that people

(05:30):
in the media killed him for was being a head
coach in the NBA is like being a fighter pilot,
where you're making two hundred decisions at any one moment.
And people laughed at it and scoffed at it, and
the reality is that's exactly what you're doing. You don't
know who's healthy, you don't know who's hurt, you don't
know the truly the matchups, or what the coaching staffs

(05:53):
are thinking, or what their plan A, their plan B
or planing C. And sometimes those plans go awry? What
is it the quote the best plans of mice and
men often go awry when there's foul trouble or somebody
rolls their ankle, or somebody misses their first three shots,
or somebody forgets a play or forgets a coverage. And
do you hold them accountable in the NCAA tournament when

(06:14):
you've held them accountable and take them out of the game,
how long do you leave them out? When you leave
them out that the team going to run. All of
those things kind of play a factor in Is there
an official that's officiating game that you may feel like
has a personal beef with the head coach and assistant
coach or every time we get them he kills us.
All these things are a reality of what actually happens
or the way in which a game is officiated. Oftentimes,

(06:37):
early NCAA tournament games are super tightly officiated. Why is that?
It's because the officials are graded okay on calls they
get right and calls they miss, And a non call
that is wrong is just the same as a call
that is the wrong call that they didn't have to call.
I call no calls is how it's graded out. But

(06:57):
generally they try, and they're trying to be perfect because
the better you grade out, the more likely you are
to advance as an official. So the first round games
are often very tightly officiated, and once you get to
the final four, it's a little more loosely officiated because
those guys have already made it and they've already advanced.

(07:17):
And it doesn't mean that the grading system is wrong.
It just means that at the end of the day,
the best of the best and they have a better
feel for how to officiate a game. But despite all
of those decisions you have to make within the context
at each game, there's a million things going on you

(07:39):
don't know about, and what you should appreciate is teams
and groups just figuring it out. Teams and groups just finguut.
What's that mean. It means that at the end of
the day, and this is where you can relate to
your life, your business, even a night where you're trying

(08:02):
to have a good time and you don't have a plan.
But really more in the business sense is at the
end of the day, you can plan out this and
that and feel like you have a better product than
somebody else or but you just have to figure out
a way to win the day. That's it. You have
to figure out a way in which you have one
more point than your opponent at the end of the day.

(08:24):
They can be better than you, they can be worse
than you. They can have a guy that's hot, you
can have a guy that's playing terrible. Whatever your initial
plan may not work, just figure out a way to
when the clock strike zero, you have one more point
and you get to live another day. That's it, live
another day. There's a certain hunger games to it. Obviously,
you're not killing one another, and I understand that's a

(08:45):
dystopian look at society, but the whole thing is just
about survival. Who cares how pretty it is? Who cares
if you play away in which you hadn't played all year,
you play a lineup you hadn't played all year together.
You just find a way to figure it out. And
I think I think one of the best examples was

(09:09):
Duke in twenty ten. Okay, for people who don't know
Duke in the early two thousands. They were a team
that played one way. They pressured you and then they
spread you out and they put their big guy at
the top of the key, and they'd run a ball screen,
and they were just better than their opponents, and they
tried to wear you down by the volume of possessions,

(09:30):
the volume of times that they pressured you. And occasionally
they would have players that weren't good enough at playing
that way and they wouldn't achieve the previous greatness of Duke.
And somewhere about mid season they changed. In twenty ten,
John Shires, now the head coach of Duke, was one
of their stars. So too was Nolan Smith, who's taken
Tennessee State to the NCAA Tournament this year in his

(09:52):
first year at the Helm. But they they put into
the starting lineup Brian Zubek, who was a tremendous rebounder
and just a mountain of a man, and they changed
how they played defensively and played much more pack line defense,
which if you're in Green Bay, you know that the
creator of the pack line defense was Dick Bennett, who also,
by the way, didn't play that way when he was

(10:14):
the head coach at Steven's Point. When he was at
Steven's Point, he pressured, but when he got to Green Bay,
he didn't have the personnel to pressure, so he played
pack line, which is more physical, which is, you know,
more containment based. And that's what Duke did that year,
and they end up winning the national championship. That's the
year they beat Butler, right, and they did so playing

(10:38):
a different style and just finding a way to survive
in advance, just like the Hunger Games, just like anything
in business. Hey, this year, we got to figure out
a way to play left handed, even though we're not
left handed. And that's what this sport is about. That's
what any tournament's about. And that's what I think can

(10:58):
be relatable even if you don't know these names. You
don't know these people that many of the head coaches,
the historic head coaches are gone as the cycle has
turned them over, and the style of basketball and the
style of recruiting where the sport has gone has changed,
and the energy has changed. What remains is the front
of the jerseys, the schools, the bands, the fight songs,
and what remains is this idea of let's just find

(11:21):
a way to win the game, win the day, have
one more point than our opponent, and we survive in advance.
I want to bring in the perspective of somebody who
is a fairly recent friend, right, like like yet last year,

(11:42):
but in the last year or maybe the last two
years is terms of friendship with the last year in
working together. Keel Gan is one of my assistant coaches
who joins me. And in terms of different paths to success,
my path to success was I was a player, I
played overseas, I got an opportunity to do broadcasting. I
climbed through broadcasting, and then I got a chance to

(12:04):
be a head coach in college, which is a very
unique path. His path is a little bit more traditional
where he was a manager in college for Green Bray
Brian Wordle was the head coach and then he began
his path and he's knocking on the door becoming a
head coach in his own ride. Kil Let me, just
when you went to college you're at Green Bay? Was

(12:25):
it always your goal, like I want to be a
college basketball coach?

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Well, first, thanks for having me. Actually, I didn't go
to Green Bay right out of high school. I went
to Concordi, Wisconsin for two years, and I played my
freshman year.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
So how good were you?

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Not good? I had a bad senior year. My senior
year was almost replicating my junior year of high school,
which was disappointing, but I was okay. I mean I
was a private, small school guy that probably wasn't as
big and strong as he should have been. But I
played my freshman year at Concordia. It was a freshman year.

(13:04):
Like most, we had a large roster. I played a
lot of the JV games, kind of our main group
on the varsity whatever you want to call it was
actually pretty good, so it really didn't play at all.
And then the plan was to keep playing in college.
I just was gonna leave. Just wasn't the right fit

(13:25):
for me. But I played in a three on three
immediately leaving college and broke my wrist, like it had
to have been the first or second week after college,
and that ruined my whole summer.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
So how'd you go, Like, Okay, well then I'm gonna
go to green Bay.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, green Bay's home, so it was it was easy
to just kind of transfer back home. I did live
back at home to make it even easier. And then
the plan really was never to be a manager. Kind
of a friend of a friend. Really a friend told
me that his friend was a manager and that they

(14:03):
were looking for somebody else.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Okay, so you go from like you're a player being
a manager with Brian Wardle and Wardle at the time
young right, and Wardle who I've known since I was
recruited by Marquette and initially he played for Mike Dean.
And if you know Dino, and again Dino's a friend.
But if people think I have a strong relationship with

(14:29):
the F word, there's a relationship with curse words with
Mike Dean that I mean, it is it is, It
is like the greatest bond of all time. What was
that experience like as a manager for a young, up
and coming fiery head coach like Brian Wardle.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, so it was his first two years, so I
was only a manager for him for two years, but
it was his first two years as a head coach.
So Todd Kualchik had left the year before and he
had gotten the job, and it was that first year.
Group was a pretty veteran group. Ramond Fletcher, Recuase Peren.
Those guys were really good. They're experienced. I think we

(15:11):
had an okay year. We were right around five hundred.
But then the year after we were young and got
key for psychs and and that's when you kind of
knew where it could be headed.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
For you. What was there a light bulb moment of
I kind of like this, I'd like to do this.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Okay, So here's the thing. While I was a manager
at Green Bay, who a guy who is now my
best friend and we've been friends since we met in college,
Matt Macerzak, he coached an AU program. So while we
were managers at Green Bay, I don't know if it
was legal or not, we were coaching AAU nobody that

(15:52):
Green Bay wanted for the most part, right, And that
was kind of when the coaching thing, the coaching itch happened.
It wasn't really being a manager doing the laundry, cleaning
the floor that didn't really get me to want to
be a basketball coach. It was the weekends, the planning,

(16:15):
the recruiting those kids that really made me want to
make it a career.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
It's actually kind of fascinating. I coached AU before I
got this job. I can tell you that there are
parts of it that's like yet, like the games and
the adjustments and the I've always told I don't think
you and I have ever talked about this. People say, like,
what's the best part by coaching? I don't know to me,
the best part about coaching is especially when you have
a practice and you can do it on the sideline,

(16:42):
if you drow it up on a board, but if
you practice several times over something specific, for some specific
thing in a game like this is going to happen.
This guy's going to go here, this guy's gonna go there.
You're gonna throw it there, he's going to make the shot.
And then in the games like, okay, remember that thing
we practice, We're going to do it right now. And
then you do it, and then the ball goes in
and all eyes of can be like thirteen year olds

(17:05):
and they look at you like that's the smartest man
on earth. Right, that's the best part. And it's such
a drug too. It's such a drug. And then you
start to go like, oh, but then the parent and
my ex wife, God bless her, she used to go like,
I don't know how you do it, Like the parents
are just and my parents were always actually great in

(17:28):
comparison to the horror stories, but there's still always a
parent that's just too much. And those people are the
ones that can sometimes drive people out of it, you know. Okay,
so you get done at Green Bay, you have this
experience as an AU coach, you have experience with Brian

(17:49):
Wordle as his manager. He's still at Green Bay.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Then what.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Yeah, So Matt left to go be a graduate assist
in somewhere, and I, for the most part, was done
with college. I kept coaching AU for a few years,
so I ran the program kind as my own, tried
to go even more less local with it and branch

(18:17):
out more around the state as much as I could.
I ran the Wisconsin Jets shout out to the Jets
for seven years, seven or eight years?

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Did you guys do that for the game?

Speaker 2 (18:28):
No? He did, and so seven year roughly about seven years,
probably five more years after Matt left.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Wait, so what were you doing? Like, this is your
job or did you have another job as well?

Speaker 2 (18:43):
Well? I worked two different jobs. One of them actually
was here. I worked here in this building at WFB. Yeah.
I was in sales for about a year and a half,
maybe a little bit longer. Again, that's why I'm sitting
in this chair, not doing that anymore. And then my
father is a My dad's a financial advisor, so I

(19:05):
worked for him for a little while.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
We advise you to get the hell out of coaching
pretty much.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, So I did that and then after I well,
while I was doing it as well, I also coached
high school basketball, So I never really thought I wanted
to coach high school basketball. One of my better players
his coach left and it was a local high school here,
and he asked me, and his parents asked me if

(19:32):
I would do it, And at that time I had
kind of warmed up to it, so I entertained it.
I went through the interview and everything, got the job,
and I did that for two years, and then what
after that, I went to Saint Norber So I was
an assistant for Gary for three years. That was more
of a this is your first time really coaching as

(19:52):
a job. It wasn't a full time job, but it was.
It was a job. So coach for Gary loved all
of that.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
What's he like because he's been incredibly successful for a
long time, and like this year is a perfect example
for us. Right. We played them early in an exhibition.
They were very, very young and in comparison to last
year's team that was much more experienced with his son
playing on it. The previous year's team which nearly beat
Green Bay before I was here, and I watched that

(20:23):
film this year. I didn't have I just I was like, man,
they're young, this is gonna be a tough year. And
then he turns around and wins the league again. Right,
So the guy clearly knows what he's doing. What's the
secret sauce to Gary.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Gresh, he's very consistent with everything he does. I mean,
back when I was coaching with him, he was very
much looking at previous years practice plans, all the prep,
how they built things from the first week of practice.
Because remember they're limited, so they're not right when they're
on campus. They're not allowed to work with their guys.
So he really does a great job of making sure

(20:56):
that day one is effective, day two is effective. He's
getting the most out of those. And then recruiting wise, honestly,
that's probably where the he's the most flexible. He allowed
me to go out and recruit three or four days
a week and just kind of go wild and recruit
who I thought was good enough, and he had an
opinion on it, but he wasn't really pulling me back

(21:16):
at any point in saying, hold on, I don't like
this guy.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Who is your favorite player that you signed when you're
insane armor.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh that's a great question.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I've been doing this a minute.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
I'll go I'm gonna give you two because it's cheating.
Uh So. One of them played AU for me was
Nolan Byrne, a new Holstein kid like throwback, six foot three,
big man, rebound his you know what off extremely fundamental,
fundamental with his footwork. Fantastic quiet kid, but just worked.

(21:59):
I loved coaching him, and great family as well. And
then Jared Murphy was kind of the first kid that
I was able to recruit out of Illinois, kind of
by myself, like I just went into Illinois Rolling Meadows
High School, went to a few of his games, just
kind of worked, like made sure he knew that we
wanted on how much he'd fit in. That was a

(22:22):
sense of accomplishment. And then there's always the ones that
got away that you spent too much time recruiting.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Who is the best one that got away? They went
up and had like a big time career like I
should have had him.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
Probably Black River Falls Ethan Anderson. He ended up playing
at lacrosse. I want to say he was a borderline
all American. They were fantastic. He had a great career,
I probably Black River Falls from here is three plus
hours away. It's the other side of Wisconsin. I probably

(22:58):
made that drive six or seven times to recruit him
and came up empty. Hm.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
So you're with Gary for how many years?

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Three?

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Okay? And then Southern Indiana No.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Then Northern Michigan for a year before COVID.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Wait, well I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
Yeah, we've talked about it. Yeah, so I went up.
So Mac got the job at Northern Michigan and he
asked me to come with and I said no.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
And then did you say yeah no or do you
say no yeah?

Speaker 2 (23:27):
No? I said no.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
That was that was me doing my I've learned that.
I've learned Green Bay. I've learned green Bay dialect.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
It's not just green Bay, it's it's even better up north.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
So wait, so how does it go up north? If
you're gonna say no, you say no yeah, or you
say yeah no? Because I thought yeah no is yes?
And no yeah is no?

Speaker 2 (23:48):
I'm confused, Yeah no no, Yeah, it goes both ways.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
I think, why didn't you want to go with him
at first?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Well, we we're about to have a child. So the
timing worked out very poorly. So my son was born
in September. The end of September. Obviously, I had to leave.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Your timing, by the way, is awful with all of
your children, right, really and for people who don't know,
the Gansas welcome in their third in the middle of
our season this year. Now, actually we'll get to how
amazing the timing was there. Yeah, right, But when I
was initially hiring you, I was like, You're like, well,

(24:32):
my wife is pregnant, she's when she do in November.
And I was like, m it's arable timing. But anyway,
we did. We did it. But so you're gonna have
your first born and being from Green Bay, wife being
from here everything, and he's like come up to Marquette

(24:54):
and you're like, yeah, no, no, yeah, So but you
did end up going up there.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
I did. So there's a lot of things that went
in the decision. For the most part, my wife had
kind of just started her new career. Well no, that
actually that's not true. She at that point had just
become a manager of a store of Tjmax and it
was yeah, and and she was getting paid pretty well.

(25:23):
So it wasn't something that she would just turn around
and leave and we would go up three hours to Marqutte, Michigan.
So we kind of tried to see if she could
get a job up there at the TJ Max and
it really didn't work out, I guess skipping ahead a
little bit. But so I went up there with Matt.

(25:44):
I lived with him for a year, so that made
it easier financially, and then she was able to be here.
Our families are here, so that that made it easier
with Kest and her son.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Okay, So then you left again, now this time for
Southern Indiana, right.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Kinda, So I left, I left. There are some years
off in there, so.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Wait, what do you mean there's years off?

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Well, so COVID was I left the year of COVID.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Okay, So so take me back to COVID. So I
love I don't love telling this story because it's not
like COVID was the greatest thing ever. But I'll take
you through my memories of when COVID because this were
hitting on the sixth I think like today or yesterday
was like the sixth anniversary of when everything shut down. Right, So,

(26:34):
in the days leading up to up to it, I
was very well aware of things going on in the news,
which is very different. And I actually really understand when
college basketball coaches, not all of them, but many of them. Like,
I had no idea what was going on because I
it was the like the Mexico cartel war. I didn't

(26:56):
know until like two weeks later that that was going
on on us attacking Iran, Like I didn't know until
like two days ago. I had no idea because you're
so immersed in what you're doing. You know, you really are,
at least I am. I know, and I know you
are as well, because you're unbelievable worker in your profession.

(27:18):
But when I'm doing a national radio show and I
got time on my hands and I'm driving, I was
very well aware of the flu that was, you know,
started potentially in China and whatever. And I remember going
in and I was hosting Colin Coward, guest hosting Colin
Coward show. I'd always guest host a show on championship

(27:39):
week because he wasn't really into it, and he would
take that time off and then he'd come back and
work a couple days during the NCAA tournament, pretend like
he knew college basketball, like Colin's the best that way,
And the first day was like a Monday, and we'd
have a meeting at six o'clock and at like seven
fifteen we were done with the meeting. The show started
at nine o'clock and I remember talking with one of

(27:59):
the like one executive producer who's in on the meetings,
and we're walking out of the meeting and I was like, Hey,
I kind of think we might want to talk about
this flu thing. And he's like, it's a sports show,
make them happy or make them mad at your take,
not a not a health show. And I was like, yeah,

(28:20):
I understand, but there's all these sports coming up and
it could potentially affect them. And he's like, when it
affects them, we'll talk about it. I was like, oh, okay,
that makes sense. And then the next day was Tuesday,
and now it was really starting to become a thing.
And this is the night of the Rudy Gobert touching
the microphone and everything deal, and I.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Just had the anniversary of that. I saw it.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yeah, And so I'm literally walking out to the sound
stage it's eight twenty five for the nine o'clock show,
and I remember and he's still an executive at Fox Sports,
and I go, look, dude, I'm just telling you, like,
I think there might not be an NCAA tournament. And

(29:02):
he's like, you're I think when it affects sports. I
was like, I just were at that. I'm telling you
we're at that moment. He's like, we're not at that
moment because it has not affected sports yet. It's like,
I'm telling you, this is what we do. Not talk
about it because it doesn't affect what we're doing currently.
I was like, are you sure? Yes? So then I

(29:22):
go home and that night I'm watching TV and then
the Rudy Gobert thing happens and the NBA shuts down,
so I'm I'm but I'm off that next day because
I'm flying to Chicago to do the Big Ten Tournament
for Compass Media Network. And I had like two jobs
in one. I was a company called Stadium, which was streaming,
and I did a show with Jeff Goodman as well

(29:44):
as Compass, and I'm doing my radio show. So I'm
juggling all these things. I'm driving on the four h
five and my executive producer for the radio broadcast text
me and she says, where are you? And I'm you know,
I'm not supposed to be texting and driving. But I'm
texting and driving. I'm like, I'm on the four h
five headed to Chicago, and she says, turn around, And

(30:09):
like the idiot that I am, I sit there and
go I thought she was behind me and she knew
my car and we're both headed to on the four
h five and we're going to the airport. And then
I was like, I don't know where you are. She's like,
no turn around. The tournament's been canceled. Keep in mind
the night before, not only was everything shut down, my

(30:31):
brother was an assistant coach at Oregon State and they
won on a buzzer shot. I think they beat Colorado
in the Pac ten Tournament Pac twelve tournament right in
Las Vegas. They win on a buzzer shot. That's the
last complete game that year in college basketball, right, So
we all have claims to fame. My brother and Carrie Rupp,

(30:53):
our assistant coach. There claim to fame is they co
coached the last college basketball game before COVID shut it down. Anyway,
So then I'm like, what do you mean, Like it's canceled.
Everything's canceled. I turn on the radio, every like everything
is starting to shut down. The Big East Tournament had
a halftime. They played a first half of the game
and didn't play the second half of the game. So

(31:13):
where were you when the world shut down?

Speaker 2 (31:16):
I was home. We were done by then. So we
had a I mean, we had a pretty successful first
year in Northern Michigan. They were coming off a few
good teams that probably underachieved a little bit. And then
we brought some of those guys back except two of
the top scores, two of the all time leading scores,

(31:37):
and put together a pretty good team. But we're done.
I was back in Green Bay and all the COVID
stuff was just about happening. We had a newborn, and
it just didn't know. My wife couldn't get a job
up there. I don't at the time, like even looking back,
I don't know if it was the right decision or not.
But we decided like, hey, I don't know if you

(31:59):
can do this again, or I don't know if we
can do this as a husband and wife again with
a newborn. So I told Matt that, hey, I think
I'm done, and he was like, okay, I mean at
this point where we're pretty close, we've gone through some
wars together. He kind of got it.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
Well when we said done, you were done at Northern Michigan,
or you're just like I'm going to do something other
than coaching.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
H maybe a little bit of both. Like I was
pretty realistic about it, like I'm walking away from a
great opportunity that I worked pretty hard to get and
I knew that if I left that that was probably it, right,
like I would keep trying or do what it takes
to to stay in the business because I loved coaching,
but again, realistic about it. So then it really did

(32:47):
nothing for COVID like most of people. And then got
involved with a startup company that did a lot of
tagging and clipping for NBA teams of NBA prospects. So
I did that for about ten months. It was it
was a seasonal job, they called it.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
So you're working for a company when the world shut.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
Down more or less.

Speaker 1 (33:11):
Yeah, it's actually kind of great that you got a
chance to work when people weren't working.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
I was.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
I was still We did still did radio shows, sports
radio shows that that entire time. It's actually one of
my sorry favorite times. I know people got sick and
died and I'm I'm not not empathetic and not. I'm
not not empathetic towards it. I'm just telling you from
a personal perspective. You know, I went through a bunch
of tough It wasn't I wasn't, we weren't. And I
was in the greatest place with my now ex wife

(33:37):
at the time. But I got a chance to way.
It was like all your your kids are around and
when you work the way I worked, and you're constantly
traveling the way I constantly traveled, and you're in Los Angeles.
I was in Orange County and I'm driving fifty one miles.
I still drove to work. Actually I musta share my
this is I have. I have a really funny story.

(33:58):
So in southern California, I had a special pass because
there was a time in which they thought they were
going to not allow you to travel or drive long
distances or whatever. Like it was as you know, it
was very very serious at times. And when you get
when you get to Los Angeles County, I actually was
given a special pass, a media pass where it would

(34:19):
like if they stop me, I'm like, hey, I'm I'm
what was the term that they used, or like you're
like a you're like your job was like a necessity
or something. Right, it's the reason that coffee places were
still open.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Right.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
That was like sports radio, really, but technically we're in
the media. Technically we're in the news. So it kind
of got into a technicality.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Do you still have the pass?

Speaker 3 (34:44):
I do not? I do not.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
I probably would have been a good one to save.
But so I lived fifty one miles from where Fox
Sports Radio broadcasts from. I had a home unit, which
is called an ISDN. Now I've done everything on a
com Rex. Comrex is much less. It's not expensive at all.
You just plug it into an Ethernet. DN is a

(35:06):
special line that everyone has technically in their home phone lines.
There's like if you look, if you open up the wall,
there's like two lines. The ICDN line is actually in there,
but it's a different line, and AT and T, in
an effort to phase that out, made it increasingly expensive
to have. So I had a com Rex unit that

(35:29):
had just been sent to me like the week before
the world shut down that was supposed to be mine,
and Cowherd ended up kind of stealing it because he
didn't have the DN line. The iced N line was expensive.
So what they said was, hey, here's what we'll do.
You come in here two or three days a week,
work from home two or three days a week. That way,

(35:49):
we don't fire up the DN line every time. And
for me it wasn't that bad because it was my
only chance to really get out of the house and
it was like a straight shot. And I'm telling you, like,
what was an hour and fifteen hour and a half
drive every day was literally forty five minutes. So it
sounds like a dream. You're like, oh, forty five minutes
on literally the four or five, Like you get on
the seventy three to the four h five and you're

(36:11):
going ninety five the whole time, and it's amazing, Like
it's what was that Will Smith movie? I Am Legend?
Remember I Am Legend where it's like you're in New
York and there's no people there. That's what it was like.
Like you're driving like this is the greatest freeway system
on Earth, and I am literally speed racer every day.
There's one catch. Though coffee places are open, you can't

(36:35):
go in them to use the restroom. We've known each
other long enough to know I got like a thirty
minute there's like a thirty minute window there when I
hit the thirty minute window. Sometimes that thirty minute window
is like fifteen. Sometimes it's like forty five or an
hour fifteen. But anyone who's head coffee knows it is
a diuretic. I can tell you with embarrassinglyy so. But

(36:59):
now it's where like that passed it. I did have
one morning in which there's nothing I could do. I
pulled over in the freeway, ran into the bushes. And
it was not simply it was it was it was
it was the wrong kind of of mourning. It was.
And then you're like, uh.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
Oh, well, you know when the shot clock's counted it.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
We didn't have an end of shot clock plan. That's
that I think, which was a problem with us early
in the season, right, didn't really have an end of
shot clock out. So uh yeah, it was. But there
was also you know, my son and I we we
shot hoops every day. He went surfing every day. You know,
you're with your family every day, and in a place

(37:45):
like southern California where you're constantly moving, and and my daughter,
who rides horses, got to ride every day. That was
like her escape. And so there's a lot of actually
happy memories for me being with my family. Meanwhile, you're
at home, home making making cash for your newborn, and
I'm sure you've got a chance to spend like great
time with no.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
No, yeah, no, I agree. I was shaken my head.
I agree, it was. It was even hard to describe
because you were obviously trapped at home, right and you
were able to raise your own kid and just be
around your kid all day and then run down in
the basement and clip some players and take some games
and stuff like that. So it was kind of fun.

(38:27):
Now that was more of the tail off of COVID,
kind of leading into the next year where some people
did play a little bit, but we had the spacing
rules and all that stuff in place.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
But so that year I was again. I broadcast more
games that year than any year in my life. But
the way it worked was you'd fly in and it
was that was my favorite year in terms of my
relationship with coaches, because you'd go I could go to

(38:58):
their shoot around, and the coaches it was like they
were so isolated that even coaches who didn't like me
would welcome me in like real person from the outside world,
and we'd have these incredible conversations about like life and
what you've been doing and how you bide your time

(39:19):
and because and then you had to broadcast the game,
usually from like the second deck, and there'd be limited
number of people in there. It was so odd, But
I was in. I did. I did like fifteen Utah
State games that year I was. I was in, and
I did a bunch of Mountain West stuff, and I mean,
I can't tell you how many Big Ten tournament we

(39:39):
did from that was when the entire tournament was in Indianapolis,
so you had Big ten tournament to NCAA tournament. And
then I did radio for Westwood One, so I actually
was in Indianapolis like sequestered for like two weeks, and
then I was in Los Angeles in a studio for
like for like two weeks. But that was a fascinating year.

Speaker 2 (39:58):
So then, well then and remember or how all every
coach wanted to like share all of their secrets via
whatever coaching clinics, online coaching clinics and stuff. So that
was kind of fun.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, I mean again, there's lots of they don't there's
lots of bad that came out of it. There's lots
of really interesting and good that came out of it.
So what led you to get back into coaching.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Uh, well, I obviously the time away distance makes your
heart go fond at what is that saying. I knew
that I wanted to get back in. It really was
a career for me. Now, this is where I had
to try to find any opportunity possible that would take
me being the guy that hadn't coached a few years.

(40:42):
So I got in with a friend of a friend. Again,
it's who you know, not what you know that got
me at Southern Indiana got me the dobo job. At
Southern Indiana they had just made the transition to Vision one.
They didn't have a paid dobo position, so I worked

(41:03):
for free and move down there, live without my family.
That's nine hours away. Eight nine hours away, live down
there to kind of get back into it.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
What was it like?

Speaker 2 (41:16):
It was tough. It was tough from a living standpoint.
I mean I worked pretty hard that year. I mean
I was the one that was up every morning watching
guys at LYFT. I would more or less be the
last one to leave. I wasn't able to very strict
on my restrictions. It was the last year of me
really of the doble director of operations position, not really

(41:38):
being able to coach. So I was very much on
the sideline, not really allowed to do anything, just doing
all the travel and all the operational stuff. So it's
not what I enjoyed. I would really never want to
do it again because it's just not doesn't really fit me.
But I wanted to get back in and I just

(42:01):
was kind of willing to do what it took to
do that.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
What led you to go back to coach with Matt?

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Yeah, so okay. So once I once the season ended
at Southern Indiana, I told Stan that, hey, since I'm
not getting paid and there was a thought that I
would come back for year two and get a paid position,
and that just didn't happen. So I told Stan, like
I am, I will resign from my position, and if

(42:31):
you think that something could happen later on where I
can be hired as as full time, I'll come back.
But in the meantime, I think I want to either
coach AAU again or go recruiting and just kind of
not lose knowledge of who's who and where they are.
So I did that. I worked to find another job.

(42:54):
I was at the eleventh hour of joining Triton Junior
College in Chicago as an assistant coach, and as that
was kind of going on, Charlie, who replaced me at Northern,
got a head coaching position and Matt said, you want

(43:14):
to come back? And I said yes, So I went
back up.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh what's your wife saying through it?

Speaker 2 (43:22):
I mean, she's the best she appears to be.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
She made, she's.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
She's very willing to uh, to go with the flow,
and and I think she could tell that I wanted
to to do it again or be involved in it.
And at that point we're in a better spot with
kids and careers. She had completely changed her career at

(43:46):
that point and had gone into business for herself. So
that's when a little bit before that, she reopened or
she opened up a store in Green Bank.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
Can can you give us the details of the store?

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Yeah, it's a vintage home good place. I don't really
remember what street it's on, but it's on the Broadway
area of Green Bay, kindred vintage. And then she does
a lot of like traveling with flea market sales and
stuff like that. So she was pretty busy with that.
But we had made the more of a commitment to Hey,

(44:19):
if we go up there. We're gonna We're gonna go
up there. We're gonna get a place and we're gonna
make this home.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
It's on Dawsman string.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Yeah, shout out to Kindred Vintage.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Dowsman and Broadway. There you go Dowsman in Broadway.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
Well make you look like a better.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
We got that.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
So, so what you guys were able to do at
Northern right, because this year matt once again they won
their conference. Last year you guys won the conference tournament.
You guys, have you put together something really impressive?

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, four years in a row winning a conference championship.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
And and by the way, at the same time, Michigan
Tech also putting together It's you know, it's like one
of those things. What's I think what's most impressive frankly
about both programs is like the rise of Michigan State
basketball coincided with the downfall of Michigan basketball, right, Like

(45:18):
that's the kind of dirty little secret too, because Tom
Izzo recruited me from the delivery room of his first baby.
He was people forget. Tom Mizzo is a longtime assistant
for Jeded Heathcote at Michigan State. He was named the
head coach in waiting, and he was recruiting while still
an assistant coach. So he calls me. This is nineteen

(45:39):
the summer of nineteen ninety four, and he put the
doctor on the phone. Kid, I don't know who you are,
but coach is I was about to have his first
baby and he wants you to be his first point guard.
That was literally and that you want to talk about
dumb decisions I've made, right, And John McLeod is an
amazing man. Notre Dame was an amazing school. But I
could have been tom Izzo's first point guard guard. Which

(46:00):
if I was tom Izzo's first point guard, who knows
that my team Cleaves ever goes there?

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Right?

Speaker 1 (46:05):
And if a teen Cleeves doesn't go there and I'm
his point guard, I'm probably a Division one head coach
at a high major right now, right, Like that's very
because that was my that was always sort of my plan. Uh.
But what happened was people forget Robert Traylor, who I
wanted to play with in college when I when I

(46:26):
was going to set to visit Michigan State, I played against. Uh,
everybody called him truck trailer, truck tractor Trailer, but everybody
called him Truck back then when when I played against
the ABCD, like I wanted to play with that guy
because I'd never seen anything like him. I'd never seen it.
I was like, I want to play like it was.
I was just fascinated by how amazingly talented that guy was,

(46:48):
and he always played basketball with a huge smile in
his face, and I was like, I just I thought
he was the coolest dude ever. And the week before
I was set to visit with him, Albert White, who
ended up committing to Michigan as well, and Jason Klein
who went to Michigan State, like we were all going
to go on a visit together and it was gonna
be a like kind of fab five whatever. They committed

(47:10):
to Michigan. But what happened was the next year, Tractor
Trailer was taking matteaen Cleaves on his official visit to Michigan.
They were going to a casino and I think he
flipped or something with a Ford Explorer. The cops roll

(47:32):
up to this car accident or Ford Explorer. There's five
Michigan ball players and they're like, who's the car registered to?
And it was to Tractor trailer's grandma, who's in a wheelchair, right,
you can't drive? That's what this is what happened. And
then it began the investigation. Turns out Michigan was cheating.
Who knew everybody? And so Michigan basketball down. Michigan State

(47:55):
basketball up right, It wasn't. It wasn't the rising tide
lifts all ships. It was literally that until John Beeline
got to Michigan, Michigan basketball was down, went on probation.
It was like a seven or eight year recovery. Tommy
Amerker could never get it going right anyway. But the
point is that what is super impressive about what you

(48:16):
and Matt and Matt Matt has obviously been able to
carry on this year at Northern Michigan is your rise
has been during the exact same rise of Michigan Tech.
And you guys have both been really good. How's that possible?

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Well, I'll give credit to Kevin Louke and Josh Bitner,
like those guys kind of had it in a good
spot leading up to that. I mean, they had Kyle Monroe,
local local guy here in Green Bay. He was fantastic.
He was an All American. Owen White was AAU player
of mine went to Michigan Tech. He also was an

(48:50):
All American Player of the Year player, So they they
were in a pretty good spot, but they had a
down year and that that kind of start the beginning
of the Northern Michigan run. I'll say they got Matt
and Charlie, got a few really good players that played

(49:11):
for four years, Like played played for four years leading
up to it, Getting Max Wisebroad, getting Dylan Keel, those
guys kind of changed it in terms of maintaining success.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
Okay, so you come back here to Green Bay and
now you're a full time assistant coach. What's it been
like for you all these years later to sweep back
in and oh yeah, by the way, I mean I
would I'd say Preston Rudinger number one guy that helped

(49:47):
turn turn us around. But you, you and Coach Andy
Ground and coach Carrie Rupp, I think are are like
all two A, B and C or whatever in terms
of what's led What has this experience been like for you?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
It's been a roller coaster in terms of getting hired
so late and then kind of being into it right away.
So I've been able to at times kind of be
in the moment and go this is cool. This is cool.
I remember being here when I was twenty one years old, Right,
this is a fun memory, a fun moment. Now that

(50:28):
I'm out of it, I kind of am able to
see big picture. This is now the Green Bay that
I remember. Right. We're in the top three in the
Horizon League. There's a lot of expectations on us now.
I would say it's really cool to be a part
of it in more of a meaningful way than when
I was sweeping the floors and doing the laundry.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
It's I mean, it's interesting. I when I took the job,
I have so many people outside of Green Bay telling
me about how hard it is and about how you know,
you know, he's talk underfunded or whatever, and I just
I'm not saying it hasn't been hardened. It's not going

(51:09):
to be hard to take it to the next step
because the goal is not here. It's like, I did
an interview with these guys here and they're like, you know,
how rewarding is, and it's like, I, I honestly don't.
I feel like we lost three or four games. We
absolutely should have won. We should have won the league.
We should be we should be playing right now. It's
just I mean, how any of us are actually wired right?
But I can tell you onequivocally it has been an

(51:32):
amazing that the feeling has been amazing because people actually care.
And in our in our league, in the Horizon League,
it's not full of teams where schools actually care. It's
it's sad to me, it just is. It's sad to me,
but it's been amazing. And there are moments, honestly in
my position where I take snapshots and watch you and

(51:55):
I'm always wondering, like, what's he thinking right now? Because
it's kind of cool, right because anyone who goes or
grows up round like for me, I grew up. I
don't know if people know this. I grew upund Ucilla basketball.
My dad was a season takeover. He was really close
with Walt Hazzard. Uh to two hazard is Rashid is

(52:18):
a dear friend of mine. We played basketball. I used
to stay at his house and then we were I
was a ball boy when Reggie Miller was was a
senior and like Reggie was always the the just the coolest,
nicest dude ever. And then Jim Herrick became the coach,
and we again always kind of round the program, and
they actually offered me a scholarship. And you want to

(52:39):
talk about idiot high school kid, right, here's the conversation
at the Las Vegas Hilton summer before my senior year.
At the time, Las Vegas was everything for West Coast
au High school basketball, and Coach Harrick called me. He
was also staying at the Hilton, and I had seen
him like in the casino walking up and he said, Dougie,

(53:03):
I bet you always dreamed of of this moment. I'm
gonna offering you a scholarship to you. C l A
not the only he would always say, like, not the
only school, just the best and uh and and I said, well, actually, coach,
I always wanted to go to Duke, but they signed

(53:24):
Wojo last year. But yeah, I always have like loved
the Bruins, you know, Like my sister was a cheerleader
at UCLA for four years. My brother has a UCLA
degree as well. He walked on Herrick did cut him,
but he cut him fortule Richie, who was became a
scholarship player at Virginia. So anyway, but I like that
was my answer to I know you've always wanted to

(53:45):
be a bruin. I was like, well, I always want
to play duke.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
That's the thing. I don't want to give the perception
that I like grew up going to Phoenix Games like
a lot of other people. Like I grew up in
Sheboy in Wisconsin for the most part, like from the
age of two to fifth grade, and we didn't drive
to Green Bay and go to Phoenix Games. But when
I went to school here, I dove in like I
cared and it just felt right. It felt like home,

(54:12):
like this was my college. But there's a lot of
people in Green Bay, Like when I was coaching with Gary,
there's a lot of people that walk around and go like,
that's Gary Gresh. I remember when you guard to Jason Kidd,
Like there's a lot of people that did it from
very little all the way through and are more die
hard fans than I was.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
It's still cool, though, to be it is to circle
back and be a part of your alma mater.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
Okay, So now you're at an interesting kind of place
in your career. Right You're up for, I know, a
Division two head coaching job, but we were also kind
of building something really really cool, And I honestly think
you're in a similar situation to many of our players,

(54:58):
where you can stay and be a part of this
growth and you'll make more money, or you can go
kind of out on your own, and which is what
you're ultimately kind of building for. What's that actually like
to be when you look at it from that perspective.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
There are two dreams of mine, I guess, and I'm
not saying I'm going to get this job, but there
are two dreams of mine that are kind of going
head to head a little bit. Being able to come
back to Green Bay and coach here is something I've
always wanted. This is home for me. My family's here,
my wife's family's here. It's something that I never thought

(55:40):
could be real. I looked up to the assistant coaches
that I worked for when I was a manager here.
I have good friendships if you call them, with them
still to this day. But I got into this to
be a head coach, right. I want to find out
if I'm good enough all the work that I've put
in when I have an idea and I that I

(56:02):
I can do it right and not have DG say
not we're good, that I that I do it and
find out if it works right. So we'll see how
it all plays out. I mean I I in no
way will I be bothered or angry or well angry

(56:23):
longer than twenty four hours that uh, I didn't get
the job right, because I'm in a I'm in a
great spot, and I'm very much appreciative of you and
and bringing me in here and all the guys that
I work work with and players that I get to coach.
But yeah, being able to call the shots is something
I've always thought about.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
And then how it relates to our players, right, like
this is a it's a hard one for our guys.
Like I legitimately feel for our players because on one
hand was the what we've been able to build in
terms of culture, camaraderie, chemistry. I don't know, like those

(57:05):
guys legitimately like love each other, love each other, And
I'll take credit for it. I honestly two years in
a row, I mean, believe it or not, they were
just as close on the four win team once we
cut off some of the gristle about mid season, and
but what we were able to create this year is special.

(57:28):
But let's not forget part of what was megaspecial was
how bad it was the year before. Right, But there's
all these feel good feelings, and you know, one of
the things that I tried to create was no entitlement.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
I totally understand that somebody's perception of me would be
I'd be entitled because I got a job, not having
to go through the coaching ranks, and I came in
as a national radio host and whatever, and somebody would
have a perception of me. I don't think that's the
and I like surrounding myself. I think Green Bay is
at its best when it mirrors the community, and the

(58:06):
community is a non entitled community. Like one of the
first things I learned in Wisconsin is you can be
sitting at a bar and there can be two guys
next year on either side, and they both have blue
jeans on and they're both drinking in Wisconsin ol fashion,
and one is a multi millionaire and the other one,
it just got done in nine to five, hates his wife,
you know, blah blah blah, And there's no difference between

(58:28):
the two people. There's just no difference. They just not
like you couldn't tell who's rich and who's poor because
everybody's just like, we get up, we go to work,
and then we go home. We do it again. We
get up, we're go to work. We cheer for the
pack of the weekend, right, that's what we do. And
so we brought in ten new guys. None of them
have been Division I players. Probably a mistake on some level,

(58:49):
but the idea was everybody had been told no multiple
times in their career and that was kind of the
binding glue of Hey, I was told that I wasn't
good enough, told that I suck. All our assistant coaches
are guys that have been fired or had had climbed
Like there's a certain hunger and tenacity which kind of
binds it together. You get done with that, and there's

(59:10):
the really hard decision of for a couple of our
guys without penalty, you can go to a higher level,
make more money, and everything is better on the surface, Right,
The food's better, the dorms are better, the gyms are better,
the competition is is better, the money is better, the

(59:31):
women probably look better, right, the guys smell better. Or
you can lock back in with us and do it
again and grind through it like that's a really it's
a really hard decision, especially when you're like twenty years
old and you're like, you know, like I. They like you.
They've always dreamed probably of playing into Big ten, right,

(59:53):
And do you want to play against pick a school
in our league, Cleveland State, which has this gigantic arena
and they got like fifty people there, or do you
want to go play at Michigan State where they camp
out overnight for games? Like That's a really hard decision.
And again when you look at it from if I'm

(01:00:14):
offered the Michigan State job, like I love it here,
but what am I going to do? You know, I'm
going to take the Michigan State job. And I actually
feel for our players in that decision that they have
to make.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
I agree, I do not envy them at all. I
think the only way that I, in my short time
doing this, have have had a I don't know, an
issue with that process with them is when they perceive
our side of it wrong, right, Like I think we've

(01:00:47):
been very straightforward at Northern Michigan. We're very straightforward with guys.
Do you want to go in? I get you want
to go in. Everybody's curious to a certain degree, and
you get a few days to be curious and find
out what's real. You can always come back, right, But
it is a hard decision. It is because you got
to find out if you're actually gonna play. I mean,

(01:01:09):
for the most part, the guys that would leave here
are going to be guys that are playing and have
a pretty good role and could bring back a good
group that could win a lot of games. But part
of growing up and part of being a man or
an adult is making decisions that are going to affect
the rest of your life.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
That's a great point. It's it's a hard one. The
other one is I was driving here thinking about this.
I think we've done a really good job of developing
guys and putting guys in good situations, and so there's
but there's part of me that says, like I don't
want to go over the top, Like the kids do
the work right. So there's a there's a pride in

(01:01:52):
watching so many of our guys who were very lightly
or not recruited at all succeed and then look at
them now, like he was here, look at him now.
I did that. On the other hand, like I want
to get the proper credit right, the credit should be
I saw a role, and we collectively created a role

(01:02:15):
for said player to have success. On the other hand,
the player himself has to has to get a ton
of credit because we can't work with them at all hours.
We just can't. And it comes down to them getting
in the gym, doing the work, them buying into the
role that we had, and then ultimately succeeding on the court,

(01:02:35):
which we don't do right Like we just I can't
make the shots for them. I can't make the cuts
for them. I can't get the defensive style I can.
We can only kind of create those things. It's an
interesting place to be in because so many coaches you
struggle with, like you want them to play for you
when they go somewhere else, you want to get some

(01:02:56):
sort of credit for it, but you want to get
the right amount of credit for it. All I come
back to it's a lot like coaching in you basketball.
I just want somebody to go like, hey man, thanks,
you know, thanks, this was really cool. You help me
get to someplace that maybe I dreamed of but wasn't possible.

(01:03:16):
And then here's the hard part for somebody who's a fan,
is if a kid decides to leave and go to
a higher level. You just have to champion it. There's
no other place to you can. Of course, you can
be mad and bitter and all those things, but then
you have to ask yourself what would I do?

Speaker 3 (01:03:36):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Like we all say like, oh, I'd be loyal, and
I'd say, like would you. It's not a lack of loyalty,
it's personal growth. And it's a very very hard decision,
you know. Like we have one kid, as you and
we both know like it's going to be really hard
for him, really hard for him, and I'd love to
have them, But I actually I completely understand and can't

(01:04:00):
can't feel anger towards him for trying something new, even
if I think it might be a mistake long term.
As you said, that's part of being an adult is you
got to sometimes make those mistakes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
Yeah, And for me just to kind of touch on
what you said before, like I love the part of
helping them and getting them to a certain spot or
a certain level of success that I never got. I
mean I never got close. You were a very good
college basketball, fantastic college basketball. You got there, right, You've
seen it, you've done it, You've put in the work.

(01:04:32):
I didn't. I was very, very far from it. So
it is a sense of accomplishment in myself and going, well,
you couldn't do it, but you kind of figured out
how it takes to get there and what it takes
to get there, and yeah, just to touch on the
guy that are guys that left like it is, it

(01:04:53):
is like I said, I don't envy them having to
make that decision at all in the moment. You just
don't or I don't. I'm a little bit spiteful, but
I mean I texted him a little bit last night going, hey,
I do right by you. If you need help, let
me know, right like, because I don't want him or

(01:05:17):
any of them to think that they're doing it alone.
Because I've seen guys go in and they've made good decisions.
I've seen guys go in and make bad decisions, and
I don't want them to think that they were left
on an island by themselves and having a ton of
questions that they can't get answers to.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
You know. The whole experience is like super fascinating, right,
and people ask all the time, well, what would you have?
How much would you have? And this is the big
thing that former of college path how much would you
have gotten?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
Oh, Jerry Smith hates that question.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Yeah, he does hate that question. But I was at
a tipping point at Oklahoma State my junior year. My
sophomore year, I was newcomer of the Year in the
Big Twelve. My junior year, I was averaging averaging a
double double and we were playing Florida Atlantic. We were
ranked in the top ten of the country. Playing Florida

(01:06:15):
Atlantic at home. We'd just beaten TCU with Lee Nylon
and they were in the top twenty five. We had
gone out to Hawaii beat Marquette and Mike Dean beat Hawaii,
come back, played TCU, smoke TCU, and we're playing UCLA
in Anaheim, which is five minutes from where I grew
up where my mom still lives, against UCLA on Saturday.

(01:06:38):
On Wednesday, we played Florida Atlantic and by the way,
Floridatlantic now not Floridatlantic. Then they won six games that year.
One of them was on the White Maple of Gallagher
IB Arena and the late Brooks Thompson god rest his
soul was a manager that year. Because he hurt his

(01:06:59):
back in the NBA playing for the New York Knicks,
drafted in the first round by the Atlanta Magic was
playing for the Knicks, hurt his back. It ultimately ended
his career and began his coaching career. He did one
skyting report that year. It was the Floridatlantic game, and
this is something that I had a little PTSD about
last year. One of the assistants had a similar tone

(01:07:21):
with some of the skyting reports, and I just I immediately
called him and said, don't ever do that again, like
that's not how I and it was this. It was
he said, like, this is the worst team to ever
play in the White Maple if And we used to
have like pregame goals coach Sutton, you'd walk in and
I did this last year. I didn't do it this year.
I just didn't. I didn't like how it landed. But
it was, you know, like you got to hold them

(01:07:43):
below seven sixty points, below a certain field goal percentage.
We got to shoot above a certain field goal percentage.
It was more process more than result things. I do
understand it. But if you check all these boxes, okay,
obviously we're gonna win, but also no actice tomorrow and
if you don't six am at Gallagher taped that was

(01:08:08):
and so his thing was they were ridiculous things. It's
like below sixty points, below forty percent. It was like, dude,
this is you feel like it's going to be hard
or they must be terrible, and then he set backed
it up with this is the worst team to ever
play on the white Maple of Gallagher IB Arena. The
white maple is a big thing, just so people understand.

(01:08:28):
It's the floor has never been replaced, which is super
unique most floors, it's like after the fifth time that
it's it's cleared off and shine through. I don't know,
it's because I think of the quality of the wood
that they built in there, so it's it's withstood renovation.
Wil Chamberlain played on that floor, so it's a big thing. Anyway,

(01:08:49):
we go out there and at the time we only
had four guards eligible. We had Glenn and Alexander the
all time leands gorred in the state of Texas. McDonald's
all American transfer market saw like he was waiting the wings.
And then we had we had like two football players
who weren't yet back ready, and we just didn't have
a ton of depth, and we had like walk ons,
but like four scholarship guards, and we were a top

(01:09:12):
ten team. But that's just because I played like thirty
minutes and Joe Atkins played thirty minutes and Adrian Peterson
played thirty five minutes. Like I don't think Coach couldn't
get anybody to come. We had guys visit, but nobody
wanted to come because they knew they weren't going to play.
So we just the hell with it. So they played
five guard essentially five guards, and they ran flex. This

(01:09:33):
is back in the forty five second shot clock era.
They'd run flex for the first like thirty seven seconds,
and then they'd throw it to whoever our five guy
was guarding, and they go one four flat at the
end of shot clock. And I think we were up
like a point at half, and I remember we came
in and we're like, Coach, we got play zone. Like this,
we got to play zone. And we at the time

(01:09:54):
we had just started to kind of implement a little
bit of zone, but nobody really knew or doing. But
the idea was like, we just can't put our big
guy out there and then we can't double because they'll
just they just make us pay. So we're up a
point in the second half, and the ball start into
me and they trap me and I rip through and

(01:10:16):
the ball get stolen and I get a cut underneath
my eye and I when they lay the ball in,
I turned to the ref and I say, that's a
fing foul, because as you know, I have a strong
relationship with the F word. I get a technical foul,
so it goes from one to three to five, and
coach takes me out of the game. So now we
now are we down five with an eighty one game

(01:10:40):
non conference home winning streak. But remember we only have
four guards eligible, so now we got two guys that
can't guard their guys. For I don't know how long
he kept me out of the game. We lose the
Floor Atlantic. I had eight points eighteen assists in the game,
and we lose in crazy fashion. But I actually played
really well. We go out to UCLA. I got two

(01:11:05):
technical fouls there, neither of which I deserved. I mean it,
like I again, I know what I got him like.
One was a guy named Charlie Raine, who's an all
time crook of an official. I don't know if he's
still alive, but he used to ref all the UCLA
games and literally three minutes into the game. It's like
six to zero fouls US against UCLA, and I was like,
come on, Charlotte, let's eaven it up. And then like,

(01:11:25):
and you know, a college kid is not supposed to
say that to a ref. But it wasn't like I
cursed him or wasn't like I was confrontational. And then
I got another one when Baron Davis and I got
into it. It was after the half. I had gone
into try and shoot a floater. It got sent back
into Saturn and Baron had his only two points of
the game and he was woofing bumped shoulders with me,
and then I bumped shoulders back and he took a dive.
It was after halftime, so they called a technical foul

(01:11:48):
instead of an intentional foul. I was out of the game,
so I'm like deep buried in the doghouse right and
playing eight minutes a game for like an eight game stretch.
I wanted to leave. I had my all my we
go to play Creighton and then UNLV and then it's
Christmas break and my bags were literally packed in stillwater.

(01:12:11):
Like I was out and I was going to go
play for either Utah and Rick mcgeris, who had recruited
me originally, or my brother had just taken a job
at San Diego State and they were the worst team.
But I was like, ef it, I'll go because back then,
if you transferred semester, you would have been eligible semester
your senior year to play those last twenty games. And
I was willing to do it because I was like,
this sucks. I hate it. I'm the doghouse. It's never

(01:12:32):
gonna end. He's just going to bring in more players
and whatever. The next year I came back, we went
to the lead Day as a top ten all time assists.
I don't hold the Big Twelve record, but that's because
I only played three years in the Big Twelve. Aaron
Miles played four years in the Big Twelve. But in
terms of per year, it's like it's not really close.

(01:12:53):
I mean, I hold these records. I'm I'm on the
board of governors at Oklahoma State. Everything I've been able
to accomplish, I know it's because played oklam State, right,
because of my name, image and likeness from the Elite
eight run and the fact that I was at such
a prominent school with such a respected coach, that I
got opportunities I kicked ass and those opportunities, but I
got those opportunities. None of it would have happened if

(01:13:14):
I left. Zero of those things would have happened if
I left. I don't know if that's the case for
our guys. I don't, but I can tell you unequivocally
that my life would be dramatically different and kind of
like some of our guys. I had a girlfriend who
became my wife of twenty years. I have three beautiful kids,

(01:13:39):
all because I stayed. All because I stayed. It doesn't
happen if I leave. It doesn't mean that if I leave,
my trajectory is bad. Right. I could have played for
rickmn Jerison, become a coach. I could have played for
Steve Fisher, probably become a coach, lived in San Diego.
Who knows what happens. But I didn't. I stayed, and

(01:14:00):
this is my life, and so you know, there's those
crossroad moments, and I do know that I do know
that there is a reward to staying. There is something
about having a place, no matter how small, no matter
how run down or whatever or whatever level, it doesn't matter,

(01:14:21):
like that's my place. Tom Brennan was a longtime coach
at Vermont, and I worked with him at ESPN, and
I always remember to asking him, like, you were eighteen
years of Vermont, didn't you everything? Getting the hell on
Vermont coaching? Like when they beat Syracuse in the tournament.
He was retiring, but he could have gone and taken
a bigger job instead, he said, he said, my boy,

(01:14:43):
there's fifty states in the Union and I own one
of them. There was a strong statement.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
To me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
I totally got it. And I don't know what the
right thing for these kids is, but I do know
that there's a reward in staying that's not financial, it's
not tangible, a little bit of his in your soul,
but it's a real thing for the next fifty years.

(01:15:14):
And I just it's really hard for them to understand it,
no matter how much you tell them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Yeah, because even even at green Bay, like Green Bay
is not obviously Oklahoma State in terms of fan base
and and I don't think we have any board of
governors on our on our roster, but I do think
there is a strong community or a community that really
does care about basketball and cares about hard work. And

(01:15:41):
I mean, well, Preston, I'll find out real soon five,
ten years down the road, people will still recognize them
and they'll still want to talk to him, maybe about
one of his games or maybe about his dad making
a putt. But they're still going to recognize him and
want to talk Green Bay basketball or his state championship.
So yeah, I mean, you don't know leaving I think

(01:16:07):
there's more of a of an understanding if you stay
kind of what's there and curiosity killed the cat.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
Uh last thing, to somebody who is a college basketball fan,
this is the absolute greatest time of the year, right,
how would you what is the likelihood of upsets in

(01:16:34):
the first weekend of the tournament? Considering the incredible financial
disparity between the haves and the have nots.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
Money has changed the game quite a bit. Whether teams
had near five hundred ACC seasons or not, they still
have millions of dollars in the starting lineup, they have
millions of dollars collectively on the bench, and when that

(01:17:16):
first weekend it's a little bit different than ACC play.
I do think the upsets are more unlikely than they
used to be because even these stories of mid major
low majors having good years, a lot of those teams

(01:17:38):
aren't built off of continuity. They're still bought and they're
still pieced together the same way the million dollar rosters are.
So where we used to have the four year starters,
three of the guys have played together all four years,
or situations like that, we don't really have that anymore,

(01:17:59):
so that aspect has changed. I really don't think there'll
be a lot of upsets now. If I pick my bracket,
it goes the opposite of the way I pick my bracket.
So I'll let you know which ones are going to
be upsets here when the bracket comes out. But yeah,
I just think the money's too powerful nowadays.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Well I think what it's done is it's always done
it on some level, but now excessively. So it's not
just that you don't have guys playing three or four
years together. It's a guy is the best player on
a mid major and now he's on the bench or
sometimes on the court for a high major. So what
you used to get is used to get mid majors.

(01:18:40):
Not only they played together, but they were twenty two
to twenty three years old against high majors, some of
whom are eighteen nineteen years old. Now the high majors
they'll still have the eighteen nineteen years, but they'll have
the twenty three year old that played at that mid
major that has has kind of changed their body and
changed their game. Last year, I picked every game and

(01:19:01):
the first two rounds correctly, and I only did so
based upon one factor. Who had more money, Swear to
God and I and people's like, you pick mcneisse, Yes,
because they had more money than who they played against.
Because mcneise had a lot of money. That was kind
of the secret to it. Now, you do have some
mid majors that have a lot of money, but the

(01:19:23):
high majors have a lot more money. This okay, So
what about the Miami of Ohio? What about the the
the thirty to zero regular season but against a super
soft schedule, right, I mean, let's just be honest, okay,
And I want to make sure this is really really clear.

(01:19:46):
Their schedule would be a dream for us. We can
only dream of that schedule, like I want that schedule
because no one they played in the non conference is
above their level financially, no one. It's it's a fair fight.
I'll never forget We're playing Ohio State. My first year,
Antheony Roy has thirty. It's an eight point game, and

(01:20:08):
I got talked into changing a ball screen coverage and
it was a twenty point game like that. And I
go into the locker room and I'm so upset at
myself because I knew it. I knew it was the
wrong answer, and I walked into it and I did
it anyway. I don't know if it was out an
ego or just to try it, and it was a mistake.
And I'm just muttering and kicking myself and saying, you're

(01:20:29):
an idiot. Stop doing it. You prepared for it, you
knew it was the wrong decision, right, And I'm walking
around and I hadn't even talked to the team yet.
And Eric Sanders, who's still on our staff, puts his
big teddy bear arm around me and goes coach. You know,
they got three million dollars and we got ninety five thousand.
We had no chance. Don't kid yourself, We had no chance.

(01:20:54):
And it was such a deflating feeling because I knew
he was right right, like you can you can, you
can exit on them to death, but they're gonna Jimmy
and Joe you to death as well. But the point
is they haven't made had like the Dreams schedule their
administration or whatever. Financially, they're able to buy games. Their

(01:21:15):
schedule was an easier schedule or a more more favorable
schedule than many high majors have because they didn't play
anybody who's anybody who would be ranked better than them,
and then in their conference, and this is no control
of theirs. They didn't have to go to Akron, right,
who's probably at a higher financial level than they are.
They played Acron at home. How do you view that

(01:21:38):
in terms of do they belong in the NCAA tournament
going undefeated in the regular season.

Speaker 2 (01:21:43):
Oh, I think they're one hundred percent in. I am
very fascinated to watch them play. I do think they
play a fun style for their personnel, and I do
think that's one thing that I mean it is we
are still playing a sport. We are still playing basketball
like styles of plays, style, yep, yep. So I do
think that if Miami, Miami, Ohio, or or whoever gets

(01:22:06):
in in the low major, mid major realm, if they
have a tie game with four minutes to go, they're
used to winning those games, and maybe whoever they're playing,
whatever high major it is maybe hasn't, so I do
think there's that's real.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
I keep saying last thing, but this is this is
last thing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:30):
Okay. I've been in meetings with you before.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
I know in in ten years, kill Gans is doing.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
What uh hopefully still coaching. I mean, I would love
to keep doing this for a long time, especially with
seeing the the work ethic and competitiveness that Andy and
Carrie have into their older ages. I love what I do.

(01:23:01):
I love being here. I don't know where it takes me.
I don't know if I'm a head coach of a
Division three A Division two A junior college, I don't know.
But I really hope that I'm still coaching. I hope
that it puts my family in a good situation financially,
and we're just enjoying what we do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
Thanks so much, not just for joining me, but you
were the easiest hire, right like it was. It was
so easy and so obvious, but it still took a
leap of faith when we hadn't worked together, didn't know

(01:23:44):
each other well. And you have, as you said, an
amazing work ethic like the three of you guys, and
the amount of work you put in is incredible. And
it's like I always wanted our guys just so people
understand they know just about everything the other team's going

(01:24:05):
to do. It's not for they're not being coached, it's
the it's it's our I think the number one job. Yes,
you have to build a building blocks of an offense
to building blocks of defense. You have to give them
all the fundamentals. But when they walk out there, they
know what the questions are going to be on the test.
It's up to them to answer them. And I credit
you because you do what I've always wanted a coach

(01:24:27):
to do, which is give our players an edge because
we're more prepared than the other team. And I take
an incredible amount of pride in it. But I will
tell the world that it's because of your work ethic
that does that. And you only work that hard if
one that's who you are, and two if you're all

(01:24:49):
in on what you're doing and who you're doing it for.
So I can't tell you how much I appreciate how
much you've worked so far and how much I know
you'll work going forward in the future, be it for me,
be it for yourself, or whatever. It nowly doesn't go
unnoticed it means an amazing amount to me as somebody
who I believe we've become lifelong friends in this period

(01:25:11):
of time.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
It's the Dog Gottlieb Show, and let's welcome in a
dear friend. And to those of you who are not
as hardcore a college basketball guy or girl as I am,
I understand, I'm going to direct you to a podcast
network which should be your source for everything you want

(01:25:38):
to know about college basketball. I mean that you're like waits, no, no, no, Look.
Field of sixty eight is the absolute best, the best
at covering this sport. And one of their co founders,
Rob Dosterer, joins us now on The Doug Gottlieb Show,
and Rob, I mean why I said what you guys

(01:25:58):
do an amazing job players right after games hopping on
the stream where people can find it on social media,
people can download it. People just make it part of
your queue. You have coaches right off the court. You
have coaches or former coaches as part of your as
your analysts. Before we get to college basketball at large

(01:26:19):
and the NCAA Tournament, which is going to begin in
full this Tuesday with the first four from the infancy
of Field of sixty eight to now, what has the
growth been like as somebody who started it, you and
Jeff Goodman years ago.

Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
It's been wild to see it kind of take off
the way that it has. You know, this didn't start
out of like this. This wasn't some grand plan, Doug.
It wasn't like we sat here like, you know what
we should do. We should start our own podcast network
and see if we can lean into YouTube and see
if we can find a way to make this work.
I got fired, That's what That's how this started. I

(01:27:00):
got laid off by NBC in the middle of COVID
and I didn't really have anything to do. And me
and Goodman had talked for a while about potentially finding
a way to break off from some major media networks
that only view college basketball as a one month sport.
But the reason why they started, the reason why we
feel A sixty eight became a thing, was because I

(01:27:21):
had nothing to do. I got laid off, and we
decided to kind of lean into this. And the original
idea was create a network of shows that had nothing
but former players and former coaches doing pods on the
team that they played for, the team that they coached for,
and just tell them back in the day stories and
that worked for a little bit when everyone was still

(01:27:43):
locked down and stuck in the house and they couldn't
go out anywhere. But as soon as things opened back
up and these guys were allowed to go out and
do things outside of their house, skin, the idea of
having to do a weekly pod on their team was
just like, yeah, you know what, I'm going to go
spend time outside of being trapped in my house.

Speaker 3 (01:28:01):
So we started.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
After Dark was the next concept where we kind of
let's do I remember growing up it was Baseball Tonight,
right during the summer. Every night you get home eleven o'clock,
you put on Baseball Tonight and you figure out what
happened in baseball. And I was just like, but that
doesn't exist really in the form that we want it
in college basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
So let's make it.

Speaker 4 (01:28:21):
Let's create, and let's find a way to make that
be a thing. And we started it the first year.
Within three months we were on serious XM and it
just kind of took off from there. So it's it's
been a wild ride to see where where this thing
is going. And you know, I'd like to say that
this was all planned out and we thought like this
was a well thought out idea. And it's mostly just

(01:28:41):
like we're throwing stuff against the wall and hoping that
it hoping that it works, and sometimes it does and
sometimes it doesn't. But at the end of the day,
it's like we're you know, how this is man, We're
talking about sports. It's supposed to be fun, so we
try to make it, try to make it enjoyable.

Speaker 1 (01:28:54):
Albert Einstein One said in the middle of the Difficulty
lies Opportunity, right, and COVID, you guys both get and
let go. And I would agree with you. I always,
I actually I completely agree with the baseball analogy, Baseball
Night analogy. What's interesting is when I worked at ESPN,
we would have college basketball tonight. But I honestly believed,

(01:29:18):
why don't we do this every night of the year, Right,
There's always something to talk about, There's always something interesting,
and there is a hunger and a desire for it,
however small, and to build it. And you guys have
have taken it. And I love this. You cover the
mid majors, you cover the low majors, you cover all
the stuff, and it's it's pretty pretty awesome. If I

(01:29:40):
were to ask you twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six. Right,
it's Sunday Night Selection Sunday, and there's a lot of people,
a high percentage of people, if we're honest, parachute into
college basketball now and they have a very passing knowledge
of it. And you were to say this is the

(01:30:03):
biggest story of this season, it's what.

Speaker 4 (01:30:08):
I think, it's probably Duke and John Shire. You know,
Cam Booser has been, without a doubt, the best player
in college basketball this season. John Shire is a guy
that is in his fourth season at Duke, replacing a
legend in Coach K and seeing him come in to
do the job that he's done as quickly as he's

(01:30:28):
done it, right, I think that that's kind of gone
overlooked in the transition here. Right, We've seen other coaches
come in and replace all of famers and not be
able to keep it at the same level.

Speaker 3 (01:30:42):
And Duke's been at the same level.

Speaker 4 (01:30:44):
You can make an argument that right now they are
better than what they were at the end of Coach
K's era. They're winning regular season titles without a doubt.
To me, last year they were clearly the best team
in the sport to me when they were healthy this year,
they were clearly the best team in the sport. And
for Shire to be able to do that in an
era where I think college basketball is the best it's

(01:31:04):
been probably since what like the mid nineties, before we
really had the guys leaving early for the NBA, before
we really leaned into the high school players going pro
and one and done guys. To see him to be
able to do that with teams built around freshman like
albeit Cooper Flag is amazing and Kid Boozer is amazing,
but he's still building it around freshmen. I think that

(01:31:26):
it doesn't get enough coverage because they haven't gone to
the national championship game in one and I just I
feel like we can get ahead of that. Doug, we
know what we're looking at here. We can get ahead
of that. We can say johns Shire, what he's doing
is incredible. They've been the best team in the sports
the last two years. They've had the best player in
the sport the last two years. And John Sire looks
like he's eleven, but he coaches like a guy who's

(01:31:48):
been doing this for forty years.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):
It is fascinating. There's a bunch of things that I
want to dive into here about that. The first thing is,
let's not kid ourselves. Okay, Mike Krzyzewski, I don't know,
you're younger than me, so I don't know if you remember.
But previous to them winning a national championship, and they
went back to back national championships with his first two titles.

(01:32:12):
But previous to that, Duke was the story was they'd
get to the Final four and then they would get
blown out. Everyone remembers coach k winning titles, coach of
Team USA. He's probably the most iconic of all of
those iconic names from the nineties, as you pointed out,

(01:32:32):
when college basketball was at its absolute peak of popularity
and probably of talent. But as a fifty year old now,
damn fifty years old, As a fifty year old now
who grew up watching this thing, I remember when Duke,
which was my favorite program, right because they had guys
that looked like me at point guard, specifically Bobby Hurley,

(01:32:53):
they got blown out by UNLV. But that wasn't necessarily
a surprise because that when Tommy Amerker and Johnny Dawkins
went to the Font four, they got blown out like
they would. This was there was that ceiling they were
bumping up against and they couldn't break through, And finally
they did break through. But my question is, if we're honest.

(01:33:16):
Last year and John is a friend, we've asked him
to play next year. I don't know why I decided
to do that, but I did say, like, hey, we
played Kansas this year, like you guys want to beat
our brains in for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars,
tell us when we'll show up, right. But as a
and I think I told people his first year, he's

(01:33:38):
an amazing coach. He sees it, he gets it. He
makes the adjustments that give them opportunities. I thought he
outthought himself last year when they lost and they had
the big lead to Houston because he went to Cooper
Flag almost exclusively down the stretch. One kN K Nipple

(01:33:58):
was the one that was the better option. I believed
in that game. Now again, now when you're coaching and
you can, you can you're part of it. You know that,
Like dude, at the end of the day, do I
go back to my best player? Who's my best player?
Like Cooper Flag was the best player for a reason.
Now we know Conkinipple also not a bad number two.

(01:34:21):
I guess my question is can we be fans of
I know the answer in my mind. Can we be
fans of John Shire? Say he's done an amazing job,
but in opportunities in the past, he may have to
adjust or has made mistakes. Like we make mistakes, we
don't always make the perfect call. Might have made a
mistake against Houston going to Cooper down the stretch.

Speaker 4 (01:34:44):
Well, I you know, I think that he's We've seen
some of that this year as well. Right, Like I
think back to the Texas Tech game, and what happened
at the end of that game was they tried to
switch a little bit. They tried to get a little
bit too cute. They had to deal with trying to
stop Christian Anderson. He was able to them up and
I think what you saw after that was him making

(01:35:04):
an adjustment. Right they're playing a little bit differently defensively.
I think where they kind of made their leap was, well,
we got this guy pat and Goangbo who's six eleven
and two hundred and sixty pounds in a monster and
let's lean into the idea that no one's going to
score on him in the paint and They went from
being a team where we had legitimate questions about them
defensively in December and even like I go back to

(01:35:26):
the first game against Florida State that they played in
the ACC regular season, and you look at where they
are now, where they're the best defensive a team on Kempom,
And you can see the adjustments that he's making, right,
you can see him kind of figuring that stuff out
in real time. And you know, at the end of
the day, he is, what is he thirty nine forty
years old? You know, he's he's still a baby in

(01:35:47):
this business. So he's got plenty of time to figure
it out. And when it comes to like winning, right,
and you mentioned this about coach k and this is
the thing that kind of drives me crazy about college
basketball a little bit, is that we lean too much
into the narratives that come as a result of a
one undone tournament. Right, you're always the best to never
do it until you do. I remember people saying Bill

(01:36:08):
self wasn't going to be able to win a championship
because he went to kans in his first two years
and got knocked off early in the NCAA tournament. Right,
there were people that said Dan Hurley couldn't win big
games because it took him a while to figure out
how to be able to win in March. And it's like,
at some point we're gonna stop doing that as a
society that covers the sport of college basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
But you would hope at least.

Speaker 4 (01:36:33):
But I said this the other day, I don't think
the question is whether or not John Shire wins a
national championship, Doug.

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
I think the question is will.

Speaker 4 (01:36:40):
He win a title before he goes and gets an
NBA job at some point, because when you watch him
and you watch some of the stuff that he does,
like he thinks the game, and I think he understands
the game at a level that will intrigue some NBA teams.
So is that something that he wants to do and
will he be able to win a title before he
leaves or is he going to stay at Duke and
win two, three, four, Because I think that's what's kind

(01:37:01):
of inevitably here, Like you got a guy that understands
how to recruit, that understands the program that he's recruiting too,
that is able to connect with kids at a level,
and frankly is just understands how to be able to
navigate the space that we are in college basketball and
how to be able to get the coverage that you
want to be able to get. He's just I think
he's fantastic of what he does. As the long winded

(01:37:23):
way of saying it, I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:37:25):
He also communicates in a way which is confrontational but
non confrontational. Right, There's like there's an art to it.
And the raving lunatic college basketball coach doesn't work in
the NBA. It doesn't, and it's really really interesting. I

(01:37:48):
don't think by the way, Danny Hurley is a raging lunatic,
I don't. I think a lot of that is the
theatrics that's part of kind of the show. And I
also know that during games he's actually not jumping on
his players for the most parts he makes he puts
all his energy towards the officials. Right, That's what you know,

(01:38:09):
and I think people miss that they don't understand it.

Speaker 4 (01:38:12):
He's a cheerleader during games with his with his players. Yes,
like he's the biggest hype man now and practices different story.

Speaker 3 (01:38:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:38:21):
I don't know if I'm just I'm just thinking, imagine
if he had taken the Lakers job and he's coaching
Lebron James and Luka Doncic and a Dan Hurley practiced
with those guys like, I don't know how that would
have necessarily worked, but the game stuff would have been fine.

Speaker 1 (01:38:34):
He would have been There's another there's another one too
that has that same non confrontational approach in Todd Golden,
who won the.

Speaker 3 (01:38:42):
Time last year.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
Right, And it's very very interesting on this sort of
new wave of and he's also a very data driven
guy and a data driven system and it's all part
of that kind of Randy Bennett family tree which has
kind of taken over the sport a little bit. Many
been stead coach at Saint Mary's. They've been He took
over a program a year before he got there, won

(01:39:04):
two games and now they're uh, they've been a co
kind of dominant program in the WCC with Gonzaga, and
they won the.

Speaker 4 (01:39:11):
Last four regular season championships Gonzaga. We all think about
Gonzaga as the dominant team the WCC. Saint Mary's is
when the last four to of them they shared with
gonzagas with them they won outright, It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:22):
It's it's absolutely it does work. And and he also
started with a bunch of Australians and guys that people
missed on, right, and it's it's again a fastating look.
If you were if without looking at the bracket, Okay,
when if you wake up this morning and you say,

(01:39:45):
here's the here's a couple of teams that they're going
to be in Indie. Right, they're just going to be
in India because they're just a little bit better.

Speaker 4 (01:39:53):
Would those teams be uh, Florida for one, I think
Florida's figured it out. I think they've turned owner, They've
kind of they've been able to identify. To me, I
think there's been a switch in what the best college
basketball teams are trying to do right from we're gonna
try to get the most quality shots to we're going

(01:40:16):
to try to get the highest quantity of shots possible.
We're gonna win the turnover battle, and we're gonna win
the rebounding battle, and we're gonna lean all the way
into that. And I think that Florida has kind of
been at the forefront of that movement. And some of
it was I think a result of having a roster
where you bring back Tommy Hawk, and you bring back

(01:40:36):
Alex Condon, and you bring back Ruben Chinielou and you
bring back michah handlocked and all of a sudden, you
got this massive front line. It's like, well, we can't
really do like the pace and space and the analytics,
and we're going to try to get as many threes
as we possibly can because we got to play Tommy
Hawk at the three if we're gonna have our five
best players on the floor. And I think some of
it is just we're I think we're seeing that a
little bit. There's there's been more of a push, like

(01:40:58):
let's get offensive rebounds. In the NBA, we got Jokicic
and Joannis and you know, the the era where everyone's
trying to be able to match up with Steph Curry
and the Warriors is kind of gone by the wayside.
So I think there's a little bit of that involved too.
But the Boogy Flann has been a difference maker for them,
and Urban Klatchar coming off the bench and being a
shooter has allowed them to be able to space the

(01:41:19):
floor a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (01:41:20):
So.

Speaker 4 (01:41:20):
I think Florida has really figured things out here. Michigan
obviously they are. What they can do defensively is just ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:41:28):
Man. I just I'm blown away by them.

Speaker 4 (01:41:31):
I did not know how it was gonna work, you know,
in the offseason, I remember sitting with Mike Boyd and
at peach him and talk with him about this team,
and he's like, yeah, man, we got Jacks Lindenberg and
Morris Johnson at Daimar. We're gonna play the three of
them together, and a die is going to shock everybody.
And Morris Johnson can guard five positions and Yacks A
Lindenberg like we might use them to just guard point
guard's ninety four feet And I'm like, yeah, okay, Mike

(01:41:52):
Blacks like this is what we're You don't need to
try to sell me on. I know Dusty's a good coach.
I know you're a good coach. You don't need to
sell me on. So I didn't. I wasn't really a believer.
And then it clicked and it's like, oh, well, okay, yeah,
that's exactly. Yeah, everything you just said is working right now.
So I think Michigan is is is scary. I'm a
little worried what happens without Lja Cason. You lose your

(01:42:14):
backup point guard. He's like a dynamic guy off the bench,
so no questions.

Speaker 1 (01:42:17):
And it also gives an ability in an NCAA tournament
game to play two point guards together. Ye lose him
for the year and that that one hurts it the
Caleb Foster being out for for Duke, same thing, right
these I used to when I worked for CBS and
did Selection Sunday, I would always pick like one game
I would lock in on would be based upon injury

(01:42:39):
right where the you know people who watched the selection show,
you know ninety five percent of them haven't watched a
game of college basketball, right, They're just give me a
give me a winner. And it was the easiest thing
was to go like that team's going to get beat
because people forgot that they've lost some some kind of
key element. And I do think that that's a potential
one will have. We last year I picked all but

(01:43:02):
three games correctly, and it was because every game I
picked was based upon who had more money? That was it,
who had more money. I do think the gap has
grown wider between the habs, the power five and the
have nots. There are some mid majors that have a
lot of money invested, and you've seen that in the results,

(01:43:27):
but have we Is that era of George Mason, of VCU,
of Butler of you know, pick your favorite whatever story
which aita State to the final four? Is that era over?

Speaker 4 (01:43:45):
I think that it is, But and I don't necessarily
think it's just because of the amount of money at
the top or like one of the things. And I'm
actually curious your opinion on it, because because you're in
this in the day today at the mid midjor level,
I don't think it's just the majors losing all of
their best players to the high major level.

Speaker 3 (01:44:03):
That's certainly a part of it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:04):
But I think more than anything, it is the ability
to retain guys. Right like ten years ago, when we
saw teams like Wichita State being able to get to
a final four, there were ninety ninety five, sometimes even
one hundred players with eligibility remaining declaring for the drafts
and staying in the draft because getting an Exhibit ten
deal where you're going to make what like fifty K

(01:44:26):
or going overseas and making fifty or sixty grand was
a better option than staying in the school when you
have a limited window to be able to make money
off your athletic ability. Right, most basketball players by the
time they get to thirty are probably not playing basketball anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:44:40):
So if you're twenty one and.

Speaker 4 (01:44:41):
You have the chance to be able to go get
into the professional ranks, you're probably going to be able
to You're probably going to want to go do that.
Fifteen years ago, ten years ago, and now it's you know,
Yaxe Lindenberg would have been a top twenty pick and
he's coming back to college because he can make more
money there. To me, more than anything, it's the retention
of guys coming back to college because of the fact

(01:45:01):
that they can make money here and sometimes more money
than they make in the NBA, And it's the influx
of European talent. I think the top of the sport
is the best that it's been probably since I've been
covering this, Doug, and I've been doing this since two
thousand and nine, I don't know if I've ever seen
it better when it comes to the teams at the
highest level. And yes, some of that is because you're
seeing mid major programs get harvested by the higher programs

(01:45:28):
or the higher level programs. But I think more than anything,
else it is the retention. So the value that you
had ten years ago as a mid major was we're
older than these guys. These are all freshmen, so they're talented,
but they don't really know how to play yet. They
haven't gone through some of these wars. And we have
guys that are twenty two and twenty three years old.
And now the high major teams are just as old,

(01:45:50):
but they're also like more talented. So you lost the
advantage of being able to have grown men playing against kids.
It's now grown men against grown men that are benefit
and that's tough.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
You actually absolutely nail it. You absolutely positively nailed it. Yes, No,
I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:46:06):
That's what happens when I spend more time talking to
you than talking to Jeff Goodman.

Speaker 1 (01:46:09):
No, it's because it's the that's I don't think people
understand why, right, like it never it didn't happen in
the nineties, Like the nineties were dominated by the Dukes
and the Michigans of the world because guys, you know,
just you had better players and better coaches than you

(01:46:31):
had and you would have the occasional one off. And
then we went through kind of twenty years of I mean,
and it really culminated in the mid major final four
right where flor Atlantic and San Diego State, you know
they're there, and these these programs that would never sniff it.
And this has completely flipped it back to where now
the powers are the powers, and that until there's a change,

(01:46:54):
this is how it's going to be. And I don't
know if I know, the common maybe doesn't care or
doesn't understand, but what you laid out is exactly why
we are in this state. We just are. It's the
it's it's honestly. My argument against it's not on. My
argument against Miam of Ohio was my argument against my Ohio.

(01:47:16):
If anyone wants to say like they would be better
than an Auburn, for example, they just aren't. And now
they've done a great job of attention. They have a
lot of money sunk into their parking, a lot more
money than most men majors. But it's really hard to
believe that a I think they have a two million
dollar roster is as good at the end of the

(01:47:38):
year as a ten or twelve million dollar roster. It's
really like, that's really hard. And what again, what the
other factor that used to be was the three point
line used to be something that that could kind of
even the playing field. But again, the high majors have

(01:47:58):
embraced the three point line. If you go back to
when there was an era there in the early two
thousands when the Princeton offense was huge for everybody, and
it was Princeton offense was seen as the ultimate way
of evening the playing field, also cutting down the shot clock.
More possessions, better teams have better talent, more possessions, more

(01:48:20):
likely to succeed. And then the last part is I
think you nail it with Florida, which is using the
use of analytics, the use of kind of new creative
ways to win games. Now the high majors are using that.
They're not heads in the sand. We're going to throw
it inside and play high low basketball and not worry
about the data. They're all doing the same kind of

(01:48:41):
smart things. By the way, Florida, though, the pace and
space is analytics driven, so too is offensive rebounds and
getting steals, right, because it's a way of generating more possessions.
He who has more possessions wins nine times in ten, right,
unless you're super super inefficient, like that's what we had

(01:49:03):
to do was we had to play at a slower
pace and be super super efficient, knowing that the math
was not on our side unless we got to the
free throw line a ton because we didn't have We
shot the three really well, but we had limited three
point shooters. We couldn't have guys that shot in the
twenties shooting five or six threes a game because we
don't rebound it all that well. Right, So you have

(01:49:24):
to use the data and use it to the best
of your ability. But I think you put together that
it's not a narrative, it's the reality of why the
powers are the powers, and there's a greater gap than
ever and the talent is better. Now here's the other part. Two.
Though college basketball is more talented than it's been, it
is a really really good watch of really good basketball.

(01:49:46):
It's really hard for boosters because now you're throwing money
at guys who you don't know and at fans in
the regular season to go to games and cheer for
players that you have no idea who they are, and
they're not truly invested for the most part in your program,
in the brand of their school, even when they try
and kind of fake it, and maybe they are for

(01:50:07):
a short period time. That's that's difficult. Do we get
to a tipping point where people that keep throwing money
at their programs are like I'm out.

Speaker 4 (01:50:19):
Yes, Yeah, you're gonna eventually donor fatigue is gonna hit.
There's only so much money if you're spending ten, twelve,
fourteen million dollars on a roster, right, and then you
see these guys go out and have a year that's
good but maybe not championship level. And you got to
go out and three of those guys graduate, six of

(01:50:41):
them hit the portal, two of them go to the NBA,
and you got to go out and replace ten players,
and you got to raise that money again. And it's like, well,
I just gave you four million dollars last year, and
you're coming back to me and put your hand in
my pocket again. And you guys made the Sweet sixteen
and finish fourth in your league.

Speaker 3 (01:50:55):
Like, what's the return on investment there?

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
So now I got to go and get a bunch
of more guys where I'm gonna have to spend six
months trying to figure out who they are. I think
the long term key to college basketball is going to
be finding a way to incentivize coming back to school
and don't I don't know how you do that without
creating some kind of salary cap where you can make

(01:51:18):
more money or a higher percentage of the cap by
coming back to the program, or something where when you
sign with the school you got to sign a four
year deal and if.

Speaker 1 (01:51:26):
You multi your deals, yeah, if you leave, you got
to pay something. Freshmen, I don't know if you know this,
but incoming freshmen buying large. The top fifty have all
signed multi year deals.

Speaker 4 (01:51:35):
But if there's there's got to be some kind of
buyout where when you if you transfer that you have
to pay money. There's got to be a financial incentive
there is.

Speaker 1 (01:51:43):
The big question is are the athletic directors, the presidents,
are the coaches going to make sure you pay? And
there have been a couple of cases now of where
in football where they're making them pay a buyout, right,
But the big question is, and and my argument with
with my boss is, let's put the buyout in the thing. Well,

(01:52:04):
are we really going to make them buy it out?
Like yes, it's a real contract then yes?

Speaker 3 (01:52:07):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
Well, well no one then no one will want to come.

Speaker 4 (01:52:10):
That's not true. That's not how that's how every family
program does it, Doug. If every program puts the buyout
in and forces the buyout, then that's where you limit
the trends like it's it's because programs don't want to
do that and are scared of not having to know.
If everybody does it, then it's not going to be
an issue because everyone's going to become industry standard. And

(01:52:31):
once becomes industry standard, that's when the incentive is come
back to school, because I don't want to have to
pay forty percent of the money come in next year, right,
So I think that's going to be the key. If
you want to slow this thing down so we don't
have seventeen thousand players in the portal whatever it is,
every single spring, then that's that's how you do it.
You want to reduce the term, make a financial create

(01:52:54):
a financial incentive to come back to the program that
you're at.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
To anyone who says you can't you can't have that
like in a contract, well, I can tell you as
somebody who's been in the media for twenty five years,
there's something called a non compete clause. A non compete clause,
there is no difference in a non compete clause in

(01:53:19):
basketball as there is in media. That's it. There's literally
no difference in the two. And you know your only
way out of a non compete clause, which you could
make players sit out a year just like they used to,
only instead of having it as a punishment of transfer.
Make it in those contracts or you have a non

(01:53:39):
compete clause. Hey, you do whatever you want, you make
well every much you want, but you can't be playing
college basketball for a year based upon this non compete clause.
You probably have to have a buy out of that
as well, so it can be done. Last thing, Rob,
and I appreciate your time. We are in full college
basketball coach search season Syracuse probably the biggest name job

(01:54:05):
that's available. But there will be a surprise. There's always
a surprise. And you talked about donor fatigue and one
of the things that has definitely changes. You don't get
four or five years to figure it out, right, you
just don't. What's the big job that or coach, whether

(01:54:26):
it's retirement or move. What's the one that you think
is coming that is going to surprise people that hasn't
popped yet.

Speaker 4 (01:54:35):
I'll be curious to see what happens at Oregon, right,
because I feel like Oregon is a job where the
affiliation with Nike and Phil and I obviously is going
to be something that should should help them out quite
a bit, not just when it comes to money, but
when it comes to the prestige of beating in with
Nike and they're in the big ten now, and if

(01:54:55):
Dana decides that, hey, you know what, it's been a
rough couple of years.

Speaker 3 (01:55:00):
I don't know if I'm built for this anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:55:02):
Is that something where that opens up and that's I
think it's going to be a relatively quiet cycle. I
don't know if I'm curious if you agree or disagree
on that, but it just feels like we've had some
of these big, big, big jobs open up quite a
bit recently where I don't know if there's going to
be the movement. And the one thing that I'm actually
curious about is when you have the churn this quick,

(01:55:27):
are you one burning through a lot of the candidates
that have a chance to end up being great coaches
down the road because they don't get the chance to
figure it out on the fly. You're taking flyers on
maybe some young assistants that aren't quite ready. Some mid
major guys that are still trying to figure it out
as they move up a level, and if you burn
through them, like if you give someone let's just use

(01:55:47):
Kim English as an example, right, I think there was
a chance that he could end up being a really,
really good coach down the road. He gets two years
at George Mason, then has to go to Providence because
that opportunity opens up and you're not going to say
no to it. Years at Providence and it doesn't work,
and he's still like, what was he thirty nine years
old and he's been at two different jobs and is
now fired at the high major level.

Speaker 3 (01:56:07):
Is he going to get another chance?

Speaker 4 (01:56:09):
Whereas you know ten years ago, when you don't turn
through the ranks this quickly, maybe he would have had
a longer time at George Mason to kind of figure
things out, and maybe when he got to the high
major level he would have been a little bit more
prepared for that and it would be something where before
he's forty, it looks like he's already kind of doing
air quotes here damage goods. So I think that we're

(01:56:29):
kind of burning through these candidates because they're getting jobs
that maybe they're not quite ready for. And you get
two or three years and then you're gone and it's like, Okay, well,
what do you do now? Or is anyone still going
to come back and find this guy that has a
chance to be really, really good he's just not ready
for the job that he was given yet.

Speaker 1 (01:56:43):
Well, it's fascinating to bring up Dana Altman because Dane
Altman was a junior college coach that took over for
Lan Kruger at Kansas State yep, right, And because Lan
Krueger had taken Kansas State to the lead eight, Dana
was seen as an underachiever at Kansas State. So then

(01:57:04):
he took the Creighton job and he built Creyton into
a monster. And I don't know if people remember, but
he took the Arkansas job for like ten days and
then came back and was sort of stuck at Creighton forever. Right,
And Dana was always mentioned for jobs and it is
an amazing basketball coach, and the thought was always because

(01:57:24):
he's from and they would be Nebraska or Iowa. Was
Iowa was always his kind of his dream job because
he's you know, from the area, and you know, he's
always had his dad come to all of his games
and then lo and behold, he ends up taking Oregon
and he was like their tenth choice at Oregon and
he's an amazing coach, takes them to a Final four
and now, like you know, again, has a bad run,

(01:57:47):
best player gets hurt. Right, totally different era, and I like,
are we really going to force him to retire when
he's Dana Altman, like ask any coach, like, dude, he's
kind of amazing. And then you circle back to Kansas State,
who thought they hired the next kind of more. He

(01:58:08):
was more Bruce Pearl right in terms of a little
bit of salesman, Carnival Barker, great energy, positivity. They go
to the Elite day this first year, then they put
a ton of money in the program and don't get
the results, and all of a sudden, now he's out
of a job. And again then it's it's Kansas State,
who's just in this kind of curious predicament of who

(01:58:29):
are we in this era? How do we build it right?
The whole thing is absolutely fascinating. I will say this,
I think one of the reasons the cycle may not
be may not have the openings at the high level
is because the buyouts are are gargantuan and unlike football.

(01:58:51):
Unlike football, where you can make on your stadium, you
can make one hundred plus million dollars on a yearly basis,
so you can make up that very quickly. Basketball just
doesn't make that much money. It just doesn't. I mean
it doesn't. You're you're talking about the best programs clearing
ten to fifteen million dollars, whereas the best programs in

(01:59:12):
college football clear one hundred and fifty to two hundred
million dollars. So it doesn't make sense to buy a
guy out for fifteen million, and then you have to
pay the next guy three or four million, and his
staff a couple of million, plus then you have to
fund their new roster, which isn't an You got to.

Speaker 4 (01:59:28):
Pay his buyout of the school that he's coming from.
So like all of these things, it doesn't make it.
Whereas and it just doesn't make financial sense. On the
other hand, if you don't buy out some of these guys,
then the donors won't give any money. Then you're going
to have a terrible year the next year dead man
walking right, and you're not gonna know you not make money.

(01:59:49):
But you're still you're going to lose money, and now
you're back in the same predicament the next year, only
the buyout is slightly less. But the buyout is slightly less,
but now you're you're underwater for the whole.

Speaker 1 (02:00:01):
It's crazy. I do think the one thing they need
to avoid is people finding out exactly how much money
players are making, because do you remember have you ever
seen the Parade magazine? I don't know. Again, you're not
very Americ, but but but Parade was like a magazine

(02:00:22):
inside an insert into the Sunday newspaper and my favorite
Parade magazine. We used to do this. Dave Revson who
works with the Big Ten Network and I we did
a Patriot League championship game Lehigh shoot who I can't
remember who's against. Lehigh ends up going to the NCA
tournament and we're driving back from Lehigh from Pennsylvania to Bristol, Connecticut,

(02:00:47):
when we're working in the ESPN and we were doing
the how much does this guy make? Like librarian in
des Moines, and your whole perception of somebody and their
value on this earth is based upon how much money
they make. We don't judge athletes necessarily based on how
great they are. It's at that bump for thirty million dollars,

(02:01:10):
I'd get out there and play. Right. If the common
fan finds out that the point guard at Florida makes
three million dollars and he has a bad game, your
whole energy towards him changes compared to ten years ago
when we're like, well, he was a college kid. He
was at Princeton last year, Like this is a great story,

(02:01:31):
all right, he didn't play well, but you know he
was at Princeton, didn't have a scholarship. Now he's at
Florida defending nationallyam I just think that when people find
out how much these guys are making, it's not the
energy is already changed. With gambling being everywhere, I think
the energy changes even more.

Speaker 4 (02:01:48):
Yeah, But also the flip side of it is you
are a pro, and part of being a pro is
you're getting paid to deal with some of that criticism, right,
and if you are making multiple million dollar was like,
if your salary has two commas with a crooked number
in front, then you should be able to handle a
little bit of somebody on Twitter set.

Speaker 1 (02:02:07):
But there's still twenty twenty one, twenty years old.

Speaker 3 (02:02:10):
No, I look, I get it.

Speaker 4 (02:02:12):
There's there's two different sides to it, and I've I
try to be cognizant of that when we there are
going to be times where you have to be critical
of players doing this job, right, Yeah, and when when
it's a nineteen year old who has moved out of
his parents' house for the first time and is like
on his own six months been honestly like, it's it's
one thing to be critical of that person. It's another

(02:02:33):
thing when it's like a twenty three year old that's
in his fifth year of college that probably has two
different mortgages, so it is where it a chain that's
worth more than my house?

Speaker 3 (02:02:41):
Then then then yes we can be a little bit
more critical.

Speaker 1 (02:02:44):
Field of sixty eight. Download it, watch it wherever, wherever
you ingest it. It's the best rob. I appreciate your time,
enjoy the NCAA tournament. I can't wait to see your
guys coverage.

Speaker 3 (02:02:55):
I appreciate you, Doug.

Speaker 1 (02:02:59):
So that's it for this edition of The Doug Gottlieb Show.
Or reminder a WFRV Plus is our digital home for
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(02:03:23):
all of our long form interviews throughout not just the
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We can block you as my good friend. Future Hall

(02:03:46):
of Famers Seth Davis said, muting people as like squishing ants,
so we can do that as well. But I do
appreciate you listening, you watching you, supporting, and more than anything,
understand this that I'm a head college basketball coach. I've
gotten a chance to be a broadcaster. I've gotten a
chance to play. And what I love about this time

(02:04:10):
of year, what I know about this time year from
personal experiences, whether you win or whether you lose, simply
being put in front of the nation and having this
opportunity to grow your own brand creates a whole new
life for you. All of what I've been able to
do professionally for the last twenty six years since I've

(02:04:32):
been out of college twenty six years, from my three kids,
to my marriage that lasted twenty years, to jobs at
ESPN for ten years, CBS for five years, Fox Sports
for seven years, and now being a head basketball coach
in college for two years. All of it is made

(02:04:53):
possible because I played in three NCAA tournaments and people
somehow got to know my name and I did fun
interviews and I became somebody that had some sort of
name recognition. And I love covering it because I know
that the future Doug Gottlieb is on one of these teams,
and I'll champion his success when he gets his opportunity.

(02:05:15):
Thanks so much for watching, for listening or downloading and
be a part of The Doug Gotlieb Show.

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