Steve Hartman and Bucky Brooks talk Shohei Ohtani and the Tourney!

Steve Hartman and Bucky Brooks talk about the NCAA Tournament so far, how MLB should approach marketing Shohei Ohtani after his insane performance in the WBC, more on the NCAA Tourney and the effects of NIL on the tournament field, FSR NFL insider Adam Caplan joins the show, and more!

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports leaving the dream once again
here on an Elite eight Saturday. This is Fox Sports Saturday,
Hartman and Brooks with you, and we are broadcasting live
from the tirerac dot com studios tirac dot com. We're
gonna help get you there and I'm at selection fast
free shipping, Free Road has a protection over ten thousand
recommended installers tirerac dot com. The way tire buying should be, Bucky.

(00:26):
We are sitting here today, two hours away from the
first of the Elite eight games that's going to be
coming out of the East Region. How many people's brackets
had Kansas State and Florida Atlantic in this matchup, and
then later Againzagets taken on the Yukon in the West Regional. Buckie,
I feel disappointed for both of us right now. He

(00:49):
was a North Carolina guy, me as a UCLA guy
for different reasons, because we knew this was going to
be a wide open tournament. Yes, your tar Heels won
twenty games this year, they had a winning record in
conference play. They got passed over for the field of
sixty eight. Last year's an eighth seed. Yeah, you get
all the way of the championship game. So you got

(01:11):
to be thinking to yourself, you know what we should
based on here? We should we should have been there,
we should have been in right. I look at all
the big ten teams. Yeah, oh for eight? Yea, like
SEC oh for eight, Yeah, like the big The Big
ten is where I have my biggest uh complaint, because
I don't understand they have all these teams and those

(01:31):
teams couldn't get out the first weekend, so Carolina should
have been But for you, I'm heartbroken because like this
was the year it was wide open for the Bruins
to be able to make a run. Uh. You don't
have any heavyweights in terms of blue blood traditional teams
that we always see in the four and all that
other stuff, and so this should have been an opportunity
for UCLA to finally finally hang another banner up in

(01:54):
Paul Pavilion. And somehow, some way, the nemesis now they
have be considered a nemesis. The Zags get him again. Well,
the Zags got him again, and I'm not going to
belabor that because it's past history. But here's a couple
of observations about that game. First of all, at m
Bona not playing in the game. I mean, when he

(02:17):
didn't start the game, I was like, do they not
want him to get into early foul trouble? Are they
nervous about Timmy just sort of taking him to the
hoop or whatever? But you were talking about one of
the premier shot blockers in the nation. He did not
play the game. They're already without Jalen Clark, so two
of their five starters out of that game. That being set.

(02:38):
That being said, there were two things about that game
I did not understand. All right, so you don't have
Bona in the middle, and you're using Nuba and Etten.
Neither one of these guys is even a top flight
college player, not even close. But they are big bodies
and they can at least to hammer somebody once in

(03:01):
a while. When I saw Timmy lay it in and
Nuba was just standing there with his hands down, I'm like, seriously,
I mean, I know you're nervous about fouls. How about this.
Those two centers for UCLA combined in the game, combined
for one rebound and two fouls, so they literally had

(03:23):
no presence in the game. So that other the other
thing about me. So I'm sure you watch the game,
Ucla with this insane comeback to actually take the lead
when Amari Bailey hits a three point shot dagger twelve
seconds to go, and you allow Gonzaga to em bought
the ball with no resistance in the back court. I
know you don't want to foul, but if you even

(03:45):
set up a few obstacles along the way, you know
how it is college kid clocks wunning down, you start
panicking a little bit. No resistance in the back court. Essentially,
Gonzaga was able to set it up. Granted, the guy
knocks down a thirty foot or but there's no coverage,
no resistance at all. I could not believe as good
a defensive team as Ucla is that they didn't offer

(04:09):
some resistance in the back court to try at least
to hurry Gonzaga into maybe taking a bad shot at
the end of that game. I could not understand that strategy.
You know, it's funny because we were kinder spirits in
terms of that, because the play that they ran was
a play that Carolina lost to Villanova in the championship game. Yes,

(04:29):
the trail with Chris I think name is Chris Jeffrey.
He's North Carolinas. HiT's a bomb owned basically almost like
a dribble handoff Um, and so you sit there, there's
no pressure, there's there's there's nothing to make them like
have to use some dribble, use up some clock. They're
able to just come down clean, get to the three

(04:50):
point line, flip it back and he takes a bomb.
I mean, the shot is from deep um and he
nails it. But then in retro you just wanted to like, man,
that was so easy. He just walked into his jumper.
Could you have made it more difficult, more challenging, particularly
after you man, Amari Bailey hit a big time, a

(05:11):
big time shot and then for UCLA to kind of
fall short. I mean it's heartbreaking, it's crushing, But that's
just the way this tournament has been. Whatever we thought
we knew going in, we definitely know nothing zero zero.
Not a top seed is remaining, and that is crazy thing.

(05:31):
Well it's never happened before that. We have no top
seeds left in the Elite eight. So we have a
Fox Sports Radio bracket going on here, twenty six of
us on air people put out a bracket. I've been
sitting in last place the entire time I actually got
out of last place. Thanks to my dear friends Brady
Quinn and Aaron Torres have now fallen below me. That

(05:53):
won't be for long because as I sat down to
do my brackets, everyone had said going into the tournament,
you know the number one seeds, Houston, Alabama, Kansas, none
of these, none of these teams really look that great. Purdue,
and I was thinking, all right, when people start downplaying something,

(06:15):
I'm gonna go the other way. So my final four
are the four number one seeds, So I am, I
am quickly. I have a Kansas Purdue championship game that
didn't even get to the sweet sixteen. So it's been
a crazy tournament. I don't know how you feel about it, Bucky.
I was listening to everybody Jonas before talking about the

(06:38):
only saving grace for anyone when you have a bunch
of no Dame schools heading to the final four is
the gambling aspect. I don't think that this is the
worst thing. I wouldn't I wouldn't do this on an
annual basis, But to have one of these kind of
a year's where maybe it's Gonzaga's year, maybe this is
you know, Gonzagas had better teams obviously than the one
day have this year. I remember when a Zona won

(07:00):
the championship in ninety seven. Lud Olsen had had been
a bridesmade many times. That was not one of their
better teams, but it just seemed the stars were aligned
and they ended up knocking out Kentucky in the championship game.
It could be that way for Gonzaga. I'm in the
San Diego says story. There's so many great stories to
talk about, but I don't think this is a bad
thing for this year's NCAA tournament to be one of

(07:22):
those completely scrambled bracket. All the top names are out
of it, because we've seen that all season long. There
was no clear number one. We had a constant shifting
of the number one team all season long. So I
think for at least one year, a tournament like this
is a big positive for the NCAA. It's a big

(07:43):
positive because what it does is it signals the shift
that we've seen in college basketball, and it's been coming,
but now it's officially here. In terms of this tournament
has shown us that it doesn't matter how big your
school it is, it doesn't matter where it's located. You
can feel a team that's capable of being a national champion,
a national title contender if you're willing to do the

(08:05):
stuff that is available to for you right now, and
that's the transfer portal that is being able to ink
in IO deals. It is you can go after players
to field an older team, and so everything that we
used to know about these guys getting one and done
players in those things right now experience matters, and we

(08:27):
are seeing the difference between some of these teams that
look like they are just featuring grown men compared to
little boys because they've gone they've got an older team,
or a team has been fully developed over a four
or five year period. Those are the teams that are
the ones that are still left standing in this tournament.
And I think it's great to see, all right. So,
the one school outside of my Bruins that I'm most
familiar with is San Diego State. So I worked at

(08:49):
the flagship of San Diego State for the last eight years,
and of course everyone's been noticing the fact that since
I left my San Diego gig back in September, the
Padres made a deep run in the playoffs and San
Diego State now is in the Elite eight, one game
away from the Final four. So you're welcome San Diego
for me leaving. Apparently I was the jinks down there,

(09:10):
but I saw how San Diego State did things. Remember
a couple of years ago, they had that thirty and
two team that unfortunately didn't get into the tournament because
it got canceled. Three of their starters were first year
transfer guys, and that's the route that they have gone.
Matt Bradley, they're leading scorer, who, by the way, couldn't
hit a shot and they still beat Alabama. He came

(09:33):
from cal Trammel. All these guys are big transfer guys.
So you're right. What you do is in putting these
teams together. Now, un they're like the old way of
developing dumb teams are going with the one and dunns
is that you bring in these transfer players and then
you fill out your rosters with guys that aren't heading
to the NBA. But after three, four, five, I mean,

(09:55):
San Diego State are opened SACO. I think they've been
there at least six years. They got the extra year
out of the COVID year. That kind of experience and
physical development In watching that game San Diego State versus Alabama,
you mentioned this men versus the boys. This was a
physically men's side, you know, in the middle of that

(10:16):
defense for the Aztecs and Alabama, very young team, and
it showed they physically were just Yeah, they were beaten
down by San Diego State. They were beating down. And
going back a week prior Duke in Tennessee, we saw
the same thing. Yeah, Duke has a talented young team,
great NBA talent on the team, but then you saw

(10:37):
an older Tennessee team beat them up, physically, move them
around as if we were down at Venice Beach watching
guys play outside five on five. The way they put
their body on them, they banged them, they moved them
off to spot, they made it very uncomfortable form. And
so the level of physicality that we are seeing in
the tournament suggest that you better have an older team

(10:58):
that understands how to do with all of that contact
and you can move around and you can work through it,
and you fully develop your body to kind of handle
the football game that we're seeing to take place on
the hardwood. And then you look at a guy like
Drew Timmy right who by the way, now has more
twenty point games in NCAA tournament play than anyone in
NCAA tournament history. And you're watching Timmy, who's been a

(11:19):
second team AP All American three consecutive years. And I'm
looking at mock drafts after the Gonzaga won that game.
I'm looking at half a dozen NBA mock drafts. Not
one of them has drew Timmy even drafted none, not
even second round, Like, no one's going to take a
shot on this guy. So it's it's a completely different game.

(11:43):
And I think that I think it's a great observation, Bucky,
that what has happened in this year's tournament is now
going to be more of a blueprint moving forward, even
for the big name schools on how to put together
a team team that is capable of a deep run
in March madness. No, that is absolutely true. And for

(12:07):
your college basketball coaches, who some have appeared frustrated by
nil and transfer portal and all that other stuff, Yeah,
your team building model has to change if you want
to do the stuff that college coaches always say they'd
like to do is develop a program and do that
where you just have to develop it differently. You have
to develop it with older players. Well, maybe now you

(12:29):
get in the trans report and you get guys that
are two or three years into the college journey. So
now maybe you have them four an additional three years.
Maybe you go for guys that are not NBA players
because they stick around longer, and maybe you drop in
one or two guys that could be NBA players. And
so it's a balance between the high level talent and

(12:49):
the good worker bees that have to do all the
other stuff. Absolutely, so we'll see what happens. Again, We're
less than two hours away tip off at Florida Atlantic,
who would never even want to single tournament game in
school history. They are one game away from the final four,
taken on Kansas State, then later Yukon and Gonzagas. Sticking
with basketball on the other side. A milestone yesterday, one

(13:14):
that many people thought would never happen. Tell you what
it is coming up next. Fox Sports Radio has the
best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of
our shows at foxsports Radio dot com and within the
iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live two NBA Insiders
podcasting twice a week to plug you right into the

(13:36):
NBA Grape five all happening in only one place. This
League Uncut, the new NBA podcast with Me, Chris Haynes
and me Mark Stein. Join us as we team up
to expound on everything we're covering. Hearing and Jason. Listen
to This League Uncut with Chris Haynes and Mark Stein
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get

(13:59):
your podcat. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search
FSR to listen live. Steve Harman and Bucky Brooks. This
is Fox Sports Saturday and we're coming alive from the
ti iraq dot com studios. All right, well, you'll have

(14:21):
plenty for you on the March Mannus Elite eight games
coming up. O' got it. Moved to a little NBA
talk right now. And this was hailed as a significant story.
And I have no idea why the Los Angeles Lakers
beat the Oklahoma City Thunder barely at home yesterday wins

(14:46):
a win and for the first time this year, the
Lakers are at five hundred, like this is a story.
They're thirty seven and thirty seven with eight games to go.
Understand in this, in the Lakers first sixty two years
in the NBA, going back to their days of Minneapolis,

(15:09):
Bucky ready for this stat. In their first sixty two
years in the NBA, the Lakers were in the NBA
finals thirty one times. Half of their first sixty two
years they were in the finals. Not just the playoffs,
I mean they made the NBA finals thirty one of

(15:33):
their first sixty two years in the NBA. Now, if
you go three more years until the passing of Doctor Bus,
in their first sixty five years, the Lakers had only
missed the playoffs five times in sixty five years. Now,
since then, they had two playoff appearances in nine years.

(15:58):
One was the first round loss, in the other, of course,
a championship in the bubble. And now here they are
celebrating the fact that the Lakers might just may avoid
the playing round and actually get into the play I
don't know what alternate universe I'm in all of a
sudden here, having followed the Lakers and in a Laker

(16:18):
family entire life, to see this organization somehow celebrating mediocrity
and in Laker terms, way below mediocrity is quite stunning,
to say the least. And I don't care about Lebron.
D'Angelo Russell has been hurt. Everyone gets hurt, you know,
I mean, load manager. It's hard to distinguish who's hurt,

(16:40):
who's not hurt, who wants to play, who doesn't want
to play. This is the state of the NBA these days.
But somehow, some way, the Lakers have figured out a
way to lower the bar of expectations to actually celebrate
getting to five hundred for the first time this season.

(17:03):
Before you can become a legitimate contender, you have to
get yourself into the tournament. And so the Lakers have
climbed out of a hole and put themselves in a
situation where they can get in the tournament. And so,
considering that Lebron has been out, Ad has kind of
stepped his game up. If you're a Laker man, you

(17:25):
look excited about what you're seeing from the Lakers at
this point. And so some of the celebratory stuff, some
of the positivity and optimism that is coming out of
this recent run of solid play from the Lakers is
that is, if we're doing this without the King, what
will this team look like? When the King comes back.

(17:46):
All right. So I want to take this a step
further here. So you look at the Western Conference right now,
just the fact that the Sacramento Kings of the number
three seed, the Sacramento Kings are the three seed, clearly
the three seed in the Western Conference. All right. So
you got the Clippers, the Sons, the Warriors, the Timberwolves,
the Lakers, the Pelicans, the thunder the Mavericks, and the Jazz.

(18:12):
So that's a total of nine ten teams. Ten teams
my adding up right, nine teams that are divided by
three and a half games. You know what I'm seeing
right now, Bucky, I don't see anybody in the West.
This includes Denver, Memphis, and Sacramento, the top three seeds

(18:32):
that come anywhere near Milwaukee, Boston, Philadelphia. But you can't
worry about that right now. Okay, you can't worry about
you can't worry about you know it, Man, I am
an old school guy. I've been very hesitant to embrace change.
I'm still upset about Major League Baseball having Inner League play.

(18:52):
I loved it when they were separate. I used to
love it when the World Series of the only opportunity
outside of the All Star Game, they ever see the
best of the American League versus the best in the
Nation league. But fine, we move on from that. So
let's let's take that to the NBA. Why do we
have separate conferences? What is this? Why don't why don't
we do this? Why don't we just take First of all,

(19:16):
there's too many teams in the playoffs to begin with. Now,
now you've got twenty teams if you count the playing
games out of thirty that are actually in the postseason.
But how about doing this? How about just taking the
best records in the NBA, because ultimately, I don't care
who comes out of the West. I don't see them

(19:36):
being competitive in a seven game series against Milwaukee, Boston
or Philadelphia. And by the way, this is used to
be back in the day when the Lakers are beating
up on the nets. Remember in the NBA Finals if
they have the big battles with the Spurs, and you're like,
this should be the NBA Finals. So I know it's cyclical,
but in this day and age where to me, conferences

(19:58):
don't really matter anymore. You just want to see an
NBA Finals matchup that has the two best teams they
got lucky with the Warriors and the Calves four straight
years because it was the best team versus the best player.
But the idea that one of those teams in the
East going to be matched up against one of these
teams in the West, to me is a big yawn

(20:19):
already before we even get that. But here's why you
have to continue to let it play out. You have
to let it play out because the one thing that
we never know injuries, suspensions. You never know who's going
to be available for the team that comes out of
the East. And so if you're a team in the West,
your only job is to continue to advance and put
yourself in a position to be in the finals. And
then once you get into the finals, anything can happen.

(20:42):
We have seen it. We've seen Look, Kevin Durant got
injured in the finals. We saw kyvery Irving have to
leave a final series. And so you just want to
be in the moment, give yourself to be in the
winner circle when it comes to being able to represent
the West. So now you have a chance to maybe
have a little good fortune go your way. Were you

(21:03):
able to knock off the top team from the East.
By the way two Big Eastern Conference stars moved west.
How's that working with Kevin Durant and Phoenix and Kyrie Irving?
How's Kyrie working for you there in Dallas? What are
they three and seven in games since he played? Yeah? There,
But it's not all him, Like the team was dysfunctional
a little bit before he got there. It wasn't like

(21:25):
they were number one or number two in the West.
They needed him because Luca was doing everything solos. He's
better doing everything. So I don't look, I don't know
long term, I don't know what that's going to lead
them to. It's not gonna lead him to a title.
You have to have more fire prior to eventually win
the title, and he couldn't do it as a one
man gang, and so they needed somebody else to like

(21:46):
take some of that pressure way. And so while all
of this is, you know, kind of being dumped on
Kyrie Irving, there are a lot of guys that are
responsible for the MAV's poor performance in terms of the
way that they have lost a ton of games over
the last few weeks. Yeah, well, right now they're on
the outside looking in. They are currently the number eleven
seed in the Western Conference. Since the addition of Kyrie Irving. All,

(22:08):
let's find out what it's trending right now. Let's turn
our attention right now to the one and only mister
Brian Fenly. Maybe, fenn are you with me about a
because you know I'm an old school guy. But the
idea of reformatting the postseason to give you the best
opportunity to give the two best teams in the NBA Finals,

(22:33):
I think that might be a decent idea. I think
at this point the NBA needs to shake it up.
They need to do things that are outside the box
because the viewership numbers right now are stale comparatively to
the NFL. Obviously the NFL is king, but do something
to incite the excitement. And I think that that might

(22:53):
be a possibility. And I mean people aren't excited about
the playing around no, yeah, I mean it seems like
every the thing about the NBA is that ever, it's
not everybody, but just about everybody gets into the postseason,
so it takes away from what matters in the regular season.
And obviously the amount of games saturate things a little bit.

(23:14):
But if you had less teams, making it a higher
competition to get one of those smaller number of spots
that might incentivize teams in the regular season to maybe
try a little harder, we play a little defense, maybe
you know, but this is that's exactly the point you
have made. You made your regular season completely meaningless, exactly

(23:38):
completely meaningless, and the players understand that. That's why we
have load management. Well, that's why we have guys just
sitting there in there and their suits on the bench's
not playing anymore. I was looking this up, Biggie Elvin Hayes.
Anybody remember Elvin Hayes, one of the great Hall of
Fame basketball players. He played sixteen years in the NBA,
eighty two game seasons. Eight years he had eighty two games,

(24:02):
seven years he had eighty one games, and one year
he really slacked off. He played eighty games. That's right.
He missed nine games in sixteen years. Wasn't there something
like for Carl Malone where he missed something like just
a handful of gas over his what twenty year career

(24:23):
where he Well, if you're a Laker fan, how about
Ac Green. There's one record that will never be broken,
you know, consecutive games played. No one even has any
thoughts of that. Yeah. I mean you look at Malone,
he played eighty two games pretty much every single year. Yeah. Crazy,
I remember those days. They seem so long ago. Yeah.

(24:45):
But again, buddy, when you when you cheapened the idea
of making the postseason, there's no urgency in the regular
season anymore. I wouldn't mind an NC Double A tournament
sort of feel. And as the NC Double A Tournament
is playing out right now, guys, Elite eight, it's Day
one of the Elite eight. In our first game is
going to start here at about an hour and a
half six or nine Eastern time with a nine fau

(25:07):
taking on the three seeded Kansas State out of the
East Region, with the Wildcats coming into this tournament with
something to prove, considering that the Big twelve coaches pulled
before the season had them finishing last in their conference,
so that didn't really pan out the way they thought.
Four seeded Yukon facing off with three seeded Gonzaga later

(25:28):
on this evening at eight or eight forty nine Eastern time,
and that one would be out of the West Region,
where the Huskies won their first fourteen games of the year.
They were already number two in the country. Earlier in
this season, and they have won their three nt Double
A tournament games by a combined sixty two points, so
on average about twenty points they are beating their opponents.

(25:49):
Drew Timmy thirty six points for the Zags in their
Sweet sixteen win against UCLA, and lastly NCUBA tournament action.
On the women's side, we just saw Don Staley's one
set in South Carolina game Cox approved to thirty five
and zero on the season with their Sweet sixteen win
against the number four seeded UCLA fifty nine to forty three,

(26:10):
a win earlier for two seeded Maryland over number three
Notre Dame seventy six to fifty nine, and right now
early in the second quarter, it's two seeded Yukon and
three seeded o House Date seventeen to fifteen, the Huskies
in front there. But you know, Steve and Bucky, as
I sent it back to you, we think about UCLA
and couldn't at least one of those teams men and

(26:31):
women's get to the Elite eight. Well, unfortunately you're running
into South Carolina that is an undefeated team. I mean that,
by the way, Just to follow up Karl Malone and
his eighteen years as a Utah Jazz missed a total
of ten games, and his teammate John Stockton in nineteen
years in Utah played all every game in seventeen of

(26:55):
the nineteen years every game, zero miss games in seventeen
out of nineteen years. I don't know, different, different breed,
different league from what we're seeing right now, Befen. We'll
talk to you a little bit later on. Thanks so much.
Once again, we're Comedy Alive from the ti iraq dot
com studios. All right, I got a lot of things

(27:17):
to catch up with you, Bucky. I want to get
to this story out of the NFL, the talk about
flexing out late season Thursday night football games. All right,
let's let's examine this for a second. So Thursday night football,
much of the shock of some people that weren't paying

(27:38):
attention went out to Amazon, and people were scrambling to
find their Thursday night game if they didn't have their
cable set up. You didn't see any Thursday night football games.
And then he had Alan Michaels, who's apparent complete disinterest
in doing Thursday night football could not have been any
more apparent. All he harped on was gam which is okay.

(28:01):
I mean, I don't hold it against al, but he
took some flak as he was really ripping the matchups
and this is unwatchable and kind of generate some kind
of interest based on maybe a point spread on this
and everything else. But let's get to the logistics. And
I worked for an NFL team. You played in the NFL,
so we know how precarious. So what they're proposing is

(28:21):
this weeks fourteen through seventeen, so basically in the month
of December, that they could flex out games to get
better matchups on Thursday night football. Now, the logistics of
changing a Sunday game to a Thursday game, Let's get

(28:43):
the player's perspective. Bucky, as a guy that played in
the NFL. Let's say you're looking at the schedule week fourteen,
and by the way, by the month of December, man,
you're feeling it. You play a lot of football, yeah,
and all of a sudden they tell you we're not
playing Sunday, We're gonna play Thursday. So from a player's standpoint,

(29:08):
how does that play out for a player finding out
at the last second that instead of a Sunday matchup
in December, that games being moved up to a Thursday. Okay,
So I think in reading into this, what they proposed
would be a fifteen day window where they would let
you know ahead of time if that game would be
flex so you get it like like two weeks. Notice

(29:31):
when your game would go from a Sunday to a
Thursday night. Deal. Now, it's not ideal, but it's very
similar to what the final that final week was. So
last year, the Jacksonville Jaguars played a game one on
a Sunday and then they were told I kind of
last minute that they would run it back against Tennessee

(29:52):
Titans on a Saturday, and so it forced them to
have to rework their schedule to be able to get
it done so they could play that final game week eighteen. Now,
what you're doing is you have to kind of have
a level of flexibility as a coach to be able
to kind of bake in a different routine and practice
schedule and how you want to go about it. And

(30:13):
so it definitely is a challenge. It wouldn't be necessarily
enjoyable for the players because now you have a quick
turnaround where you have two games in ten or eleven days.
But I mean Ultimately, if the league wants to do that,
it's one of the things that the league has the
ability to do because it might generate more money, and

(30:35):
if it generates more money for the league, then it
generates more money for the players. All Right. So Amazon
is paying one billion per year, it's a lot of
money for the one game. And we had a lot
of dog Thursday games. And if we weren't aware of it,
Al Michaels made aware of every single bad games. There

(30:57):
were some bad games out there. This gets back to
when you sign all these deals for these billions billions.
There's no millions anymore in the NFL. Everything is in
billions because you're looking down the road about a league
that is never satisfied from a monetary standpoint. There's always

(31:19):
more money to be made, always more money to be
which means that if you are CBS, if you are NBC,
if you are ESPN, if you are Foxed, any network
that is carrying NFL football, and they all are these days,
they're like, you know, we appreciate the business we've been

(31:44):
doing with you over the years, but you're gonna have
to step it up even more. Yes, And even if
you look at some of the numbers. Viewership was actually
a tick down this year in the NFL. Who's a tickdown?
The Super Bowl has been a little bit down, or
at the very best, sort of flat, you know, flattening

(32:04):
out a little bit here. But that doesn't mean they're
gonna ask for less money. No, they're gonna ask for
significantly more money. Can you see the day, Bucky, where
all NFL games are gonna be pay per view? I
mean all NFL games are going to be pay per view.

(32:24):
I don't I don't know if we would get to that.
I don't know if we would get to that. But
what you do have is, you know, you have changing times,
you have more court cutters, you have more streaming options available.
You have a younger generation that's very comfortable watching games
on their phone while moving around and doing other stuff.

(32:48):
It's different, and so maybe you will have a version
of pay per view that exists. I mean, think about
some of the things that we see from some of
our networks. Some of our favorite networks have accompanying streaming
services where you can get behind the scenes content available
if you pay four ninety nine a month, ninety nine

(33:11):
a month. Little things like that. Perhaps the NFL will
adopt something like that, Like if you want to see
your favorite team and it's an out of market game,
you pay X amount of dollars, you now have access
to see your team. I just don't know if they'll
ever go to a day where all of the games
are kind of behind the curtain and you have to
pay to access that. I think it has to initially

(33:34):
start with your favorite team to see, you know. If
you can you can get people on board with that,
then you can add premium packages where you can get
more access to things like Sunday Ticket and all that
other stuff. Like we're going that rob because remember Sunday
Ticket goes away. Is it next year that YouTube TV
takes over, you have to want one of those. It

(33:54):
goes to YouTube TV, and YouTube is going to make
it a premium service. You're gonna have to do some
things and I'm sure they're gonna be some stuff in
the fine print that means you have to then get
a full subscription the YouTube TV on top of being
able to have their version of the ticket. It's coming,
all right. This is the question I have to people
that have only one interest in the NFL, and that

(34:16):
is gambling. That's their only interests. They don't have a
favorite team, except for maybe their fantasy football team. They
have zero interest in the actual league itself other than
a means to hopefully make money through gambling. How necessary
is it to watch games? I mean, if the end

(34:39):
result of the game, whatever the final score is, the
only way you equate win or lose is by how
much you bet on one team or other in the game,
how critical is it to actually even watch games? All? Right?
On the other side, the NFL is just one of
the leagues through a lot of changes these days. One

(35:02):
other NFL story and an interesting partnership has occurred that
we need to pull back the curtain to see what's
really going on. We'll tell you about it. This is
Fox Sports Saturday Steve Harman and Bucky Brooks. You're listening
to Fox Sports Saturday Company live from the tire rack
dot Com studios. Hey, We're brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

(35:23):
Progressive makes fun of the easy and affordable. Get a
multi policy discount by combining your motorcycle, RV, boat, a TV,
and more all your protection one place, Bundle and save
at Progressive dot Com. An interesting partnership has emerged out
of the NFL, although technically it doesn't evolve the NFL
and involves the WNBA. But there are two people that

(35:47):
are now spending a significant time together, and that is
Tom Brady and Raiders owner Mark Davis. Now, when these
two are standing side by side, I can't think of
a more on couple than GQ Tom Brady versus bull
haircut Mark Davis. I've known Mark Davis for over forty

(36:09):
years and I've always told people this about this about Mark.
I said it, then, I'll say it now. Do not
underestimate Mark Davis. I know everyone makes fun of his
haircuts and that basically he likes to live at Hooters,
and he's adopted his father's dress style wearing all white
and everything else. Yeah, I know this about Mark Davis.
He's a lot smarter than you think. Never underestimate Mark Davis.

(36:33):
And he's made some interesting business decisions since he has
taken over Raiders ownership. Obviously, the big prize getting that
team in Las Vegas and that Allegiance Stadium is something
that is Allegian Alliance. What is it? I always get
to confuse it. It's a llegion right there in Vegas
it is all so allegian stadium there. But here was

(36:54):
a big story this week. Tom Brady has bought into
a partial ownership of the Las Vegas Aces of the
w NBA, of which Mark Davis is also an owner
of that team. Now why is that? I mean, Tom
Brady has a lot of money. There's a lot of
ways he can invest money, and he decides one of

(37:16):
his first moves is to get a ownership stake in
the Las Vegas Aces of the w NBA. And I
know he has sisters, and he talked about he's always
loved women's sports and everything else. Um, I'm sorry if
I don't believe that's the sole reason he did this. Um,
he and Mark have been spending a lot of time together.
Remind me again, Josh McDaniels, what's his background, Jaspin Dan,

(37:38):
You used to be the official coordinator for the New
England page. Okay, so he spent a significant amount of
time with Tom Brady. You also have Jimmy Garoppolo, who
you've signed a quarterback? How many times has he made
out a complete season? It's been tough for him. But
Tom Brady also made sure that he was dismissed and
shipped out of and then you have Tom Brady announcing
the Fox that he's going to put off his broadcast

(37:59):
career thirty seven a half million dollars to release another year.
Is it possible? Because Tom Brady is still maintaining he
just wanted wants to be full time dad and apparently
part time owner of the Las Vegas Aces this year
passive income. But if Jimmy Garoppolo were to go down
with an injury, which is not that far fetched an idea,

(38:19):
and the Raiders are in, you know, somewhat playoff contention,
could you see any scenario where magically Tom Brady appears
in a Raiders uniform to take him the rest of
the way. Is that possible? It makes it's a great
fairy tale. It'd be a great story, a great way

(38:39):
to cap off an illustrious career. Can't see it happening though.
Tom Brady by the end of last year, he was done.
I can't imagine him being ready to play for the
Raiders this year. If Jimmy Garoppolo goes down, he did
kind of slides in and is the superheroes that continues
to carry them to the winner's circle after the a

(39:01):
QB one suffers an injury. God man, I love it
in theory, I can't see it in practicality. I can't
see it anything. Well, you say he's done. He led
the league in completions and pass attempts. He still throw
the ball a ton. In fact, his last two years,
he said NFL records in both categories. He did. But
it just seems like the grind. Well, you don't have
to do the grind. That's the great part of it.

(39:22):
I mean, I'm not talking to him starting this season.
Jimmy Garoppolo will be unless, of course, Jimmy Garopolo gets
hurt before the season. Well, we'll know a lot more
about if that's the possibility based on what the Raiders
do in the draft. They need another quarterback, Drew Drew.
I mean, they need another quarterback just in case, because
I don't know who their backup is. You can't just
depend on Jimmy Garoppolo. So are they going to draft

(39:44):
one early kind of have that that you know QB
one mentor mentee situation, or are they going to let
a playoffs say we're just gonna get a backup. Jimmy
Garoppolo's like guy and we'll figure it out. Yeah. One
thing about the Raiders, unfortunately for them, Mark davis situation
is the ownership is precarious based on the life of

(40:05):
his mom, who's you know, in her nineties now, Carol Davis.
The way it was all passed down. Remember this, the
Davis family doesn't even own fifty percent of the team.
They have controlling interest. But that's where it ends. I've
always felt like the NFL had some long term plans
for the Raiders beyond the Davis family. All right, coming

(40:25):
up on the next hour, we get back to the
March madness. Who will be the surprise team in the
final four. We're gonna tell you coming up next, all right,
rolling along here on a fabulous Saturday, an Elite eight Saturday.
This is Fox Sports Saturday. We're broadcasting live from the
tirerac dot com studios tirac dot com. We're gonna help
get you there, and I'm at selection fast free shipping,
Free road has a protection over ten thousand recommended installers

(40:49):
tirerac dot com the way tire buying should be. We're
about an hour away from tip off of the first
Elite eight matchup East Regional Final, Florida Atlantic, the nine seed,
which by the way, has the best record of any
team remaining in the Elite Eight. At thirty four and three,
they will take on the three seed at Kansas State

(41:10):
as one of those teams move on. Then later on
today yukon the four seed Gonzaga, the three seed in
the West Regional, for a spot in the Final four. Hey,
before we get back to given some thoughts about which
teams ultimately you're going to make it to Houston in
the Final four, I'm going to talk about something we
talked about last week, and that was the World Baseball Classic. Yeah,

(41:32):
and I watched that. I watched that entire championship game
between the United States and Japan. And I have to
make because I didn't watch much of any of the
World Baseball Classic until that championship game. I was curious.
I mean, it played out just beautifully with the drama

(41:52):
to have Shohotani going against Mike Trout and that nasty
slider who on that three two pitch that is an
unhittable pitch. You're not gonna touch that. I'll carry if
you're Mike Trout who you are, um, but I have
to admit that, and and by the way. I know
that some of the US fans are frustrated that we

(42:13):
didn't have more of our top pitching available for the
World Baseball Classic, and Rob Manfred, the Commissioner of Baseball, said,
I'd like to see some bigger stars in terms of
pictures are concern Keep in mind, remember this is during
spring training, which spring training is about one thing, getting
your pictures ready for the season, which which isn't US

(42:34):
didy elect to play the Classic like simultaneously, like well,
the spring training is going on. So it's a little weird.
But I loved it. I love seeing it. I thought
it was a lot of fun. Um. I love the
energy watching the Dominican in Puerto Rico, watching all these
other teams watching, Um, I think Columbia had the pitching

(42:57):
that was very demonstrative. Yes, to strikeout. That stuff is
fun and baseball to me, if you want to bring
in a new generation of fans, you have to have
more of that because that's more like what basketball and
football have been like in terms of the interactions and
the celebrations and all of that other stuff. The energy
is just at a different level. But this was in
joeble to watch, all right, So I'm watching Showhey Otani,

(43:20):
unbelievable man who of it? Forget any comparisons please to
Baby Ruth. Okay, that the idea that Babe Ruth did
both if you actually follow that era of nineteen nineteen
and nineteen eighteen, he was not doing what Otani's doing now.

(43:42):
Nobody has done what Otani's doing now, So he is
an uncharted territory. But what Major League Baseball Bucky needs
is a definitive face. Yes, the last time they had
that was Derek Jeter, you know, star shortstop photo jic,
incredible array of girlfriends over the years, married to a

(44:04):
beautiful lady, and he was a short stop of the
New York Yankees. Show. Hey Otani from a plane standpoint,
is so above everybody else, it's not even close. So
this is a guy who's still a young player, and

(44:26):
I'm trying to figure out because I get a little frustrated.
Again for the American audience, I'm not really this not
on Otani. But he's still us an interpret you can
tell when they're asking questions, he understands the questions. He's
been around it enough now where at some point he'll
be speaking English. You know that. But How does major
League Baseball take a player, a generational player, an all

(44:49):
time talent like show Hey Otani and best utilize him
as the face. They wanted to use Bryce Harper to
do that, but he's had injuries, inconsistencies. Mike Trott has
never wanted any part of it. So how do you
do that with someone like Shoheyotani? How do you market him?
I don't know because I thought what his pregame words

(45:10):
has talked with this team Japan, where he talked about
we can't look at them with admiration for one day.
We need to put all this aside and and go
at them because we can beat them and do all
that other stuff you loved to do that. Now, obviously
there's a language barrier stuff like that, but this dude
is to be celebrated. He is what we always think

(45:30):
about in sports. And really, I was on the radio
and someone was talking about him, and I was just thinking,
you know, how many other guys in the majors could
do this if their coaches allowed them to do both
like he was allowed and how he was reared to
pitch in it, because that's that's more commonplace when guys

(45:51):
are coming up like, the best player normally is also
the guy that gets on the mound and throws it
when you're in Little league and pony ball and all
that stuff, and even in high school, and then it
changes once you get into you know, the minors in
college and audited other stuff. But how many other gaps
possess similar traits if they were cultivated and developed. It

(46:11):
just made me long for that. But yeah, he should
be the face. I just think you have the workaround
when it comes to the language barrier because he can't
do all of the market. Well, you play around the
language barrier then if he's willing to play part of it.
It seemed because he did say this this World Baseball
Classic was great for baseball. You can tell he's an

(46:34):
ambassador for the game on a worldwide basis. But he's
playing Major League baseball right now. There's just got to
be a way. There has to be a way to
get more eyeballs on show. Hey a ton. Of course
we're going to find out after this season because he
will be a free agent. There's been a lot of
theories about the Los Angeles Dodgers not spending much money
this off season as they sort of load up and

(46:56):
get ready for that five hundred million dollars contract. Hate
for him to have to move and relocate, like going
from Orange County all the way across the country. There
may be how does this sound ten years, five hundred million,
fifty million a year. It sounds great if you can
defer some of that conversation, because I mean, you have
the dh universal now, so he can do the same
thing in the National League he's been doing in the

(47:16):
America Lake, so that's not an obstacle anymore. I mean,
he looks like a Dodger. He looks like I would
be excited about it. I remember when the Dodgers brought
in Hideo Nomo, and he was a great pitcher out
of Japan, started the All Star Game as a rookie
through no hitter. I mean, Nomo was a player. There
was no question about that he could pitch. But I
mean Altani is next level. I mean Altani, you just

(47:36):
think about being able to have Mookie Bets and Otani.
Freddie Freeman, Freddy Freeman, I mean you're able to just
like pulling everything you're talking about, being able to set
out Chevez r. Being being able to do so many
different promos and all kinds of stuff. You're just printing.
You're printing money. Yeah, if you're the Dodges, if you do,
it's a big sizeable check that you're giving him. But
oh man, the money that you were making return. They

(47:59):
have the money. They have the money. It's never been
it's never been a problem. And let's be honest, the
wins because they have to look down. Well, they stop
to win a World Series in a full season. I
mean they I mean, I hear you, but they want
the World Series. But you have to look down at there.
I mean, I don't know if the Dodgers look at
them as a rival, but maybe now because the Padres
want to playoff series against him, maybe there's a rivalry.

(48:20):
But you're looking down at the Padres and their boy.
They're just spinning up money. I don't know where the
money's coming from, but the Padres are just spending up
the money, loading up a team. We got a dream
Team like scenario going on down there. At some point
the Dodgers have to react to that. It makes sure
they have a team that can go toe to toe
with that squad. Did I tell you about Dave Roberts

(48:41):
giving me the look in Arizona. Oh he gave you
the same guy. Okay, So my my background with Dave Roberts,
the manager of the Dodgers, and of course, as I
often loved, I aged myself. But Dave Roberts told me
that when he played at UCLA, He's a Sandy Ego kid.
He was actually a better football player than he as

(49:02):
a baseball player, but he didn't have the size to
play football, so he walked on to UCLA's baseball team
and the rest was history. He told me that when
he was a student at UCLA, he actually called my
show a couple of he was right, Well, he just
intert he a sports guy, right. So I've always had
a really good relationship with David. Was not content, just

(49:24):
wanted to call him just check in. No, he was
just like a listener. He was a student, you know,
he's he was a big sports fan, and he was
interested in whatever we were talking about. So I've known
Dave and had a great relationship with Dave Roberts for
many many years. Love the guy. So I went down
to spring training and I was there for a game,
and then after the game, Dave Roberts came out into

(49:45):
this hallway and I was standing there with maybe seven
or eight other media people. You know, I didn't expect,
you know, David say, hey, Hartman hour. You know, I
understand it. It's a it's a game situation. So he
comes walking Hortus and he's looking right at me. Obviously
I know who he is, he knows who I am.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Not only did he not

(50:07):
say a word to me, he gave me the look, oh,
the look that says, you know, this look Bucky, like
somebody has heard you say something about them. They didn't like.
You know, maybe I was one of those people that
was pointing out the fact in the last three full
seasons that the Dodgers have won at least one hundred
and six games in each of those seasons, and none

(50:28):
of those teams even made it to the World Series.
I'm just stating the obvious, right, I'm not making any
wild revelations here. It just shocked me. And then when
we were done talking to me, he just walked away,
didn't say where. I didn't have a chance to say, like, dude,
what's going on? Wow, what's happening here? Dave? Huh what
happened here? So I'm a little Uh, I don't know.
I got to go to some Dodger games to find

(50:49):
what's going on with Dave Roberts and me. Yeah. I
mean like people are like, you got a problem with
Dave I go, not that I know of. Yeah, you
might might say something you get wind of it, or
you may have from people. Oh I've Lulia have gotten
people you've known you know what I'm talking about. And
I've asked him, well, what did I say? Yeah, well,
I didn't hear you, but someone told me like that,

(51:10):
like you get to give me a quotable, yeah, to
give me something or whatever, because that that might be
a poor interpretation of what I say. I was shocked. Yeah,
I've a guy that I've seen face to face so
many times and I've never seen him that look before,
and he's under a lot of pressure. It's it's unreal
when you think about he has the highest winning percentage

(51:32):
by far of any manager in baseball history, and I
could see, man, he's feeling the heat. He's feeling the heat.
And it's funny because I feel like he takes a
lot of criticism for things that aren't his call, right,
like when you have an analytical approach where he gets
handed the lineup card right and he is the pitching

(51:54):
rotations are heavily recommended, highly suggested. He can't go on
his own. I mean, he's a manager, but it's the
equivalent of being the manager at a fast food restaurant.
He has the keys, but he doesn't have the power
because he's not the guy. And the perfect example and
that I won't mention the name, but one of the
guys they brought in relief in that game walked four

(52:17):
the five batters he faced, and Roberts pulled him out.
People asking him about the guy and they just signed
him veteran picture and he goes, yeah, he didn't have command.
He needs to get command, because you know, the managements
saying we're paying this guy. We got to work him
into the rotation. And it's like, yeah, guy can't throw
a strike. He didn't make command of things. Nate makes

(52:40):
it tough for me because how long can I keep
him out there if he can't throw a strike? All right,
On the other side, let's get back to the teams
that remain in the field, these elite eight schools. Is
there any standout amongst these schools that you can say
that is the team to beat to win this year's
NASH Championship. This is Fox Sports Saturday Steve Harman and

(53:03):
Bucky Brooks. You are tuned into Fox Sports Saturday Live
from the ti iraq dot com studios. So we're about
forty minutes away from tip off of this first matchup
in the Elite Eight. It will be the East Regional
Final between Florida Atlantic and Kansas State, the nine seed
versus the three seed. Then later on the four seed
you can't taken on the three seed Gonzaga in the

(53:26):
West Regional final. Tomorrow, we got the matchup in the
South Region between a six seed Craton team and a
five seed San Diego State team. And then we'll wrap
it up tomorrow evening with Miami the number five seed
against the only remaining two seed in the tournament, that's
the University of Texas in the Midwest region. So I'm

(53:46):
looking at potential matchups down the road here, Bucky, and
I'm gonna show my West Coast bias because the matchup
that personally I would like to see the most it
would be a Gonzaga San Diego State matchup. They have
some history. Even though one's in the WCC and once
in the Mountain West. They play plenty games over the years,

(54:09):
and Mark Few is one of those coaches. When you
look at Mark Fu's record at Gonzaga, it's literally mind boggling.
I mean, I'm looking at right now updated Mark Few
at Gonzaga. His record is six eighty eight, six eighty
nine and one thirty four. That is an eight thirty

(54:32):
seven winning percentage. They have been in the NCAA Tournament
all twenty three years that he's been eligible. Obviously, there
was no tournament in twenty twenty, and they've never won
the national championship. And a couple of years ago they
had that undefeated team they got blown out by Baylor
in the championship game. Yeah, yes, is your year? Does

(54:52):
Gonzaga become sort of a Cinderella story if they're in
the final four without having to face, you know, one
of the big schools out they are? I mean, what
kind of sentiment at all do you have about what
Gonzaga has done in basketball over these many years. Well,
I give them a lot of respect because they have
consistently been one of those teams that's always in the conversation,

(55:13):
what is it eight straight times or whatever they preventced
to the elite. They had eight straight years in the
sweet sixteen, eight straight in the sweet sixteen, which is remarkable,
pretty amazing. Particularly people talk about their conference and who
they're playing and their schedule and that. But to consistently
reach the sweet sixteen you wanted the elite programs in
the country. The thing that they haven't been able to

(55:34):
do is they've been able to reach the championship game,
but they haven't been able to get over the hump
and win it. This is the year. This is the
year where they they should feel great about their chances
if they can take care of business. The pressure will
be on them though, because mark people will here that
if they go to the final four, they will hear
about how they haven't been able to get it done.
And so how do you play with those expectations? How

(55:55):
do you play with the scrutiny and the consequence that
comes with all of those things. But this is this team.
I mean, they have a shot, they have it and
the way that they knocked off UCLA. Um My dad
is a longtime basketball player playing in college. He had
a great high school coach, but he always talked about
in the tournament. The champion always has to win one

(56:17):
of those games. Oh yeah, that you're not supposed to that.
You kind of get out of it with last second
shot or something. You may not played your best, but
you find a way to advance to the next round.
That might have been their game the UCLA because that shot.
That shot was not a I mean that shot is
a miraculous shot. I don't care what he walked into it.
It was a thirty foot shot that he drilled. Well,

(56:39):
if you're Gonzag, you're hoping it's not an omen of
what happened two years ago when he hit the half
court shot to knock out UCLA and then he get
blown out in the next game by Baylor. A lot
of emotion the way that out. Now you're playing Yukon,
who was blown out everybody so far in this tournament.
And so the thing for Gonzaga is it's a tough

(57:02):
game today. It's a quick turnaround. Yeah, I mean a
quick turnaround from an emotional standpoint, quickly turnaround, got to
get up to you won whatever, you had twenty four
hours to get ready for your next game. Are you
able to do that? Can you put it pastor while
still standing focused on the prize, A lot of pressure
on them. And the one thing if you're Danny Hurley
and you have your Yukon team, man, you want to

(57:25):
pounce on them right out the gate. Yeah, and I
mentioned San Diego State, and this is a little hometown
bias here because again I have been a big part
of this program for a number of years on what
was the flagship of San Diego State basketball. So I
know the players, you know, I know the coaches. I
know everything about this team. By the way, the team

(57:46):
that knocked him out of the tournament last year in
the first round was Creighton. Wow. So they're playing that
Creton team. Here's the thing about San Diego State. So
you look at their nine deep this year and no
one's been hurt. You know, I mentioned UCLA and how
frustrating it was for UCLA to finally get into the tournament.

(58:09):
You're already without Jalen Clark and then a den Boni,
your big center is out. If you look at San
Diego State, not only do they have a veteran team,
but they didn't miss games. And you know, it's also
interesting here, the most minutes per game of any player
on the team is averaging just twenty seven minutes a game.
So when we say nine deep, they're playing nine deep.

(58:31):
And you saw it against Alabama. I mean here they
went into halftime San Diego State with a five point
lead and the next thing you know, Alabama's got a
nine point lead time out San Diego State. But you
mentioned this earlier, Bucky. Physically, they just wore down that
Alabama team. Where you down Brandon Miller, who's been terrific

(58:52):
yea the entire season. He's a top five pick in
the NBA, but he's a teenager and it's the first
time todop scene and I've watched him a ton this
year handle all kinds of stuff, like you know, dealing
with the conversation around the team, dealing with those circumstances
and all that, and he has been a guy, has
been absolutely spectacular as a shooter, getting his getting his

(59:13):
getting buckets in a variety of ways. Sant Diego State
put a kabash on all of that. You know, force
a miserable shooting day, miserable and Jess couldn't find enough
talent to be able to get them overside like this
is this is one where San Diego State's experience matters

(59:34):
watching this team continue to advance. Watching you know, their
coach who was with Steve Fisher with Michigan, part of
that Fab five group. They've coached at a high level.
They've dealt with a lot of stuff. And the thing
that I appreciate about him when you watch him in
postgame interviews in the locker room and you look over
his shoulders, defense and rebounding. Every time he talks about

(59:57):
this team, he talks about we have to be great
in those area and in the air in which everyone
is focused and fixated on putting eighty points on the board.
They are a team that has some old school values
that continue to allow them to kind of make some
hay in the old season. Well, you know, defense comes
down to well design, obviously you got to play team defense,

(01:00:18):
but it comes down to desire. You gotta play defense.
Mccronin is in still the similar mindset at UCLA because
when you have an off day shooting, you can survive
if you got that lockdown defense. Sandeg State is not
a good shooting team, and Matt Bradley, the leading scorer,
couldn't throw anything in. I mean he I mean, it

(01:00:38):
wasn't that he was just missing. I mean, he wasn't
even close, and yet they were still surviving. Brian Dutcher
a great guy. Can you imagine sitting on the bench
all those years with Steve Fisher waiting your turn because
there obviously was interest in hiring him, and just waiting, waiting, waiting,
waiting to finally get his opportunity. Now in his sixth
year at San Diego State, and he is one game

(01:01:00):
away from the Final Four. By the way, I'm a
little near and dear to him. On top of that,
his father, Jim Dutcher, was a head coach of both
Eastern Michigan and at Minnesota. He coached the iceman George
Gervin back in his college days at Eastern Michigan, but
more near and dear to me, he was Michael Thompson's
coach at the University of Minnesota. Also Kevin McHale's coach

(01:01:23):
at the University of Minnesota. So I know I'm a
little bias here, but that would be one matchup I
would definitely look forward to. Let's find out what is
trending right now. Let's talk to another man that knows
the college basketball game even better than he admits because
I know that he is one of those the things
said tennis is the one thing he's best known for.

(01:01:44):
That would, of course would be mister Bryan Fenley. Is there.
I mean I talked about a potential matchup Gainzag in
San Diego State. I know the overwhelming majority of our
listeners are like, no, that's not what I want to see.
I mean, is there any other potential matchup of these
eight schools that would intrigue you? You know, I am

(01:02:05):
as somebody like yourself, Steve, who has spent a lot
of time in San Diego. I just from somebody who
also likes UCLA and the mccronin style where it's physical
and if you're going to drive in on their defense
that you're going to feel the pain. I just feel
that physicality that San Diego State is going to bring
and they have brought, is what makes them so good.

(01:02:27):
So I want to see San Diego State, especially considering
that as a San Diego sports fan in general, you
have had hard times. I mean, you had an NFL
team leave you. Finally your baseball team is putting money
in and making things interesting and getting to the playoffs
the Padres, but you haven't won anything. Nothing, no title

(01:02:49):
of the NFL or Major League Baseball. They had the
NBA that left give San Diego sports fans something they've
been dying for it. Guys, it's so overdue. I'd love
to see that for them. I can't even over state.
I actually put out one of my rare tweets said
I think that's very rare, and it was just a

(01:03:10):
one liner where I said, the Aztecs have a real
all caps chance to win an NCAA championship. I mean,
they have as good a chance I would pick any
one of these teams, to be honest, you, but they're
going against a Craton team that knocked him out in
the first round of the tournament a year ago, so
they're certainly familiar with them. But if they play anything
like they did, especially in that second half against Alabama,

(01:03:32):
they're gonna be a tough out, A real tough out.
They had no question about it. And so we're going
to see San Diego State tomorrow. As far as the
Elite eight games, today, we're about thirty minutes away, give
or take from our first one with the nine seeded
Florida Atlantic Owls taken on the three seed Kansas State.
The Wildcats, a team that was predicted to finish last

(01:03:53):
in their conference by the Big twelve coaches pull how
wrong they were in determining what would end up being
the fate of this Wildcats team. And then later on tonight,
of course it is a three seed Gonzaga taking on
the four seed Yukon eight forty nine Eastern, and you've
got the zag still looking for their first national championship.
Of course, they've been there in the title game twice

(01:04:16):
and they have fallen, and Yukon coming in as arguably
the hottest team in the NCAA tournament, just manhandling opponents
right now, winning by a total of sixty two points
their first games, as far as the scoring differential in
all three of them combined. We do have one NBA
game happening, and that seemingly is under not so much

(01:04:39):
the spotlight, I should say, because of college basketball. But
Andrew Nemhard, who spent time with Gonzaga, is playing for
the Pacers, and he's got ten points and the Pacers
through one quarter are trailing the Hawks thirty nine to
thirty five. Women's college basketball Sweet sixteen action. I will
leave you with this, guys, we did see four seeded

(01:05:00):
UCLA fall on the road in South Carolina against the
one seed South Carolina fifty nine to forty three. So
the gamecox led by their head coach Don Staley thirty
five and oh on this season as they get to
the lead eight for the third straight year. And lastly,
third seeded Notre Dame loses to two seeded Maryland seventy

(01:05:20):
six to fifty nine. And guys, relatively speaking, because we
don't have a whole lot of NBA and we don't
have baseball regular season and sports or spars right now,
we're waiting for the NCAA tournament to start up again. Today,
I almost felt inclined. I'm watching on my television right
now American Kennel Club Dog Racing throwing in some updates there.

(01:05:40):
But I will spare you that Bucky Brooks and Steve
Hartman Masters is in a couple of weeks. You had
a feel for Jim Nance yesterday, right, Yeah, so Jim Nance, Befen,
you can get in on this. Well. Jim Nance obviously
one of the all time legends, and I've had a
chance to speak and spent some time with Jim over

(01:06:01):
the years. He's a super guy. Super guy. I mean,
he's he's incredibly appreciative of the role he has played
over the years, and he's a very approachable He's very
much like you would think Jim Nance would be. Um,
he went to the University of Houston and he's doing
that Cougars game and this is his final Final four.
He is, this is it. He's he's no longer going

(01:06:23):
to be doing the Final four. And here's the University
of Houston who's been the five final four, has never
won a championship, and this was going to be the
story book ending and Miami just handled him easily and
he had to do the game. So he was like, yeah,
that's that's that's a that's a double win. Yeah, but
that is because you know, being into business as long

(01:06:45):
as we have, he'd already have his walk up walk out.
Oh he was. He was all ready. He's ready to go,
and now he has to go back in the lab
and experiment some of these other chants. Uh. Find another
thing that can fulfill him a little bit, is that
the week of any announcer. I used to always think this,
he would go from the NSA Championship Final Four the

(01:07:06):
Semis on Saturday Championship gun Monday, and then straight to
the Masters starting on Thursday. I mean, when you go
from Final Four to the Masters in the same week,
which he has done for years and years and years,
that's a pretty good assignment, a very good assignment. I mean,
you have to love all that that is. That's pretty sweet.

(01:07:27):
Do Yeah. I am looking forward to this year's Masters,
all right. I wanted to take a different angle on
Lamar Jackson for a second here. So nothing new on
Lamar Jackson. He still has had not allegedly a single offer,
and so even though he has the non exclusive franchise
tagging by the Baltimore Ravens, and the Ravens still insists

(01:07:50):
they want him to be their quarterback. But I want
to get honest about the numbers in terms of passing
the ball by Lamar Jackson. So in twenty nineteen, when
he was unanimous choice as the league's most valuable player

(01:08:10):
that season, Bucky, he completed sixty six percent of his passes,
thirty six touchdowns and six interceptions. Each year since then,
his completion percentage has gone down. He had thirty six
touchdowns and six interceptions that year. The last two years combined,

(01:08:31):
he has thirty three touchdowns and twenty interceptions. Yeah, so
let's let's take a different tack on this Lamar Jackson,
because again, this is a guy that you know, forty
five and sixteen is a starting quarterback. But the last
two years he's missed ten games combined, He's fifteen and

(01:08:52):
nine winning, not like he was two previous years when
he was twenty four and six. Okay, So so if
you're the Baltimore Ravens, are you concerned about the trend
of a his passing numbers in decline, be his injuries

(01:09:12):
going up in terms of offering him the kind of
contract that he is seeking, which would be a little
bit more than Deshaun Watson, which is two hundred and
thirty million dollars fully guaranteed. If you're the Ravens, is
there any thought in the back of your head that
we have seen the best of Lamar Jackson and he's

(01:09:35):
not going to get back to that level. So here's
the thing, and understand your argument, because it does make
sense in terms of, you know, he missed games in
each of the last two years. The performance has come
back to the pack a little bit. He still ranks
is one to top quarterbacks, But there's validity when you
talk about completion percentage, intercepts, completion percentage, passer rating down,

(01:09:59):
intercepts up. His record is his record, but the Ravens
record is really dismal when he's not around, and they
didn't appear to put a plan in place to have
someone ready to go if they're without Lamar Jackson. So
that's that's another thing. I will say this. Maybe it
has little to do with what the Ravens want to

(01:10:22):
offer and how the Ravens want to sign him, and
maybe it has more to do it Lamar Jackson just
being like, hmm, I'm okay, I'll leave. I don't want
to lock in. Maybe I don't want to be here.
Maybe he doesn't want to be in Baltimore long term.
We all assume that he wants not only the money,
but he wants to be able to organization. But maybe

(01:10:42):
it's a situation where he wants to be on short
and sweet deals and he'll find one that he wants
and after he's done with a Tag, because he plays
this year on the Tag Nation take after that it's
cost prohibitive, then maybe there's somewhere else that he wants
to go play. Maybe he's going back to Miami. Maybe
it's some other thing. And so it may not necessarily

(01:11:02):
be all on the Ravens and all about the lack
of weapons and fanfare and all this other stuff that
people talk about when it comes to getting a new
quarterback on the team. Maybe it's really just about the
ball this team can. I don't know what else I'm
gonna do to make this team right because I don't

(01:11:23):
have the weapons on the outside did some of my
contemporaries have, And it's impacting how I'm viewed as a quarterback.
So by putting them in the non exclusive franchise tag category,
they're on the hook if nobody gets a deal of
thirty two million. Had they given the exclusive tag, they
would have been on the for forty five million. So
they rolled the dice on this because I mean, but

(01:11:44):
I mean, it doesn't happen by accident. Did they honestly
think that not a single team would make an offer. Well,
here's what we have to to go to go by.
It was never going to be a thing where all
thirty two teams would be interested in Lamar. And when
Lamar was drafted, he was the last pick of the
first round. It took the Baltimore Ravens courage to trade

(01:12:07):
back into the first round to take him. So Lamar
Jackson has those first three seasons of amazing play. A
lot of it was with his legs, his athleticism, but
he used his arm and so you can envisioned by Petrino,
take him more credit forward twelve school, you know, more credit.
And now I'm being like, okay, see this is what

(01:12:27):
this is how we got this is what we're doing.
Um to me, they need to be locked in the
room and they need to figure out how to handle
this because it's frustrating. I'm tired of talking about. I'm
tired of talking about, like, oh, we're all tired of
talking about, what what is the mindset? Let's no deal
gets done here that he's he's going to be a

(01:12:48):
Baltimore Ravens quarterback for thirty two million this year? Is
this is this damaged goods? I mean, is this going
to be a nightmare for the Ravens If if indeed
he is there altating quarterback under terms that he's not
happy with, I mean, it'd be a nightmare because yeah,
you have a you have an employee who's not happy
you know, and normally we don't see quarterbacks get treated.

(01:13:10):
I mean, heck, we're talking about Lamar Jackson regressing. Daniel
Jones got forty million. Daniel Joe just got that he
had fifteen passing touchdowns right a season ago. Like different
style players that should be in a different stratsphere when
it comes to pay but they're not. So how do
you handle this if you're Lamar Jackson Because now it's personal.

(01:13:34):
No matter what your agent would shield you from some
of these conversations, now they're having to come to you
to listen. This is beyond belief. And even if he
does sign, there's so much work to be done to
repair it. I can't even imagine the Baltimore Ravens going
to the playoffs not knowing him because what are they proven? Well,

(01:13:56):
then what do you do the next year you franchise
tag him again. Yeah, but it goes up because I
think it has to be one right of what do
you do if you if you're the Ravens and let's
say he plays out the season right, and they'll say
they're a middle of the road team. Maybe they make
their playoffs, maybe they don't first round lost something along

(01:14:16):
that line nine and eight, ten and seven, and he
has a decent year. Gonna franchise tag him again for
more money you can, And I'm doing the math and
I'm wondering if he did so again, if he had
gotten the exclusive tag, he would have made forty five
million this year. The non exclusive he gets thirty two million.
If they're no other offers. Yeah, so you're gonna pay

(01:14:37):
him fifty million. So I mean you're looking at this.
So he made twenty three million last year, you make
thirty two this year. He's made fifty five in two
then you add another deal on that. Right in three
years he would have made I mean, you're talking about
almost ninety five million or so gearing. Okay, Well, let

(01:14:57):
me ask you this. If you give into his demands
and you give him he wants more than Deshaun Watson,
So instead of two hundred and thirty million, you get
him two hundred and thirty one million dollars fully guaranteed.
Is that a good deal for the Ravens? Has On Lamar?
And how you feel about that wasn't my question? And
I want to know from you, Bucky Brooks, Is that
a good deal for the Ravens if the Ravens are

(01:15:18):
coming to you as a consultant, and how do I
know they're not already? I assume all thirty two teams
are using you as a consultant. I would say it's
not the greatest deal, but I would but I would
do it because he's valuable, so I always signed it.
I would signed Lamar Jackson to the deal. I would
go ahead and just bite the bullet and pay him
what he needs, because if he's not happy, we're not

(01:15:40):
gonna get great performance out of him anyway. He's already
not happy. We've seen guys walking to you know, situations
after contentious negotiation periods, and they're not the same. I
would expect this to be the same for Lamar Jackson.
He's gonna better because this could have been avoided. They
could have paid him early and got this out of
the way, but he didn't think. They didn't have the

(01:16:00):
foresight to think that the market is going to be
what it is. Well thanks to de Sean Watson. Yeah,
and then and again, I go back to the conspiracy
theory of how is it not a single team is
willing to part with two number one picks for a
twenty six year old quick. He just turned twenty six
in January. He just turned twenty six years of age. Yeah,

(01:16:21):
I mean you're you're not willing to give up two
number ones for a league MVP with a forty five
and sixteen record as a starting quarterback. But you get
a row number one. But remember that's all you gotta remember.
Everyone evaluating him come out and unfortunately, well, I mean
I think he's proven the doubters wrong, has he not?
But there's still a bias. There's a bias because you
are married to the grade that you put on whomever,

(01:16:44):
and so whatever grade you put on um Lamar Jackson
when he was coming out of college, Dad is still
in your mind. You know, he's this, He's Dad, small
corner of his arm. You can't play on the run,
no creativity, Yeah yeah, yeah, dah Yeah. He goes on
and on and not. This is one that is really
really tough because he's been around the entire time. You

(01:17:06):
haven't seen him replicate the success outside of it, so
you don't really know all the way if it's him
or is he looking at the staff? Is he me? Well,
let me ask about that twenty nineteen Ravens team because
they were putting up astronomical numbers that year, as was
he was it them doing something that no one had seen,
and people adjusted to it because we haven't seen those

(01:17:26):
kind of numbers since. No, we haven't. I mean, you
have to stay one step ahead of the party, six
steps down, six picks. Yeah, you have to stay one
step ahead of the posse. But I will say this,
you have to remember whe the Mark Jackson had, you know,
issues with illness and those things that kind of rocked
his world. He set out a little bit, he did
some other stuff that kept him away from the field,

(01:17:47):
and so he I don't believe he's decided where he
wants to go and we'll just kind of see what
it looks like. Poimix is about it. Oh, by the way,
he also ran for twelve hundred yards. Are a lot
of yours one thousand, two hundred and six yards rushing
at the yards thirty six touchdown passes in the same season,
which is why he was unanimous MVP. Will we ever

(01:18:09):
see that level again? All right? Coming up on the
other side, more NFL news to get to, including clamping
down on officiating. Why is it so imperative to improve
officiating in the NFL. There's an obvious answer, We'll share
it with you. This is Fox Sports Saturday, Steve Harman

(01:18:29):
and Bucky Brooks. Once again, we are live from the
tire rack dot Com studios. All right, Bucky, very quickly here,
we've got the NFL Competition Committee saying that the officiating
needs to be more consistent. It's a top priority as
they're getting heat from their major sponsorship with the gambling establishments. Yeah,

(01:18:50):
they gotta taen it up. I mean there too many. Well,
how do you do that? Does it make a difference
when we hear about full time officials? Does that mean anything?
The only thing that it means is these guys are
working full time anyway when it comes to right the job,
they're studying, they're doing all the tape or whatever. But
you're talking about benefits and all of that other stuff
like the devotion high level of accountability. When you say

(01:19:12):
that your officials are full time employees as opposed to
the part time status that they currently hold, let me
ask you this. Can you see anything on the field
if you're official in these bang bang plays in and
bounds out of bounds, penalties and everything else, do they
have the sight advantage or there are other ways you
could do this. No, I think it's hard because what
happens is they're calling the game at full speed real time.

(01:19:34):
We see replays super slowmall. Of course, it's unfair to
the referee, so we expect him to be able to
do it like there. We're seeing it in slow one
is just not fair. I don't know if there's a
solution to it, but the NFL has a lot of
pressure on from those gambling establishments. All right, we're going
to get back to the March Madness Elite eighteens. Who
ends up in the final four. This is Fox Sports Saturday,

(01:19:56):
all right, ware minutes away from tip off of the
Elite Eight, the March Madness continues. This is Fox Sports Saturday,
and we are broadcasting live from the Tirac dot Com studios.
Tirac dot com. We're gonna help get you there, and
I'm at selection fasts, free shipping, free road has or protection,
over ten thousand recommended installers tirerac dot com the way
tire buying should be. So we're gonna get ready for

(01:20:18):
this Florida Atlantic Kansas state matchup in the Elite eight,
and for Florida Atlantic. Obviously, they've never been here, They've
never actually won a tournament game until this season. Kansas State, though,
actually has a history and people may not even know this.
In the history of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, I believe

(01:20:41):
there's only five schools ever Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, North Carolina,
and UCLA that have actually been in more Elite eight
games than Kansas State. Wow, so they do have some history,
although they've never actually won on a national championship. But

(01:21:02):
this is not unprecedented territory. By the way, for Creighton,
who plays San Diego State tomorrow, I've been hearing Brian
Finley report this is their first Elite eight since nineteen
forty one. I don't know if we can count that
as an Elite eight because in nineteen forty one there
were only eight teams in the So I don't know

(01:21:22):
how elite it was because there were only eight teams
in the actual NCAA tournament that was the third year
of the tournaments. Only an eight team that does that
really count? Like Kentucky. So like Kentucky has all these
Elite eights, right, and if we really look at it
over the years, the way it was prior to the

(01:21:45):
mid seventies. When they started the expansion of the tournament,
is only the conference champions would get into the tournament,
so you'd have like twenty five schools in the tournament.
Eventually they raised it to thirty two. They didn't even
allow any second place teams to get in until nineteen
seventy five. Maybe that is why the coach afterwards was

(01:22:05):
talking about tradition and everyone was like when they beat Kentucky,
everyone was talking about, like, what is he talking about?
Agian But then you just pointed out they're a tradition
rich basketball program. We just didn't know. The only school
here that of the remaining schools with that national championship
pedigree is Yukon, and Yukon is a school that has

(01:22:28):
been in terms of margin of victory, the most impressive
schools so far in this tournament. They've won their three
games by an average of more than twenty points a game.
But when you think about Yukon and you think all
those years at Jim Calhoun and then they had that
out of nowhere victory to win a championship in twenty fourteen,

(01:22:49):
I don't think people still hold you they've won four
that's a pretty impressive total. I heard a lot of
schools of four national championships, But I don't think people
think of Yukon in the terms. I think because the
women's program has sort of outshined the men's program for
so many years of Gino Rima, I don't know if
I think people really understand how good Yukon's men's team

(01:23:11):
has been over the years. Yeah. Now, I don't think
they get enough respect. And and you know, it's funny
because years ago when Kevin Ollie led the team to
the national title, yeah, he talked about it. Now we're
not an underdog. Were Yukon? And I think you have
to have gone up in that period where you had

(01:23:32):
a chance to see those teams. Um they dominated with
kid l I mean they did it before Kemba Walker
and others. Jim Calhoun build that program from scratch and
made it a power. You never would think that how
small let's school Yukon. Just I've never been on the
Yukon campus. How small it's not it's not necessarily small.

(01:23:52):
It's nice campus, it's a nice team. But like you
just don't think about like Yukon the University of Connecticut
would be a power House for basketball. Like, yes, we
talk about the women's team and the men like they've
won title significant stand in some indirect way really put
Yukon on the map. It certainly doesn't help that, I
mean doesn't hurt that ESPN isn't too far away right

(01:24:15):
from stores Connecticut and they could put all those games
on TV. And at the time when they were dealing
with the Big East, yes, the original Big East when
it was Big Monday and all of that stuff. Yeah,
it certainly helped to put them on the map. But
they do have a program that is renowned and this
will be an opportunity for Danny Hurley to put them
squarely back into the mix. OO looking at the women's score,

(01:24:40):
Ukon is down to the Ohio State University with Don
lov show you about Ukon's latest run with Gino Rima.
They have been to the final four fourteen straight years.
How about that. Of course the twenty twenty tournament did
not happen. They've been to the final four fourteen straight time,
unbelieval fourteen straight. Now, the thing is you have to

(01:25:05):
we have the memory he took the baton and took
the torch from Tennessee. Yep, and kind of dominated and
now we're looking at a run of dominants from South Carolina. Yes,
that is definitely changing a little bit of the way
that we talk about women's basketball because they are a dominant,
dominant squad in a Don Staylor well, as you mentioned

(01:25:27):
in the Sweet sixteen Yukon trailing Ohio State, I scored
sixty nine, sixty and four minutes to go in the
game there, So that would be a monster story on
the women's side if Yukon is eliminated prior to the
final four places they've been the last fourteen years in
a row. I think a lot of people are looking
at this year's tournament as an aberration. Rights just one

(01:25:47):
of those years where your name schools just didn't really
seem to have it, and you know you're you're going
to have a year like this where just upsets galore.
First time ever we have no number one seeds make
it even to the Elite eight. But I'm not so sure.
I'm not sure if this is an aberration. With the

(01:26:07):
transfer portal, so much is made of the one and
done in basketball, forget the one and done anymore. Duke
had three of the top five rated players in the
country as freshmen on their team this year. Yeah, three
of the top five. Still can't get it done. Still
couldn't get it done, but couldn't even get to the
Sweet six. Team breaks my heart too, I know it does.

(01:26:30):
But you haven't been in a situation that with North Carolina.
We've seen them with a lot of the top elite schools.
It's hard, and I think that's the one thing that
the transfer portal is everything, and that's what is everything.
Player development is everything. The longer gas day around, the
better year chances are of building a high level winner.
We're seeing that. We've seen that of late in recent years,

(01:26:52):
even before nil and the way the portal the start popping,
we saw that the teams that were loaded with alcohol
will put the players in tiers. The teams that were
loaded with bees, c pluses and maybe one a player
had an opportunity to have success because the bees and
cs have to hang around for three or four years.

(01:27:12):
All right, I want to get back to my US
Bruins for a second. Are obviously a very disappointing finished with,
you know, losing two of your five starters. Yes, so
you have these two freshmen, Adam Bona, who showed ridiculous
shop blocking skills and he has a future in the NBA.
And then Amari Bailey, who came in as the big star,
five star recruit, was not one hundred percent healthy for

(01:27:35):
much of the year, and then at the end of
the year he looked like that five star recruit. Yes,
like all of a sudden, Oh, that's the guy that
everyone was hyped up on being with name, image and
likeness these days, because if you look at some of
the mock drafts right now, you look at Bona and Bailey,
they're probably late first round picks at best. Yeah, do

(01:27:58):
you think that UCLA will either best to offer them
and nil contracts? So to speak? To say, Hey, you know,
if you stay another year, both of you guys will
be All American candidates. You could get into the lottery
with another year at college. And oh, by the way,
you're probably going to get paid more than if you

(01:28:19):
were dumped into the second round of the NBA draft.
Do you buy into that as a player now? As
a viable alternative, I will say yes, And I'm gonna
say this and people gonna snicker, and the Lord Matarios
will have to endure a series of jokes for the
next year until they able to make your right. But
Carolina was expected to lose those guys, like the guys
that returned last year that were celebrated r J. Davis

(01:28:42):
Andrew Baycock, those guys were not expected to be back.
But they've decided to state this year, and so some
of that might be a their NBA stock plummeted after
having a bad year. But the other part of it
is those yes, certainly enjoyed a nice lifestyle with the
nil deal and some of the partnerships they were able

(01:29:05):
to make because the brand is big, and so I
would like to think if Carolina is a big brand,
you see a certainly is a big enough brand in
southern California. We even bigger now that they're gonna have
big ten money. Yeah, I mean like it's it's a
big enough brand where you can do some things to
uh provide incentives to players to hang around if you're

(01:29:25):
not gonna be a first round pick. I'm just because
obviously they're you know, they're they're losing a lot off
the team. But when you look at a kid like Bailey,
who down the stretch showed why everyone was so excited him.
He's a big time player. We've seen that shot. Did
he hit? That shot? Did he hit? Would have been epic,
almost iconic for him. Question to hit a shot like
that freshman to stick it, I mean that is he

(01:29:47):
didn't even hesitate. That is big time. And in the
moment I thought it was one of those things you
talk about like, I was like, man, is he gonna
be like Carmelo? Is he gonna be the freshman that
continues to continues to lead his team to a national
title as a freshman as he continues to get better
throughout the course of the tournament. All Right, We're going
to take a break from the madness to get back

(01:30:09):
to the NFL our Fox Sports Radio. NFL insider Adam
Kaplan joins us next Steve Harbin and Bucky Brooks. This
is Fox Sports Saturday. We're coming alive from the tirerack
dot Com studios. They are just underway three minutes in
and Kansas State leads Florida Atlantic by a score of
four to three. All Right, joining us as he does

(01:30:31):
so graciously every single week on this show. A man
that wears many hats, a man that is constantly busy
in a league that has no sleep. That is our
NFL insider, the one and only mister Adam Kaplan. All right, Adam,
we got a lot of things to get to today.
One of the big stories before we get into some

(01:30:52):
of the personnel issues, is this story about the NFL
voting on flexing out Thursday night football games late in
the season, basically during the month of December. What is
the buzz about this and why is this necessaries Amazon,
which is paying the league a billion dollars a year,
not happy with the return on their first year. What

(01:31:14):
exactly is going on behind the scenes that would get
this to a vote. Yeah, look, this is this is
a money situation. This was when they got this deal done,
they had there are options. There's called optionality to this deal,
in particularly with Amazon for Thursday night football. Don't forget,
we're gonna have Friday night football. I don't know if
we talked about that before. We're going to have Friday
night football down the road. So yeah, this is this

(01:31:36):
thing is going to happen. I mean, it's it's just
just the way it is with flex scheduling and Amazon
and so forth. Yes, Steve, this is this is a
real situation. I'll know more highly for the owners beings tomorrow,
so I'll know no more about it. We'll talk about
it next weekend. But yeah, this is this is uh look,
I mean the Friday night football one. I'm not loving
that one. I remember hearing about that a year ago,

(01:31:56):
and I think that's going to happen. So yeah, look,
we've got football. We've got three games on Christmas. This
is just the way it is. And now again just
to be clear, this is going to happen late in
the season, having the flex schedule on Thursday night football. Again,
this should happen. But it's not done deal yet. You know, Adam,
you talked to you mentioned going to the owners meetings

(01:32:17):
this week, and there are a couple of things that
are maybe on the dock and to talk about one
of that. One of those is Philadelphia and the infamous
quarterback sneak and depression, all of those things. And then
another one is the hip drop tackle. Troy Vincent mentioned
something about the numbers. Do you expect to see like
significant rule changes based on some of the things that

(01:32:37):
are being proposed. Well, see, the tush push is not
even up for vote. They're just going to keep an
eye on it for safety reasons. I am that's a
stunner to me. When I got the league's report, you
know what's going to be voted on this week for
the competition committee in the league, it was not up there.
I just kind of stunned. And that's just Look, they've
been very lucky. No one's gotten hurt because the first

(01:33:00):
I saw it, you know, I thought it looked like
a rugby scrum, and that's pretty much what it is.
And you know, Sean Payton sa Sean pay was asked
about he said, Oh, we're gonna look, if they're not
outlaw it, we're gonna use it. So you're so you're
going to see now so many teams using it because
it's the Eagles are so effective with it. The funny
thing is that, Bucky, what the Eagles brought up is
they want some of the numbers changed for punters and

(01:33:20):
kickers that they can wear pretty much any number. I
think it wear zero in particular. I don't know why
they do that, but yeah, they're as you know, Buck,
the Competition committee does such a phenomenal job. But that's
one I don't know for the life of me. Troy
and Troy Vince it oversees all this I'm surprised that
that is not up to discussion in terms of outlong
it because it's Look, they're great with safety, and this

(01:33:42):
to me would be a safety issue. Now they did
not report a lot of injuries at all with it,
but to me, it's such proximity, Bucky, as you know
as a former player, all these bodies converging. To me,
you have to want about the safety there. All right,
let's talk about another thing. The competition Committee will be
all over, and that's officiating. When you get in bed
with all these gamily establishments, officiating becomes even a bigger priority.

(01:34:04):
I get all that. My only question is, Adam, how
how do you make officiating better, more consistent? I mean,
is it outdated to have these officials on the field.
Is there is there an alternative to officiating NFL games
to be more accurately more often? Well, you know the

(01:34:27):
Patriots of Bill Belichick, they wanted to pretty much challenge
any any call that they'll never pass. Now what the
hope is And I think that, if I'm not mistaken,
I think the Chargers are one of the teams wanted
to challenge certain calls because the problem is that there
you have to understand these referees are making, Steve these
calls in real time. They can't see everything. Yes, and

(01:34:48):
that's the hope is in our lifetime. It's kind of
like the NBA has it now. The NFL has a
couple of challenges. You can't like. The thing is when
it's a brutal call and everyone sees it at home
on HD. And by the way, the referees have the
same advantage of HD. You want to be able to
challenge bad calls. And that's the thing like past interference.

(01:35:11):
We want that to be able to challenge because sometimes
it's very clear when when they think it's past interference,
they're anticipating in it. It's not like there's certain things
Steve to answer your question. Eventually, in the next four
to five years, I feel there's going to be adjustment
with a competition community because there's too many calls where
you just can't see at all. The rest. By the way,

(01:35:32):
I know that if people beat them up, they actually
do a very good job. All right, Well, can I
can I ask you this? I want to interject because
we have a lot of questions about the past interference call. Look,
I know in college is a fifteen yard penalty. Yeah,
but I feel like there has to be flexibility with
that penalty. It just can't always be a spot foul,
like if it's like if it's outrageous or a guy's

(01:35:53):
being tackled, you know, where it's an obvious situation like
that a flagrant, then yeah it's a spot foul. Why
can we do that where it's a fifteen yard penalty
with you know, incidental contact so to speak, as opposed
to always be in a spot foul Bucky knows as
a form of defensive back. Here's the deal. And I
heard this a training camp last year because this goes

(01:36:15):
onto what you're talking about, Steve. The problem is that
the savvy veterans they know to hold the jersey and
that'll be five yards. If a guy's gonna get past them,
just grab the jersey. It's only five yards that it's
not a spot foul. It's just five yards with a
line of scrimmage. That's the problem what you're talking about.
That's a real issue. And these these veteran cornerbacks in particular,

(01:36:38):
they get away with it because they can't keep up
with the young receivers who could run. So just grab
the jersey. That's that's got to be changed. That to
me should be fifteen yards, not five. That should be
a spot. That should be a spot foul. But we
don't have that yet. Got us. It's so amazing. But
you're write about the old veteran trick because you do
understand the difference between a little past interference and a
little holding. You would take the five yards as opposed

(01:36:59):
to the spot, and that's what you're supposed to do.
We can't go another week without talking about Lamar Jackson
in the Baltimore Ravens. What has been the reaction around
the league? Did they expected to kind of play out
the way that is played out so far? No? I
think it's kind of what we talked about a couple
weeks ago when they put the non exclusive tag on.
I don't want to say it's surprised people and what

(01:37:21):
happened there is it is. One personal person said to me,
he goes, don't don't forget how much they saved. I
think it's around fifteen million from the non exclusive to
the exclusive tag. Well, that that's part of it. But
you're open, you're opening to getting discussions. Go now, remember
we head to the owner's rings, right so the Ravens
could if they want to, they could shop Lamar. But understand,

(01:37:43):
Lamar holds all the cars. He is tremendous leverage here
because the trade cannot be consummated unless he signs the tender.
So even if they have talks as other teams, if
he doesn't want to go there, he doesn't go there.
So that's the other part of this issue that the
Ravens have is that they don't really control of the cars.
They may think they control out of it, they really don't.
The player does. In the end, what is the update

(01:38:05):
on Daniel Snyder. We're gonna have a fact. Here's the thing.
Look for Jason Wright, the team president, to handle their business.
Jason and if you remember he actually played. I remember
him playing for the Browns. He's a former player and
he'll handle that business. Nothing's up to vote. What they're
doing is they're doing this quietly because the league knows
because they have to be lockstep that Snyder in the

(01:38:25):
ownership situation. This is gonna this is taking freight. Now.
We should have an update. By the way, there's a
man I don't know if you know this. There's a
May meeting right It's called the spring meeting. I'm hoping
to be there for that one because that's one when
we usually get ownership changes if there ever is any,
or ownership updates, and then by the time Washington has
their training camp that there's an ownership change. That's the hope,

(01:38:48):
you know, when you when you think about, like some
of the things that are going on with the draft
coming up, we had these big pro days. We had
CJ's role, Bryce Young, and then Will Levis. What has
been the re action around the league about those three
guys working out? Yeah, and and Bucky. You know this
from being in scouting. It's very rare for a quarterback
down to have a good pro day. Teddy Bridgewater didn't

(01:39:09):
have any He was the gloves no gloves. That was
a problem for Buddy's still went in the first round
to the Vikings. It's really, here's the thing, let's look
at quarterback quickly when we can talk about other positions
the next time. I'm on therefore going to go in
the first round. Stroud or Young most likely would be
the first two off the board. Richardson's the wild card,

(01:39:29):
could go in the top ten, Levius will go and
that should go in the upper half. Then the next
question is who's an next quarterback head and hooker of
Tennessee people really like played in pure spread offense. He's
also coming up for two an ACL twenty five years old,
by the way, a transfer from Rginia Tech. Then there's
a major drop off. The way the league sees us
and my talks with offensive coaches, everybody's a backup after

(01:39:51):
the top four quarterbacks. It's it's unfortunate, but that's the
way the league sees it, all right, Key, we keep
here in the Aaron Rodgers situation, there's no sense of
urgency or anything else. We know technically there are no
financial ramifications for the Packers to hold them literally all
the way till the day before the season begins, even
if they release them at that point. Forget the Packers,

(01:40:12):
Let's talk about the Jets realistically. When do the Jets
have to get a deal done to get him in
for him to be in a position as the quarterback
of the team to deliver what obviously they're banking on
that he suddenly puts them into Super Bowl contention. Where
do you think is the cutoff time or timing for

(01:40:35):
the Jets to put Aaron Rodgers in their uniform. A
great question, Steve. In fact, they don't have a deadline,
but the loose deadline to me, just knowing how this
works would be OTAs because on your point, they have
to get Yes, he's got Alan's ard, but everyone else
he's not worked with. Rogers has to get timing down
with the tight ends and the wide receivers. Now, the

(01:40:56):
good things, I'm told the offense that they're running is
exactly the same, exactly the same that Hackett's going to
run that they ran in Green Bay. It's an old
school West Coast offense. This is the old Bill Walsh
offensive tournament. Everything's exactly alike. That's half of it. But
the other half is to get the timing down with
with these receivers. Because you've seen Rogers body language and

(01:41:19):
things aren't well. He shakes his hat and gets on
his past targets. So, Steve, that's a great point. That's
probably the biggest point of all, which Joe Douglas has
to understand. The GM. Yeah, this guy's great, he turns
forty and he's got all the experience, but well he
doesn't worked with these guys before, so that that definitely
is an issue By the way he is the only
guy who predicted a Florida Atlanta Creighton NBA NCA championship game. No,

(01:41:40):
not me, No, I pick Yukon, by the way, I doubt.
I will tell you you kind of win it all
and they look awesome. So they do. They've won by
an average at twenty points. Well, if you got Yukon
winning at all, you're gonna win somebody's money. I didn't
do it. I didn't. I didn't really do a I
didn't do practices. But the Snogo drew timmy matchup today,
I cannot wait for Yeah, that's gonna be a good one,

(01:42:01):
outstanding game, Adam. We always appreciate it. And again you're
gonna be at the what's the schedule for the NFL
Owners meetings? Yeah, so I'll be there. It starts. It's
the great things they've They've changed it from three days
to two, so it starts money morning with the coach's
breakfast on Money and Tuesday we got to we've got
a big dinner on Monday, and then too, it ends

(01:42:22):
Tuesday afternoon. But the good thing is there are a
lot of rule changes brought up, and also we'll have
a little bit more on Lamar Jackson. I'm sure I'll
have more on that when I get there. So that's
that's kind of one of the stories I'm working on.
See if there's anything real here about potential trade talks. Well,
if anything happens, this man will be all over it
as usual. Adam Kaplan, Adam will talk to you next week.

(01:42:42):
Thanks so much, Thank you, Adam Kaplan our Fox Sports
Radio NFL Insider. Have you ever been one of those
owners meetings? I have not had the pleasure of going
to an owners meeting, but I'm looking forward to it.
A lot of business takes place here. It's really weird
to be anywhere around owners meetings because you see all
the faces, right, they're all hanging around, and you got
all these billionaires walking around, and I mean there's egos involved.

(01:43:06):
And I do respect the fact that they do a
great job of picking locations owners like stand at nice resorts.
When I look at the spread that sometimes you see
in the backdrop, it it looks like they are having
a lot of fun, a lot of high end Well,
a guy that knows a lot about high end lifestyle
is going to tell us exactly what is trending right now.

(01:43:29):
That's Ryan family. When you when you when you walk
around the circles of tennis, I mean that's high end stuff, Efen.
I mean, at the very least you got to look
the part right. Well, I'll say this with the Indian
Wells Tournament just wrapping up, the sponsors for that tournament
are all high end. Do you guys know that? Then
the celebrities they come out. Charlie's there, and was there?

(01:43:51):
Bill Gates was there? Like all of these All right,
let's take us through a day. Would you being there
and I wasn't there? You've been there, I've been there.
I mean do you basically walk around with a glass
of chardonnay? I mean that's what a lot of people do. Yeah,
you have to have the wine. Yeah, you absolutely do.
And then they have these really nice restaurants that are
embedded in and then all the high end cars are there,

(01:44:16):
so you get to look at those and the jewelry
and all of that stuff. I remember being there years
and years ago when Sharapova was there and she walked
next to me. I'm like, is this girl like seven
feet tall? I mean she was, she is tall, she
is tall, and they two yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely so.

(01:44:38):
And with the Miami Open is happening right now. But
if I let an update by talking about the matches
that are happening in the Miami Open, you would not
be doing the next update exactly. I would probably get
fired or put on an air quote to leave. Well,
we do have an Elite eight game going on. We do, yeah,
and that would be the ninth seeded Florida Atlantic leading

(01:44:59):
right now the three to Kansas State twenty two to eighteen,
about halfway through the first half, where the Wildcats do
The Wildcasts do have those six turnovers but twelve rebounds.
Right now they have outrebounded the Wildcats the Owls by
nine twelve to three. So right now, FAU a team
that had never won an NCUBAA tournament game until this year,

(01:45:22):
second all time appearance, they've won three games in the
NCAA tournament, looking pretty good so far thirty four and
three on the end. Of course, after this game, our
next game would feature the four seed in Ukon taking
on the three seed in Gonzaga. The Zacks, coming off
that tweet sixteen win against our UCLA Bruins seventy nine

(01:45:42):
to seventy six, drew Timmy had thirty six points in
that game, one score had of the NBA. And we
are late stages of the third quarter where the Hawks
are pummeling the Pacers ninety one to eighty seven, and
indianas Jordan Wara has twenty five points that's not scored
though in the third those twenty five coming in the
first half. Women's NTUBA Tournament action out of the sweet

(01:46:05):
six team four seeded UCLA goes down on the road
to one seed South Carolina seventy nine to forty three.
So that Gamecocks continue their unbeaten ways. They are thirty
five and oh on the year a win for three
seeded excuse me, two seeded Maryland over the three seeded
Notre Dame seventy six to fifty nine. And I'll leave
you with this. Bucky and Steve two seeded Yukon Gino Rima,

(01:46:30):
they lost to good Bye fourteen straight years in the
final four over it is over and he can think
the third seeded Ohio State Buck Guys seventy three to
sixty one. Could we see Bucky Brooks and Steve Hartman
the end of the dynasty that is Yukon five want
to eliminate them yet yeah, you know, I mean the

(01:46:53):
idea that you know it's an automatic yet the final four,
it's just not real. But yeah, I mean their dominance,
especially if if South Carolina runs the table and goes
undefeated this year. Don Staley's team is no question, like
the power current power women's basketball. They absolutely have it going. Uh,

(01:47:13):
they've won a couple they looked like they've gone away
to going back to back. She has built a monster
down in South Carolina. And when you watched him play man,
they play the right way. Absolutely all right, Well be fan,
thank you very very much. By the way, if you're
looking for a sentimental choice in other ways, you don't
have a dog in the race, and your brackets already busted. Anyway,

(01:47:37):
Miami and Jim Larenega. This guy to show you how
long he's been around. He started as a coach assistant
coach at Davidson in nineteen seventy one. Larenega was an

(01:47:57):
assistant coach at Virginia when Ralph Sampson played at Virginia
and he is one of the only coaches, I don't
know if this has ever happened before, who has coached
three different schools at the highest level for at least

(01:48:18):
a decade at each school that he was at Bowling
Green for eleven seasons. Then he was at George Mason.
Of course they had that miracle run to the Final
four and six. He was there fourteen seasons, and now
he's in his twelve season at Miami. They're back where
they were a year ago. They were in the Elite
Eight last year. It's a very short list of coaches

(01:48:42):
that have taken two different schools to the Final four.
But he's seventy three years of age. And I don't
know if you saw him post game after their win,
He's dancing doing everything. You just see how popular he
is with the players. It's not easy, right, I mean,
there's seventy three year old coach. Well not only think
about all the old coaches who are complaining about nil

(01:49:02):
and transfer portal and those things. And he has found
a way to adapt and adjust, take transfers in, get
those guys playing together, playing as a team, and they're
finding a way to win games. Back to back Elite
eight appearances with a chance to go to the Final four.
I mean, that would be a hell of his story
to see, of all teams in Miami with Laraega winning

(01:49:22):
a national at the age of seventy three. Man, Yeah,
you know, we talked about because everyone thinks that you
have to get younger to get better when it comes
to coaching. He's proven that dead is not the case,
that there is value and having an experienced coach who
understands how to build a program that's amazing. You know.
He took over Miami and they had some success, had
a couple of sweet sixteens, and then they had three

(01:49:45):
rough years twenty nineteen, twenty twenty twenty one. It was
getting worse and worse and worse fourteen and eighteen, fifteen
and sixteen. They were ten and seventeen two years ago,
and he might be thinking, all right, it's time, right, Jim,
seventy years old, you lost touch. They stayed with this
guy and then they complete turnaround last year and they
have followed it up with another Elite eight appearance. So

(01:50:08):
I don't know's it just weird this year's tournament because
we're not usually used to these schools being in the
Elite eight. But that doesn't mean we're short on storylines
because there's always storylines that can emerge from this and
you know, whether it's layer Nag or marked few. After
all those years at Gonzaga finally winning a national championship.

(01:50:29):
By the way, I was at a viewing party with
a couple of friends of mine watching that UCLA Gonzaga game,
and both of them kept saying Gonzaga, and I said myself,
all right, I shouldn't be like hyped up on this,
but I understand this. Their nickname is the Bulldogs. The
reason they started calling themselves the Zags is that people

(01:50:51):
were mispronouncing. They're saying Gonzaga instead of Gonzaga. So they're
not the Zogs, the Zags and so that's that's why
that started. You know, when they sort of became you know,
like if regular in the tournament and people are like, hey,
Gonzaga is good, and I'm like, na, that's Gonzaga. Hey
how about this. We'll do it. We'll car ourselves like

(01:51:11):
the Zags. They'll figure it out. They're not the Zogs
out there. All right, we are going to give you
our final predictions. We're cheating a little bit on this
Florida Atlantic Kansas State team because they are underway right now,
Florida Atlantic. They are shooting lights out and dominating Kansas
State on the boards twenty six twenty two. Right now

(01:51:32):
Florida Atlantic leading with eight minutes to go in the
first tap. But we'll give you our predictions which four
schools will punch their ticket to the final four? Coming
up next Steve Hartman and Bucky Brooks. This is Foxford Saturday.
We are live from the tire rack dot com studios.
Do we get a progressive play of the day in?

(01:51:54):
Do we do? All? Right? I don't want to be
remiss here to get a progressive play of the day in.
I know we have just the one game going on
right now between Florida Atlantic and Kansas State. Florida Atlantic
leading that game by a score of thirty one to
twenty six. We got about six minutes ago in the
first half. I want to thank the guys today. Kevin Wyatt,

(01:52:15):
he was on the board today. I couldn't believe that,
but Kevin was there. Chris coming in as he usually does.
Be fan of course. Brian Finley doing a masterful job
with the updates. Surat and Bow are brilliant producer. Who
is sporting old school Buccaneers cap today? What's the occasion
Bow for you to be worrying that cap the return

(01:52:38):
of Baker Mayfield to a glory. Yeah. Wow. Did you
like the original Buccaneers gear? Yeah? I do like the
cream circle. I've always thought that was one. Doug Williams
was my favorite player. Doug Williams was an amazing player.
Jimmy Jiles, Kevin Owes, the late Gray, Ricky Bell. Yeah,

(01:53:03):
that was a pretty good team. All right, let's hear it.
The most important to day. The streamers will be coming down,
which means the Lakers are victorious, and they are now
thirty seven and thirty seven and they're moving up. We're
the ladder in the Western Conference. Billy Mack there on

(01:53:24):
Lakers TV celebrating the fact that the Lakers, for the
first time this year are a five hundred team. Wow,
all right, this time now for all? That was your
Progressive Insurance play of the day. Progressive makes bundling easy
and affordable. Get a multi policy discount by combining your motorcycle, RV, boat,
a TV and more all your protection in one place.
Bundel and save at Progressive dot com. It's sad, sad,

(01:53:48):
sad the turn of events for the Lakers had to
have that kind of celebration about getting to five hundred.
But as Spucky said earlier, and Bucky, I know you
were on the shortlist now of Laker fans out there
see something. I know you're not. But you have to
take those baby steps before you can get past that
and into respectability. All right, let's go down these games

(01:54:09):
right now here, Bucky, as far as which teams are
going to ultimately end up in the final four. We
got this game going on right now. It's a two
point game, so it's anybody's game. Florida Atlantic and a
Kansas State. Which way are you leaning in this game?
I'm going with Kansas State. I think Kansa State finds
a way to get it done. I just love their team.
I love the grit and the toughness they figured out

(01:54:31):
second half. Yeah, Kansas State has been that team that
maybe is a little overdue in terms of getting back
to the big dance. Nolesman unbelievable already has six assists
in this game. So yeah, I'm gonna lean to the Wildcats.
And this one coming up later tonight, I am going
to be digging in and watching this one. Yukon three
wins in this turning by an average of twenty points

(01:54:52):
plus going against again Zaga team. Been there, done that,
except win a national championship. Who do you like? It's
time for the Zachs. The Zags get it done. You
gave me a history lesson in terms of why they're
zaxed instead of the Buydogs. So I'm gonna go with
you on that one. I'm started rooting for Gonzag in

(01:55:13):
this game, and that's not often, especially after knocking out
my bruins again for the second time in three years.
But I don't know, I just I feel like they're
no one's owed anything, but it's it's like they're do
So I'm gonna lean Zags. But the Yukon to me
right now is probably the best team remaining in the tournament.

(01:55:33):
All right, Tomorrow morning, Creton San Diego State. These two
teams faced off in the first round last year. Creton
beat them. Creton is actually a slight favorite in this
game against the Aztecs. Who do you like? I'm going
with the older experienced team. Let's go to San Diego.
Let's go to Aztecs San Diego State. When we play
nine deep, they have nine guys that have never been hurt.

(01:55:56):
This year, no one has averaged more than twenty seven points. Again,
they only have one guy averaging double figures. This is
the best defensive team in the country with Mensa in
the middle. I love the Aztecs in this game to
move on to the Final four. And then we talked
about Jim Larnaga another opportunity to get back to the
Final four. He did it with George Mason back in
OH six. His Hurricanes are back in the Elite eight

(01:56:19):
and they're going against the only two seed left in
this tournament at the University of Texas, Bucky Brooks. Who's
gonna win this game? To Morrow? Hook him, Horns man,
now hook him. The long Horns have played great defense,
they're getting it together. They're playing Will in the interim coach.
This is their time, all right, So Texas, I'm gonna

(01:56:42):
said here, I'm gonna go with Miami and this one
going large. Well, you know why I will say I'd
cheer it because in O six, when he had that
George Mason team in the Final four, was in Indianapolis,
and I was there covering UCLA who was in the
Final four, and I was staying at literally the same
hotel as George Mason's team was. So we saw the players.

(01:57:04):
We saw Aaron Aga. He was so good. I'm rooting
for him. I really am. Texas is the better team.
But I'm gonna lean Hurricanes. I mean, again, what are
we talking about? I mean, no one seeds for the
first time ever in the Elite eight, only one two seed. Yeah,
and the Elite eight. We thought going in this could

(01:57:24):
be a competitive We talked about a bucket a wide
open tournament. But did you everything it was going to
be like this. I didn't think it would be like this.
But it's been fun to watch. This is what's great
about it. And in fact, it was so great that
I wish that we would have an opportunity to have
more just tournaments, like make a tournament just in the
middle of a middle of the season. It has been

(01:57:46):
great to see these single elimination deals. Oh, by the way,
I just found this a little note here. This is
a little twist. Whoever wins the NCAA Championship will have
one more game against North Carolina Maragos. North Carolina overlooked
for the field is sixty eight. We'll take on the
I mean, you got to be feeling pretty four starters

(01:58:07):
back from a team that was in the Championship game
a year ago, preseason number one lessons? Do you feel
like that? Do you think North Carolina could have beaten
these teams this year? I mean, look, I think, dear Walkert,
I think they could have eked out a win somewhere
along the line. But look, no such thing as loss
is just lessons. This is something that will help the

(01:58:29):
tar Heels in the future. All right. By the way,
we are now tied. Florida Atlantic and Kansas State are
now tied at thirty four. One of the quick note here, Bucky,
we just talked to Adam Kaplan. He's going to be
at the NFL owners meetings for a couple of days.
I didn't ask you about the Daniel Snyder situation. Yeah,
it's messy. It's messy, but it seems like suing. He

(01:58:52):
wants like seven billion dollars or something. A lot of money,
you know. I mean that team is going to be
sold for what's the final price that gonna be if
the Broncos sold for over four billion? Asked me about
what you're talking about, Yeah, six or seven that's a
tiny from what he boughtom for. The other thing that
I asked, I asked at the new ownership. I think

(01:59:13):
they changed the name and go back to the Washington
football team. Like the Commanders just is not you're not
with not with the Commanders out there. Okay, there's another
name they used to go by. We can't go back
to that name either. It was so good. Hey, don't
go anywhere, folks, keep it right here. This is Fox
Sports Radio.