Aaron Torres & Jason Martin discuss Selection Sunday Eve, Rick Pitino, Aaron Rodgers & MORE!

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome Inn everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Fox Sports Saturday, Eric Tors,
Jayson Martin. We are broadcasting live from the tirerack dot
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Speaker 3 (00:35):
J mart and I.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
By the way, we're on for Jason Smith and Mike Harmon.
If you missed any of that on Friday night, check
out the podcast. But we got three more hours tonight.
Jason Martin, How you doing man?

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Everything good, Everything's good. We got some storms that kind
of had us worried over the last couple of days,
but seems like most of that just didn't transpire at
least in the way that we thought. So power has
stayed on. Everything's been good. SEC tournament was on fire.
It has been the entire week, but some great semi

(01:07):
final games outside of it, like Florida's just decided. I
think they want a mercy rule everybody they're so that's
kind of wild actually just how well they are playing
right now. But sets up a great final. But there's
been great ball all day. The Big Ten tournament was
was a blast, obviously with a little bit of controversy
there at the end of the Michigan State game. SEC
was a blast. And of course Duke does what Duke does,

(01:31):
whether it's Coach K or whether it's John Shire. They
win the ACC first of all, a couple of things.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, let me say this about Duke, by the way,
and I think it's interesting on a day that Kyle Neptune,
the Villanova coach, was let go. Basically we can make
fun of Coach K. You know, Coach K was kind
of the guy that you know, you picked on and whatever.
That's basically the only place that the handed off to
the lead assistant has actually worked.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Like I was thinking about that today.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
And this isn't necessarily like a a topic that you
lead to show with, but Duke did just win the
ACC title without Cooper flag. But I was thinking about
it is you know, North Carolina, you and I spoke
about last night when we were filling in for Jason
and Mike. Is that, you know, fringe bubble picture at best,
I think best case scenario, they're probably going to dat
in for the first four.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
But Hebert Davis replaces.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Roy Williams, and I know he has made a final four,
but he also very well could miss a second NCAA
tournament in three years. At North Carolina, that's not acceptable.
Beaheim handed it off to his lead assistant. Syracuse is
a total train wreck. And then of course Villanova Kyle
Neptune was Jay Wright's hand picked replacement, And so I
was just thinking about all those other places kind of

(02:44):
a mess except at Duke, where listen, I'll credit John
shire man Is.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
I know it's Duke.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
I know you have access to players that a lot
of other people don't, But if you can't see that
this is a complete team. They just beat Louisville to
win the ACC regular tournament title. They're thirty one three
entering the NCAA Tournament. They've lost a grand total of
one game since Thanksgiving week.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I don't know what to tell you.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I know everybody wants Duke to stink, and you know,
wants to make fun of Duke they're awesome, they get
the win. But also I want to give a little
bit of credit to John Shyer because I actually think,
you know, there really has been at least early no
drop off with that program after winning the ACC title
and again considering what all these other schools look like,
after handing things off to an assistant, it's easy to

(03:29):
forget that.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
No.

Speaker 4 (03:30):
And he's also adapted to what college basketball has become
in terms of we knew this because we talked about
it in the moment when it happened. Duke was one
of the first goals to bring in somebody to you know,
handle nil and to really work on that side. And
of course we're seeing Hubert Davis say, hey, we're going
to commit to that, and now they're going to bring
a GM into North Carolina to try and do the

(03:52):
same thing. But Duke was ahead of that curve because
they recognize it. And of course it's not as if
Shozshowsky was resistant to one and done's. He wasn't maybe
the first to try it, but he jumped on board
as soon as he realized that you had to. He
was not just going to stay stubborn in his ways
and say, well, we're Duke, they're going to come to
us and Shire has done the same thing, like they

(04:13):
have a machine at Duke. And clearly John Shire smart guy,
which we already knew, but somebody that had sat underneath
Coach K and learned his tendencies and learned how he led.
It's not just about what you're doing during that forty
minutes where you're coaching the game. It's everything else that
you're doing. It's being the CEO type that understands, you know,

(04:38):
how to manage the egos, how to manage the personalities,
but also just how to make sure that the team
is marketed properly, that the team is out there where
it needs to be, and hiring other people so that
all of that doesn't fall on you. The athletic Department's
done a very nice job, and they've done it in
multiple sports. But Shire is just I feel like he
is a product of a perfect system, which is terrible

(05:00):
news for everybody that was hoping Duke was going to
fall on tough times.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, I remember, you know, you and I were doing
this show in twenty twenty two when Coach K was
kind of wrapping it up, and I remember having these
conversations of the best thing for college basketball, and listen,
I love college basketball. You love college basketball, but I
do understand that it's a sport that you know, it
isn't always easy to kind of figure out not only
what the narratives are, but for narratives for people to

(05:26):
get behind kind of on a national level outside of March.
But I remember having the conversation of, like, the best
thing for college basketball is one of two things for
Duke to either be really really really bad under John
Shire and sort of turn into a punching bag, or
be really really really good, and you feel like, oh crap,
they're not missing a beat. We got another thirty years

(05:47):
of Duke just stuffing it in everybody's face. And so
that's where they are right now. It's early. It's year three.
He hasn't made a Final four yet, he hasn't won
a national title yet. So you don't want to put
the cart before the horse, but you know, I'll tell you,
I really have been so impressed by him because even
in those three years, and even if it is Duke,
you are talking about a guy that has an ACC

(06:08):
regular season title, two ACC tournament titles at this point,
and really, again, the program has not missed a beat
at all. And you know I'll say this too, is
I agree with you on the idea of the way
that that he kind of uh embraced and evolved in
this era of college basketball because it's it's the GM.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I think the.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Other thing too is that, you know, we talk so
much in college basketball about do freshmen still win in
this sport? And you know, you've had coaches like Rick
Patino who will talk about throughout the show. Today, as
Saint John's wins its first Big Eiast Tournament title since
two thousand, Rick Patino has basically said, I'm done recruiting
high school players.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
I just I'm not gonna do it.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
I think for him it's some of it is an
age thing, as you know, he doesn't know how many
years he has left. But I also think he's basically said, like,
freshmen don't win in college basketball anymore.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
And so with Duke, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Because yes they have Cooper Flag, and yes they have
two or three freshmen that are gonna be one and dones.
But I think the thing that Shier has done well
and I know you kind of mentioned this, but they've
done a really good job of finding veteran guys to
put around them. You know, Mason Gillis was a kid
who was on that Purdue team that made the Final
four last year.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
He's a role player. You know.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Seon James is a guard from Tulane that listen, I
love college basketball. I'd be lying if I told you
I had heard the name Sion James before this year.
But he comes in has has basically started every game
nine points, four rebounds, three assists. So, you know, listen, again,
it's it's early. You don't want to give him too
much credit before he's done too much in the tournament.

(07:42):
But you mentioned kind of embracing anil. You've mentioned embracing
you know, the the GM and the where college basketball
is going. I think he's also been pretty savvy about
putting together rosters basically, you know, knowing that he was
going to have a Cooper Flag type talent and basically
building a roster that, you know what, even without them,

(08:03):
they won an ACC title tonight. But but really we
saw throughout the season just a very good roster around him,
blend of young guys, veterans, things like that.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Yeah, I mean I think that one thing is that
you can and you can look at Kentucky under coach
cal and I mean he put together an all star
team most years, but a lot of times the same
critiques would be there, which is, man, wait until these
guys figure it out towards the end of the season,
because they would look kind of ragged and just not
like they didn't belong. There, weren't fits. They weren't looking

(08:32):
for a team as much as they were just trying
to get as many five star guys as they could
possibly get on a team. And then what that led to,
of course, was you had to restock every year. You
had to then do that every year, and eventually that's
going to wear on you, and it did wear on
coach Cal. I think that that mixture point that you
made is is exactly right, Like that's the difference right

(08:55):
now is that you do have some guys that have
been there or that have been in college basketball and
are not just immediately looking to the future, and there
is a fit, there is a role. Everybody is not
used to being the greatest player of all time in
high school and then having to find a way to
fit within other guys that possess similar skill sets. They

(09:19):
all compliment each other pretty well, which is why, as
a matter of fact, you can lose a Cooper Flag
and still win the ACC tournament because you still have
a team. You don't just have a bunch of guys
standing around watching hero ball go on. Yeah, Cooper Flag
is all that. He's everything. People thought he was going
to be an n some but those guys know how

(09:39):
to play together. That's the difference. We saw that in
Oklahoma City. Guys stood around and watched Kevin Durant and
Russell Westbrook for a long time and sometimes the ball
would just stop right there. It happened in Houston with
James Harden. Guys would just stand there because they didn't
know exactly what to do because they were just waiting
for him to go make a play. And sometimes I

(10:00):
think that that happened with John Wall and guys like that.
At Kentucky. You don't see that under the Shire Duke
teams because of the mixture of veterans and guys that
know how to play as a team.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Duke gets the win in the ACC Championship game on
Saturday night, right before we came on air here at
eleven pm Eastern time. Final score seventy three to sixty two.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
Tell you what.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Jmart will come back and we'll talk about how quickly
do you have to rush back Cooper Flag?

Speaker 3 (10:27):
How quickly do you need him back?

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Because this duke team looks good, how far can they
go if he isn't one hundred percent? And just exactly
what did they prove here over the last couple of
days without Cooper Flag? Because I think they showed me
a lot. It sounds like they showed you a lot
as well. Should mention for the best pregame show every
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(10:50):
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(11:13):
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Speaker 3 (11:15):
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Speaker 3 (11:30):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Eric Torris, Jason Martin broadcasting live from theti iraq dot
com studios.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Busy night of college hoops.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
About ten minutes from now to segor Get you caught
up on everything you missed throughout the day before the breakdough,
we were talking about Duke Blue Devils so win a
second ACC Conference tournament under John Shire. They had won
the regular season this year. You probably know that, and
they basically have just locked up a number one seed

(12:00):
in the East region. I would presume what's interesting was,
and we all know where I'm going with this, the
last two days they did it without Cooper Flag who
will eventually be the number one pick. Thought it was
interesting that earlier in the day, Dan Gavitt, who works
on the selection committee, he is let me see what

(12:20):
his official title is if I can find it, NCAA's
Senior vice president of men's basketball. So he's kind of
like the overseer of the committee. You know, I always
say who polices the police, Well, he polices the selection committee.
And I bring it up because he was on the
CBS broadcast of one of their games, I assume one
of the Big Ten conference semifinals, and he was asked

(12:43):
about the Duke situation. He said, what we understand from
communication with Duke and the ACC is that Cooper Flag
will be available for the NCAA tournament. So don't expect
that to impact their seating. He is not the only
significant injury. We're tracking other injuries from other teams. Player
availability is always a concern and consideration and could potentially
impact seating, especially if a player is unavailable to play

(13:05):
in the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
So quick backstory, j Martin. I know you know all this,
but for the audience.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
The NCAA selection committee, if they believe that a player
that has helped you basically put together your resume is
not available for the NCAA tournament, that can impact seating. Okay,
So the most famous example, and I know a lot
of people probably remember this, but in two thousand, Cincinnati
was trending towards the number one overall seed.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Kenyan Martin. What's that?

Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yeah, Kmart Yeah, sad story. He you know, breaks his
leg in the conference tournament. Cincinnati gets put on the
two line. Obviously break your leg, you know what I
mean to tell you're not gonna be back for the
conference tournament, and they bumped him down to the two
seed line. And so, you know, I think schools over
the years have gotten smarter about just basically what information

(13:55):
they put out there, what they withhold. I was telling
about somebody this I forget who, but about I think
it was about two thousand and nine or so. I
remember this is that Syracuse of all schools because they
stink now, but they were a number one seed and
they had a player, a starting center named rinse Onawaku,
and for like six straight weeks, Jim Behem was just like, yeah,

(14:17):
he's day to day, not one hundred percent, hoping to
get him back suit. And I think they made it
to the sweet sixteen before everybody realized, oh, he's probably
just not coming back this season. But it was very
much to just you know, I don't know if throw
the committee off the scent is the right words. So basically,
and you and I talked about this when we were
filling in for Jason and Mike last night. J Mart,
I'm not surprised that John Shire and Duke are putting

(14:39):
this foot forward that Cooper flag will be available for
the NCAA tournament. First of all, I know you're not
a doctor. I'm not asking you to you know, pull
out your your web MD expertise here.

Speaker 3 (14:50):
But ankle injury.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Do you think we'll see Cooper flag sometime in the
NCAA tournament, assuming of course, yeah, yeah, I'll just put
it there. Do you think we'll see Cooper flag in
the nca tournament.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
I tend to think so. I mean, if you look
at kind of the comments of Shier, he's sort of
he's hedging a little. He's saying, he's saying smart stuff,
but he's also sort of leaving the door open. He said,
you know, it's a sprained ankle. Imaging was negative, but
then he's saying, you know, it was a bad sprain though,
like he's he's making that pretty clear, like this one,

(15:21):
this one's not great. He can't play. He was saying
about the a SEC title game. But then he says
that the goal is to have him ready for the
NCAA tournament. That's what he had said after a Friday's game.
I think it was but I think it's smart to
call a committee and be like, yeah, he's gonna be available, Like,
don't don't, don't put us on, don't make it a
harder road for us. We're gonna get him back. I

(15:43):
think that the team is fine as long as he's
backed by the Sweet sixteen. That's that's my general feeling
after watching them sort of come back and beat Louisville
hold off North Carolina. Obviously we know how that game ended,
but just the fact that they still won that game
when North Carolina wanted it so badly after you know,

(16:04):
losing both regular season games and not wanting that oh
for three against Duke. That's just that's the worst possible
reality for a North Carolina fan, and they had to
suffer through it. But I think that they're still good
enough as a team at least to get to the
Sweet sixteen without Cooper flag. I think it's at that
point that they need him back. If they don't have

(16:25):
him back at that point in time, it starts to
get a little bit dicey. It depends on the matchup
and how the bracket actually plays out, but that when
that's when they're gonna need him back. I don't know
how bad it is. You don't know how bad it
is either I would be surprised if we see him
in week one though. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
So it's actually very interesting and I know that everything
with me always comes back to Yukon, but I bring
it up because Yukon and virtually every bracket is actually
projected as the eight to nine seed in their region.
And for people who haven't followed Yukon this year, it's
been a little bit of a down year, you know,
They've been up and down.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Whatever, we don't have.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
This isn't a Yukon segment, but I bring it up
because as the Cooper flag injury unfolded, a lot of
people have kind of hit me up, hey, tours, if
this thing happens, how do you think Ukon would match up?

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Blah blah blah. And I only bring it up because
I think.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Louisville is actually a pretty good, you know, cop to
the kind of team that Duke would see in the
second round of the NCAA Tournament. Louisville currently, according to ESPN,
projected to be a sixth seed. So I think it's
a great sign for Duke is if you can beat
a team that we're talking about a caliber of the
sixth seed in the ACC tournament without Cooper Flag.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
That's probably a really good sign.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
I know you and I talked about it a little
bit yesterday, but obviously a lot of you know, kind
of a pseudo new audience here I listen, none of
us know what will happen. But what I would say is,
first of all, they're playing. They'll we don't know, but
we know they'll be in the Raleigh Regional. They'll have
home court preference there. That's a Friday Sunday Regional, and

(17:59):
so they don't play again until Friday. Cooper Flag last
played Thursday afternoon. I would guess that they let me
put it this way, I don't see the reason to
play Cooper Flag on Friday on Friday unless you feel
like he's truly one hundred percent healthy, or maybe if
you want to ramp him up and kind of get
him reacclimated with his teammates. But bottom line is I

(18:21):
would be a little bit surprised to see him even
in that opening round. I think the second round, where
again you could be facing a yukon one of these
SEC teams that was pretty good throughout the year. But
I just bring it up because I would be stunned
if he played next Friday, and then even if he
comes back for the second round, you're talking about a
Sunday game where hypothetically, you know, if he hadn't played

(18:43):
to that point, that'd be about eight nine full days off,
And really, I think at this point of the year,
you can't really ask for much of that.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
So I'm with you.

Speaker 2 (18:51):
I think they could probably even survive a second round game,
but I think that's the earliest we see him back.
I'd be stunned if they brought him back for a
sixteen seed in Round one on Friday night.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
I also think it would be possible that, you know,
he could be available to come in if need be,
like if they were struggling in that second game. But
maybe the idea is if we don't need them, we're
not going to use them. Maybe that maybe that's a possibility.
I don't know that that's something that they would do,
but you know, you just have him, like, yeah, he is,
he is elitible to play, he's available to play. We're

(19:23):
not gonna We're not going to play him though, unless
we absolutely have to, unless he's one hundred percent. If
he's one hundred percent, there's not really any reason not to,
But I tend to think, just based on reading the
tee le's and just the way in which it's been
discussed in house by Duke publicly, it feels to me
like he may not play until the sweet sixteen. And

(19:47):
I still think that they're going to be alive at
that point. But I think if you got to that
second round and all of a sudden, in a round
to thirty two, he Duke is struggling. I feel like
unless Flag just couldn't go at that point in time,
they would probably have to make a decision at some
point within that game.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
Do you you know we talked about some of these
number one seeds. Obviously, Florida is playing at an insane level,
destroyed Alabama today, They'll play Tennessee for the SEC title.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
You know, we had Rocko Miller, a bracketologist, on last night.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
We'll have mine again, by the way, hopefully we're hoping
in the one am hour. But I only bring it
up because he actually was pretty confident that he felt
like Florida was going to get the fourth number one seed.
But with the way Auburn is struggling a little bit,
they lost three or four. You know, Houston's obviously playing
at an insane level. If Cooper fly comes back, if
he's close to one hundred percent, say by the sweet sixteen,

(20:40):
and of course the assumption being that they haven't lost
at that point. Do you do you think Duke's the favorite?
I mean, where do you stand on them at full strength?
Thirty one and three, as I said, a grand total
of one loss since since the last week in November,
which is kind of crazy.

Speaker 4 (20:56):
Yeah, I mean I think I do. I feel like
college basketball is, it's deep with teams that, like my
wife asked me, because she's a Tennessee fan, she asked
me this evening. She said, you know, do you think
this is their best team? Do you think this is
their best shot to win? And I stopped and I said, well,
I mean, the connect team last year was really good,

(21:17):
but their chances of beaten Purdue were kind of slim
because of the way Zach Edy just takes up so
much space and ends up with the free throw one
hundred times and all this. But they played them tight.
That was a great basketball game. And there've been a
couple of other good Tennessee teams, but I was trying
to argue, I said, they're one of a handful of
teams that I feel like their fans can legit believe

(21:37):
they can win it all. Sure, And I don't know
exactly how many teams that is, but it does feel
like it's deeper this year with good teams. I don't
mean that nobody is good and so everybody is sort
of you know, average or whatever. I think all these
teams can be beaten because we've seen it. But I
guess I would give dukena noad, but not by a lot.
I just I think that there are several teams that

(21:59):
are good enough to get through this tournament. But yeah,
I mean, if flag is available and he is healthy,
with what he does for you and how he changes
the game in a way that kind of nobody else
does in college basketball, I think that I would give
them the nod.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Yeah, it's I'll just say this as far as as
a duke is concerned, and really as far as what
you said is concerned, because you know, this time of year,
a lot of people are asking, oh, who's the you know,
thirteen seed or fourteen seed, or who's this year is
Florida Atlantic? And you know, my kind of stock answer
has kind of been what you just said, is like,
I don't know that we're going to have like a

(22:36):
thirteen seed in the Elite eight going to the Final four.
But you look at some of these teams that could
be on like that seven, eight, nine seed line, Like
you know, you could make fun of coach Callen Arkansas,
but it's like that's a team full of pros that
went to Rupperena in one, you know, beat seven or
eight tournament teams in the SEC. Like that's a team

(22:57):
that as a as an eight, nine, ten seed, could
could cause problems. You know, I'm just looking at some
of these other brackets. You know, like I said, Yukon
potentially being an eight seed, Like do I think if
they match up with Duke that they match up?

Speaker 3 (23:10):
Well, No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
But do I think that you know, a different number
one or if they're a seven and somebody else's a two,
can they win one game to get to a Sweet sixteen?

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Byu By the way, playing really well, they had won
nine straight before they lost to before they lost to
Houston yesterday, They're probably about a six seed. So you know,
I think the group of teams that can actually win
the championship is always probably a little bit smaller than
people think. But I think the group of teams that
could be in that like five to nine range that

(23:43):
could just absolutely recavoc on a bracket is probably a
little bit bigger than it is some other year.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
Stream Mark.

Speaker 4 (23:49):
I mean, I think it's tournament ought to be really good.
I just I feel like college basketball has maybe it's
me and you watch it closer than just about anybody.
I just feel like this year I have found myself
more impressed with the quality of basketball that I've seen.
You know, now I live in SEC Territory, so I've
seen a really good conference obviously, but I mean a

(24:10):
Big Ten and the Big East, and you know, there's
just been a lot of great games and there's been
a lot of depth to be found this year across
the country. And it seems to me to pourtend to
be a tournament with a high skill level.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
So a couple things on that really quick and then
we will get to Di Seger. But so it's really
interesting because I was watching Florida Alabama, and first of all,
I do think at the top of the sport, I
think the quality is better. And it's two reasons that
go hand in hand. Is that one. First of all,
there's just more players coming back now. I was talking
to Brandon Deuts, who's a huge basketball fan in the back,

(24:47):
is like, if you're a second round pick now, like five, six, seven,
eight years ago, you just went pro, You're just like,
I can't make money in college or you know, you know,
wink wink, I can't make money in college. I'm gonna
go I might get drafted, I might not. I'm just
gonna start my pro career.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Now.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
It's like, you look across college basketball. The number of
guys that are just like I can't make more money
being a college basketball player is astronomical. And so I
saw a stat of I don't know exactly what the
number was, but I believe last year's NBA draft had
the fewest underclassmen, so players that have eligibility that entered

(25:26):
the draft and went undrafted basically in like thirty five years,
basically sin since players that could go pro. You know,
I know, we always had the Magic Johnson or the
whoever that you know, like the all time great guys
would leave after three years, two years, whatever, but we
all know that for about fifteen years, it just became hey,
if I might get drafted.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
I'm just gonna go because there's money to be made
as a pro. So there's that.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
And then I think, as much as the transfer portal
is kind of an unregulated mess, and we all know
it is, and it's the topic of conversation every time
we talk, portal, like it does allow these teams to
really put together really good teams. I mean one, you know,
you look at Florida, like basically you look at all
these teams. I mean Mark Sears TRANSFERR series.

Speaker 4 (26:11):
His first guy I was thinking of as a matter
of fact, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Walter Clayton, Florida, all American transfer. You know, Jani Broom
from Auburn transfer. But I so, I so. But what
I think has really happened is that, like we just
talked about Duke, the fact that they got a bunch
of veterans where it's like three four years ago, it's like, oh,
you lose a bunch of guys to the NBA Draft.
It's like, well, if you don't have those five star
guys ready to go, you're kind of screwed, you know.

(26:35):
And it's like now you just you know, you find
two or three veterans in the portal to bring with them.
So it was funny because I was watching the Alabama
Florida game today, and I know that's an extreme two
top five teams all season long. I get that, but
I was like, you know the way, you know how
like in the NBA, and and this is this was
a big thing in my buddy JJ Reddick before before

(26:56):
he became a coach, was He's like, you guys stalgize
the nineties in the NBA, and it's like, if you
actually go back and watch those games, I don't think
we're quite there with college basketball. Listen, I know college
basketball was better when Patrick Ewing played four years and
achem Olajuan played three or four years. And you know,

(27:16):
even when I was growing up in the nineties, Ray
Allen played three years and Iverson played two and whatever.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
But I mean, I mean, we had Latner play his
whole career and Danny Manning played his whole career in
eighty eight, and it was just a different time and
it was better. I mean, remember the UNLV team of
ninety and ninety one. I mean you got to get
to know those guys a lot before Augman and Larry
Johnson and those guys went pro.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
And yeah, and all I was gonna say, was I'm
not naive enough to think that this is better. But
I think the quality of basketball is actually probably gotten
to the point where it's a little bit better than
we're giving it credit for. And I understand if you're
a casual sports fan that follows your NFL team and
you have an NBA team, but you don't what I

(27:59):
understand that the All Americans aren't staying three or four
years and you don't know them the way that you
knew Larry Johnson or.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
You knew Christian Latner.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
But I guess the only point I was gonna make,
J mart Is, I do think the quality of basketball,
to your point, is probably a little bit better overall
than people give it credit for.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Yeah, I mean, I've just I've enjoyed this season, maybe
more than I expected to when it started. I've caught
myself just enjoying watching college basketball more the way that
I used to. And look where I grew up on
Tobacco Road. It's just it's been part of my background.
It's been part of something that mattered to me a
tremendous amount. And I do think that for a time there,

(28:36):
I just lost a lot of passion for it, and
it's this year kind of brought it back. I mean,
obviously you get into the tournament, you get into all
that stuff, but like I watched the good bit of
regular season ball this year, and I just enjoyed a
lot of it, more so than I was expecting to.
And that's a positive. And it does make me really
excited for this tournament because I just think we have

(28:57):
the potential for some great games.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
We have some poten for some great games.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Had a great, great, great couple days of conference tournaments
and of course, uh bracket coming out at six pm
Eastern tomorrow. This is Fox Sports Radio eritors Jason Martin
broadcasting that I from the tirec dot Com studios come
back talk about the Biggiest Championship where Rick Patino an
interesting debate and conversation about him.

Speaker 3 (29:21):
We'll do that next. Before we do though news desk first.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Time this evening to Sega, can you give us the
score from every single game today off the top of
your head?

Speaker 7 (29:29):
Go yes, it's right in front of me. Yes, No,
I said, off.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
Past to head.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
You can't just look at a piece of paper.

Speaker 7 (29:34):
Note. That's why we have notes in the news business. Okay,
for accuracy. Yeah, as for Cinderellas, we had a chance
at Cinderella winning in the late NBA game. I know
we've got four late conference finals and we'll get to
those in a moment in college basketball.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
But it's called the New York Knicks of Cinderella.

Speaker 7 (29:53):
No, it's the game at Denver. Do you recall last
night when we were all on the air together. Denver
was facing a Lakers team that was referred to as
the South Bay Lakers because we say mostly minor league lineup,
and somehow the Lakers led in the final minute, Denver
escaped at home. Well, they're facing the Washington Wizards, who
for much of the NBA season has been something of
a minor league lineup record of fourteen and fifty one

(30:15):
coming in and yet tie game final seconds in Denver,
Washington ready to inbound were Title.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
One twenty three.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
Coolst He lets it around, how to TV legacy game.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Won twenty three.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
We'll be telling our grandkids about that now.

Speaker 7 (30:37):
He took the inbounds and basically said, Hey, my guy's
not guarding me because I'm so far out. I've got
a little space here, and from thirty five feet out
he drained it and Washington wins. At Denver, Yes won
twenty six one twenty three despite forty points from Nikola Jokic.
Golden State won at seventh straight, edging New York ninety
seven to ninety four. Houston won at six and beating

(31:00):
Chicago one seventeen to one fourteen. Oklahoma City won at
Detroit one thirteen, one oh seven. Shay Gilgess Alexander forty
eight points wins for Memphis and Milwaukee. Wins for San
Antonio and Boston, which won at Brooklyn won fifteen one thirteen,
but the Celtics Jalen Brown left with backspasms. For the Nets,
Cam Thomas is out for the season with a strained hamstring.

(31:23):
Now to college hoops and the four late games. Congratulations
to Liberty in Conference USA now and champions of that tournament,
beating Jacksonville State just a moment ago, seventy nine to
sixty seven. They're in the final seconds of the SWACK
championship game. Alabama State has taken the lead fifty six
fifty three over Jackson State, the two seed. It's under

(31:45):
twenty seconds to go in that game, and we're at
five seconds to go. In the Big West Championship. Top
seed U SEE San Diego is gonna win it. They're
up on UC Irvine seventy three fifty eight. The late
game is just minutes away in Las Vegas. It's the
Whack Tournament final. First place Utah Valley against Grand Canyon.

(32:06):
Akron on a basket with two seconds to go won
the MAC Final against Miami Ohio seventy six seventy four.
Norfolk State on a late free throw won the MEAC
sixty six sixty five against South Carolina State. Other conference
final winners Colorado States, Mount Saint Mary's and Bryant.

Speaker 5 (32:25):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (32:25):
Saint John's won the Big East. They were first place
regular season eighty two to sixty six the final over
Creighton despite trailing at the half. Houston was first place
regular season and won the Big Twelve final tonight against
Arizona seventy two to sixty four. And number one Duke
beat Louisville in a comeback. Yes trailed at halftime but
beat the Cardinals seventy three sixty two to win the

(32:47):
ACC Tournament. Villanova fired coach Kyle Neptune, UNLV fired coach
Kevin Krueger. JJ SPAWN leads by one stroke at the
Players Championship. The final round of live golf going on
right now in Singapore. Brooks Koepka is in second place,
but now five strokes behind the leader, who's midway through
his final round, Joaqin Neeman. And we've got a Dodger

(33:09):
exhibition at the Tokyo Dome going on right now. Third inning,
Dodger scoreless against the han Shin Tigers. Blake Snell on
the mound. Tyler glasnow will follow him very early this
morning our time. The Dodgers won their first of the
weekend exhibitions there, beating the Tokyo Giants five to one
as Sho hey Otani homer it in a five run
third inning.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Back to you, Dodger's not getting no hit like the
Cubs yesterday, right.

Speaker 7 (33:33):
Yeah, Cubs had zero offense the first five innings, wound
up getting shut out by this Hanshin Tigers team the
Dodgers are facing.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
I know that.

Speaker 4 (33:40):
By the way, I don't consider that live golf event reel.
And since it's in Singapore, what are you against because
they're wearing shorts.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
I saw this yesterday.

Speaker 4 (33:50):
Yeah, me too, because it was happening during our show,
yes and so I flipped it over and I watched it.
I saw this, so just like, okay, well if we're
not if we're not serious enough to wear full pants,
then I'm not serious enough to declare this any kind
of a real sport.

Speaker 7 (34:02):
Now, if the golf tournament is in Bermuda, can they
wear shorts?

Speaker 4 (34:06):
No?

Speaker 7 (34:07):
Bermuda shorts?

Speaker 1 (34:08):
No?

Speaker 4 (34:09):
I get it. I knew, I knew what you were doing.
I'm just suggesting. No, there must be some kind of
decorum present in some way, like if you if you
can't wear slacks, if you can't wear full pants. I
saw Phil Mickelson out there and some khaki shorts. You know,
maybe it's black shorts. I was just like, nah, man, like,
this is not real because the country club, this is

(34:30):
batting practice rules.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
We had it on in studio and I was like
watching it.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
I was I couldn't figure out something didn't look right,
and it took me about ten minutes. Admittedly we were
doing a show, so I wasn't paying that close attention.
It took me ten minutes to figure out that they
were wearing shorts. Fox Sports Radio Tours and Martin taking
you till two am Eastern will come back an interesting
conversation about Rick Patino and oh, by the way, an
interesting conversation about Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
That's all next.

Speaker 4 (34:55):
Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh I'm hot today, hich everybody.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Fox Sports Radio Aeric Torris jes Martin broadcasting live from
theesireak dot com studios. We've talked a lot about Duke
and the rest of the bracket, but maybe the best
story in college basketball this season got yet another chapter
written at Madison Square Garden this evening on Fox. Saint

(35:21):
John's had not won an Outright League title since nineteen
eighty five in the regular season, was going for their
first conference tournament title since two thousand.

Speaker 3 (35:31):
This is how it sounded.

Speaker 8 (35:33):
This is a big great for Saint John's, says, Saint
John's won the Outright regular season title. They're the biggest
tournament winner. You know who your big eight champions are.
Saint John's defeats Freighton eighty two sixty six in the
title game.

Speaker 3 (35:48):
That courtesy of Saint John's Radio network.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
By the way, I loved the New York accent from
our radio partners there, uh Patino. So I saw this
from Dan Wetzel earlier in the word, and I think
there's something to it J Mark. This is now the
sixth team that Rick Patino will take to the NCAA Tournament.
This is now the fifth team that program, not team
as an individual team. Six programs he's taken to an

(36:14):
NCAA tournament, five that he's won a league title at.
By the way, the only one he didn't win a
league title at was Providence, who he took to the
final four. Freaking Providence. Dan Wetzel made the argument, I
think there's something to it. Rick Patino will never have
the stats of coach k or John Wooden or whomever.
He might be the greatest guy to ever wear a
whistle on a college basketball sideline.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
It's so funny because when I was watching Saint John's
in the semi final, I caught myself towards the end
of that game, thinking, man, where does this guy? Where
is it possible for this guy not to win? And
then you mentioned us doing this topic earlier when we
were just kind of spitballing this afternoon, and it was

(36:56):
just kind of like, yeah, I mean, that's exactly where
I was too. The argument can be made now, Let's
say coach k Lee's duke and he ends up taking
some of the jobs Rick Patino takes. I feel like
he still would have been successful. I do, but at
the same time, like it's amazing. I mean, Iona and
certainly Louisville and Kentucky. He went to places that had

(37:19):
all sorts of tradition and he won there. He like
you mentioned, Providence, not a team you usually think about
when it comes to the final four. He gets them there.
And now Saint John's who, I mean, the last Saint
John's guy that you really think about is Carnaseca. I mean, yeah,
they have Mike Jarvis for a while and he did
an okay job, But like Saint John's even last year

(37:42):
was not anything that anybody was talking about. But like
within two years, Rick Patino's got them winning a conference.
Going into this tournament being one of those teams you
probably don't want to see. Maybe they're not the most talented,
but who wants to play a Rick Patino coach team
in March, I would say almost no one. So I
don't know that you would end up saying, yes, he's

(38:03):
the best. But to make that argument, and what's often
makes great arguments, it's absolutely worthy of discussion just because
of the level of success that he has achieved no
matter where he's been.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Yeah, and he's one. I just think because of the
way he's wired. I don't know that he was ever
built to be somewhere forty years like coach k was.
But it is one of the great hypotheticals.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
You know.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
He leaves Kentucky in nineteen ninety seven for the Boston Celtics,
coming off back to back national championship games, won a
title in ninety six, goes back to the title game
in ninety seven, the team wins in ninety eight with.

Speaker 3 (38:40):
All of his players.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
So what we've seen a duke the last thirty years
he was in the process of building at Kentucky. Again,
we'll never know, he'll never have the raw stats, but
this is the sixth different team that he has taken.
I think the thing to j Mart that you just said,
I don't care if it's the portal era or not.
In year two, like, it's one thing, Okay, year one,
you know, and if you remember last year, they were

(39:02):
right on the cusp of making the tournament. But you know,
it's one thing if okay, year two, you know, you
make the tournament as a seventh seed, and they destroyed
everybody like we're talking about all these teams. Duke has
only lost one game since this and one game since that.
Saint John's what two Big East losses total conference regular
season title for They split it for the first time

(39:24):
since ninety two, then won it outright for the first
time since eighty five. Oh, by the way, Big East
tournament champions as well. All right, so, J Mart, But
we were talking Patino, I'll tell you this. We were
talking about, you know, Providence. How about this. Six different
teams have gone to the NCAA tournament. Five under Patino's
watch have won a conference tournament. The only one that

(39:45):
he did not win a conference tournament at was Providence
goes to a final four and eight. First of all,
jmrt the fact that we're talking about nineteen eighty seven. Okay, Jay,
I don't know how old you are, J Mart, I'll
tell you this. I'm about forty years old, Okay. So
I bring it up because you know, there are a couple
of grays are coming in on the side. Patino's been

(40:06):
doing this since I was essentially in DIPTE, and he's
still doing it at a high levels. And I think
the other thing too, is we were just talking about
with Saint John's is at Saint Like, you know, it'd
be one thing again if he comes back and in
year two, you know, makes a tournament whatever, or if
he came back in a place like a Yukon, like Kentucky,
like wherever where they've done it before. But this program

(40:29):
was dead for twenty years before he got there. I mean,
it just it's listen. I know he had a certainly
a controversial ending to his time at Louisville, but I
think this is one of the cool stories we've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (40:42):
It's definitely impressive, There's no question about it. And to
answer your question, I was nine in nineteen eighty seven,
so a little older than you. Still in the forties,
but on the back half, on the back end of
the forties, and even I like, I mean, Patino's just
been kind of a fixture in the pasketball world that
I grew up in. No matter what and wherever he was,

(41:03):
whenever you see his name, you pay attention. You paid
attention to his son just because Patino was in the name,
and his son's not too shabby either. But yeah, Rick
Patino's is just I don't know, like to do this
at Saint John's. I want to see what they do
in the tournament, certainly, but just incredibly impressive by the
way I.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Was looking it up.

Speaker 2 (41:22):
So since he made a final four and eighty seven
at Providence, you know, Province is one of those schools
you know, they've had some dudes and you kind of
think of, oh, they must they must have some pretty
good history, and like to a degree, they do. But
since he left in eighty seven, a grand total of
one Elite eight, which was ninety seven. So we're now
talking about twenty eight years ago, twenty nine years ago,

(41:44):
and two Sweet sixteens, And ironically, one of the Sweet
sixteens was in twenty twenty two. It was just a
few years ago. And I don't know if you've remember this, Jmart,
but it was the first time Providence had won a
regular season title maybe ever. Yeah, it was the first
time ever. And I remember it was such a celebration.
They lose in the sweet sixteen to Kansas. That was
near Kansas won the title, you know, four or five

(42:06):
years ago with Christian Brown and stuff. And I only
bring it up because, like, so this is a little
nerdy inside college basketball. But I remember seeing Ed Cooley,
the Providence coach at the final four, and it was
I don't know him, but I just saw him and
people were treating him like he had won a national championship.
And I think that gave me the perspective of how
hard it actually is.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
To win at Providence.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
But then beyond that, again Patino going to a final
four in eighty seven there, and again a Big East
title throughout earlier today, the first Big East Conference tournament
title since nineteen two thousand.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
Excuse me, yeah, I mean, it's just an amazing accomplishment.
Regardless of where he ends up on the pantheon a
where you think he should be in terms of all
time college basketball coaches, he's certainly right there. He's certainly
going to be in the mixture in the discussion. Any
real discussion of the grace of all time is going

(43:00):
to have to include Rick Patino. And this is just
kind of the feather in the cap where it's just
like he's done this at this place as well, where
they have wanted something like this for so long and
it didn't take him long to go ahead and bring
it to him. It's a You're right, it is a
good story. It is I mean, everybody has flaws, no
question about that. But it's a good story and it's
great for that fan base that has been starving for

(43:21):
so long.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Yeah, and I'll say this to you know growing up
in the Northeast. I know you grew up on Tobacco Road,
you know.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
One.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
First of all, I'll say this, I have been to
the Big East Tournament many times and it's a great event.
And New York City is actually a great It's a
great across the board sports town. And I think we
we think of, oh, you know, New York City is
only this, or it's only a Knicks town, or it's
only a Yankees town. It's like, no, it's a lot

(43:48):
of things. But you need a team. You need to
give a team a reason. You need to get fans
a reason to be engaged. So Saint John's, for the
first time in twenty five years, wins the Big East
Conference Tournament. Fox Sports Radio er tors Jason Martin, we
are taking you up till two am Eastern, Coming up,
Switch gears to the NFL Aaron Rodgers, Giants, Stealers or Vikings.

Speaker 3 (44:12):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (44:16):

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Welcome in everybody hour two tours and Martin Fox Sports Radio.
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(44:40):
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(45:01):
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It's all sponsored by Tractor Supply for life out here

(45:25):
all right. J mart Our two of the show talked
to a lot of college basketball in hour one, as
the Segre just told you, Duke is officially your conference
tournament champs in the ACC. Houston wins the Big Twelve Tournament,
Saint John's wins the Big East, Colorado State wins the
Mountain West, among many others, and we will get back
to college basketball later on in the show. One conference

(45:46):
tournament is still going on. Utah Valley up against Grand
State Grand Canyon, excuse me, in the championship game of
the Whack in Vegas. We will keep you updated on
that one as well. What I do want to do though,
switch gears to the NFL. So it's been it's been
a busy week. If you missed j Martin and I

(46:07):
on Jason, Jason Smith and Mike Harmon yesterday we did
a fun little segment of the least impactful moves. It
feels like we're kind of at the bottom of the
barrel of things that actually matter. How much does Daniel
Jones to the culturally matter? How much does Sam Darnold
to the Minnesota or to the Seattle Seahawks really matter.
Joey Bosa can he stay healthy? DK Metcalf, who's throwing

(46:29):
him the football?

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Well, the one.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
Guy that remains certainly of interest to I think even
the most casual of sports fans, even if maybe he
isn't what he was four or five years ago.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
That of course is Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
So it feels as though throughout most of the last
week or so, it has seemed that it was down
to a Giants versus Steelers. Opportunity for Aaron Rodgers is
obviously he's in New.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
York right now. The Giants have the third pick in
the draft.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
Whether they don't believe that one of the two quarterbacks
is gonna fall to them, or they just don't like
either of the quarterbacks, feels like the Giants are interested,
and we also know that the Steelers are in need
of a quarterback with Justin Field's going to the Jets
and Russell Wilson a free agent as well. I bring
it up, j Mart, because you brought up on Jason

(47:20):
Smith Show yesterday. I want to give you credit because
you've been all over this story just to you know
that Minnesota Vikings, we don't we're not one hundred percent
sure what's going on with their quarterback situation.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
Sam Donold, as I said, is in Seattle.

Speaker 2 (47:33):
JJ McCarthy coming off major knee surgery, and I guess
the Athletic put out a story earlier in the afternoon
today on Saturday. Jason, I know we're on Sunday on
the East Coast, but Saturday the Athletic put out a
story about Aaron Rodgers. Would love for you to share
some details for an audience that maybe hasn't had a chance.

Speaker 5 (47:50):
To see it.

Speaker 4 (47:51):
Yeah, it's really interesting to me that this happened, because
it did seem like everything was pointing towards just two
teams being involved. And I threw that Vikings thing out
there because it had been discussed during the course of
the week, but it just seemed to have lost steam.
And then so I mentioned that article to you this

(48:12):
afternoon because it just stuck out. I was just looking
to see what had happened in Free Agency during the
course of the day. It didn't look like anything major
had happened. And just because I mean, Luca got traded
in the middle of our show on February the first,
I'm now expecting Aaron Rodgers news to drop in about
ten minutes, but I just wanted to know what had
happened during the course of the day, and I see

(48:33):
this article on the Athletic, and I go and look
at it, and I also look at the timing of it,
and it was like, at that point, just a few
hours old, so it wasn't outdated, and it said, essentially,
Aaron Rodgers is waiting for the Vikings to decide what
they're going to do. He's not holding the other team's hostage.
He wants to go to Minnesota, and the ball right

(48:54):
now is in Kevin O'Connell's court, and so O'Connell is
the one that is sort of weighing this, and if
he decides, yeah, let's go with Aaron Rodgers this coming
year and push back McCarthy one more year or whatever
it's gonna be, then that's where he's gonna go, because
that's he's made it clear apparently that's where he wants
to go. And so Pittsburgh and New York are just

(49:16):
kind of sitting there trying to figure out what's gonna
happen from that, because should they decide to go with
JJ McCarthy in Minnesota, then one of the two of
them would seemingly be where Aaron Rodgers would choose. But
he's not just seeing there, not making a decision. This
article gives off a pretty clear impression that it's known

(49:38):
he wants to go to Minnesota and he's just waiting
for them to say yeay or nay.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
Very interesting, And I'll let me defend Aaron Rodgers a
little bit here is that I will say I understand
the argument of you know, it's a little obnoxious, what's
taking so long?

Speaker 3 (49:56):
This that the other thing.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
I will also defend him and say though that I
think we all understand that the Minnesota situation just obviously
so much better than those other yews. And like, I'll
be honest if I thought there was a chance that
I could play for Kevin O'Connell as opposed to with
no disrespect intended. But listen, Brian Dables on the hot seat.

(50:18):
You know, Mike Tomlin, defensive head coach, you know, never
been known as a quarterback developer. I would probably take
advantage as well. So I miss some of what you said.
But but so do we think Kevin o' so, Kevin
O'Connell has some degree of interest obviously, right.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Yeah, that's what that's what the article says. The article
says that they believe in Minnesota that he can still play,
that he still has good command with the ball. He's
still got an arm, he's still got accuracy. You just
have to he's got to have some things around him. Now,
he's got to have some protection and he's got to
have some weapons. And Minnesota believes that they have those things.
So they're looking at that and they are enticed by

(50:58):
what that could look like, and just the sheer fact
that that's in the article, that that's under consideration, that
they seriously do our weighing. This tells you that the
McCarthy thing isn't quite as in stone as we thought,
or maybe as you hoped. I mean, when you let
Darnold go. It seems to indicate that unless you're also

(51:19):
thinking about Aaron Rodgers as well, And maybe there's a
maybe there's some middle ground to all of this. Maybe
they do feel pretty comfortable in McCarthy, but they don't
want to rush it back. Maybe the injury, who knows.
I don't know what it is, but that was not
the article I was expecting to find today, and it
kind of blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, it's kind of interesting because I'd be curious what's
going on with JJ McCarthy, Because what's interesting about JJ
McCarthy besides whatever, we all watched him play at Michigan.
But what's interesting is, you know, he was brought in
last year to be a starter, and so either in
the very limited time that they had with him, he

(51:56):
was nowhere near as good as they thought, or that
injury recovery is not going nearly as well as planned.
Let me correct me if I'm wrong, Jmark, because I
want to I'm doing this on the fly here. But
it wasn't there a complication with the first injury?

Speaker 3 (52:12):
The yeah he needed? Yeah, here you go.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
This was from let's see what day this was. This
was from November. Uh, the first year quarterback had a
second knee surgery on his right knee to address swelling
that occurred during his ongoing rehab. According to ESPN back
in August, it was confirmed the twenty four year old,
twenty one year old we missed the entire season, so
you know, had a second surgery in November. I mean,

(52:35):
maybe he's just not ready to go. I have no
idea really quickly, like I think I know where you
stand on this, But do we think do we think
Aaron Rodgers can still play? Like, like, let me ask
you this. This was obviously a team that won fourteen
games last year in the regular season. I believe it
was like the most ever for a wildcard team.

Speaker 3 (52:56):
Do you believe that? I?

Speaker 2 (52:59):
I guess I'm a little confused as to what the
Vikings are doing here, Like do they believe that he
puts them in as good of a position or better
than Sam Donald? Like that's the part that's confusing to me.

Speaker 4 (53:11):
You know, Yeah, I don't know what that means other
than well, one thing I think it means is those
last couple of games that Donald played in Minnesota really
told them okay with that he is not going to
be our guy. He can't be our guy because they
were right there on the doorstep and they tripped, and

(53:35):
I just feel like I feel like they were out
on him from that moment. And so now he's gonna
get his opportunity in Seattle to prove them wrong. And
he played very well for them last year. But I
also just think they look at their weapons more than
they looked at Donald, and they thought to themselves, there's
a lot of quarterbacks that can come in here with
these weapons and do something, and there's no reason to

(53:57):
pay this guy. We've got a rookie that might be
able to get the job done, and then there are
other options, and maybe maybe those other options have always
included Aaron Rodgers. I don't know. I now don't know.
I said I thought he would end up with the
Steelers last night when we talked about it, because it
did seem and you made a really good argument, and
it was interesting because it's based on kind of my
philosophy that I've given for years, which is, you got

(54:20):
to maximize the rookie contract of a quarterback so that
you can build around him, as opposed to what happened
in Green Bay with Jordan Love, where by the time
you realized okay, maybe he can play, you already had
to pay him on a very small sample size. We
talked about that last night, So that seems to be
the risk here. You bring in a guy that maybe

(54:41):
he's still got some of the juice, maybe he's still
got some of the magic. But if he doesn't, the
one thing you do know is you've lost another year
of JJ McCarthy's rookie contract. If he turns out to
be good, you're not going to have much time to
maximize that before you have to pay him. And then
it cuts into what you're able to do to do
around him.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
Let me ask you this, Let's let's switch gears a
little bit, Aaron Rodgers. It feels as though there's a
few different options Russell Wilson, And again, is you know,
for the audience that was with us last night? I apologize,
but we talked about this a lot last night met
with the Browns. Feels like the Giants may be a factor.
Do you think that, like, is there anything left in

(55:22):
the Russell Wilson tank? Is this just you know, a
guy that just a guy like listen, I don't blame
him for wanting to keep playing, but I look at
didn't work with Sean Payton in Denver. Didn't work with
Nathaniel Hackett either, but obviously that was maybe more of
a Nathaniel Hackett thing. But didn't work with Sean Payton.
You know, Mike Tomlin was the hand pick. You know,

(55:43):
it was his handpicked guy. We heard about how great
the relationship was with Mike Tomlin. Mike Tomlin kind of
lets him walk. And to me, that makes it feel like,
if Sean Payton doesn't want you and Mike Tomlin, you
were his handpicked guy and he's willing to let you
walk out the door. I think there's a real possibility
Russell Wilson is not in the NFL at this time

(56:03):
next year. I think he might get one more shot,
But if he couldn't do it in Pittsburgh, given the
circumstances that he was set up in, I just can't
see him, you know, really built for the league for
the long term.

Speaker 4 (56:13):
Yeah, me either, And I mean I think I think
that what he is, it seems like to me it's
less about just trying to play him, more about trying
to make sure he ends on the right note. And
I think, honestly, he just did. I think if he
were to retire right now, it's probably going to be
better than whatever it is about to come in his
career now. If it's me, Yeah, go ahead to Cleveland.
They Miles Garrett sticking around, You've got Nick Chubb, who's

(56:37):
still a great back, and the Giants is just not
where you want to go. He's not going to be
their answer there. I like Tracy running back, of course,
we like the league neighbors, but there's still so much
there that's not right. Cleveland's probably the best bet for
him at this point, but really the best bet is
just to go ahead and retire and move on to
his post playing career because he's gonna have one. He's

(56:59):
gonna have one. And of course we had seen and
we had read that, you know, he was very interested
in being part of ownership, kind of taking that Tom
Brady route, being in big cities and becoming a mogul
and hob nobbing with millionaires and billionaires and all of
those kinds of things, like, you can go ahead and
do that, and your wife makes a lot of money

(57:20):
as well. So wherever he goes, he's not going to
be compete for a championship. They're not going to be
good enough to do that. He's not going to make
them good enough to do that either. So unless he
is completely delusional at this point, the best thing that
he could do for his career is to have is
to leave on the note that we saw in Pittsburgh,

(57:41):
which was far better than the two years that he
spent in Denver. We have a little bit of a
better feeling. It's like, you know, Russell Wilson, there was
a little bit of magic last year. Now we all
knew that it was not going to lead them to
the super Bowl, but I mean dude's already won. He's
got one ring, Like he's not going to win another one.
That's I don't understand, Like they don't need to carry

(58:02):
you off the field with a spatula, Like you leave
on your own accord. You have the ability right now
to do that. I don't think that he needs the
money because he can earn it in a myriad of
other ways. But if it comes down to a choice
for him, I think Cleveland is the obvious answer. I mean,
they were able to win some games with Joe Flacco.

(58:24):
They do have some talent there. The Giants is a disaster.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, Giants are a disaster. Yeah. I feel like I'm
piling on.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
I feel like I'm being negative, but I do just
feel like that with him. Like you said, maybe it
is best to start your post playing career, And I
think it's a great point by you did make the playoffs,
like it didn't go well, you know, last couple games
against Baltimore endo the regular season, in the playoffs, whatever,
But you would leave on top of a playoff quarterback
go to the Giants or Browns does not seem like

(58:53):
a great way. It's just it's not gonna end better
than it did. Fox Sports Radio Air Tors, Jason Martin.
We are broadcast live from the Tirerec dot com studios.
Will come back. An NBA expert says that he has
the answer to fix the NBA. Question is he even
asking the right question? We'll explain that next. Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 6 (59:14):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Eric Tors Jaysmartin broadcasting
live from the Tirec dot com studios.

Speaker 4 (59:32):
Did you know.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
You can stream this show and all of our Fox
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(59:56):
app and it will always pop up at the top
of your screen. J Martin, just a second, we have
the latest way to improve the NBA. Here's the question, though,
does that way improve? Does the way to improve the
NBA actually involve players playing in regular season games. We'll
discuss that next. Before we do, though, let's get it

(01:00:17):
over the news desk. Steve de Sager. You know we
got I'll say this for twelve twenty four Easter. We
got live motorsports, we got live live golf, we got
live college basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:00:26):
Life is good, Steve de Sager.

Speaker 7 (01:00:28):
We got a live Dodger baseball from the Tokyo Dolls
as well. Blake Snell three perfect innings, five strikeouts against
the Haunchin Tigers, and then he allowed a three run
homer in the fourth. So the Dodgers, who won their
exhibition there early this morning our time, five to one
against the Tokyo Giants, are trailing the Haunchen Tigers three
nothing in the fifth. As for the live golf, it's

(01:00:49):
on FS one final round from Singapore, still walking. Neeman
in the lead now by six strokes over Brooks Koepka.
And yes we have late night college basketball. It's late
for taff in Vegas a the Whack Championship game. First
place Utah Valley is trailing thirty three thirty two against
the two seed in the Conference Grand Canyon Akron, on

(01:01:10):
a basket with two seconds to go, won the MAC Final,
beating Miami Ohio seventy six seventy four. Norfolk State with
a late free throw one sixty six sixty five. In
the MIAC against South Carolina State, First place Houston won
the Big Twelve, beating Arizona this evening in that tournament
final seventy two to sixty four. First place Saint John's
came back to win the Big East over Creighton eighty

(01:01:32):
two to sixty six, and number one Duke beat the
two seed in the ACC Louisville to win that conference
tournament seventy three to sixty two. In the NBA's late game, Washington,
which had a record of fourteen and fifty one, gotta
win at Denver on a game winning three pointer from
Jordan Poole, won twenty six to one. Twenty three. At

(01:01:52):
Golden State, Steph Curry twenty eight points. Warriors won their
seventh straight edging New York ninety seven to ninety four.
Jalen Brunson of New York, with his bat ankle, could
be out a couple more weeks for New Orleans. Zion
Williamson was out for personal reasons tonight. Pelicans record now
eighteen and fifty after they lost a close one at
San Antonio one nineteen to one fifteen. Houston won at

(01:02:13):
six straight game, edging Chicago won seventeen, won fourteen. Bulls
had won four straight at Milwaukee. Jannisontenacumpo scored thirty four
points in a victory over Indiana, won twenty six to
one nineteen. At Memphis. Jaron Jackson thirty one points in
all win one twenty five ninety one over a Miami
team that's lost seven straight. For the Grizzlies, Jah Morant

(01:02:34):
was out tonight with a bad shoulder. He had just
scored forty four points last night against Cleveland. At Detroit,
Kate Cunningham five of eighteen shooting, kicked out in the
third quarter and the Pistons lost to Oklahoma City one thirteen,
one oh seven for OKC, forty eight points for Shay
Gilgis Alexander and his team on the road is twenty
six and seven. Boston's Jalen Brown left with back spasms,

(01:02:58):
but Jason Tatum scored twenty five points in a narrow
win at Brooklyn one fifteen to one thirteen for the Nats.
Cam Thomas, who averaged twenty four points a game, is
out for the season with a strained hamstring. The Atlanta
Falcons kept quarterback Kirk Cousins, so his ten million dollars
roster bonus for next year is now fully guaranteed. The
forty nine Ers resigned fullback Kyle Yuschek, and San Francisco

(01:03:21):
traded running back Jordan Mason to the Vikings. Tonight, the
Chiefs re signed wide receiver Juju Smith Schuster. Among the
eleven NHL games, Carolina won at seventh in a row
five nothing at Philadelphia. Montreal beat Florida three to one.

Speaker 3 (01:03:35):
Back to you, thank you very much, Steve de Seger.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
Sega will be rejoining us in about fifteen minutes from
now with his extended update. This is Fox Sports Radio
Era toors Jason Martin broadcasting live from the Tyreck dot
Com studios, and like basketball, tractor Supply knows that a
winning season takes practice, teamwork, and a can do attitude.

Speaker 3 (01:03:54):
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Will win you a million dollars.

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You can pre register now and then be sure to
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All sponsored by Tractor Supply for life out here. All right,
j Martin, so Sega just gave you an update on
all things that have happened across the NBA today. NBA,

(01:04:37):
you know a little bit of a bump, I think
with the Luka Danciz trade trade that you and I
still have some questions about.

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
But neither here nor there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:45):
I mean, it did happen that we don't have questions about.
It's just how it happened in the circumstance. Why where
our questions are?

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
Yeah, and you know who you know, Nico Harrison, you know,
you know, I don't know. Maybe maybe he's you know,
a made man, I mean people you know he'll take
care of for the rest of his life.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
Anyway, bring it up.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Well, I mean he's yeah, I mean when the team
moves to Vegas, because yeah, anyway, yeah, all right, so
a little bit of a bump with the Lucas stuff,
but Lebron's out, Lakers whatever. And I bring it up
because even with Luca in La, we know that the
NBA right now is kind of a train wreck, a
little bit of a disaster. Guys, don't play. Ratings are down,

(01:05:34):
you know, ratings for the All Star Game. We're basically
at an all time low. And everybody's got all sorts
of different ideas on ways to fix the NBA. Well,
I bring it up because the latest it came from
Bill Simmons of The Ringer. You know Bill Simmons. Obviously,
I think anybody who follows sports media knows, you know,
NBA die Hard wrote the Book of Basketball, and whatever

(01:05:55):
you think about him, guy cares about the NBA, loves
the NBA, and wants what's best for the NBA. So
on one of his podcasts, he spent some time talking
about the way that he believes the NBA could be fixed.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Producer pre play.

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
This sound to me.

Speaker 9 (01:06:09):
The goal should be how do we get away from
football as much as possible. How do we take advantage
of all of June instead of having the finals end
down like June eighteen, June nineteenth, Why are we thrown
away June?

Speaker 7 (01:06:20):
And then could July really work for us?

Speaker 9 (01:06:23):
Use that so that we're done July twenty seventh, The
draft is July thirty first tone down summer league. Don't
make it this huge thing, and then you basically get
August and September and half of October off before we
get the prese.

Speaker 7 (01:06:35):
That makes way more sense to me.

Speaker 10 (01:06:38):
I think it would make way more money too. And
there's one word that hasn't come up which explains why
it isn't like this already, and that's baseball. When the
NBA started avoiding baseball on the calendar, was that era's
version of avoiding football now And one further point, what
did Disney just do this week or last couple of
weeks is get off of their baseball relationship. That's one

(01:07:00):
of the major media partners, and they need inventory later
into the spring and summer.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
So j Mart a couple thoughts on on on that,
you know, you know, before we even get to like
the fundamental issues of the NBA, which I still believe
your star players don't play enough. I just think I
think you could move the calendar to you know, thirty,
you know, eighty games in eighty days. It wouldn't matter
if your stars don't play. But a couple of things

(01:07:27):
on that one. First of all, I think the idea
of tamping down Summer League is the dumbest thing I've
ever heard, because Summer League is like the one thing
that has actually gained traction for the NBA the last
couple of years. But two, I don't know. I don't
think it's a calendar issue.

Speaker 4 (01:07:43):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
I actually think the summer is there's a there's a
reason we don't play sports in the summer. People travel.
You know, you have two young kids, they're off a school.
You have I would defer to you, because you know
you're the parent who kind of builds the schedule around
your kids, you know, your schooling and all that stuff.
I don't think changing the calendar and playing games in
more games in June and July.

Speaker 3 (01:08:04):
Is the answer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
I think the answer is how about you just get
your players to play when it's actually time for the
games to play, whether it's in November, June, whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Yeah, I mean I don't think the location of the
season or the duration of the season is really your issue.
Although I will say this, I agree with our good
pal Klay Travis. I mean, we said it together when
we were still on Fox years ago in the mornings.
The season should start on Christmas Day, own that day
and let that become the start of your year. Yeah.

(01:08:35):
I mean what Bill is saying here about the start
of I know exactly what he is arguing. I get
what he's arguing. And I also, I mean, I agree
with the idea that, yes, they were trying to get
away from baseball, but baseball is not the thing that
it was, especially compared to football. Now like baseball is,
it's better than it was five years ago. But at
the same time, the NFL rules all and as long

(01:08:56):
as you were apart from football as much as possible,
you're going to be better off. I don't disagree with
the season going into more of June and July in
terms of the postseason. I just think that, and I
do think, like I'm giving them credit before we tear
them down here, I think that if you start on Christmas,
you are going to have a shorter regular season. I

(01:09:16):
just don't know that you need eighty two games. But
to your point, it doesn't matter what tricks you try
to pull. It doesn't matter what you know ideas you
have for the All Star Game to fix this problem
or that problem. As long as the sports watching public

(01:09:36):
believes that your athletes can't be bothered to care, then
none of this matters. It just can't because and it's
sad because a lot of guys in the NBA do care,
but the league as a whole, it just it feels
like an accurate stigma at this point to just say

(01:09:58):
these guys just can't be bothered most of the time.
And it's not about the Luca injury or a Lebron injury.
I'm not talking about guys that are that have been
legitimately hurt or anything like that. It's just a league
that continually shoots itself in the foot with comments that
are made like the Durant ones that we talked about
a few weeks back about go watch hockey. They have

(01:10:19):
the passion you're looking for, and all of those kinds
of things. It's this snark and this like we're above
you attitude, like we should be grateful that we get
to see them at all, and It's just like, you
have no league without us, you have no leak without
your fans. And until your fans believe that you respect
that and care about that, you can do all the

(01:10:42):
fixes and the changes and the tinkering and the details
that you want that you want and it's not going
to amount to much at all.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
Yeah, it was funny.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
And I know this is a cliche talking point at
this time of the year on the calendar, and I
know that I'm a college hoops guy, but I was
watching Florida Alabama today and you can say, oh, they're
playing for a once either they're essentially playing for nothing.
The Big Tournament starts on Thursday. That is what their
season will be defined by. Alabama season will not be

(01:11:12):
defined by the fact that they lost to Florida in
the conference tournament. Florida season will not be defined by
whether they beat Alabama in the conference tournament. And I
was sitting there thinking what I think so many of
us think this time of year is this is the
NBA like like, and I'm not saying every NBA game
should have the intensity of a conference tournament semi final

(01:11:33):
in March, but college play. I know, I know, I
sound like a grandma in in Idaho talking about, Oh,
the college kids, they just tried so hard. But it's
like when you turn on a college basketball game and
you see the effort being put forth, and then you
turn on an NBA game and you have the Celtics
shooting sixty three three pointers.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
Like, I don't know how anybody watches the NBA.

Speaker 2 (01:11:56):
And I do think, by the way, the point that
you just brought up, I think we're in a world
where if you just look at the sports that are
popular the NFL, nobody questions how bad those guys want
a college football obviously, even I think the growth of
the women's game, you can criticize the skill level, the athleticism,
the verticality. It's not a better watch than NBA basketball.

(01:12:18):
Just like college basketball. The skill level isn't the same
as the best players in the world. But there's no
doubt that those girls when they're out there are given
one hundred percent, just like there's no doubt with these
college basketball players that they're giving the same. And I'm
with you is to me, until you get guys to
buy in and until you get guys to make I

(01:12:39):
don't mean, I don't not every single game, but a
lot more than they're doing right now.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
I just don't know how this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:46):
I remember about three four weeks ago, Ja Martin, we
were talking about one of the issues, whether it was
All Star game, whether it was at whatever, and we
came to the how do you fix it? And I
don't know how you fix it until you get the
public to believe that these guys actually care what they're
doing out on the court on a Tuesday in December,
you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean and I've seen. Look, I've watched
several videos in the past couple of weeks from guys
that are really trying to defend the NBA against some
of the things that we're suggesting in this segment, and
I'm listening to them and they're making points, and they're
making pretty good points, and I'm thinking, to myself, none
of this matters, though, guys, like if this is the perception,

(01:13:26):
this is the reality, It is up to the NBA
to set everyone straight if we're wrong, Like if these
guys are actually playing way more than we think, and
you look at the actual games being played and the
percentage of the season and all this, and it's way
higher and that this narrative is somehow faulty, then that's
up to the NBA to prove. And right now, unfortunately,

(01:13:50):
their players just there is no marketing being done by
the NBA players themselves, especially when they talk. That gives
off that impression that I think is your biggest issue.
That's the thing that you have to find a way
to fix. It's not again, and Bill loves the NBA.

(01:14:12):
You made that point, and I will underscore it. He
absolutely adores the NBA, talks about it, relentlessly, cares deeply
for it. I understand what he is suggesting here. But
you can make this season whatever you want it to be.
You can paint the courts, you can paint all of
this kind of stuff. Yeah, you can set up this

(01:14:34):
n season tournament. You can do euro versus or the
World versus America in the All Star Game. You can
do all of these things. But if the public doesn't
buy that your athletes care, it is all in vain
and that's the biggest issue. You can't tinker around the

(01:14:55):
edges until you, Like I said I said before, in
a perfect world, Adam Silver would be able to get
every single player in a room together in some giant
auditorium somewhere, give a state of the NBA address, simply
to them and beg them to care, because that's all
it would take. These guys have immense talent. To JJ
Reddick's credit, there's a lot of people playing right now

(01:15:17):
that have a lot of talent. His argument there is
not wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:15:19):
The problem is, no matter.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
How talented you are, if we think you don't care,
and that's how it feels.

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
Last, last last thought.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
I'll also add this, and I don't know if I
speak for everybody, I don't really want more sports on
the calendar.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
Like I know of a sports talk rate. What's that?

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
There's a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
Yeah, and it's like, listen, I don't disagree. Getting away
from the NFL as much as you can is probably
the right idea. Okay, but we go from six months
of the NFL two you know, basically college basketball NCAA tournament.
We go, then to the NFL Draft, we go then
to two months of the NBA playoffs. First of all,

(01:15:59):
if you move the seed back, you now have like
a month or six week gap where you still don't
care about the NBA. We're just moving back to calendar
as to when you care But two, I'll be real, man,
we get to June July, I want to travel, I
want to sit outside. I want to have a cocktail.
I want to get some sun, some vitamin D A.

(01:16:23):
I don't be watching you know, MAVs nuggets, Like I
just don't you know, So I actually don't think. I
don't think having games deeper into the summer is better.
I actually like and I think you and I have
even talked about this kind of that six eight week
window when there's nothing on our calendar to talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Yeah, it's it's not the funnest time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
To do sports talk radio, but why do you get
to talk about different stuff? But two, like it is
nice to have that six eight week period where you
don't feel obligated like you gotta be in front of
you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And it's
like it's another conversation. We can even bring it back
an hour three if you want. But I don't know
that changing the calendar is good and then adding stuff
to the calendar is good either, because I think that

(01:17:10):
the sports calendar has spread pretty thin as it is.
I'll tell you what, Jammar. We could continue that conversation
maybe an hour three if you want. But what we
do need to do is get to Steve Disager. He
has his extended update. He's got all sorts of good
news on college basketball MLB stuff going on in Japan.

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
To Sega will join us next.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Fox Sports Radio, Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio, Eric
Tors Jason Martin broadcasting live from the tyreck dot Com studios.
As we do every week around this time, let's get
it over the news desk Steve Disaga with his extended
update to Sega floor is yours.

Speaker 7 (01:17:45):
We have a lot of college hoops to discuss. There
are three late things in sports to talk about this
Saturday night. First off, they're getting ready to start the
second half in Vegas, with Grand Canyon leading first place
Utah Valley forty to thirty three in the WAT Confernce Final.
There's also the LIVGALF Final round on FS one from Singapore,
where it's now a seven stroke lead with Walking Newman

(01:18:07):
five holes to go. A distant second was Brooks Koepka.
He's now fallen back to eight strokes behind. And the
Dodgers are getting shut out at the Tokyo Dome and
their exhibition against the han Hin Tigers, who shut out
the Cubs three nothing last night. It's three nothing against
LA in the bottom of the sixth Tonight, Duke, number
one in the country, wins the ACC Tournament final against

(01:18:29):
Louisville this evening.

Speaker 11 (01:18:30):
They won nineteen games in the regular season, as dominant
a run as this league has ever seen, and they
punk stuated with a twenty third ACC title. They knocked
off Louisville seventy three to sixty two. The final score gritty,
It's tough. They get it on the ultimate team and

(01:18:51):
they are the ACC champs.

Speaker 7 (01:18:53):
The team wins the title without Cooper Flag out again
with a sprained ankle. That was David Choemate from lear Field.
Great item from SAT saying the fact that Cooper Flag
only scored two points in this week's tournament due to
the ankle injury, and still Duke won the title. No
other Division one team this century has won its conference
tournament despite having its leading scorer from the regular season

(01:19:16):
score so few points, And in fact, that includes instances
where the leading score from the regular season didn't play
at all in the conference tournament, because in that case,
none of those guys teams even won it at all.
You were talking about Rick Patino, And this is kind
of true, this discussion about all of sports. Can we
just appreciate something that's great without it being the greatest?

(01:19:39):
Rick Patino's not the greatest college basketball coach of all time.
I think we would all agree with the Dan Wetzel
column that you referenced on Yahoo, the great sentence the
guy can coach anyone, anywhere, at any time, and the
fact that he's done it again here at Saint John's.
They won the Big East Final in a comeback over Creighton.
By the way, seventy eighty two sixty six. Saint John's

(01:20:02):
was down five just before halftime. But no, he doesn't
have the better winning percentage or even as many wins
as Bob Knight quite yet, certainly not as many national titles.
This night, Mike Krzyzewski would certainly come to mind more titles,
certainly more wins, better winning percentage. John Wooden's the greatest
coach of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Yeah, I think you would.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
You know, we preface the segment the way Dan. What'sill
preface the column is that he'll never have the raw numbers.
But I think there's also a very legitimate argument that
I don't think anyone could ever do what he like.
I don't think John Wooden respectfully, and you know, there's
no way I don't think Coach K could go to
six different schools over forty year period and flip them

(01:20:43):
the way that that Rick pattin. It's a conversation, I
mean it is.

Speaker 7 (01:20:47):
That is a conversation. Yeah, but goat means greatest of
all time, Greatest.

Speaker 2 (01:20:52):
Of all time, Greatest has a lot of different meanings though,
I mean, you could say.

Speaker 7 (01:20:55):
That winning titles doesn't have to do with.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
What would you say that Coach K is in the
conversation for the greatest of all time.

Speaker 7 (01:21:01):
Or in the conversation more than Rick Patino.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
But he has half as many titles as John Wooden,
So if you if it's only about titles, then he
can't be in the cover.

Speaker 7 (01:21:09):
The rest of the world has half as many titles
as John Woulden. Well, but you just said it's only
about championships, though no, I said winning the winning percent.
I mean, it's twelve hundred wins for Coach K. That's
a ridiculous total.

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
I think Coach K is the answer, by the way,
but I'm just going to toss that out.

Speaker 7 (01:21:24):
And as far as what was Saint John's basketball before
Rick Patino arrived? Then the five years prior they had
five winning records UCLA in the five years before John
Wooden had won winning season.

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
I won a tournament game since nineteen ninety nine or
two thousand. I mean it's I mean you I think
any of these conversations, you can skew the stats any
way you want. It's like it's like the goat in
the NBA is that you can actually make a compelling
case for Kareema.

Speaker 7 (01:21:48):
That's that was not skewed. They had one winning record
in the five years before John wouldn't arrive.

Speaker 5 (01:21:54):
No, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
But also Saint John's has not won a tournament game
in twenty five years. So it's not like, well they
won't because you said, oh they had five winning records
or whatever. They were a dead program. They were completely irrelevant.
And I think there's absolutely an argument. And I think
the term greatest there's different ways to skew it.

Speaker 7 (01:22:15):
So you think Patrick Mahomes might be the greatest quarterback
of all time.

Speaker 2 (01:22:19):
I think you can make the argument. Now I wouldn't personally,
but I think you can make it. I don't think
you should but I think you could. I mean, can
you not make the argument that Joe Montana's greater than
Tom Brady?

Speaker 7 (01:22:30):
You could have that discussion.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
Yes, And all I'm saying is I think there is
a conversation that Rick Patino is the greatest person to
ever coach college basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:22:39):
I don't think you can say he's the.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
Greatest coach ever because he'll never have the stats that
everybody else does.

Speaker 7 (01:22:45):
John Wooden, by the way, and you mentioned what Patino
is doing at this advanced age of his career, wouldn't
in his last twelve years won ten.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
That's actually the crazy part about Wooden is he just
wouldn't have been given the window to, like, what was
it about?

Speaker 4 (01:23:00):
Not a chance?

Speaker 7 (01:23:01):
This is maybe the best point of all is that
he was able to stay at UCLA.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
It's a weird and that's like with college basketball specifically.
That's what makes it so interesting because the eras are
just so different.

Speaker 7 (01:23:14):
You had to finish first place in the regular season
to get an NCAA tournament big back then. Famously, in
the nineteen seventy one college basketball season, UCLA and its
rival USC were both ranked top five in the country.
USC with Hall of Famer Paul Westfall finished twenty four
and two and the two losses were against John Wooden
and they didn't go to the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Was it Maryland and NC State one year or one
and two? And I think they played like a triple
overtime game in.

Speaker 7 (01:23:40):
The list and go to the go to John Lucas. Yes.
And the amazing thing also with Wooden is he won
back to back national titles before Kareem ever arrived. And
then when Kareem did arrive, freshmen were not eligible to play,
and that was the year that UTEP Texas Western won
the title.

Speaker 2 (01:23:57):
Thank you very much, Steve disager to say, it will
be with us for one more hour. We're taking you
till two am Eastern. Fox Sports Radio Er Tours Jason Martin.
We'll come back. Talk about a busy Saturday in college hoops,
look ahead to selection Sunday, bracketology, Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
Welcome in everybody, our three tours and Martin Fox Sports Radio.
We are broadcasting live from the tirerac dot com studios.
Tierrac dot com will help you get there an unmatched election.
Fast free shipping, free road has a protection over ten
thousand recommended installers tirerec dot com the way tire buying

(01:24:36):
should be taking you up till two am Eastern Time.
Another hour from now, Bernie Frado of The Bernie Fratto
Show follows us. Cannot wait to hear what Bernie has
to say about a busy, really couple days in sports,
with all the college basketball, the NFL news, spring trainings
opening up, and the NBA as well.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
Bernie Fratto an hour from now.

Speaker 2 (01:24:57):
By the way, I wonder if Bernie will have anything
on the newly vacant UNLV basketball coaching jobs.

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
So Barty Fredi will join us an hour from now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
UNLV will not be in the NCAA tournament this year,
but several tickets have been punched the bracket. In twenty
four hours we will have a brackets so Brackett is
announced at six pm Eastern Time on Sunday and J Martin,
let's just dive into some of the stories of the day.
I think the big one I think we would all
agree it's Duke Blue Devils ACC Tournament. We know the

(01:25:28):
ACC is down this year, but as you and I
discussed earlier, they survive. UNC On Friday Night, weird situation.
Everybody knows by now the lane violation in a one
point game that costs Carolina a shot to tie it.
So you kind of wondered, Okay, how are they gonna
do once they actually get into a game against Louisville.

(01:25:49):
Louisville's a good team, They're headed to the NCAA tournament. Well,
the Duke Blue Devils had few problems with the Louisville Cardinals.
It was actually I shouldn't say few problems because Louisville
did lead it the half, but Duke outscores them by
sixteen in the second half. They win the ACC Conference
championship by nine points, beating Duke locking in. They've already

(01:26:10):
had the one seed locked in, but Jmart Duke wins
the ACC. Were you surprised at the relatively easy manner
in which they won on Saturday night without Cooper Flag.

Speaker 4 (01:26:22):
Well, I mean they did have to fight. That first
half was difficult, and you watched it and you at
least saw the possibility for Louisville. But at the same time,
the Duke that you saw in the second half just
reflected a team that played together and knew each other
and worked as a unit. They didn't have their hass,

(01:26:45):
they didn't have the guy that really has driven it
for them throughout the year, but they weren't fully reliant
upon him just because And I do think there's credit
to Shier here, probably the way that the practices have gone,
the way that they've coached throughout the year. If you
put all your eggs in one basket, if there's always
danger in doing that, And now I think that they

(01:27:08):
are learning that they can play even when Cooper flag
is not in the game. They're seeing success from that.
That's gonna make them a lot better. It's to make
them a lot more dangerous, assuming he can come back
in the NCAA tournament. These are guys that I think
have probably built a little bit of confidence seeing success
and seeing some w's pop up in the ACC tournament

(01:27:29):
and still winning the thing even without him being available
against your arch arrival, your most hated you know, your
most hated rival in North Carolina. Being able to hang
on and win that game even with the crazy comeback
that Carolina made in the second half, and then pulling
away from Louisville the way that you did in the
second half, I think that's a big confidence builder for

(01:27:50):
the rest of the guys on that roster to just
remember that if the going gets tough and flag is
not available, they can still win some games.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Thank your question, And I don't know if this is
anything you have a strong opinion on, but the Auburn
Tigers really had basically been seemingly in position to get
the number one overall seed for really most of probably
February into March. You know, I won't bore people with
too many analytics, but basically the way that they pick

(01:28:22):
NCAA tournament teams, they have what they call a quad
system where they rank all of your wins. Auburn has
an NCAA best sixteen quad one wins. The next closest
with the win today, Houston would have thirteen. So basically
they have three more quality wins than anybody else in
college basketball twenty eight and five overall. Duke, on the

(01:28:42):
other hand, thirty one and three after the win tonight,
nine quad one wins. Again, I won't bore people with details,
but quad one are the best wins that you can have.
Do you have any strong opinion? Do you care if
it's Alburn as the number one overall seed? Obviously I
think at this point, probably make a little case for
Houston thirty three, they'll be tied for the second most
quad win wins, and then of course Duke thirty one

(01:29:05):
in three also worth noting that they have the head
to head win over Auburn. Do you care at all
about the number one overall seed? Do you have a
strong opinion on who it should be or who it
shouldn't be.

Speaker 4 (01:29:15):
I don't know that I have a strong opinion. I
definitely don't think that Auburn has put its best foot
forward here in this last little bit, but they had
achieved so much prior to that point in time. I mean,
we talked earlier in the show about the favorites, and
I thought Duke being the favorite of Cooper Flag comes
back seems to make sense, especially with them still winning
the ACC Tournament without him in those last two games.

(01:29:38):
I tend to think that's probably like if I were
looking at the overall seed just for me, I might
go with Duke at this point in time. But I
don't think that you're gonna get it wrong necessarily with
any of them, because I'm not sure that there's just
it's just a given it has to be ex school
because the Flag situation at Duke, I think has actually

(01:29:59):
helped them, assuming he's back, of course, and then Auburn
maybe has dropped a peg, even if they're still the
overall number one, they've probably dropped a peg. And to
your point about Houston, So I think that I don't,
I don't. I can't get two up in arms either way.
I don't think that there's just one that they could
completely screw over by not giving them the overall number one.

Speaker 5 (01:30:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
And for people who don't understand, Duke has the most
wins of any team right now, going, they'll have the
most wins when the tournament starts at thirty one. Both
Houston and Saint John's will enter at thirty Why why
the argument would be you know why the argument wouldn't
necessarily be for Duke to be the number one overall
seed is just because the ACC was so down. I

(01:30:44):
think most people know but only projected to get three
tournament teams right now, Clemson, Louisville as well as Duke.
You know, this was the crazy stat j Mart that
they brought up on the game today. Louisville today was
the first ranked team that Duke played in ACC play,
which is obviously you grew up on Tobacco Road. But

(01:31:05):
when they played Louisville earlier in the year, they were unranked.
That was back in like early January late December. Duke
did not play a ranked team in ACC play until
the championship game of the conference tournament.

Speaker 3 (01:31:16):
So it shows you how far that league has fallen.
But I'm with you. I don't think it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:19):
Changes the fact that that I think Duke is, you know,
Duke is. I don't think they'll get the number one
overall seed if they do. You know, I know everybody
wants to have crazy opinions about Duke, but I just
think if they get it, I wouldn't be upset, especially
given it's not just that they have the most wins
and that the whatever. But Alburn, to your point, has
not been playing well. They've lost three or four going

(01:31:43):
into the NCAA tournament. Let me ask you about Alburn.
We haven't talked much about them. They've lost three of
four coming in now. It's worth noting all of the
losses came after they clinched the SEC regular season title.
All of the losses are to teams that will probably
be one or probably two or three seeds. I really
should say they lose to a Texas A and M
team which is in the top fifteen, probably going to

(01:32:05):
be a three or four seed, that was on the road,
they lose to Alabama at the buzzer, they lose to
a Tennessee team that, like Alabama, could be a number
one seed, although probably won't be on a scale of
one to ten. How worried you about the Alvin Tigers
right now?

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
I don't know that I'm worried about them, but you
have at least seen you've seen some cracks in that armor.
You've definitely seen some dents there that maybe can be exploited.
It doesn't matter if they go in the next six
games what they've done in the last three or four,
but they've definitely kind of open up the door for

(01:32:41):
just a little bit of doubt to creep into their
own minds as long as they still believe they can
get it done. They're obviously talented enough to do that,
but you never want to kind of limp in. And
it does feel like they're limping in a little bit.
As much as a potential still number one overall seed
can be limping in. They're just not They're not functioning
at their highest level at this point. As long as

(01:33:03):
they can still get that back, they can still be
cutting the nets down at the end of this thing.
But I definitely would just say that I don't feel
quite as strongly about them as I did a month ago,
for example, or even two and a half three weeks ago,
when they definitely just look like the team to beat.
I don't know that I would say that they that

(01:33:23):
they kind of fit that bill now because we've now
seen three of their last four opponents beat them.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
Hey, let me ask you a question I've never I
don't think I've ever gotten your take on this. So
you know, Bubble's kind of coming down to a lot
of teams with a lot of flawed resumes, you know,
teams that have thirteen fourteen losses.

Speaker 3 (01:33:39):
Whatever. I bring it up.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
Because about an hour ago the Big West Final, what
you know, the Big West Championship win final. U see
San Diego beats UC Irvine. I'm looking at Joe Lonardi's
most recent bracketology and he has UC Irvine as basically
one of the first eight teams out. So the next
four out is how you would call it. They finish
the regular season twenty eight and six overall. Now, admittedly,

(01:34:04):
because of the conference they play in, they don't have
a lot of great wins they have. Again, I told
you guys a minute ago the quad system quad one
wins are the best win you can have. They only
have one, as opposed to a team like Texas that
has like seven or eight. Are you a guy, and
there's no right or wrong answer. I'm just curious, would
you rather with these last couple spots? Would you rather

(01:34:25):
reward the team that maybe doesn't have the win loss
record as pretty but they played in the tough conference.
So as an example, Texas entering the NCAA Tournament or
entering selection Sunday, I really should say they're entering with
a win lost record overall. This is the Texas Longhorns
nineteen and fifteen, seven and ten in quad one games. Irvine,

(01:34:47):
as I just said, is twenty eight and six with
one Quad one opportunity one in zero in quad one
as opposed to Texas, which apparently had I think seventeen
quad one games. Do you have a strong opinion? Would
you rather see the small school that just doesn't get
the opportunities that everybody else does. Would you rather see
the big school that has played a much tougher schedule.

(01:35:08):
You have on any strong opinions on that one.

Speaker 4 (01:35:11):
I mean, the NCAA tournament is about the uc Irvines.
Those are the stories that we generally remember. They're not
the teams that are going to win the championship. But
I guess the question that I would fire back at
just anybody that would ask that is has Texas done
enough to where you feel like they deserve to be sure?

(01:35:34):
And you know, I think the answer might be no.
And so you look at uc Irvine twenty five plus
wins and you mentioned I think the important thing you
said there was one quad one opportunity and they took
advantage of that. But certainly they didn't play as tough
as schedule, but they weren't going to have the opportunity

(01:35:56):
to play it toughest schedule either. I don't know that
I have a strong opinion on it. I do know
what I feel like, March Madness is built on, and
it's not built on the Texas Longhorns inching in as
a you know, eleven seed or something like that. It's
much more built on the Cinderella and the Slipper just

(01:36:18):
doesn't fit for Texas. To be called a Cinderella. It
just doesn't, so I tend to I think I kind
of fall more on the irvine side. I don't know
that it's a strong side, but that's that's where I think.
I just feel like that's the that's the story of
this tournament. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
I don't know that Texas has ever been a Cinderella
in anything that they do. Some might call them the
evil stepmother, but that's another conversation for another day. Fox
Sports Radio air towards Jason Martin, broadcasting live from the
Tyreck dot com studios.

Speaker 3 (01:36:50):
So what we're gonna do, We're gonna come back.

Speaker 2 (01:36:52):
When we do, we will bring on bracketologist Rocko Miller
of Field to sixty eight. This guy, you know brackets
for okay, So all your by the way, if you
want to tweet in a question at Aaron Underscore Tours
at jmart Radio, feel free.

Speaker 3 (01:37:06):
We'll try to get it in.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
But Rocomiller will join us next to talk number one
Seeds the Bubble, a lot of college basketball still ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:37:13):
This is Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 6 (01:37:15):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports radio
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Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
Welcome back everybody, Fox Sports Radio aeron Torris Jason Martin
broadcasting live from the Tirek dot Com studios. Be sure
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(01:37:48):
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Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
So what we want to do. It's a busy time
of year.

Speaker 2 (01:37:55):
Bracket will be out at six pm Eastern tomorrow and
there is no one better to break down on what
the next what twenty or so hours will be like
then Roco Miller.

Speaker 3 (01:38:05):
You can follow him on Twitter at Roco Miller eight.

Speaker 2 (01:38:08):
He does bracketology for the Field of sixty eight, among
many places. Rocko, Night before the bracket? What is your
life like? I mean, is the hay in the barn?
Is the work just starting?

Speaker 3 (01:38:19):
What is your life like the night before the bracket
comes out?

Speaker 5 (01:38:24):
Yeah, it's a little anxious, you know, it's one of
the more exciting feelings in this process. You know, working
each day of the season leading up to this, it's
fun to kind of know finally we're going to be
able to validate some of these answers and critiques throughout
the year. But yeah, I feel like there is a

(01:38:44):
lot of hay in the barn, but there's also just
such a big, jumbled mess this year. Between I would
sit in two sections really, one what I call the
middle seeds Aaron, which are basically everybody from about yu
who came in this morning number twenty on my chart,
which is the last of the five seeds, all the
way into the eighth where Creighton and Yukon live thirty one,

(01:39:06):
thirty two, and the teams in that mix are just
really really hard to separate, and it gets a little scary,
you know, as you get graded on bracket matrix and
what else. I obviously I've had very good scores over
the years, don't want to jeopardize that. So I'll be
spending a lot of time trying to make sure I
got that order as good as I can. But there's
such a wide range for so many of those teams.

(01:39:27):
And then also closer to the bubble, there's a lot
of different outcomes that we could see play out, which
is different than most years. I think you usually we've
got it narrowed down to about four to six teams,
and I would say I would argue, you know, from
everybody from Oklahoma on down, when do you go? Oklahoma, Baylor, Vanderbilt, SDSU,
West Virginia, Xavior, Indiana, and then on the outside for

(01:39:50):
me right now, Boise State, North Carolina, UC Irvine. There's
a lot of teams that the committee could remove from
the field. We have two more potential bid deals in play.
We know if UAV beats Memphis tomorrow, that's going to
take a spot away, and we also know if BEFU
loses to George Mason, there's there's an outside chance BCU
as an at large candidate could take somebody's spot. So

(01:40:12):
there's still a lot of things to shake out. There's
a we had to we had to build a seventy
two team board tonight just to cover all the different
scenarios for tomorrow, and most years it's not quite that chaotic,
So I kind of like it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:25):
So Number one overall, we talked about this in the
last segment and a little bit earlier in the show,
Rocko does Auburn's loss affect that at all, and does
Douke have an opportunity there winning the ACC tournament even
without Cooper Flagg, especially with them telling the committee he's
going to be ready for the for the tourney.

Speaker 5 (01:40:49):
There's an outside chance my forecast won't have that, and
mainly because the way it works from the committee room
is uh, well, first of all, I'm fairly confident they
had Auburn number one this morning before today's loss, and
so based on that, the way the process would have
to work this late in the committee process is somebody
in the room would have to motion to move Duke

(01:41:09):
up to the one and get enough votes to support it.
And what ends up happening if it's close, and I
still think it's pretty close, because with Auburn you have
the sixteen quad one wins, you have such dominance, the
best resume by every resume metrics, and a lot of
that's really important for number one seeds. I think the
committee would be more from Duke's perspective, I think the

(01:41:31):
committee at best is torn and at worst they're still
fine with Auburn. So to me, I think there's probably
a ninety percent chance they stick with Auburn just based
on how late in the game we are, and maybe
a ten percent window if they get just enough votes
to push Duke to number one. But I think either way,
you know, it's not the end of the world for

(01:41:51):
either team. Auburn's getting the South, Duke's get in the East,
and let's move on with the rest of the bracket.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
So we actually did get a tweet in from at
Chiefs seven to two who asked about the Oklahoma Sooners,
a team you just mentioned. He says, are they out
in Dayton or a solid non play in game and
he added the questioning face emoji four effects. So what
do you think about Oklahoma status going into Sunday?

Speaker 4 (01:42:16):
Roco.

Speaker 5 (01:42:19):
Yeah, I mean it's a really interesting thing because Oklahoma,
I feel like they had three different seasons. You know,
they went undefeated in the non conference within with some
amazing wins, you know, beating Arizona, Louisville, Michigan, et cetera.
I think West Virginia was in there too, So four
tournament level wins on neutral courts a shiny resume. Then
we all know they go six and twelve in the league.

(01:42:41):
Most of the league's season, they did not look like
a tournament team. They had that ugly loss at home
to LSU. I can't get that game out of my head.
I remember waiting for that game to end on that Saturday,
and then you know, they come into the SEC down
the stretch. Getting that win at Texas on the last
day obviously kept them relevant, and then coming to the

(01:43:02):
SEC tournament beating Georgia certainly didn't hurt. So there are
reasons to leave Oklahoma out. They finished two and seven
in true road games. I really hold my nose to
that record a lot. The two wins that Texas and
at Arkansas are decent wins, but they're not against the
top of the SEC by any means. Arkansas was out
for a lot of the season, played their way in

(01:43:23):
late Texas was in earlier in the year, played their
way out down the stretch. So not really impressed per
se by either of those two wins. But you go
back and look at all the damage they did with
the non conference and they picked up some home wins
against Bazoo and Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. Yeah, I mean
it's tough. I think when you stack them up against

(01:43:47):
some of these other teams just below them on my board,
and right now that would be you know, the teams
I mentioned earlier, San Diego State, West Virginia, Like, I
feel more solid on San Diego State. I think with
Vanderbilt the schedule at three thirty one, that's one where
I'm really worried if they fall too close to the
cut that they could be ripped out of the field.

(01:44:08):
So I think Oklahoma, like I try to give these
teams like credit scores. Pretend you're a mortgage lender, and
I would give Oklahoma just a little bit better credit
score than like a Vanderbilt or Xavier or in Indiana.
So from that perspective, I think they're in. And if
they're in, they've got good enough metrics to get seated
into the ten so they don't have to worry about Dayton.

(01:44:28):
So that's how I'll just sum up that answer.

Speaker 4 (01:44:31):
So you said this to us when we had you
on last night, and you were very matter of fact
about it. I imagine nothing's changed but Florida losing or sorry,
Florida at this point right now got to be locked
in as it stands. But if they were to lose
to Tennessee, does that change anything? Is there anybody that
you look at and say they could sneak in and

(01:44:51):
take that from Florida, or do you feel at this point,
especially with the way Florida dominated Alabama today, that they're
probably already set in stone.

Speaker 5 (01:45:00):
Yeah, I feel very good about Florida. And yeah, I
think tonight as we're speaking, or maybe they're already in bed,
who knows, because they're in the Eastern time zone, they're
out in Indianapolis. I hope they're in bed. It's one
point thirty now, but or getting a late night drink.
But the bottom line is it's too late now. I
think Florida's got so much hey in the bar and themselves.

(01:45:22):
That extra Alabama, when as you mentioned, is huge. You
could actually argue Florida into the top two if you
really want to make that argument. There's a case to
be made, you know, with those rope wings that Auburn
and Alabama, which is so dynamic. They've only lost four
times all year. Tennessee's taking a few extra losses compared
to Florida. So Tennessee beating them on a neutral court

(01:45:43):
in Nashville, even if the committee was taking it fully
in it wouldn't be enough in my opinion. But Now,
if Tennessee jumps Alabama, that could matter a little bit
because that could get Tennessee into the East and take
Alabama out of the East. I don't know how big
of a deal that is. But also keep in mind
that Greg Byrne, Alabama's out directors on the committee. So

(01:46:05):
that's one thing I pay attention close to. You usually
want to help out your buddies in the room. Might
just hold Alabama five overall in Tennessee sixth, even if
Tennessee wins this whole thing.

Speaker 3 (01:46:14):
Let me ask you a good question.

Speaker 2 (01:46:15):
Roco Miller joining us a bracketologist field of sixty eight.
You can follow Rocko on Twitter at Rocko Miller eight.
I just was curious. You know, this is a question,
not really a bracketology question, but you watch all these
these low and mid major teams as well as anybody,
and it's always a question this time of year. Everybody
who's filling out a bracket wants to know. I know

(01:46:37):
it's impossible without knowing the matchups and without knowing the
seedings in et cetera, But do you have a mid
major or small school on your mind that you think
can make a pseudo run similar to a Florida Atlantic
a school like that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:49):
Over the last couple of years, I.

Speaker 5 (01:46:51):
Can't really ever put anybody on Florida Atlantics level, and
I was all in on the Als that year. I
put them in the Final four as part of the
only time I ever won like real money in a bracket.
Filling out the brackets not my song suit, but I
knew I had so much confidence in the Alis, and
of course they got that brutal draw with Memphis, and
so I filled out some with Memphis in the final

(01:47:11):
four as well. But that was the first time I
think in my life where I've had an eight to
nine winner on either side as a final four team,
and I just felt so strongly about it because that
team had everything, a bunch of winners, great coaching, athlete,
athletes like obviously some NBA talent on that on that
toyt Land team. So I don't think you're going to

(01:47:31):
get that this year from the UC San Diego or
the Drakes. But those teams are also so very well
put together, cohesive, don't make mistakes, to control the pace
at all times. Watching UC San Diego again tonight was
just phenomenal. They always find the open man. They have
unorthodox body control, really, and I love them in the

(01:47:51):
NCAA tournament for that because there's so many angles they create.
There's like two of the starters, especially the star player
Tate Jones, are they grew up soccers and they picked
up basketball later as teenagers, and so they have all
these dynamic moves that they used to use as elite
soccer players and they're doing them in the college basketball world.
And I just noticed, you know, because I covered their

(01:48:12):
MTE down in Daytona Beach, like these teams just don't
know how to defend them, and there's not much you
can do watching film to get ready for them. So
that's that's certainly a team I've had circled all year.
And now you have to mention Colorado State if you
want to count them as a mid major. Obviously Mountain
West is strong league, but not power Colorado State. I mean,
if you run the numbers for the last six weeks
of the season, including you know this run this weekend,

(01:48:35):
they're coming in as and this is adjusted for strength
of opponent. They're coming in on Bartorvik's website as a
top ten team nationally regardless of level. So I want
to see how much that translates. Obviously, a Nie Clifford
is an elite, elite player, probably a pro. And when
you have a pro or more, you've got a chance

(01:48:56):
to really go far in the tournament. As long as
everybody's cohesive and connected. As a mid major team, that's
the advantage they have over high major teams that might
be a little more disjointed, maybe one foot in the door,
one foot out the door, thinking about the portal bag
next year, thinking about the draft. You know, these teams
that I just thought about, they don't have those problems.

Speaker 4 (01:49:16):
Yeah. So to that point and to that end, you
talked about UCSD, Well, I mean you see Irvines won
you know, twenty eight games this year, you had them
hurt you off the top. Say you know you had
them as one of your first four out. Any chance
that maybe they find a way in over one of
those less impressive major schools that has the built in

(01:49:39):
advantages but didn't really do anything to distinguish themselves along
the way.

Speaker 5 (01:49:45):
I Mean, I'm not the most religious person, but I'll
say a little prayer tonight for them, because in the
old in the old days, that this is a team
that would have been in without even a second look.
You know, if you went there's a website that I
still track the old RPI, and I get it that's
been gone since twenty eighteen. But it just blows you
away because they've won so many road games. Their RPI

(01:50:08):
coming into today was twenty eight. If their NET was
twenty eight, I don't think anybody'd be arguing about them.
We probably wouldn't even talking about them. They'd be like
a eight, nine or ten seed. And so it's just
unfortunate because I don't think the way the NET measures
some of the things that Irvine accomplished this year is
quite it's doing a good job of telling their story,

(01:50:30):
which is why when I get a chance, I do
tell their story that you know, I think they've won
eighteen games away from home. They've only played nine home
games all year long, and they only lost once this year.
They've only lost once at home for two years. That
was that great you see San Diego team, But they
also got the win at UC San Diego, which is
a quad one a win. They lead the nation in

(01:50:52):
road wins with fourteen true road wins. Four of those
registered in the top two quadrants. So it's not like
they're nobody's they played, They played basketball and all every
time zone in America, and they played a tournament in
Canada and they just kept winning everywhere they went. So again,
I would much rather prefer them over probably almost any

(01:51:14):
team I listed. I do think San Diego State belongs
because they beat Houston, they beat Creighton, and that still
has to matter for them. But for a lot of
these other teams, you know, whether it's Oklahoma, even Indiana
and Xavier and a West Virginia team that hasn't really
been exactly as elite without debrees all the way since
back in the start of the year, you know, I'd
much rather pull those teams out and replace them with

(01:51:36):
Irvine personally. Unfortunately, there's probably not enough Rocos in that.

Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
Room last one for me, you know. And this is
a very broad, open ending question, so take it wherever
you want. But is there a narrative of a story
we've talked about one seeds bubble. Is there a narrative
or story that maybe either we're not talking about enough
right now, or that you could see us talking about
coming out of the bracket when it's officially announced at
six pm Eastern on Sunday.

Speaker 4 (01:52:01):
Enough yeah, I.

Speaker 5 (01:52:02):
Think I think you're going to see Saint John's in Providence.
I think that's just going to be a wild scene
for a full weekend. So I've been trying to tell
Saint Johns fans to buy all those tickets because we
had that figured out about three weeks ago. And I
get it, that's probably not the story you need. You
probably already talking tons about Califari. Sorry on California and Patino?

(01:52:22):
What am I talking about?

Speaker 1 (01:52:23):
Let me ask you a.

Speaker 3 (01:52:24):
Question on that Rocco real quick.

Speaker 2 (01:52:25):
So, yeah, I just want to make sure that I
have this correct, because this I actually did not know. So,
because there are so many SEC teams that are projected
to be one in two seeds, Saint John's actually can't
get the number two seed in the East region, which
is in Newark, obviously not far from home.

Speaker 3 (01:52:41):
Am I accurate on that?

Speaker 5 (01:52:43):
You are accurate?

Speaker 4 (01:52:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:52:45):
Okay, then yeah. The rule is, so the rule is
for each conference, if you're in the protected seed the
protected seed zone, which is the first sixteen like they
did the top sixteen reveal in February, you have to
go into seven regions until you sell them up. So
like with the SEC, they're going to fill them up
within the first two seed lines because they've got Auburn, Florida, Alabama,

(01:53:08):
and Tennessee. So with the other four teams, which we
pretty we're pretty confident are going to be Houston and
Sorry Duke in Houston on the one line, Michigan State
and Saint John's on the on the two line, Michigan
State and Saint John's have to go with Auburn and
Florida whatever region they're in. Whatever region they're in. So
for today I had Auburn with Saint John's in the South.
But for the first two rounds, of course, they're going

(01:53:29):
to still be able to get their preferred spot Providence.
I think that'll be a wild scene with the way
that Johnny's are rolling at the garden. Just try to
get all those people over to Providence should be a
good advantage at least to get them to the sweet sixteen.
Then we'll see what happens if this is the case
and they end up in Atlanta. I think that's a good,
good storyline. You know, we'll see there's a lot of
things that just right themselves too, Like we'll have to

(01:53:50):
see what the matchups look like. I've had a bunch
where Yale's playing Michigan. You know, if we got to
Danny Wolfe storyline, that would be pretty fun. There's there's
I mean, they just write themselves as you put it together.
So we'll see who teams like Arkansas and Memphis. We've
had Mattress with Memphis and Arkansas that would be pretty

(01:54:11):
huge regionally out in that part of the country. So yeah,
those are just a couple that come to mind, but
we've had several. I'm out in the Bay Area in California,
Like I think everybody that loves these teams, these really
good teams like Saint Mary's UC San Diego. Everybody's dreading
at Saint Mary's UC San Diego matchup. I get that's
not going to be a big concern nationally, but here locally,

(01:54:32):
I think everybody would be stressed out because those are
two very fundamentally sound basketball teams. We don't want to
see them take each other out.

Speaker 2 (01:54:38):
Also seeing a few brackets with John Calperry and the
Arkansas Razorbacks going to rupp Arena for a regional there,
so I don't know, well, you know if that's gonna
ripen or not.

Speaker 4 (01:54:47):
But but all right, we got to certainly in play.

Speaker 2 (01:54:50):
Now it's in play, Rocco, we got to run in.
Thank you so much again for your time these last
two nights. Make sure you're following Roco Miller on Twitter
at Miller eight on Twitter, and you'll be live on
the Field sixty eight broadcast network after the breakt comes
out on Sunday.

Speaker 4 (01:55:08):
Correct.

Speaker 5 (01:55:10):
Yeah, we're actually gonna be on live during the show,
so we're right. Yeah, So thirty minutes before the show starts,
come on over to Field of sixty eight. We're going
to reveal our own bracket right before this show starts.
It'd be a good way to warm up, and you
can hang with us if you have your laptop out
and get your TV on CBS. We've done this four

(01:55:30):
th eight years, me and Jeff Goodman and another one
of our guys, Brad Walktel. So we're kind of going
to have a process of elimination format. So if you
get to commercial and you're waiting for that last region,
you probably come over to ours. We'll be able to
tell you all the teams that they're probably gonna call
and who's We usually can figure out who got snubbed
before the show's over, so if you like all that
insight or you just want to hear our reactions, it's

(01:55:53):
a lot of fun and it's also something you can
go back and rewatch after the show's over.

Speaker 2 (01:55:58):
He is Rocko Miller Roco Miller eight on Twitter and
you can follow him on Twitter and also Field to
sixty eight. Roco Man, We very much appreciate the time.
Thank you, and yeah, probably talk to you again here
before the tournament's over.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:56:12):
That sounds great, guys anytime. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:56:14):
All right, that's Roco Miller Field to sixty eight. So
what we need to do. Let's get it right over
to the news desk. Steve Desager tell us what is
trending to get one forty one Eastern time, my friend.

Speaker 7 (01:56:23):
Speaking of the field, you see, San Diego is in
and in fact, according to stat Zinc, it is the
first school ever to have both its men's and women's
teams make the NCAA basketball tournament in the same year
in their first year of eligibility. In the late game
tonight in men's hoops under four minutes to go and
the Whack Tournament Final, Grand Canyon is still leading first place.

(01:56:44):
Utah Valley seventy two to sixty two programming note, NASCAR
is on FS one again Sunday. Michael McDowell earned the
poll to What's going on on FS one right now?
Couple holes to play at Singapore in the live golf event.
Joaquin Neeman with now a five five stroke lead over
Brooks Keepka and the Dodgers have just been shut out
in their exhibition at the Tokyo Dome three nothing by

(01:57:06):
the han Chin Tigers, who beat the Cubs last night
by a three to nothing final. Tonight, it was Blakesnell
taking the l for LA after three perfect innings five strikeouts,
he gave up a three run homer in the fourth.
Early this morning, our time in Japan, the Dodgers beat
the Tokyo Giants five to one. Shoho Tani homered in
a five run third. The Braves in Florida won seven

(01:57:27):
to three over the Red Sox today, the win to
Chris Saal six innings. He allowed two solo homers, nine
strikeouts and ten as Carlos Alcarez was upset in the
semifinals at Indian Wells, California. Now to the rest of
the college basketball from tonight. Number one Duke was down
five at the half, but still won the ACC Tournament
final over Louisville seventy three sixty two. Saint John's took

(01:57:50):
the Big East Crown down five just before halftime, but
beat Crayton eighty two to sixty six. Houston, the best
in the Big twelve, defeated Arizona in that championship game
seven sixty four. The Cougar started the season four and three,
including a couple of overtime losses twenty six and one.
Since NBA Oklahoma City's shay gilgis Alexander with forty eight

(01:58:11):
points in a win at Detroit. Houston won at sixth straight,
Golden State won at seventh straight, and Washington edge Denver
on a game winning three pointer from Jordan Pool. Nicola
Jokic forty points in defeat NHL Carolina won at seventh
straight game five nothing at Philadelphia.

Speaker 2 (01:58:28):
Thank you very much, Steve, the Saga have a great
evening day. Saga will be back tomorrowste Uh and uh
this is Fox Sports Radio, Aer toors Jason Martin. One
segment left still a ton to get to Fox Sports thirty.
Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 3 (01:58:47):
Big Night in.

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
Saint John's, Your Big East tournament champions You saw it
on Fox first time since nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (01:58:58):
J Martin I discussed earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:58:59):
Can you the argument Rick Patino sixth team he's taken
to an NCAA tournament, fifth team that he has won
a conference tournament championship with. Never gonna have the stats
of a wooden eer coach. K But maybe you know,
greatest guy to ever carry a whistle on a college
basketball sideline, Saint John's Big East Tournament Champs, Duke ACC
Tournament Champs, Houston Big Twelve Tournament Champs, among many others.

(01:59:23):
And we are now about nineteen hours away from having
a bracket in hand ready to go.

Speaker 3 (01:59:32):
Yeah, that's right, sixty minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:59:33):
Maybe it's you know, a little bit more than sixty
minutes at this point. But yeah, by the way, should
mention a couple things before we get out of here?
Like basketball tractor supply knows that a winning season takes practice, teamwork,
and a can do attitude.

Speaker 3 (01:59:47):
It's bracket challenge, says it Payball.

Speaker 2 (01:59:49):
Be sure to complete your bracket at Fox sports radio
dot com beginning on Sunday night. Visit Foxsports Radio dot
com to register and get rules. The winning bracket in
the Fox Sports Radio Bracket Challenge will win a twenty
five hundred dollars gift card to Tractor Supply, and a
perfect bracket will win you one million dollars. You can
pre register now and then be sure to fill out
your bracket between Sunday night and Thursday morning before the

(02:00:12):
games begin at Fox Sports radio dot com. It's all
sponsored by Tractor Supply for Life out Here should also
match you. Make sure to download the podcast. It will
be available shortly after the show. Producer Bree in the
Lab right now editing that puppy up. You can find
it anywhere you get your podcasts. Talked a lot of
Duke talked, a lot of Saint John's talked a little
bit of Aaron Rodgers, had Rocko Miller bracketologist.

Speaker 3 (02:00:35):
So yeah, busy three hours.

Speaker 2 (02:00:37):
Jmart flew on by how excited you to have a
bracket in your hand tomorrow?

Speaker 1 (02:00:42):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:00:42):
To be fun. Like I said, I'm more excited about
this tournament than I have been in the last handful
of years. For sure. I just I've watched more college
hoops this year, but I've also just enjoyed it more.
I feel like there's a lot more depth. There's a
lot more teams that can cause some trouble. And it's
not because everybody is mediocre, which I've argued in years past.

(02:01:04):
I think it's just I think it's just generally a
higher level of basketball, and it's been a little less
reliant on the three ball, thankfully then maybe it had
been in a few years past. There's still plenty of them,
don't get me wrong, but I've just felt I've just
felt more entertained by the product, and there's a there's

(02:01:24):
such a different feeling watching college ball and the effort
and the energy and how much those guys appear to
care at all times, which you know, we talked about
as it relates to the NBA, and it's it's the
biggest problem. It's the thing the NBA has to find
a way to fix. It's just how they come across,
whether or not it's even accurate, it's almost irrelevant to
what it looks like and how it comes across, and

(02:01:46):
it just doesn't ever feel that way in college basketball,
and the tournament should be great.

Speaker 3 (02:01:51):
Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):
I'm looking now among the top fifteen teams in scoring
in college basketball, Alabama number one, Lord to number seven,
Auburn number ten, Duke number fifteen. So I mean, in theory,
those won't be your four number one seeds, but all
of those teams were good enough to get number one seeds,
and so you just talk about a higher level from
the top teams. I mean, there's been teams in the

(02:02:13):
past that could put up one hundred, but you know,
were they a team that could really win it? And
I think all those teams are probably good enough to
do so. By the way, Kentucky, Gonzaga among others in
Missouri as well, top ten in the country in scoring.
So a lot of high quality basketball and it has
been a lot of fun. Brackets are out at six
pm Eastern on Sunday. By the way, Dan Byer and

(02:02:34):
I will be on here on Fox Sports ready to
whin the bracket is released. Yeah, so I got j
Mart you know, fun show. I think we hit on everything.
You know if you missed. By the way, we did
a little Miles Garrett on Friday night with when we
were filling in for Jason and Mike.

Speaker 3 (02:02:51):
We talked a little bit about Demark Lawrence.

Speaker 2 (02:02:53):
Anything really quick that we missed on, anything going into
Okay Iowa.

Speaker 3 (02:02:57):
Sam has something that he needs to share.

Speaker 12 (02:03:00):
It's weird when the UVM Catamounts are not in the
NCAA Tournament and it's the Bryant Bulldogs who are the
America East champions. Sure, I mean Vermont cornered the market
the American East Tournament every year, but this year no.

Speaker 3 (02:03:14):
And Arnie Spanier. Is just tough day for Arnie Spanier.

Speaker 2 (02:03:17):
Arizona Wildcats losing the Big twelve championship game Virginia or Vermont,
excuse me, is not in By the way, we do
have one game still going on. Grand Canyon up nine
with thirty five seconds to go. They just got an
offensive rebound, fast breaking and they have now taken an
eleven point lead with twenty nine seconds to go. Grand
Canyon will win the Whack Championship, go back to the

(02:03:39):
NCAA Tournament. Last year they upset Saint Mary's in round one.

Speaker 3 (02:03:42):
We gotta get out of real fast.

Speaker 4 (02:03:43):
We're gonna miss Greg gumbele.

Speaker 2 (02:03:45):
Oh rip Greg Gumble. That is really sad. He was
the host of the bracket show. Rest in peace, Greg
mc gumble. Sad to not have him. We gotta get
out of here. Thank the crew. Download the podcast. Fox
Sports radio

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