Hour 3 - Reaction to UConn Winning the Chip!!

Jason and Mike react to UConn winning the national championship and defeating San Diego State.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight
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(00:24):
Fox Sports Radio for the last time. At the Final Four.
I've done every game since nineteen ninety one. Had a
game tonight where no one scored for eleven minutes and
still I announced this game. Take that, al Michaels. You
wanted to walk away, and I stayed till the end
of Yukon's championship over the San Diego State Aztecs. I

(00:46):
just hit the post every time. Every time, man, every
time I'm Jim nance na Ntz puts him respect on
it on Twitter. It's not nance n a n ce,
it's nance na ntz respect on his name until you
see him at the Masters on Thursday. So there's that. Well,
he's got three days to soak it up and hopefully
he gets a better run. You'll have to talk a
lot about controversy. He's related to the live golf experiment

(01:11):
and the tour and those players interacting. Maybe we'll get
a fight, Oh how about that? Nothing else. It will
definitely be wars well joining us now a guy who
always hits the post. I could have said the back
of the rim, but come on, that's not who Oh,
and I say a longtime friend of the show. I

(01:32):
mean a longtime friend of the show. College basketball analyst
for FS one, PAC twelve, Spectrum Sports Net. He's on
Twitter at c Jacobson twenty three. It is Casey Jacobson.
Case it's happening, bunny. How are you man? Hello? Friends, Hey, money,
Good to be with you, guys. I've missed you. A
great season, a really good tournament. Not so great at

(01:55):
a championship game, but you know you guys have watched
this tournament for a long time. Usually that's kind of
how it goes. We get a lot of drama leading
up to the championship game and then um, not so
much drama tonight. But the right team one, I thought
the best team one. Yeah, look I look at this, Casey.
Is that you watch Yukon with a dominant run every

(02:15):
game by double figures, just like just like some other
great teams over the over the course of nca term
history have done. And now you're talking about this dominant.
This dominant win five national championships in the last in
the last twenty four years. I mean, they're the program
in college basketball. Yet they don't seem to get that respect.
But I don't know if it's all you know, blue
blood is all blood or new blue blood, whatever you

(02:37):
want to call it. But I mean, Yukon they're the
best program the last two plus decades. They are. They
can't be a blue blood because it isn't by definition
blue blood being born by like noble birth or something
like that. Umh is that okay? Sure, that's pretty good.
You you went to class in college, unlike me. That's
what a blue blood is like being born like noble.

(02:59):
They're definitely that's the guy that went to Stanford right there,
me going to Syracuse. You know, we can you know,
I didn't know he applied it so literally. But I
like to hit Casey. Back in the Crusades of the
early seventies, Great was conquering Europe. Yet these teams were
danged to be go ahead, buddy, gohead. They are the

(03:19):
new bloods, and I would put Villanova in that category. Two, right,
what Villanova? I mean, I know they want a championship
in the eighties, but like what Jay Wright did last um,
you know, five six, seven years with them, they would
be a new blood as well. UM, Yukon really impressive.
They've done it with three different coaches, which is really unusual. Um.
And if people forget, and I'm sure college basketball like

(03:40):
casual fans do, after Kevin Ollie won a title as
a head coach in twenty fourteen, it kind of fell
off the rails. He sued the university after they fired him.
They went through three straight losing seasons, they went through
a conference change, they were in the American Conference. They
were irrelevant five years ago, like irrelevant, we wouldn't talk

(04:01):
about them on a national stage. And now look at
where they are. Danny Hurley and the players deserve a
ton of credit. They built the thing back brick by brick.
And I remember last year when Yukon lost in the
first round of the NC Double A Tournament. I don't
know if you guys remember this. In the press conference,
Danny Hurley was like, this is disappointing. We expected more

(04:22):
than this, but we are coming, like we are building
this thing. These guys are gonna come back. We are
coming for everybody. They were not ranked in the top
twenty five to start this year. They clearly use that
as motivation, as most players and coaches who are as
talented as they are should have. And look at where
they are now. We did see this coming. I mean

(04:44):
I worked for a Fox now for nine years, and
halfway through this year they asked us the question before
conference season started, who's the best team in the country,
And I was like, it's Yukon. I watched what they
did in the non conference. They squashed everybody. They played
seventeen games against non Big East teams and beat all seventeen.
Beat their brains in. The only teams that could beat

(05:06):
them were in the conference that kind of knew them
and and figured out a way to you know, and
true road games too. That's that's the other part of
this too, because we forget when you go into conference,
get to play true road games. It's hard when you
go in the NCAA tournament you're on a neutral floor. Yukon,
if you take away all the conference stuff, they were
the best team early and late this year, Casey, watching

(05:28):
this one. You mentioned the early press conference it was
like the road to Rustlemania shoot interview. Yeah, I'm gonna
be on the main stage next year, And here he is.
But at halftime, I would guess he had some strong
words for his squad that they weren't up thirty points
the way they'd suffocated San Diego State. Yeah, yeah, I

(05:50):
would agree with that, But sang meet zero lay ups
in the first half. He had to be pleased with that, right.
I don't recall watching a high level basketball game where
one team didn't make a layup. That was insanity. And
I think Jason you started off the show saying you

(06:10):
will that San Diego State offensive performance. Eleven minutes without
a field goal. Um, that is unprecedented for a championship game.
If you can't score in eleven minutes, you are not
going to win. I think if these two teams played
ten times, I think san Diego State wins one or two.

(06:32):
That's how good Yukon is playing right now, and and
I think significantly better than San Diego State. But I
don't want to be insulting. What San Diego State did
to get to this point is truly remarkable, a season
that will live on forever in that program. My dad
went to San Diego State. By the way, guys, I
don't know if you remember that, but yeah, yeah, Von

(06:54):
Jacobson is still the twentieth all time leading score in
San Diego State basketball history. So he was fired up
to see them get this are and they have nothing
to be ashamed of. They were excellent this year. Casey
Jacobson with us here, the Jason Smiths with Mike Carr
and all right, help me out here because people are
seeing Danny Hurley and they're going and I remember Danny
Hurley going. Man, he would take a lot of bad

(07:14):
threes at Seaton Hall. But now this is a guy
who starts out as coaching career at Wagner College. Right
go Staaten Island in two years, turns them into a
tournament level team, leaves her Rhode Island in two years,
turns him to a team winning twenty three games a
year NCAA tournament team. Leason goes to Yukon in two wins,
turns them into a twenty win caliber team, gets cut

(07:35):
short a little bit by COVID or they would have
won twenty games here. He is now with the national championship.
What does Danny Hurley do, Whether it's something you see
in the sideline, something you know about him, what does
Hurley do? Because this is every single stop he has
been has been the same. Hey, give me a couple
of years, we become really good. I got my next stop.
No matter what the level is, low level D one,
mid level D one, high level D one. What does

(07:56):
he do? What stands out to him for you? Well,
I've watched him and shoot around in practices and he
absolutely loves his players with like a fierce passion that
it's special. I know he's a he's like kind of
a crazy person. I want to I wanted to use
the word psycho. But on the sideline, if you're not
a if you're just a fan of basketball and you're

(08:16):
watching him on the side and you're like, man, what's
wrong with that guy? If he liked that all the
time when he's in practice and with his guys, he's intense.
But there is a love like that he has for
his guys that are so genuine that I actually don't
see that in many other coaches. All guys recruit their
guys and they like their guys. But he has a

(08:36):
different emotional connection with his dudes, and it showed every
single step of the way. I thought you did a
nice job just kind of chronicling his his turnarounds. I mean,
he hasn't done it just one place, two places, and
three places. Pretty incredible. He has now established himself, obviously
as one of the top coaches in the country. And

(08:59):
all will say this. People know that the Hurly family
is kind of like basketball royal. It's a little bit.
It's not like the Pete It's not like the Mannings
in football, but it is kind of like a little
version of that in basketball. His dad, Danny's dad, is
one of the best, if not the best high school
coach of all time. Danny's brother, Bobby was You can

(09:22):
make an argument that he was the best college point
guard certainly in NTABA tournament history. You can easily make
that two time champion, don't you think that, Like Danny
was like, I need to prove myself even more. I
need to do something to put my to get my
name on that plaque for the Hurley family. This finally
did it. I'm happy for him. And yeah, it's just

(09:46):
he's a grinder. I don't even think he's satisfied. He
wants another one next year. Man, no question about it, Casey,
Let's back it out to the tournament as a whole
lot made of the upsets and the early rounds and
the chaos that ensued. Your opinion one off or is
this going to become the norm in the new age
of college athletics. I want to lean more towards this

(10:09):
being a one off. And the reason why I do
think that the code, the extra COVID year nil changing
and we still like we meaning like the NCAA college
basketball culture hasn't really figured out how we're going to
do nil with some sort of rules. Right now, there
are none. No one really knows what to do with it.

(10:32):
Everybody transferring everywhere and not having to sit out. I
do think there will be some more restrictions on one
or all of the things that I mentioned, And because
of that, I think right now we're just in a weird,
like just transition period in college basketball where so many transfers,

(10:52):
NAO guys getting paid or not getting paid. Teams that
were older, you know, teams that like say Diego State,
Adam Saco is twenty four years old. He's in a
sixth year of college basketball. A Guaco rope for San
Diego State is in a fifth year and I think
just turned twenty three years old. A couple of months
ago we saw an FAU team that was also really old,

(11:14):
So I think that this was more of a one off.
Maybe it could happen again next year, but I think
eventually we're going to get back to normalcy. If that
makes sense, Okay, if we get back to that normalcy now,
and this is something we proffered last week. Seeing now
that anyone can go to the final four, I think
that's one of the big takeaways from this tournament is
anyone can go. Not anyone can win, but anyone can

(11:37):
get to the final And we talk about and we
myth mythologize the final four, the fact that anybody can go.
How much does it get to the point where different
conferences say, well, you left couple of my teams out,
they could have got to the final four. You left
a couple of our teams out, they get to the
Final four, and we get to a ninety six team

(11:58):
NCAA tournament. Because if teams like San Diego, if fours
and fives and sixteens can get to the second weekend
of the season. Um, maybe it is time to expand
the tournament. Let more teams in. Are we leaving anybody
out that could get to the final four? Casey, before
you answer, he's just trying to shoehorn, syracuses. I am
not Adrian ought you will be just fine. I know

(12:19):
I can smell the desperation on his breath the phone.
Let's can we look at how Stanford finish the last years.
Let's look at Stanford. Let's see Stanford goops last year.
Let me's a Stanford. He didn't bring up Stanford. I'll
tell you, I'm not afraid to admit it, Jason, Stanford's
made one tournament in the last fourteen years. Okay, write
that down. Not great. But our women's team is smacking

(12:41):
people around a little bit too, though, So I hang
my head on that. I guess all right, that's fine.
I do not want to change or add teams to
the tournament. Um, you know, there's a lot of questions
I get about, what would you change about college basketball?
All these rules and stuff? If you call it time out?
Can you advance the ball to half court? Like a
lot of this stuff. I don't really care. I don't

(13:02):
care you want to change its great if you don't,
I don't care this one. I do care. I do care. UM.
I think the way that we have it right now,
I'd like the UM first four what they call it,
right adding instead of going from sixty they had it
they went from sixty four to sixty eight adding forceful.
I like that a lot. I was a proponent of that, UM.
I think it's worked out really well. Obviously, UM UCLA

(13:24):
a couple of years ago got from the first four
to the final four. UM. That has proven to be
a solid strategy to give some extra teams. But like,
I'm not in favor of adding a Wisconsin this year.
Who or a Rutgers out of the Big Ten who
barely missed the ntaba A tournament but had a losing

(13:45):
record in their conference play. Not not interested in that.
I loved what FA you did. UM, so yeah, please, please, please, guys,
let's keep the tournament exactly where it's at. UM. But
I liked your point that you made to start any
I have seen this in my decade of broadcasting. Almost
not every team, but almost any team in the field

(14:07):
can make a final four. But to win a national title,
you got to have a little bit extra. You got
to play both sides of the ball. You can't be
defensive oriented but can't score the ball or vice versa.
You also have to have NBA talent. Forty five of
the last forty six national champions have had a first
round NBA draft pick on their team. That is true,

(14:29):
and that is that is true this year as well
with Yukon, Jordan Hawkins will be drafted somewhere in the
first round of the tournament. So yeah, the right team
won again. So there we go. Unbelievable stuff as always
with Casey Jacobson. You can fomb on Twitter. Hat Ce
Jacobson twenty three. They'll be taking over for Jim Nance now.
Jay Nance is retiring, So get your one shining moment

(14:50):
call ready, Casey, because they're gonna come from I'm practicing
right now. Guys. Thanks for having me on. Buddy always, Buddy.
We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, Casey. He's great.
I love Jason great, great stuff. Man. I'm telling you,
I love the friends of the show. Let me tell you,
yeah it is. Look, we'll get into this coming up next.
Because the way the tournament has gone, it's really hard
for me to say, to give an argument against expanding

(15:12):
the tournament, like Casey doesn't like. Look, Casey's played in
the tournament when it was sixty four sixty eight, But
seeing how things are now, it's hard to look ahead
and say, yeah, you can't expand it us. We'll continue
on here. Hey, Yukon is your national champions And I
got a stat for you, Craig Stats Radio. Yeah, but
I have a stat for you that is absolutely insane

(15:34):
coming up next. Keep it right here, Jason and Mike
Fox stead of the day. Be sure to catch live
editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harman weekdays
at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific. For everybody on
Twitter that wants to spell my name n A n ceed,
you guys are idiots? How is that trending? I've done

(15:55):
every final four in national title game since nineteen ninety one,
and tonight's my last one. Blank you You guys all suck.
Congrats Yukon, you're the champs. Well, I'm I'm signing off
angry like Jim Nance right now. I'm an angry mateful
Skin sucked my final tournament. Congratulations to Yukon, well deserved,

(16:18):
well played run through the tournament. San Diego State made
it interesting late, but just not enough firepower to overcome
that early drought. And but for Jim Nance, yeah, I
gotta imagine a little bit anticlimactic this game. Why not?
Maybe this is the game that tells him. I guess
I should retire because you know, both teams want to

(16:40):
combine eighty seven minutes without scoring. Okay, I guess, I guess. Oh,
it's like everything I like. You can't wait for perfection now.
They always say getting married, having a kid, moving whenever,
There's never a right time, buying a house, selling a house,
Like all, there's never a right time. There's always something
that tells you to not do something right now. Al

(17:00):
Michaels is sending Jim Nance text the Carmelo Anthony text
we send to each other, where he nodding his head
like YE told you the game sucked, don't they? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But thanks to Kinsey Jacobs, he just pulled the curtain
back on half of our correspondence between me, you, and Frostburg.
One of us will throw up a story, one of
the others will throw up that Carmelo Anthony nodding things

(17:22):
I didn't have on my Bengo card tonight getting Carmelo
gift in the show. Yeah, there we got that is
it to pull the curtain back? That is the most common.
That is the most common gift that we send to
each other, is the one of Melo nodding his head.
That's better than Yukon winning the title. I guess, I
guess the other one that would be on the Mets.
Can't say it, ask you with that's your opinion. That's true,

(17:43):
that's true. Now there are some other ones. Should I
go throw? There's a couplet as no matter why. We'll
save that for a podcast in the new studio going forward. Look,
Yukon wins the national title, and you know we'll get
into their important just what they're Look, they're the preeminent
program in college basketball right now. If you had a
four seed beat a five seed who knocked out a

(18:06):
nine seed to make it to the national championship game.
We had two sixteens beat ones in this NCAA tournament.
It was insane, it was fun. I didn't care we
didn't have the blue bloods. I didn't care that the
good teams are the historical good teams weren't there because
we had Aaron Rodgers and Lamar Jackson talk about the
last few weeks, but the big lesson coming off of this,

(18:27):
This is why I know the tournaments going to ninety
six teams at some point in the next couple of years,
because we have now taken and thanks Casey Jacobson for
joining us, and you know he helped spotlight this A
little bit. More is that we've found out that when
sixteens can beat ones and any team can make the
final four. No, not any team can win the national
championship because eventually the lights get too bright. They got

(18:48):
too bright for San Diego State tonight. But any team
can make the final four, any team, any team can
now make the final four. If that's the case, then
when you are talking about any team, when sixteens can
beat ones and fifteens can beat twos more often than
we've ever seen in the past, and five twelves are

(19:09):
no longer upsets, six to elevens are no longer upsets.
These are the bottom teams that are getting in over
the teams that gets snubbed. And there's a large list
of teams that have very similar resumes that gets snubbed.
And I used to be okay, with the fact that
you know, you kept the tournament where it is because
I would always say, nobody gets left out that can

(19:29):
make the Sweet sixteen. There's nobody left out of the
tournament that can win their first two games and make
it to the sweet sixteen. But now, as I said,
that's no longer the case. Now anybody can make the
not just Sweet sixteen, anybody can make the Final four.
So if you're talking about a lot of Power five
teams that finish in the middle of their conference, right
like the teams that finish seven, eight nine in the
Big Ten or in the Big twelve or the ACC

(19:52):
And then you have some of the lower conferences, some
of the mid major conferences where boy, maybe there's a
couple two or three teams that are really good that
are thirty one and three or thirty two and two,
and we're only taking one team. If that's the case
and these teams are moving on, then how can you
say we're not missing out on a potential Final four
team that's left out of the tournament. So if we're

(20:13):
if we're potentially missing out on teams that can go far,
then yeah, you have to expand the tournament. You got
to find a way to make the regular season worth something.
And maybe it's you get to a certain seed and
you you have to buy the first couple of rounds
and you get into the NCAA tournay. Hey, great, you've
got to buy the first couple of rounds and the
other teams will have to play more and sweat more.
I'm all for that. Hey, you want you, you're upset

(20:35):
about you. You should have won more in the regular season,
But the fact that you're getting in and you get
a chance, I can't really argue against that. And now,
and I don't know that that's any longer going to
be something that you can stem the tide on because
for the longest time it's always been ad not enough people. AD. Yeah,
you expand the tournament, expand the tournament. You get coaches
talking about it, but it's never really looked at. But
now that it's become a thing where coaches are saying, wow,

(20:59):
I'm getting knocked out of the tournament this earlier, I'm
not making the tournament. Now these mid major teams are
making it. My tenure here, I'm getting fired sooner because
I can't get my teams in the tournament more there's
going to be more impetus and more momentum to move
into a bigger tournament. And that's going to be jobs
kept by coaches who, now, hey, I'm a tournament team

(21:19):
the last three years. Yeah, well you were the eighty
four team. Doesn't matter, I got in the tournament. So
more coaches will keep their jobs with the coaches like that,
More kids will get to play in the tournament, so hey,
the kids will like that, more money for the schools.
Because if you watch two games on Thursday and for
two days of TV on Thursday and Friday with sixteen
games each day, you're sure as hell gonna watch Tuesday
and Wednesday with sixteen games each day. And Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

(21:41):
Mind they do there, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of sixteen games.
Of course, you're gonna be in a TV coma and
you're not gonna care because it's basketball, but all the
way through, and it's upsets and craziness. And when you
can't bank on the blue blood teams, the true blue bloods,
the Dukes and the Carolinas and the Kansass and the
Kentucky's making it far in the tournament, how do you
combat that, how do you combat? Well, wait, if we

(22:02):
get down to the end here and you're talking about
fours and fives and nine seeds, are people really gonna watch?
That's how you do it. And and for the longest
time I was like, no, keep the tournament here, keep
it now, like now, like, you can't, you can't, you
can't not move it out to ninety six teams. Well,
there's two things. Either you expand it right and that
becomes the catch all. And look, whenever it gets down

(22:22):
to it, you know my analysis, If it's gonna make
everybody money, it's gonna make everybody happy. Now there's gonna
be the pitfalls and the growing pains of how you
implement it. And this is where your advanced metrics people
have to be better, and you've got to hunker down
on some agreed upon algorithm. All Right, we go back
to Yukon and they're seventeen and oz non conference, still

(22:46):
going into the regular seed. Now case he was on board,
was everybody else? This is a lot? Well that's pretty good,
but are we buying that this is a team that
will stand the test time? So this is where you
start doing the metrics based on quality of opponent and
all of those things. The things you do at the
back end, but you apply it throughout the years, so
we have a pretty good idea of where everybody stands.

(23:07):
And maybe it also ratchets up the non conference schedule
because you need a little bit of love if you're
gonna be able to get a bye week, if there
are some incentivizations that are going to go to it.
So on that side, you know, for me, it's the
economics of it wins out every time, is especially in
this new age, as Casey alluded to the fact that

(23:30):
you're you're in this wild West period of trying to
hunker down on where the rules fall. The COVID year
is one that definitely needs to be taken into place
because some of these folks have another year that A
or two drew. Timmy has four more years left at KNACK.
I think he got four for everybody's one. He's got
not quite more non style but close. It's gonna be

(23:51):
thirty next year. You know what they gave me four?
I got four extras. But but that helps keep teams
together or guys get into the transfer portal as graduate transfers.
We've got all different permutations that are working together now
and you're still trying to figure out how do you
adjudicate in your last vestiges of power as the NC

(24:13):
double A, you know, how you control the mechanics of this,
and while that is still going on, well, one thing
you can do is make sure you capture as much
cash for your member schools as you can. And that's
expanding said tournament ninety six teams. Forget about oh, four
more teams seventy ninety six, because now you're letting in

(24:34):
from the Power five cup. Let's just say, now you're
going from sixty eight to ninety six. So that's what
twenty eight more teams. Think about this for a second,
twenty eight more teams. So you are allowing, let's be conservative,
can be conservative, four teams, four more teams from the
Power five conferences, four more teams from power from each
Power five cups. So that's twenty teams. Then you're letting
in eight more mid majors. All right, so we're covering. Okay,

(24:59):
hey that yes, you're in, you're in. You're everybody wins.
Everybody wins that even you say, okay, less, maybe let
in three teams and maybe you you you make some
sort of denominational line that you have to be at
least five hundred in conference. You can't be under five
hundred in conference and qualify. You have to be you know,
certain number. You have to have twenty wins to be

(25:19):
able to go than at twenty seven five at the CBI. Yeah,
and oh oh, or you just pay your way in.
How much money do I have to pay to get
in the NZA tournament. Everybody's got a price. So there's
different ways to do it, so it doesn't look like, well,
we're just you know, you're allowing you know, uh, you're
allowing a team in at fourteen and eighteen. You know
that that shouldn't be in. So there's ways to do it.

(25:40):
And maybe then hey, we don't have enough power fives
to fill it out, say this is going to be
a year where more majors get in. Get it. I mean,
I don't see how you don't do it that way, because,
as we've seen, the way forward in sports is not
less playoffs. It's more so you're only just stemming the
tide as long as you can until the next expansion. Anyway,
and you get to ninety six teams and you're gonna

(26:00):
see this, it will be an insane month of college
basketball where you are protecting against Hey, the star teams
might not be there with the sheer lunacy of the
upset teams. Because let's be honest, looking at this tournament,
can you say you missed having Duke. I didn't miss Duke.
I mean I missed my team being in it. But
did I miss Duke not going far? Did I miss

(26:22):
North Carolina not being in? Did I miss Kansas? No?
Because the upsets are fun and you get to see
schools that you don't know. But anyway, and let's face it,
the average fan, when you're coming in out of college basketball,
it's become a one month sport. Well, because that's the
other part right now, the first argument that anybody would
make to your ninety six team is you're devaluing once

(26:42):
again the regular season. And I'll say this outside, like
from a national perspective, and this is where I'm sure
in your towns at Swollen Dome spell it right. For
all the hate mail that I'm about to receive is
that nobody's paying attention to March. To your point of
it's a one month season once you get to the
conference tournaments, people start paying attention. Then we get to

(27:05):
filling out our brackets. Now all the casual folks, look,
I followed the Big Ten, I love and I'm a
Big Ten apologist, so I'm in. You've got me. There's
not everybody's like me. They casually look at the score
sheets and box scores. Maybe they make a bet here
and there, or they're at a bar and they'll catch
a game, or there's a player that they hear about,

(27:27):
a transcendent guy like a Zion Williamson that draws them in.
Otherwise they're not hanging around. So you're not devaluing the
regular season because the people that really you're trying to
draw it that they're not necessarily paying attention. No, it's
become And tell Matt Painter that that's that's a problem
because you don't hate Duke like you used to, all right,

(27:47):
when when Duke for a long time, les evolved and
the fact that we don't see Look, the basketball isn't
on the level that it used to be. Right, You
see lots of guys because everybody's going one and done
going to the NBA. Some guys takes three years to
make it in the NBA to become a really good player.
College basketball has replaced quality, and you got to replace
it with quantity. Right when you don't have the quality,

(28:09):
you have to have the quantity. And if the NFL
ever got to a point where hey, no one watched
the Super Bowl because it was the Jaguars and the Lions,
well you know, the NFL's okay, Well, you know, we
got to add more teams to the playoffs. Then we
gotta add we got to add more teams in. But
college basketball is that first sport where now it's about
quantity and and that's and that's how you how do

(28:30):
we cover It's not is it the greatest thing to do, No,
but it's the thing that makes the most sense. You
go quantity over quality because that's how you fix the
tournament and say, okay, now let's make it even better,
make it even bigger. Be sure to catch live editions
of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harman weekdays at
ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
and the iHeart Radio app. For everybody at CBS I've

(28:53):
worked with over the last thirty years, I'll see a
Thursday at the Masters, a tradition unlike any other kind
of like this game, I'm jim Nance. But if you
don't work both sides of the aisle here, I'll see
you in hell. We had a good run. Oh man,
you Connie, your national champs. They thump San Diego State

(29:13):
seventy six fifty nine. And once again, it's been a
long way to go. But once again, I can tell
you without any sort of doubt, and this is not
me having old pride thinking about games in the nineties
early two thousands, unless it is once again, the Big
East is the best conference in college basketball. Back Benny again,

(29:36):
like the Lakers, right, I think Lebron will take credit
for the Big East as well, you know, because you
like how he's taken credit now for the Lakers come back.
He's he was hurt. He's been back like three games outs. Hey,
it's about our will to winn a championship. Dude. They
were winning without dude for like three and a half weeks.
Frost Brick. If I'm not mistaken over the last twenty games,

(29:56):
are they not the first or second best defense in
the game, right? I mean we're talking about a team
that has been getting it done while he was in
a suit. Now, does he says he had superpowers like
Greg Guineer, an anchor man too, and he was having
things happened with his mind. The Big East is once

(30:17):
again the best conference because now we've we've always talked
about hey kind of power five, but power six in
college basketball with the Big East. But this year you
look at the top of the league, Marquette, Xavier, Creton
nearly made it to the national Championship, Yukon wins at all.
To illustrate that the Big East is the best conference.
I'm not even gonna talk about those teams because I

(30:37):
can easily say Yukon wins, Creton's almost there, Xavier was
there market No, no, no no, no, I didn't need that.
I'm gonna look at the bottom of the bleep in conference. Okay,
the bottom of the bleep in conference. The worst four
teams in the Big East this year Saint John who
the hell wants to watch? Saint John, Butler, De Paul,

(30:58):
and Georgetown. Okay, your worst four teams, Saint John's, Butler,
to Paul and Georgetown. They won each in conference seven, six,
three and two games. Right, Saint John's is seven and thirteen,
Butler is six and fourteen to Paul is three and seventeen.
Georgetown is two and eighteen. Okay, so they were all
terrible right in conference. To me, you are all equally worthless, Right,

(31:20):
they were all terrible. That was their their overall conference record.
The four teams I'm telling you about, right, four teams overall.
This is how bad they were they were in conference.
Let me get my tweet back up here, because I
just had it out there. The four worst teams in
the Big East in conference were eighteen and sixty two, Right,

(31:42):
eighteen and sixty two in conference, eighteen wins, sixty two losses.
We made a big deal about Yukon out of conference, right,
going seventeen and ozero and winning every game by at
least ten points, which is the mark of how good
a conference is. When boy, here's a team out of
conference that finished fourth and went on to beat everybody
and beat him back. The bottom four teams out of conference,

(32:04):
these four teams that could barely get a win in conference,
These bottom four teams total thirty one in nineteen out
of conference. Third the worst four teams thirty one in
nineteen Saint John's Butler to Paul and Georgetown. That's how
good that shows you how good a conference is. You'll
get the bottom and they go out of conference and

(32:24):
they don't. They're not just five hundred. They win way
more often out of conference. Saint Johns was eleven and
two out of conference, Butler was eight and four to
Paul again three and seventeen, seven and six outside of conference,
Georgetown two and eighteen, five and seven out of conference.
They all won out of conference. Where it gets fun
is both Saint John's and George Shot have already replaced

(32:45):
their coaches. Yeah, well, we're working to replace their coach.
Well yeah, well Patrick, when you look at us, like
twenty five games in a row, like Patrick h he
needed to hug on the way out, and they can't stand.
But at some point you recognize, all right, just because
you were in great here, we need to ways it's
not working. But you bring in Pettino, and you bring
him in. Yeah. Do you really think Saint John's isn't
going to be markedly better right away with Rick Petino?

(33:08):
Of course they are. He's gonna recruit Madison Square guard
in New York. Of course, the Big East is back
and there once again the best conference. He's got Billy
Joel ready to sing a song for him. It's Taylor
May everybody from New York. James Dolan will do a
song for him if he wants him to. Can you
fill the garden on nights and Knicks aren't playing because
the Knicks are back? Yeah? Yeah, I can do it.
I can do it all right? Ready? Anna one, Anna two,

(33:29):
Anna three? And we love Rick Pettino. It's a song
I'm making up now. It's like a Christmas holiday song.
Rick Pettino's great. Hey, hey, hey, come play for Saint
John's on James Dolan. Now, it's what he would do.
It's pretty good. Sorry, I know that was good. Why
do they go to I want Christmas? I want hollow holiday? Holiday?
Holiday holiday? Well, because you know Elvis saying why can't

(33:50):
every day be like Christmas? Maybe you think James Dolan
loo way Yeah, well I bet you that freestyle song
better than any song James Dolan has done with his band. Well,
he might not write them. This is the thing You
think he lets somebody else? Well, I think he just
wants a wicked guitar solo and everyone. Why is this
lyric about Carmelo Anthony? I don't understand. How does this work?

(34:13):
And when Carmelo came to down. But look the Big East.
For a long time it was royalty. It was the
big physical battles with Syracuse and Georgetown, and you can
end Villanova and Pittsburgh. And now it's okay. Now it's
a different conference, and it's it's conference that will bludge
in you and will beat you up. At everybody the
top of the conference, beating everybody out of conference, the

(34:35):
bottom of the conference, beating teams out of conference. I mean,
there you go. That's what you need. It's all you
need to all right, look at that the Big East
back once you get math, look at it. Yeah, I
don't after all these years, man, I got you a little.
I checked your math the entire way as you did
and it was right. Well it was right, But I said,
did it in like ten seconds? You like? I think
I got it right? I need I need a timeout.

(34:55):
I think I get it right. It's time out. More
on the Big Now. Championship win by Yukon next Fox