March 17, 2020 • 44 mins
Pac-12 Networks’ Mike Yam and Don MacLean react to the cancellation of the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments and tell the story of how they found out about the news (2:45). They discuss the tremendous season of Payton Pritchard (11:35), and lament that he and other Pac-12 seniors will not end their careers in the NCAA Tournament. Mike and Don look back at some of the big storylines from the season (16:45), and relive the exciting finish of Oregon State's win over Utah in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament (18:22). They also look ahead to next season, and discuss some of the early favorites to win the conference (23:20). On “Storytime with Don MacLean” Don also wonders if the absence of an NCAA Tournament might convince more players to stay in school instead of declaring for the NBA Draft (25:50).
Pac-12 Deputy Commissioner & Chief Operating Officer Jamie Zaninovich joins the podcast (28:30), and explains how the decision was made to cancel the Pac-12 tournament. Jamie discusses the coaches' reaction to the cancellation of the tournament (36:00), and also gives an update on the likelihood of winter and spring athletes receiving an extra year of eligibility (37:30).
Pac-12 Deputy Commissioner & Chief Operating Officer Jamie Zaninovich joins the podcast (28:30), and explains how the decision was made to cancel the Pac-12 tournament. Jamie discusses the coaches' reaction to the cancellation of the tournament (36:00), and also gives an update on the likelihood of winter and spring athletes receiving an extra year of eligibility (37:30).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Ah, Jill, great the ballbaby, Let's go. This is Inside
the Pack twelve podcast. Put ona pair of your headphones and fall back
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(00:24):
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(00:45):
go far, be on the starsto take you from conference play all the
way to the final four with somehoop kind of swords, just walking you
through the game. I hit yourhost Mike Gamm and the board dumb acclaim,
Hey, welcome to the podcast.This is certainly a different vibe than
we are used to. Don Iknow, not a huge change for you
in terms of location. I amcurrently in my apartment here in San Francisco.
(01:08):
Our studios right now are closed down. I'm in a city that we're
not supposed to be leaving on us. We're going for groceries or going to
the pharmacy. We are allowed toleave the apartment to exercise outdoors. But
this is as wild and weird acouple of days that I've ever been a
part of in my entire life,and obviously is permeated into the sports world.
(01:30):
You and I were in Vegas aweek ago and the Pactual tournament was
canceled, the NBA suspended their season. The NC Double A Tournament also canceled
their season. The ripple effect onis now gone to sports. But the
biggest thing is, we hope ifyou're listening to this podcast, you are
safe. You are at home,washing your hands, using the hand sanitizer,
and hopefully aren't dealing with some ofthe symptoms that come with the coronavirus.
(01:55):
Yeah, you know what, Yeah, it's scary time to as much
as you and I spend on basketball in college basketball in the Pac twelve,
this what going what's going on rightnow supersedes all that, So I
echo what you said. Hopefully everybody'sdoing the smart thing and staying home and
doing all the hygiene things that you'resupposed to be doing. But but it
(02:16):
is unfortunate because the sports world isso much a part of all of our
lives, and not just college basketball, but the NBA and other sports too,
and everyone's being impacted and you feelbad for people that frankly can't go
to work, can't make money,and so it's unfortunate. But let's let's
do our best, you and Ito kind of talk about some of this
(02:36):
stuff and then recap what was thisyear in the PAC twelve, which,
by the year, was a greatyear and unfortunately it came to an early,
an early end. Today hit youat a certain point, it did,
I'll tell you exactly. Yeah,when it hit me and you were
still working. I was at ourspot on Wednesday night because I did the
first two games, and you knowit's spot I'm talking about, and I'm
(02:57):
looking at my phone waiting for mymeal to come. And when I saw
NBA season canceled, that's when ithit me like a ton of bricks,
because you know, we had allheard and like what was going on in
China and then what was happening inEurope, and you knew something big was
kind of brewing. But when theNBA canceled their season, I was like,
oh my goodness, here we go, because I knew that was just
(03:17):
going to be the first of manythings to be canceled. And obviously I
thought about all of us and doingthe Pac twelve tournament wasn't going to continue,
And so watched the end of ourstuff on Wednesday night, our games
and your postgame show, and thenwoke up Thursday morning wondering, you know,
were we going to continue? AndI actually saw Larry Myers, our
(03:38):
boss, in the gym on Thursdaymorning, and at that point it was
like eight am. They weren't sureif the tournament was going to go on
or not, and it just didn'tfeel right at that point, Yam,
like, even if they had decided, because it hadn't become whatever that they
were going to play, it justdidn't feel right to continue on. I
had just gotten news like five minutesearlier that my friend Donovan Mitchell had gotten
(04:00):
the coronavirus, so that kind ofput me in a bad way too.
But I think everybody got it rightin getting out ahead of this thing and
canceling most everything from that point thatpoint on, you know, what's interesting
about it because that's your entry point. And I don't know if you felt
like you called the first two gamesa day one of the tournament, and
(04:20):
you know you're focused in on thosegames. Now I'm watching the games,
and I was actually telling Yogi Rothor our good friends about kind of that
experience on his podcast, and Ididn't want like Mulebach is with me and
R Watson, right, So likeday one, the two of those guys
are on set, and obviously thatthe early sessions on day one typically donn
(04:40):
and you know this, like they'renot packed, right, so we have
an opportunity so we could sit,you know, court side. We were
actually, you know, a coupleseats down from the Tinkle sisters for that
first game, which was an incrediblewin by Oregon State, and want to
get your take on that. Butyou know, I was sitting there and
I just felt it felt weird tome, being I didn't feel right.
So I actually stood up and Iwatched pretty much all the Day one sessions
(05:04):
at our set in a roped offarea. Now it was a great view
of the game and close to thebench, so I could listen to the
coaches and the players but while you'redoing the shows, Like, to me,
that's a distraction. But donn andyou know how I interact with you
in our studio, join our commercialbreaks, like you and I are goofing
around all the time when I'm doingthese shows, Like I'm going right to
(05:25):
the hand sanitizer and I haven't eventouched anything but my area and my microphone
and my iPad, which, bythe way, every single time we finished
the show, I'm wiping everything downas if ten twenty thirty people touched it,
like it just doing the show wasthe distraction. Yeah, And I
think the different the differences, Yamen, when you do two games in a
(05:45):
row like me and roxy do andAshley, you kind of just get lost
in it. And it didn't feelanything out of the ordinary, I think
because I try and lock in andfocus on what's going on and remember all
the storylines for the teams that areplaying and all that stuff, and so
I guess I didn't have as muchtime to stop and think about all this
stuff. I think the other thingthat got me going, and this kind
(06:06):
of was before the NBA canceled theirseason, was when they announced that our
venue was going to be closed tothe public and that these games, and
I was already starting to think aboutthat how were we going to generate energy
for our broadcast and how that wasgoing to look and feel with no fans
in the arena. But yeah,it once it got to Wednesday night,
(06:28):
it became a whole different animal forme, and unfortunately it progressed to where
it is now. Well, Thursday, we obviously there were no games,
so we had a meeting and allthe on air folks that were there,
we're all in a room and we'rebeing told kind of what's happening. And
I had to do a quick littleinterview with Larry Scott, the commissioner of
the pactwelve conference. And by theway, Jami's Zenovich, who's the deputy
commissioner, is going to be joiningus a little bit later. I want
(06:50):
to get his take on kind ofthe decision process, take take everyone through
some of the ramifications of not havinga tournament. And there's been some talk
about extra eligibility for some seniors,so we'll talk to Jamie about that later
in the show. But after thathit with Larry Scott that I had to
do, you know, immediately it'slike, all right, well, how
am I getting home and there's thismad rush you get to the airport,
(07:11):
you're traveling. You actually drove toVegas because you were having traveled. That
became yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I mean I thought that was going
to be our story. I thoughtwe were gonna have these games and we
were going to tell a story.If you needed an oil change an hour
into that drive and you still maderecord time to Vegas. Yeah, it
just you know. I woke upFriday morning and I thought to myself,
(07:33):
don we're supposed to be getting readyfor I was like, my Friday plan
in Vegas was workout. Casey Jacobsonwas going to have a pizza joint that
he told me I had to goto in Vegas, and then I was
gonna get ready for the Semis.And then it hit me all the hard
work. How many hours done didwe spend this season watching the games,
soaking it all in? The playerswho probably get out, travel all these
(07:55):
types of things, and now theseseniors they don't even get a payoff.
Like I'm thinking to myself, Ithought we were going to get upsets on
day two based off I thought WashingtonDay was going to be a sum I
thought cal could maybe give you claput like we were going to get these
great games and a payoff with achampion at the end of the season,
and it doesn't happen. And Ifeel awful for a lot of the student
athlete, all the student athletes thatwere still alive in the tournament and thought
(08:20):
that they were going to be dancingin the month of March. Yeah,
but again going back to what youjust said, you know, for me,
by Friday morning, I think,I think I think Thursday morning is
whenever it started to get real foreverybody. It did for me. And
I'm talking to my wife. She'stelling me how the kids are freaking out
because more information. You know,we're a basketball family. So the NBA
(08:41):
canceling the season obviously hits my boy'sart, not from the standpoint that they
don't get to watch it, justI think the enormity of it hit everybody
that if the NBA's canceled in theirseason, man, this thing must be
big. And so you know,it's it's so ironic that I was so
frustrated that I had to drive toVegas, But it turned out to be
the best thing because I'll tell you, yeam that once I was watching the
(09:01):
TV all morning, and once Isaw that they came on in the PAC
twelve announced that they were canceling therest of the tournament. I was literally
on the freeway in fifteen minutes,you know, because I wanted to get
back to my family and get backto them, and we didn't know where
this thing was going, what elsethey were going to cancel, what was
going to happen. But that tome became more important than all this.
(09:24):
And we will talk about what itmeans for these seniors and the players that
don't get to experience potentially winning aPAC twelve tournament championship, but also we
were on course for a record numberof teams getting into the NCAA tournament again
and all those players that now don'tget that opportunity. So I guess there's
no other way to put it,Yam. You and I could go back
and forth about what it meant tous and what happened and travel and all
(09:46):
that, but at the end ofthe day, it's just unfortunate for everyone.
So I want to spend some timeon this podcast celebrating the season because
I think there's a lot of positives, and I'll start with what you just
said and the fact that there wasan opportunity and I don't know if it
was going to play out that way. You and I were going to do
Selection Sunday together in our Pactual Networkstudio and you know, tomorrow or later
(10:09):
today, I don't know when Ari, who's producing this, is going to
release. We're going to get anopportunity to talk to McKinley wright, who
had tweeted on Selection Sunday just abroken heart emoji, and I want to
get his take on the season andkind of his experiences. And that's going
to be the other podcast or interviewpodcast that we do. But I want
to take people back, and thisis the last time on this podcast.
I want to I shouldn't promise that, but I was going to say,
(10:31):
I don't want to talk too muchabout the coronavirus. I want people to
get an opportunity to think about thehard work a lot of these players put
forth and the coaching staffs. Theday before the tournament every every year,
Kyle Reischling, who's one of ourkind of head haunt, shows on the
remote side, so he handles allof our game broadcast. He organizes a
meeting and Tuesday night before the tournamentstarts, before day one, there's a
(10:56):
meeting and it's everyone. If you'rein the truck, if you're a producer,
if you are anyone who's in partof our coverage on Impactful of Network
is in this meeting. And everysingle year done it's the same thing.
At the end of the meeting,someone says to you, all right,
so don like you, what doyou what do you think of the season?
And you hold court for a coupleof minutes, and I think there's
(11:16):
a lot of respect that you havefrom everyone in that room that you're given
that opportunity. Like I would Iwould compare it to like you're you know,
when we've launched Rick new Heisel wasthat guy on the football side.
I think Yogi's that guy for usnow. And you've always been that basketball
guy and you would say, hey, look, you could talk about all
the seven teams, I can bein the dance and all that stuff,
but you had said something that resonatedwith me on this podcast. He's been
(11:37):
a guest. We've talked about him, I feel like every single show,
but it's still not enough. Andthat's Peyton Pritchard and at least from a
Newsy standpoint, was going through myemail today and this is just sort of
an awesome thing. Peyton Pritchard,you said, wasn't getting enough credit for
what he's been able to do.Is saying something because the amount of attention
we give him, but he's beenthat good. But he was named the
(12:00):
five finalist for the Naysmith Award,which doesn't happen that often in our conference,
one of the five best players nationally. He told us he wanted to
show everyone that he was the best, not only point guard in this conference,
but maybe the best point guard orplayer in the entire country. So
you kind of went through that beforethe tournament, and I just I think
it's important to start with maybe theultimate positive, and that's Pritchard getting the
(12:22):
credit that he deserves well. Andthe point I brought up and I thought
about it a lot driving to Vegas, ironically enough, was that you know,
we haven't seen or haven't seen anindividual performance like Pritchard's in some time
from a guy that had been there. Now, we saw DeAndrea in a
couple of years ago dominate the league, but he was a for sure one
and done number one pick in thedraft, so I was looking I was
(12:43):
talking more about people that had spentat least a couple of years in the
league and put together seasons and whattheir career resume look like. And to
cap it off, the way thatPritchard has capped off his Oregon career is
unbelievable. I mean, forget leadingthe conference in points and assists, but
like the game winners, the shotshe tied games with, just his overall
(13:05):
presence and the amount of respect withwhich coaches were talking about him, other
players were talking about him. Wejust haven't seen that, and I still
and I haven't put a whole lotof thought to it because of what's been
going on. But like, youhave to go back pretty far to find
an individual season from a multi yearguy in our league that had the year
that Peyton Pritchard had, And wedon't even know what Oregon was going to
(13:28):
do. They could have ripped throughthe pactwelve tournament again and won that,
they won the regular season conference title, and who knows what they do in
the NCAA tournament. So now you'repiling on to that legacy even more.
If Oregon did what we all thoughtthat they could do and that's make a
deep run in the NCAA tournament.So yes, we did give him a
lot of love, and I knowhe did, all of us did on
(13:48):
every broadcast, but I just feltlike it wasn't it wasn't stated high enough.
Just how great of a year hehad had Patrol Player the Year almost
twenty one points, almost six assists. I mean the guys that have done
that in our league, I meanDamon Stodemeyer, Jason Terry, Gary Payton
(14:09):
pays a year. Yeah, theywere National Players of the Year, those
guys. So to your point,a really special season. I saw the
press conference that Oregon Hale with Pritchardand Dane Altman. M Pritchard was actually
asked if he was given an opportunityto head back and was given more eligibility.
He said he probably wouldn't take thatpath. And we can understand that,
(14:30):
right. I mean, he's aguy that's, you know, going
to be playing at the next level. I'm not sure where he gets drafted
or if he's you know, afree agent who gets an opportunity to pick
his team, which would be kindof cool as well. Real quick,
every every NBA personnel guy that Italked to through the course of the season,
his name and inevitably came up,and every one of them said the
(14:52):
same thing you just said. Notsure if he's a second rounder, if
he's an undraft, or even afirst rounder, but he's an NBA player.
So Peyton Pritchard's gonna make someone's roster. It's just going to be interesting
to see the path he has totake to be on someone's roster at the
NBA level. I think there's someinteresting different storylines with regard to guys that
could leave and play at the nextlevel down We do a segment on this
(15:15):
show where you take an individual playerand you talk about his prospects in the
NBA and Cjlb's name has come upbefore for whatever reason, And I don't
know if it's because he put ona show against Colorado and he goes for
thirty and just kind of has thisaura about him. I did my best
to put the full court on himwhen he joined us right after that win
on our set Impactual of Networks andhe you don't have to go, But
(15:37):
how difficult do you think it isfor some of these players who didn't get
an opportunity to play in the ncdouble A tournament. To make a decision
like that, it's tough. Ithink. You know, Lab probably wasn't
going to play in the nca tournamentunless they won the Pact tournament. But
there are other guys that will havea decision to make and miss the rest
(16:00):
of the PAC twelve tournament but thenalso missing the nca tournament. How much
does that mean to you? Youknow, the NBA calendar is going to
be a little screwed up now withearly entry stuff and pre draft process.
When's the draft actually going to be. It's probably not going to be in
June now, So does that factorinto your decision? Do you have more
time less time to make decisions?But I think we'll see. I think
(16:22):
we'll see which guys when they comeout and say I'm coming back to school
because I want to play in theNCAA tournament, and I think there will
be some of those. I thinkthere will be guys that come out and
flat out say I want to playin the NCAA tournament. That's why I'm
coming back to school. But it'sit's a big deal to play in the
NCAA tournament, and so we'll see. I think It'll be a case by
case basis for sure. Will wetake the macro view of some of our
(16:47):
teams in this conference? This wason pace for historic here. It was
a great season for the league.How are you going to remember the year?
Well, unfortunately, we're all goingto remember based on what we're talking
about now, and that's it endingearly, not finishing the PAC twelve tournament
in potentially seven teams playing in theNCAA tournament that there's no NCAA tournament that's
(17:08):
happening. But what I'm going toremember is the three new head coaches and
just how shocking their immediate success was. The run that mc cronin made mid
middle of the conference season to bethe two seed in Vegas was incredible.
Cal winning way more games than wethought, Washington State winning way more games
than we thought. And the reasonI say that first, Yam, is
(17:30):
because those three are really a bigreason why we were set up so well
to start the conference season because ofhow well those three teams and our other
teams did in November and December.So now you have a balanced competitive conference
where there wasn't a ton of landmineslike last year. Like oh, if
you lose to so and so yournet's going to drop twenty five points.
(17:52):
It wasn't like that. There wasonly opportunities now to help yourself once we
got into the conference season, andI think a big part of that was
that the bottom was way stronger thanit's been in a while, especially compared
to last year. So I thinkI'll remember just the top to bottom balance
of the conference, the new headcoaches that had that early success, and
(18:14):
that you know, we're set uppretty good. It's just unfortunate that if
we were getting seven in those sevenaren't getting a chance to play in March
Madness. You mentioned March Madness,and there's you know, Oregon State wasn't
a team that was going to getinto the tournament without winning the PAC twelve
tournament in Vegas. I have tweetedthis a couple of times. The shot
of March is tinkle the Lucas,I mean, and you called back for
(18:37):
us against Utah, I mean,and that was when Plumber goes for thirty
five in a Utah you to formand that dude hits eleven three. I
mean, that was a wild,wild game. And I think if you're
a fan knowing that at least youhad something like that, and I'm sure
the rears are all over the placeImpact twelve network like that is. That's
at least something that you can holdon to as a sportsman. But you
(18:59):
know what that's that makes it Youknow, it's funny. I'm listening to
that and you're, yeah, itmakes it worse. Like we have a
hundred moments like that, Um,what a game and Plumber just put on
a show, couldn't miss. We'veseen that hardly very often where a guy
well we've never seen it in ourconference, but for a guy to go
off like that. But that's whatyou love about March. Like like Jared
Lucas hits the game winner to moveon to the next round. Everybody's like,
(19:22):
no offense to Jared, but everyone'slike, who wait, who hit
the game winner? But that's Marchand that's conference basketball tournaments, that's the
NCAA tournament where unexpected people do unexpectedthings to win games. And you wonder
where Wayne was going with that play. I knew the ball was going to
be in trace his hands at somepoint, but was it for him to
shoot or was it for him tomake a play? And Lucas had already
(19:45):
hit three threes in that second half, so why not And in a great
decision and a great setup by Trace, and give Jared credit, he knocked
it down to win the game forhim. All Right, I hate to
play the one if game, butI'm gonna do it anyway, because I
told you Friday. I woke upand and I was like, oh my
God, like we should be gettingready for the Semis and we obviously didn't
get that. I've been opening upmy laptop over the last few days,
(20:07):
or my iPad, and I openedup the laptop. First thing I see
is Pack twelve of our research teamputs together all these notes. It's the
first thing that pops. Somebody's kindof like, oh Jesus, I go
onto my iPad. I got thebracket there for the tournament. We're gonna
play the one if game. Didyou see something on day one that changed
your thought about who could win theconference or if you thought maybe we see
(20:30):
even more upsets as this thing continueto unfold. I mean, the easy
answer is that we'd see more upsetsjust because we saw a lot of upsets
and how competitive and even the conferencewas top to bottom, that you would
you would you would sense that therewould be more upsets. But what happens
when you when you see upsets onday one, it kind of puts the
teams that aren't playing till day twoon high alert, you know, so
(20:53):
it almost like, oh, waita second, if we don't come to
play, we can get beat likeColorado and Stanford did. They were the
six and seven seed and loss tohigher seeds. Um, my guests,
if we're doing the what if game? Is that I thought Oregon, with
getting Dante back, um, understandingthe moment, understanding what they did last
year in that tournament, I hada feeling that Oregon was going to win
(21:15):
it. But that doesn't mean therewouldn't have been more upsets. I mean,
could could we have seen you know, you mentioned it earlier. Could
we have seen Cal beat UCLA andall of a sudden they're in the semi
finals against or against Arizona State orWashington State. Um, to me,
the best game of day two wasgoing to be Arizona USC and like that's
a monster game, um with withwith the winner playing Oregon. So um
(21:40):
if Oregon, if Oregon beat OregonState? So yeah, a lot of
what ifs and and that's the bummerof it. And that's why I say,
like, I wish we could haveseen all that, and I wish
we could have seen how that unfoldedand see, you know, if there
were more upsets or not. Yeah, you're right, I mean, because
Arizona SC. Like I was talkingabout this with our our good friend Guy
Hayraman, who had mentioned this tome as we were dissecting the bracket the
other day. He goes, Man, if you're Oregon the past, to
(22:03):
win this thing is is more difficultthan you if you were UM, UCLA
or a SU just based on thoseteams, because you get SC, who
I thought had the second best chanceto win this thing behind Oregon, but
they would have been playing they wouldhave beat Oregon, would have been playing
either an SEC team or an Arizonateam that had just beaten Washington who people
felt good about and then just beatUSC to get to that matchup against the
(22:26):
Ducks. So it is wild.And that's if they beat Oregon State.
Yeah Steam earlier in the year.I mean, Oregon State has confidence in
beating Oregon and not only that,they have confidence in winning a good game.
They survived Alfonso Plumber in one,how confident or they getting into day
two. So yeah, there's alot of things that could have happened,
(22:47):
and unfortunately we didn't get to seeit. And look Washington and beating in
Arizona right down downe in Tucson andthen in Arizona wins. There was something
in my head that felt like thatWashington State ASU game was going to be
sneak good. Knowing that cj Ellabyand Isaac Bontein, those dudes were like
seven to forty four. It wassomething I think LB was like two and
(23:07):
nineteen and they still had an opportunityto win that game in the desert.
Then that will response on what itwas going to be. I don't you
know, you haven't had an opportunityeven decompressed probably been to start thinking about
next year. But the way waytoo early projection. Is there a team
that stands out to you as asmaybe a leader, and not to say
(23:29):
that they're going to be the preseasonpick, but do you feel good about
one team or a group of teamsto be in that top three or four.
Well, just off the top ofmy head, I'm thinking of who
doesn't have a ton of seniors.Oregon obviously losing Pritchard, that's a major
blow. So let's talk about UCLA, who pretty much has everyone back.
Prince Ali and Olashinsky the only twogone. Utah everyone back. Oregon State's
(23:53):
gonna lose a lot. Colorado doesn'tlose anybody, right, Did they have
any seniors this year? No,but they like the bulk. You're right,
I mean it's back to back yearsnow, Stamford, Stamford, everyone
back, you know, um soas much as we'll miss Pritchard, and
we'll see if guys like lab Leeveor not. The league is set up
(24:15):
to sustain this next year because alot of these teams that had major contributors
weren't seniors, and so they'll beback and even better than they were this
year. You know a ton aboutthe mobile kid coming in. Yeah,
really different than Isaiah, really reallyathletic. Long affects the Rim, more
like Okongwu than Isaiah Mobley, youknow Rim, you know Runner, Rim
(24:38):
protector dunker Um, just super longand athletics. So we'll see if o'kong
wu stays or leaves. I'm guessingI haven't heard anything, but I'm guessing
he will probably lead based on howmuch he helped himself this year, so
I think Evan Mobley then steps intothat role and he and his brother,
but they miss you know, Matthewswas coming on. Yeah, he was
(25:00):
a big part of what they did, and Ricos a bit. So I
think SC may be losing a bitmuch to be talking about them with the
other teams that aren't losing pretty muchanything as we looked to next year.
Yeah, maths feel awful for him. He had tweeted as well, just
being disappointed that he was going tobe able to play, because se had
an opportunity to win the conference championshipin Vegas and certainly able to make a
(25:22):
run in the month of March.Coming up in a couple of minutes here,
Jamis Zenovich, Deputy Commissioner of thePact twelve conference, will get him
on the line. But don onelast time for the season story time with
Don McLean. All right, Yeah, I'm so no real story time this
week. You know, Usually Itry and make it funny or something from
my experience that was what other peoplewould think is humorous or funny or interesting.
(25:48):
But I think I think what Iwanted to talk about this week was
just about the NCAA tournament and fansand fans are going to miss it.
Obviously. People love March Madness,they love the tournament. They people go
to to Vegas to watch the tournament. People do all sorts of things in
and around the NCAA tournament. AndI think from a player's perspective, and
this is what people don't get.And if you've been to an NCAA tournament
(26:11):
game, you understand it. Likeeven and not to discount our conference tournament
or any other conference tournament, there'sa little different buzz for that. Okay,
when you walk in t mobile,Okay, yeah, we're conference tournament
time versus walking into mccale or anyother building in our conference. But when
you walk into an NCAA tournament game, there is this buzz that I've never
(26:32):
felt anywhere else. And that's comingfrom a guy who played an NBA Arenas.
When it's the NCAA tournament, itis a whole different animal, and
you feel it. You feel itfrom the fans, you feel it.
You just feel this intensity that what'sat stake. It's win or go home,
and you're trying to win a nationalchampionship and the matchup and so I
just wonder and you and I weretalking about it earlier. Do players really
(26:55):
understand it? For players that haven'tplayed in it, then they wouldn't understand.
But I'm wondering if players who haveplayed in it in teams in our
conference, will they be telling otherplayers on their team, Hey man,
I know we didn't get a chanceto do it this year, but you
have to play in an NCAA tournamentgame because it's that good and it's that
different. And so with our conversationwe had earlier, I'm going to be
(27:17):
fascinated to see how many of theseplayers that are kind of on the fence
on the bubble, because remember,yeam, the trend has been the last
couple of years that I know,I'm not a first rounder, but I'm
leaving anyway kind of thing and I'lljust be a G league two way guy.
Does that change now because of thepostseason or lack there up this year?
Because playing in an NCAA tournament gameor games is something that you will
(27:38):
never forget. It is that differentthan anything that any of these players have
done up to this point in theirbasketball careers. For sure, It's definitely
one of the highlights. I can'teven and especially for the guys that aren't
even going to be pros to beable to feel the electricity inside those arenas.
Just knowing how many eyeballs and thethe magnitude of every single possession,
(28:02):
every single shot, and how meaningfulit is. It is truly a special
thing for those slayers as well.And I know it was obviously a difficult
decision for the NC doable A togo and cancel the NC doable A tournament.
It was a hard decision also forthe PAC twelve conference to do the
same. It ended up being theright conversation. But that topic specifically all
part of our interview with Jamie Zadanovich, who actually joined us a little bit
(28:25):
earlier. Here's that interview. Oh, Jamie, Don was just talking about
the NC doable A tournament experience andwhat it must be like for a lot
of these student athletes. In fact, McKinley wright Don and I had an
opportunity to already interview him. Thatpodcast is going to be released tomorrow.
But it's it's hard for everyone.Can you just explain, just not even
(28:47):
from an NC doable A tournament perspective, although you can because I know you're
in contact with those guys. Butfrom a Pact twelve tournament perspective, take
me through the decision making prospects processand how we came about as a for
instance, thing, you know what, we're not going to play games anymore.
Yeah. First of all, itwas one of those decisions that that
certainly, you know, nobody tooklightly. I think at a high level
(29:10):
principle, our goal throughout this wholeprocess was, you know, with all
the obligations we had of running amajor event like our men's basketball champs in
championships in Las Vegas, you know, our most important principle was how do
we deliver a championship experience for thesestudent athletes? Right? And that was
really, at the end of theday, what we were trying to protect
while also waning one our obligation tobroader society to be good partners in addressing
(29:36):
what is really an unprecedented metal medicalpublic health situation. And then secondly,
how do we do that by keepingthose that were responsible for safe. So,
you know, at the end ofthe day, we finished up our
our women's championship. The previous Sunday, we all came to Las Vegas,
you know, on Monday or Tuesday, morning and everything was tracking. We
(30:00):
had a meeting with our administrators.You guys were in a meeting with our
talent where we said, you know, we are Tuesday night, full bore
ahead. We're playing the games,we're playing them with fans, we're tracking
everything, we're taking advice and guidancefrom the local regulators here in Nevada,
and we feel like we're we're goodto go. And everybody got up I
think Wednesday morning rare and to go. So we we played the games.
(30:26):
Obviously, well, let me takeit through this. On Wednesday morning,
we got up at seven o'clock,we got a call, and at that
point we were fully prepared that wewere going to play with fans for the
duration of the tournament. Between thatmorning at let's say eight o'clock when we're
on this that call, to thatafternoon at four o'clock, you know,
a lot of things changed and itbecame clear that if we were going to
(30:48):
be responsible, we needed to gofor a model without fans. So we
put all that in place that afternoon. We announced that during the night session,
and we woke up then on Thursdaymorning preparing to execute our plan to
activate a what we call limit access. I shouldn't call it no fans limited
access model. We had given asmall amount of family and friends access tickets
(31:12):
to teach of the teams that wouldbe participating. We had a staff that
was coret of the operations still involved, staff that wasn't core of the operations
would no longer be involved, tolimit our numbers and make sure that we
were doing responsible social distancing. Sowe got up at let's say, we
got to call seven o'clock on Thursdaymorning. We were prepared to play without
(31:33):
fans. And then I think whathappened really the night before that hit everybody
like a ton of bricks, wasthe NBA situation and Rudy Gobert, you
know when that happened, I thinkit hit it just made everything more real.
Here's a guy that you know,as a professional basketball player, that
the kids that we were serving inthis event aspire to be like. And
(31:56):
here he was, you know,affected and infected by this virus, which
which he'll likely recover from, butwe know has brought implications beyond society.
So I think that was really aseminal moment. So we got up Thursday.
We were still prepared to play withthe limited access knowing that we thought
we could assure the health and safetyof the of the of the event.
(32:19):
I should say that at every stepof the point and every decision making process,
we are in touch one with eachother as a leadership team, and
then with our board at times theexecutive Committee of our board, which are
three of our presidents who can actin emergency situations, to the full board
as well as our full board.And we are also in touch with our
Athletic Director group, who luckily wehad not formal meetings, but we had
(32:42):
most of them in Las Vegas.So at every step of the way,
it was sort of a couple stepprocess. Talk about what we know internally,
discussed that with our membership, andmake a recommendation and then go forward.
So all that happened both on Wednesdayand then Thursday morning. By the
time we got up on Thursday,Larry got on a call with the other
(33:02):
commissioners, it was about seven inthe morning Pacific time. Um, you
know, we we we finally founda huge advantage to being on the West
coast, which is these other conferenceswere making decisions on their tournaments and we
had a little more time because westarted later in the day in terms of
East Ghosts done. So um,I say that in jest obviously, but
(33:25):
basically what happened is we talked tothose conferences. Everybody was ready to go,
and then in those next couple ofhours more information started coming in.
We started feeling like we probably weregonna have to pull the plug. We
talked to the other conferences and reallysimultaneously everybody said, yeah, we're really
in the same place, and so, you know, thirty minute increments,
We all on Thursday, you know, cancel the tournaments and gave notice to
(33:50):
the teams, and certainly something thatwe never anticipated would happen. And I
think at that point we were allpretty convinced that even though your hours away
from an NC double announcement that theirtournament was probably not going to go forward,
even though they had a limited accessplan, it had just become it
just hadn't become responsible one to thebroader issues at large, and two to
(34:15):
the communities that we were serving,which were our student athletes and team administrators
and head coaches. You know,it's interesting, Jamie, because like you
said Tuesday night, I'm anticipating doingthe whole tournament. It didn't really I
knew obviously that it was becoming aglobal issue, but that it hadn't hit
home yet. And I told thembecause he asked me when we started this
(34:35):
podcast, you know when it kindof hit me, And it was when
I was sitting and I saw thatthe NBA had canceled their season. So
I guess my question is was itever a hard Was it ever a hard
decision? Meaning it seemed like nowwe sit here, you know, five
days later, all, yeah,they had to cancel it. But was
there ever any pushback or was itwas it a harder decision than you guys
(34:57):
thought it might be when it wastime to pull the t rigger on it.
I don't think it was a harddecision at all. Honestly, I
think we probably all knew in ourgut even on Tuesday that, you know,
if things progressed in a way thatwe couldn't control, that this is
where we would end up. Butyou have to plan for both scenarios,
right again, that the highest principlewas how do we still assure this great
(35:21):
championship experience for the student athletes?So we want to do all in our
power. You know, understand thatwe had broader, higher level responsibilities than
just this event to do that.But yeah, you know, we had
no one who was sort of fightingus on this aiden eCos or otherwise.
As you know, things were movingvery quickly on their campuses as well.
They were getting updates, and youcould sort of feel the inertia of everybody
(35:44):
in the room or on a calljust saying, yeah, boy, this
really sucks, but there's no otherchoice. Jay Man, I know you're
in constant contact with a lot ofthe coaches in our conference. When the
league says we're canceling the tournament,we already knew the NBA was suspending their
season and the nc doable a tournament, the whole deal. What was the
reaction in the feedback that you werehearing from from the coaches. You know,
(36:07):
I generally communicate to our coaches umvia text string, so everything that
we were emailing with the campuses,I was in parallel conversation via text um.
You know, I think it wasit was pretty quiet. We didn't
really hear hear from anybody. Wehad a couple of logistical questions about you
know, recruiting windows or otherwise,but you know, I think I think
(36:30):
Nick Cronin really said it bad.He was quoted in an LA Times article
I think the next day that chronicledhow it all went down for his team.
And boy was there a team atour conference. It was on a
better role than than UCLA. Idon't think so. So I'm sure it
was super disappointing for them. ButI think mixed quote was, you know,
we told the kids disappointing that ourthat our magical run is ending.
(36:50):
But it was something like, ifthis is the worst thing that happened to
them in their lives, they're goingto have great lives. So I do
think we need to keep it inperspective. I feel all the student athletes
that didn't have a chance to maketheir March Madness run and have their one
shining moment. But I think allof us, you know, to lock
arms as a society here and protectthose most vulnerable among us. And it's
(37:12):
been nice to see a lot ofthe coaches and even student athletes come out
and say how they how they understandthis. It's really about their generation,
you know, assuring that the more, more more vulnerable veteran generation, you
know, has what they need.Yeah, no doubt, Jamie, And
I guess that leads me to thenext question. Something that's been tossed around
here the last few days about maybeextending eligibility for some of these uh,
(37:37):
you know, especially spring sport athletes, but also winter sport athletes. Has
there been discussions already about that internally? Yeah, so the conferences are talking.
The NCAA and the NCBLA staff isworking on this. There's sort of
two buckets. I think they'll lookat it two different ways. One,
you have winter sports, most allof which whether it's basketball or swimming or
(37:58):
otherwise, had really completed their regularseason and had their postseason cancel either their
conference tournament, encitablate tournaments, Sothat's sort of one bucket. Then you
have a spring sports, some ofwhich had started sort of the beginning of
their non conference schedule or maybe gotteninto some conference games, but really missed
out on an entire season, andnow tho's obviously been canceled to the end
(38:20):
of the year. So my guessis they'll be treated differently. I think
we're more optimistic for the spring sportsthan we are for the winter sports.
There's just a lot of complications inthe winter sports, and there's a lot
of things will have to be figuredout. You know, rosters are going
to have to be changed. Wehave scholarship limits, so if they allow
kids to retain eligibility, they're gonnahave to increase scholarship limits for those sports.
(38:43):
They'll be financial implications, will bescheduling implications. I think everybody's you
know, prepared to manage those ina very uncertain environment, to make sure
that you know that these student athletes, you know, get the opportunities that
they that they deserve. It wasit was interesting. Dave Heikey, who's
the ad at Arizona, son asa senior at Central Michigan on their baseball
team, we got up from themeeting where everybody decided we were going to
(39:06):
cancel our tournament and at that pointwe'd also suspended all of our spring sports.
And he said, yeah, myson called me. He was on
his way on a trip to Floridafor a baseball trip, and he said,
you know, what does this mean? I'm a senior. Am I
just was it? Am I done? And that was sort of an interesting
comment. It really brought to lifea specific case of what this is like
for these student athletes. So I'mconfident, you know, either one of
(39:30):
the other spring or winter sports willwill likely get a dish ledge ability and
be able to play out their careers. But it's just, you know,
we got to move fast because thesekids need answers. But there's so many
layers to this to make sure thatthe school's prepared to do it in a
way that's you know, first ofall responsible to the kids. Secondly,
you know, pervert, you know, we assure competitive equity in the system
(39:52):
and all those other sort of regulatorythings. It's a big system, but
I think everybody's committed to trying tomake a way to make it happen.
I mean, before I let you, you're going what's next. I mean,
you're you're talking about, you know, the extra eligibility, and that's
you know, one bucket. ButI feel like there are so many decisions
that the conferences around this country haveto go and make a big picture this
(40:14):
for me, like these next moves, like what are the things that we
potentially could be seeing and the thingsthat are being worked on. Yeah,
don't think you want to speculate atthis point. In terms of timing,
I think we're all working on sortof the eight week twelve week timeline.
We're looking at UM you know alot of our non competitive events, whether
it's governance and how we meet withour with our membership, making sure that
(40:35):
we're threading the needle between providing theforum for them to get the answers they
need while also being respectful that theyhave a lot to manage on their campuses.
So it's a lot of communication.We have daily calls with our athletic
directors, we have daily calls withthe other conferences. We're really just convening
everybody to make sure that the communicationlines are open. But you know,
(40:57):
we have we have numerous contracts weneed to to to talk to talk about
UM. You know, a lotof a lot of legal advice. UM.
We obviously have events that aren't happeningthat that media UM companies are interested
in in understanding how we're gonna goingto manage. We obviously have a content
plan on our on our network thatwe're discussing. We actually think there's some
(41:19):
real opportunities here UM to sort oflean into being a public service at a
time like this, UM to peoplethat you know are adjusting a whole new
way of living in terms of alot of being quarantined and shelter in place
UM systems across our footprint in thecountry. So we hope we can be
we can we can sort of bea shining light for them and help them,
(41:39):
you know, enjoy what they canuh you know at home. So
there's there's all sorts of elements,um, that we need to plan.
I mean, in some respects thisis very difficult. In other respects,
it's probably you know, we're probablyfortunate I was talking to someone that didn't
happen in November or something. Youcan imagine we're in the middle of fall
season and winter and spring to plan, um, you know, it would
(42:00):
been really really complicated. So ifthere's a silver lining, maybe that's it.
But um, well we're right nowwe're going to try to get to
the summer. We're also using asan opportunity, you know. I called
it with my staff the pile.Everybody has a pile on their desk of
things that you know, they're alwaysgoing to work on when they get to
that point, whether it's after bigevents or to the summer. We're now
dusted off our piles and making surewe do some of that long range planning
(42:22):
that that everybody wants to get tobut somehow has a hard time sometimes.
So so that's sort of the environmentnow. It's still uncertain, but we're
doing all we can to just provideleadership and and take care of our staff
obviously too. We have a lotof people that you know live in the
Bay Area at different areas, andit's certain for them right now too.
We want to make sure that we'revery sensitive to how we manage this as
(42:45):
an organization. Jamie, appreciate thetime. I know a lot going on
in the league office and also inat home. Homeschooling begins for your boys
tomorrow as well. So yeah,that'll be that'll be a good juck juggling
at all, Jamie. Thanks again, man, Thanks Jamie. Yeah,
thanks for the time, and thanksfor keeping the podcast going so we can
(43:08):
keep people engaged at a time wherethey're looking for for other things to do.
It's great that you guys are keepingit going. So those are thoughts
that Jamie's z Anovich, Deputy commissionerfor the pactual of Conference and don you
can tell like there's just there's alot of inventory and the decisions that need
to be made. I think Jamie'spoint is well said. Need to be
(43:29):
made quickly for a lot of theseseniors. Yeah, and you know,
it's unfortunate. You can tell thatyou wasn't an easy decision. And the
question I asked them about it wasit ever a hard decision? And I
didn't mean it like that, I'min in the sense that it just didn't
think they'd even have to be makingthat decision on Thursday morning, you know,
based on Tuesday night when we started. But yeah, a lot of
(43:52):
stuff to be decided. But theydo a great job in the Conference Office
and the nca I'm sure we'll givesome clarity to what's going to happen moving
forward, but I guess i'd wrapit up with just unfortunate that we didn't
get to see our teams playing theNCAA tournament and finish our conference tournament.
You know, don We got onemore podcast tomorrow. It will be released
(44:13):
McKinley wright our guests from Colorado.He was absolutely awesome, really eloquent in
describing his personal feelings for not playingin the nc double A Tournament, not
to mention some significant news about hisstatus in the NBA Draft. So that
will be on tomorrow's podcast. Encourageeveryone to check that out If you see
it on social media, I giveit a share as well. Don we
got one more man, So lookingforward to doing that show with you and
(44:36):
wrapping that thing up. But alwaysbeen a blast. Yeah, it's been great.
Ah, Jill, great the ballbaby, Let's go. This is Inside
the Pack twelve podcast. Put ona pair of your headphones and fall back
gets into some ballcasts having the ballchat about the best conference in the nation,
all facts. This is truly forthe hoop bluffers. Get who running
(00:24):
then gunnadn't get in buggers. Howabout we discussing at the Trojans, Husky
Ducks to carnal then the cook Bears, Beaver's Son, Devil's Cats, influence
the buffalos and youths. I won'tever forget, got insight, opinions,
and plenty of special guests, coachesand players. Be right as an Inside
is old and young Pack twelve legendsand the lums book that analysis. We
(00:45):
go far, be on the starsto take you from conference play all the
way to the final four with somehoop kind of swords, just walking you
through the game. I hit yourhost Mike Gamm and the board dumb acclaim,
Hey, welcome to the podcast.This is certainly a different vibe than
we are used to. Don Iknow, not a huge change for you
in terms of location. I amcurrently in my apartment here in San Francisco.
(01:08):
Our studios right now are closed down. I'm in a city that we're
not supposed to be leaving on us. We're going for groceries or going to
the pharmacy. We are allowed toleave the apartment to exercise outdoors. But
this is as wild and weird acouple of days that I've ever been a
part of in my entire life,and obviously is permeated into the sports world.
(01:30):
You and I were in Vegas aweek ago and the Pactual tournament was
canceled, the NBA suspended their season. The NC Double A Tournament also canceled
their season. The ripple effect onis now gone to sports. But the
biggest thing is, we hope ifyou're listening to this podcast, you are
safe. You are at home,washing your hands, using the hand sanitizer,
and hopefully aren't dealing with some ofthe symptoms that come with the coronavirus.
(01:55):
Yeah, you know what, Yeah, it's scary time to as much
as you and I spend on basketball in college basketball in the Pac twelve,
this what going what's going on rightnow supersedes all that, So I
echo what you said. Hopefully everybody'sdoing the smart thing and staying home and
doing all the hygiene things that you'resupposed to be doing. But but it
(02:16):
is unfortunate because the sports world isso much a part of all of our
lives, and not just college basketball, but the NBA and other sports too,
and everyone's being impacted and you feelbad for people that frankly can't go
to work, can't make money,and so it's unfortunate. But let's let's
do our best, you and Ito kind of talk about some of this
(02:36):
stuff and then recap what was thisyear in the PAC twelve, which,
by the year, was a greatyear and unfortunately it came to an early,
an early end. Today hit youat a certain point, it did,
I'll tell you exactly. Yeah,when it hit me and you were
still working. I was at ourspot on Wednesday night because I did the
first two games, and you knowit's spot I'm talking about, and I'm
(02:57):
looking at my phone waiting for mymeal to come. And when I saw
NBA season canceled, that's when ithit me like a ton of bricks,
because you know, we had allheard and like what was going on in
China and then what was happening inEurope, and you knew something big was
kind of brewing. But when theNBA canceled their season, I was like,
oh my goodness, here we go, because I knew that was just
(03:17):
going to be the first of manythings to be canceled. And obviously I
thought about all of us and doingthe Pac twelve tournament wasn't going to continue,
And so watched the end of ourstuff on Wednesday night, our games
and your postgame show, and thenwoke up Thursday morning wondering, you know,
were we going to continue? AndI actually saw Larry Myers, our
(03:38):
boss, in the gym on Thursdaymorning, and at that point it was
like eight am. They weren't sureif the tournament was going to go on
or not, and it just didn'tfeel right at that point, Yam,
like, even if they had decided, because it hadn't become whatever that they
were going to play, it justdidn't feel right to continue on. I
had just gotten news like five minutesearlier that my friend Donovan Mitchell had gotten
(04:00):
the coronavirus, so that kind ofput me in a bad way too.
But I think everybody got it rightin getting out ahead of this thing and
canceling most everything from that point thatpoint on, you know, what's interesting
about it because that's your entry point. And I don't know if you felt
like you called the first two gamesa day one of the tournament, and
(04:20):
you know you're focused in on thosegames. Now I'm watching the games,
and I was actually telling Yogi Rothor our good friends about kind of that
experience on his podcast, and Ididn't want like Mulebach is with me and
R Watson, right, So likeday one, the two of those guys
are on set, and obviously thatthe early sessions on day one typically donn
(04:40):
and you know this, like they'renot packed, right, so we have
an opportunity so we could sit,you know, court side. We were
actually, you know, a coupleseats down from the Tinkle sisters for that
first game, which was an incrediblewin by Oregon State, and want to
get your take on that. Butyou know, I was sitting there and
I just felt it felt weird tome, being I didn't feel right.
So I actually stood up and Iwatched pretty much all the Day one sessions
(05:04):
at our set in a roped offarea. Now it was a great view
of the game and close to thebench, so I could listen to the
coaches and the players but while you'redoing the shows, Like, to me,
that's a distraction. But donn andyou know how I interact with you
in our studio, join our commercialbreaks, like you and I are goofing
around all the time when I'm doingthese shows, Like I'm going right to
(05:25):
the hand sanitizer and I haven't eventouched anything but my area and my microphone
and my iPad, which, bythe way, every single time we finished
the show, I'm wiping everything downas if ten twenty thirty people touched it,
like it just doing the show wasthe distraction. Yeah, And I
think the different the differences, Yamen, when you do two games in a
(05:45):
row like me and roxy do andAshley, you kind of just get lost
in it. And it didn't feelanything out of the ordinary, I think
because I try and lock in andfocus on what's going on and remember all
the storylines for the teams that areplaying and all that stuff, and so
I guess I didn't have as muchtime to stop and think about all this
stuff. I think the other thingthat got me going, and this kind
(06:06):
of was before the NBA canceled theirseason, was when they announced that our
venue was going to be closed tothe public and that these games, and
I was already starting to think aboutthat how were we going to generate energy
for our broadcast and how that wasgoing to look and feel with no fans
in the arena. But yeah,it once it got to Wednesday night,
(06:28):
it became a whole different animal forme, and unfortunately it progressed to where
it is now. Well, Thursday, we obviously there were no games,
so we had a meeting and allthe on air folks that were there,
we're all in a room and we'rebeing told kind of what's happening. And
I had to do a quick littleinterview with Larry Scott, the commissioner of
the pactwelve conference. And by theway, Jami's Zenovich, who's the deputy
commissioner, is going to be joiningus a little bit later. I want
(06:50):
to get his take on kind ofthe decision process, take take everyone through
some of the ramifications of not havinga tournament. And there's been some talk
about extra eligibility for some seniors,so we'll talk to Jamie about that later
in the show. But after thathit with Larry Scott that I had to
do, you know, immediately it'slike, all right, well, how
am I getting home and there's thismad rush you get to the airport,
(07:11):
you're traveling. You actually drove toVegas because you were having traveled. That
became yeah, yeah, oh yeah. I mean I thought that was going
to be our story. I thoughtwe were gonna have these games and we
were going to tell a story.If you needed an oil change an hour
into that drive and you still maderecord time to Vegas. Yeah, it
just you know. I woke upFriday morning and I thought to myself,
(07:33):
don we're supposed to be getting readyfor I was like, my Friday plan
in Vegas was workout. Casey Jacobsonwas going to have a pizza joint that
he told me I had to goto in Vegas, and then I was
gonna get ready for the Semis.And then it hit me all the hard
work. How many hours done didwe spend this season watching the games,
soaking it all in? The playerswho probably get out, travel all these
(07:55):
types of things, and now theseseniors they don't even get a payoff.
Like I'm thinking to myself, Ithought we were going to get upsets on
day two based off I thought WashingtonDay was going to be a sum I
thought cal could maybe give you claput like we were going to get these
great games and a payoff with achampion at the end of the season,
and it doesn't happen. And Ifeel awful for a lot of the student
athlete, all the student athletes thatwere still alive in the tournament and thought
(08:20):
that they were going to be dancingin the month of March. Yeah,
but again going back to what youjust said, you know, for me,
by Friday morning, I think,I think I think Thursday morning is
whenever it started to get real foreverybody. It did for me. And
I'm talking to my wife. She'stelling me how the kids are freaking out
because more information. You know,we're a basketball family. So the NBA
(08:41):
canceling the season obviously hits my boy'sart, not from the standpoint that they
don't get to watch it, justI think the enormity of it hit everybody
that if the NBA's canceled in theirseason, man, this thing must be
big. And so you know,it's it's so ironic that I was so
frustrated that I had to drive toVegas, But it turned out to be
the best thing because I'll tell you, yeam that once I was watching the
(09:01):
TV all morning, and once Isaw that they came on in the PAC
twelve announced that they were canceling therest of the tournament. I was literally
on the freeway in fifteen minutes,you know, because I wanted to get
back to my family and get backto them, and we didn't know where
this thing was going, what elsethey were going to cancel, what was
going to happen. But that tome became more important than all this.
(09:24):
And we will talk about what itmeans for these seniors and the players that
don't get to experience potentially winning aPAC twelve tournament championship, but also we
were on course for a record numberof teams getting into the NCAA tournament again
and all those players that now don'tget that opportunity. So I guess there's
no other way to put it,Yam. You and I could go back
and forth about what it meant tous and what happened and travel and all
(09:46):
that, but at the end ofthe day, it's just unfortunate for everyone.
So I want to spend some timeon this podcast celebrating the season because
I think there's a lot of positives, and I'll start with what you just
said and the fact that there wasan opportunity and I don't know if it
was going to play out that way. You and I were going to do
Selection Sunday together in our Pactual Networkstudio and you know, tomorrow or later
(10:09):
today, I don't know when Ari, who's producing this, is going to
release. We're going to get anopportunity to talk to McKinley wright, who
had tweeted on Selection Sunday just abroken heart emoji, and I want to
get his take on the season andkind of his experiences. And that's going
to be the other podcast or interviewpodcast that we do. But I want
to take people back, and thisis the last time on this podcast.
I want to I shouldn't promise that, but I was going to say,
(10:31):
I don't want to talk too muchabout the coronavirus. I want people to
get an opportunity to think about thehard work a lot of these players put
forth and the coaching staffs. Theday before the tournament every every year,
Kyle Reischling, who's one of ourkind of head haunt, shows on the
remote side, so he handles allof our game broadcast. He organizes a
meeting and Tuesday night before the tournamentstarts, before day one, there's a
(10:56):
meeting and it's everyone. If you'rein the truck, if you're a producer,
if you are anyone who's in partof our coverage on Impactful of Network
is in this meeting. And everysingle year done it's the same thing.
At the end of the meeting,someone says to you, all right,
so don like you, what doyou what do you think of the season?
And you hold court for a coupleof minutes, and I think there's
(11:16):
a lot of respect that you havefrom everyone in that room that you're given
that opportunity. Like I would Iwould compare it to like you're you know,
when we've launched Rick new Heisel wasthat guy on the football side.
I think Yogi's that guy for usnow. And you've always been that basketball
guy and you would say, hey, look, you could talk about all
the seven teams, I can bein the dance and all that stuff,
but you had said something that resonatedwith me on this podcast. He's been
(11:37):
a guest. We've talked about him, I feel like every single show,
but it's still not enough. Andthat's Peyton Pritchard and at least from a
Newsy standpoint, was going through myemail today and this is just sort of
an awesome thing. Peyton Pritchard,you said, wasn't getting enough credit for
what he's been able to do.Is saying something because the amount of attention
we give him, but he's beenthat good. But he was named the
(12:00):
five finalist for the Naysmith Award,which doesn't happen that often in our conference,
one of the five best players nationally. He told us he wanted to
show everyone that he was the best, not only point guard in this conference,
but maybe the best point guard orplayer in the entire country. So
you kind of went through that beforethe tournament, and I just I think
it's important to start with maybe theultimate positive, and that's Pritchard getting the
(12:22):
credit that he deserves well. Andthe point I brought up and I thought
about it a lot driving to Vegas, ironically enough, was that you know,
we haven't seen or haven't seen anindividual performance like Pritchard's in some time
from a guy that had been there. Now, we saw DeAndrea in a
couple of years ago dominate the league, but he was a for sure one
and done number one pick in thedraft, so I was looking I was
(12:43):
talking more about people that had spentat least a couple of years in the
league and put together seasons and whattheir career resume look like. And to
cap it off, the way thatPritchard has capped off his Oregon career is
unbelievable. I mean, forget leadingthe conference in points and assists, but
like the game winners, the shotshe tied games with, just his overall
(13:05):
presence and the amount of respect withwhich coaches were talking about him, other
players were talking about him. Wejust haven't seen that, and I still
and I haven't put a whole lotof thought to it because of what's been
going on. But like, youhave to go back pretty far to find
an individual season from a multi yearguy in our league that had the year
that Peyton Pritchard had, And wedon't even know what Oregon was going to
(13:28):
do. They could have ripped throughthe pactwelve tournament again and won that,
they won the regular season conference title, and who knows what they do in
the NCAA tournament. So now you'repiling on to that legacy even more.
If Oregon did what we all thoughtthat they could do and that's make a
deep run in the NCAA tournament.So yes, we did give him a
lot of love, and I knowhe did, all of us did on
(13:48):
every broadcast, but I just feltlike it wasn't it wasn't stated high enough.
Just how great of a year hehad had Patrol Player the Year almost
twenty one points, almost six assists. I mean the guys that have done
that in our league, I meanDamon Stodemeyer, Jason Terry, Gary Payton
(14:09):
pays a year. Yeah, theywere National Players of the Year, those
guys. So to your point,a really special season. I saw the
press conference that Oregon Hale with Pritchardand Dane Altman. M Pritchard was actually
asked if he was given an opportunityto head back and was given more eligibility.
He said he probably wouldn't take thatpath. And we can understand that,
(14:30):
right. I mean, he's aguy that's, you know, going
to be playing at the next level. I'm not sure where he gets drafted
or if he's you know, afree agent who gets an opportunity to pick
his team, which would be kindof cool as well. Real quick,
every every NBA personnel guy that Italked to through the course of the season,
his name and inevitably came up,and every one of them said the
(14:52):
same thing you just said. Notsure if he's a second rounder, if
he's an undraft, or even afirst rounder, but he's an NBA player.
So Peyton Pritchard's gonna make someone's roster. It's just going to be interesting
to see the path he has totake to be on someone's roster at the
NBA level. I think there's someinteresting different storylines with regard to guys that
could leave and play at the nextlevel down We do a segment on this
(15:15):
show where you take an individual playerand you talk about his prospects in the
NBA and Cjlb's name has come upbefore for whatever reason, And I don't
know if it's because he put ona show against Colorado and he goes for
thirty and just kind of has thisaura about him. I did my best
to put the full court on himwhen he joined us right after that win
on our set Impactual of Networks andhe you don't have to go, But
(15:37):
how difficult do you think it isfor some of these players who didn't get
an opportunity to play in the ncdouble A tournament. To make a decision
like that, it's tough. Ithink. You know, Lab probably wasn't
going to play in the nca tournamentunless they won the Pact tournament. But
there are other guys that will havea decision to make and miss the rest
(16:00):
of the PAC twelve tournament but thenalso missing the nca tournament. How much
does that mean to you? Youknow, the NBA calendar is going to
be a little screwed up now withearly entry stuff and pre draft process.
When's the draft actually going to be. It's probably not going to be in
June now, So does that factorinto your decision? Do you have more
time less time to make decisions?But I think we'll see. I think
(16:22):
we'll see which guys when they comeout and say I'm coming back to school
because I want to play in theNCAA tournament, and I think there will
be some of those. I thinkthere will be guys that come out and
flat out say I want to playin the NCAA tournament. That's why I'm
coming back to school. But it'sit's a big deal to play in the
NCAA tournament, and so we'll see. I think It'll be a case by
case basis for sure. Will wetake the macro view of some of our
(16:47):
teams in this conference? This wason pace for historic here. It was
a great season for the league.How are you going to remember the year?
Well, unfortunately, we're all goingto remember based on what we're talking
about now, and that's it endingearly, not finishing the PAC twelve tournament
in potentially seven teams playing in theNCAA tournament that there's no NCAA tournament that's
(17:08):
happening. But what I'm going toremember is the three new head coaches and
just how shocking their immediate success was. The run that mc cronin made mid
middle of the conference season to bethe two seed in Vegas was incredible.
Cal winning way more games than wethought, Washington State winning way more games
than we thought. And the reasonI say that first, Yam, is
(17:30):
because those three are really a bigreason why we were set up so well
to start the conference season because ofhow well those three teams and our other
teams did in November and December.So now you have a balanced competitive conference
where there wasn't a ton of landmineslike last year. Like oh, if
you lose to so and so yournet's going to drop twenty five points.
(17:52):
It wasn't like that. There wasonly opportunities now to help yourself once we
got into the conference season, andI think a big part of that was
that the bottom was way stronger thanit's been in a while, especially compared
to last year. So I thinkI'll remember just the top to bottom balance
of the conference, the new headcoaches that had that early success, and
(18:14):
that you know, we're set uppretty good. It's just unfortunate that if
we were getting seven in those sevenaren't getting a chance to play in March
Madness. You mentioned March Madness,and there's you know, Oregon State wasn't
a team that was going to getinto the tournament without winning the PAC twelve
tournament in Vegas. I have tweetedthis a couple of times. The shot
of March is tinkle the Lucas,I mean, and you called back for
(18:37):
us against Utah, I mean,and that was when Plumber goes for thirty
five in a Utah you to formand that dude hits eleven three. I
mean, that was a wild,wild game. And I think if you're
a fan knowing that at least youhad something like that, and I'm sure
the rears are all over the placeImpact twelve network like that is. That's
at least something that you can holdon to as a sportsman. But you
(18:59):
know what that's that makes it Youknow, it's funny. I'm listening to
that and you're, yeah, itmakes it worse. Like we have a
hundred moments like that, Um,what a game and Plumber just put on
a show, couldn't miss. We'veseen that hardly very often where a guy
well we've never seen it in ourconference, but for a guy to go
off like that. But that's whatyou love about March. Like like Jared
Lucas hits the game winner to moveon to the next round. Everybody's like,
(19:22):
no offense to Jared, but everyone'slike, who wait, who hit
the game winner? But that's Marchand that's conference basketball tournaments, that's the
NCAA tournament where unexpected people do unexpectedthings to win games. And you wonder
where Wayne was going with that play. I knew the ball was going to
be in trace his hands at somepoint, but was it for him to
shoot or was it for him tomake a play? And Lucas had already
(19:45):
hit three threes in that second half, so why not And in a great
decision and a great setup by Trace, and give Jared credit, he knocked
it down to win the game forhim. All Right, I hate to
play the one if game, butI'm gonna do it anyway, because I
told you Friday. I woke upand and I was like, oh my
God, like we should be gettingready for the Semis and we obviously didn't
get that. I've been opening upmy laptop over the last few days,
(20:07):
or my iPad, and I openedup the laptop. First thing I see
is Pack twelve of our research teamputs together all these notes. It's the
first thing that pops. Somebody's kindof like, oh Jesus, I go
onto my iPad. I got thebracket there for the tournament. We're gonna
play the one if game. Didyou see something on day one that changed
your thought about who could win theconference or if you thought maybe we see
(20:30):
even more upsets as this thing continueto unfold. I mean, the easy
answer is that we'd see more upsetsjust because we saw a lot of upsets
and how competitive and even the conferencewas top to bottom, that you would
you would you would sense that therewould be more upsets. But what happens
when you when you see upsets onday one, it kind of puts the
teams that aren't playing till day twoon high alert, you know, so
(20:53):
it almost like, oh, waita second, if we don't come to
play, we can get beat likeColorado and Stanford did. They were the
six and seven seed and loss tohigher seeds. Um, my guests,
if we're doing the what if game? Is that I thought Oregon, with
getting Dante back, um, understandingthe moment, understanding what they did last
year in that tournament, I hada feeling that Oregon was going to win
(21:15):
it. But that doesn't mean therewouldn't have been more upsets. I mean,
could could we have seen you know, you mentioned it earlier. Could
we have seen Cal beat UCLA andall of a sudden they're in the semi
finals against or against Arizona State orWashington State. Um, to me,
the best game of day two wasgoing to be Arizona USC and like that's
a monster game, um with withwith the winner playing Oregon. So um
(21:40):
if Oregon, if Oregon beat OregonState? So yeah, a lot of
what ifs and and that's the bummerof it. And that's why I say,
like, I wish we could haveseen all that, and I wish
we could have seen how that unfoldedand see, you know, if there
were more upsets or not. Yeah, you're right, I mean, because
Arizona SC. Like I was talkingabout this with our our good friend Guy
Hayraman, who had mentioned this tome as we were dissecting the bracket the
other day. He goes, Man, if you're Oregon the past, to
(22:03):
win this thing is is more difficultthan you if you were UM, UCLA
or a SU just based on thoseteams, because you get SC, who
I thought had the second best chanceto win this thing behind Oregon, but
they would have been playing they wouldhave beat Oregon, would have been playing
either an SEC team or an Arizonateam that had just beaten Washington who people
felt good about and then just beatUSC to get to that matchup against the
(22:26):
Ducks. So it is wild.And that's if they beat Oregon State.
Yeah Steam earlier in the year.I mean, Oregon State has confidence in
beating Oregon and not only that,they have confidence in winning a good game.
They survived Alfonso Plumber in one,how confident or they getting into day
two. So yeah, there's alot of things that could have happened,
(22:47):
and unfortunately we didn't get to seeit. And look Washington and beating in
Arizona right down downe in Tucson andthen in Arizona wins. There was something
in my head that felt like thatWashington State ASU game was going to be
sneak good. Knowing that cj Ellabyand Isaac Bontein, those dudes were like
seven to forty four. It wassomething I think LB was like two and
(23:07):
nineteen and they still had an opportunityto win that game in the desert.
Then that will response on what itwas going to be. I don't you
know, you haven't had an opportunityeven decompressed probably been to start thinking about
next year. But the way waytoo early projection. Is there a team
that stands out to you as asmaybe a leader, and not to say
(23:29):
that they're going to be the preseasonpick, but do you feel good about
one team or a group of teamsto be in that top three or four.
Well, just off the top ofmy head, I'm thinking of who
doesn't have a ton of seniors.Oregon obviously losing Pritchard, that's a major
blow. So let's talk about UCLA, who pretty much has everyone back.
Prince Ali and Olashinsky the only twogone. Utah everyone back. Oregon State's
(23:53):
gonna lose a lot. Colorado doesn'tlose anybody, right, Did they have
any seniors this year? No,but they like the bulk. You're right,
I mean it's back to back yearsnow, Stamford, Stamford, everyone
back, you know, um soas much as we'll miss Pritchard, and
we'll see if guys like lab Leeveor not. The league is set up
(24:15):
to sustain this next year because alot of these teams that had major contributors
weren't seniors, and so they'll beback and even better than they were this
year. You know a ton aboutthe mobile kid coming in. Yeah,
really different than Isaiah, really reallyathletic. Long affects the Rim, more
like Okongwu than Isaiah Mobley, youknow Rim, you know Runner, Rim
(24:38):
protector dunker Um, just super longand athletics. So we'll see if o'kong
wu stays or leaves. I'm guessingI haven't heard anything, but I'm guessing
he will probably lead based on howmuch he helped himself this year, so
I think Evan Mobley then steps intothat role and he and his brother,
but they miss you know, Matthewswas coming on. Yeah, he was
(25:00):
a big part of what they did, and Ricos a bit. So I
think SC may be losing a bitmuch to be talking about them with the
other teams that aren't losing pretty muchanything as we looked to next year.
Yeah, maths feel awful for him. He had tweeted as well, just
being disappointed that he was going tobe able to play, because se had
an opportunity to win the conference championshipin Vegas and certainly able to make a
(25:22):
run in the month of March.Coming up in a couple of minutes here,
Jamis Zenovich, Deputy Commissioner of thePact twelve conference, will get him
on the line. But don onelast time for the season story time with
Don McLean. All right, Yeah, I'm so no real story time this
week. You know, Usually Itry and make it funny or something from
my experience that was what other peoplewould think is humorous or funny or interesting.
(25:48):
But I think I think what Iwanted to talk about this week was
just about the NCAA tournament and fansand fans are going to miss it.
Obviously. People love March Madness,they love the tournament. They people go
to to Vegas to watch the tournament. People do all sorts of things in
and around the NCAA tournament. AndI think from a player's perspective, and
this is what people don't get.And if you've been to an NCAA tournament
(26:11):
game, you understand it. Likeeven and not to discount our conference tournament
or any other conference tournament, there'sa little different buzz for that. Okay,
when you walk in t mobile,Okay, yeah, we're conference tournament
time versus walking into mccale or anyother building in our conference. But when
you walk into an NCAA tournament game, there is this buzz that I've never
(26:32):
felt anywhere else. And that's comingfrom a guy who played an NBA Arenas.
When it's the NCAA tournament, itis a whole different animal, and
you feel it. You feel itfrom the fans, you feel it.
You just feel this intensity that what'sat stake. It's win or go home,
and you're trying to win a nationalchampionship and the matchup and so I
just wonder and you and I weretalking about it earlier. Do players really
(26:55):
understand it? For players that haven'tplayed in it, then they wouldn't understand.
But I'm wondering if players who haveplayed in it in teams in our
conference, will they be telling otherplayers on their team, Hey man,
I know we didn't get a chanceto do it this year, but you
have to play in an NCAA tournamentgame because it's that good and it's that
different. And so with our conversationwe had earlier, I'm going to be
(27:17):
fascinated to see how many of theseplayers that are kind of on the fence
on the bubble, because remember,yeam, the trend has been the last
couple of years that I know,I'm not a first rounder, but I'm
leaving anyway kind of thing and I'lljust be a G league two way guy.
Does that change now because of thepostseason or lack there up this year?
Because playing in an NCAA tournament gameor games is something that you will
(27:38):
never forget. It is that differentthan anything that any of these players have
done up to this point in theirbasketball careers. For sure, It's definitely
one of the highlights. I can'teven and especially for the guys that aren't
even going to be pros to beable to feel the electricity inside those arenas.
Just knowing how many eyeballs and thethe magnitude of every single possession,
(28:02):
every single shot, and how meaningfulit is. It is truly a special
thing for those slayers as well.And I know it was obviously a difficult
decision for the NC doable A togo and cancel the NC doable A tournament.
It was a hard decision also forthe PAC twelve conference to do the
same. It ended up being theright conversation. But that topic specifically all
part of our interview with Jamie Zadanovich, who actually joined us a little bit
(28:25):
earlier. Here's that interview. Oh, Jamie, Don was just talking about
the NC doable A tournament experience andwhat it must be like for a lot
of these student athletes. In fact, McKinley wright Don and I had an
opportunity to already interview him. Thatpodcast is going to be released tomorrow.
But it's it's hard for everyone.Can you just explain, just not even
(28:47):
from an NC doable A tournament perspective, although you can because I know you're
in contact with those guys. Butfrom a Pact twelve tournament perspective, take
me through the decision making prospects processand how we came about as a for
instance, thing, you know what, we're not going to play games anymore.
Yeah. First of all, itwas one of those decisions that that
certainly, you know, nobody tooklightly. I think at a high level
(29:10):
principle, our goal throughout this wholeprocess was, you know, with all
the obligations we had of running amajor event like our men's basketball champs in
championships in Las Vegas, you know, our most important principle was how do
we deliver a championship experience for thesestudent athletes? Right? And that was
really, at the end of theday, what we were trying to protect
while also waning one our obligation tobroader society to be good partners in addressing
(29:36):
what is really an unprecedented metal medicalpublic health situation. And then secondly,
how do we do that by keepingthose that were responsible for safe. So,
you know, at the end ofthe day, we finished up our
our women's championship. The previous Sunday, we all came to Las Vegas,
you know, on Monday or Tuesday, morning and everything was tracking. We
(30:00):
had a meeting with our administrators.You guys were in a meeting with our
talent where we said, you know, we are Tuesday night, full bore
ahead. We're playing the games,we're playing them with fans, we're tracking
everything, we're taking advice and guidancefrom the local regulators here in Nevada,
and we feel like we're we're goodto go. And everybody got up I
think Wednesday morning rare and to go. So we we played the games.
(30:26):
Obviously, well, let me takeit through this. On Wednesday morning,
we got up at seven o'clock,we got a call, and at that
point we were fully prepared that wewere going to play with fans for the
duration of the tournament. Between thatmorning at let's say eight o'clock when we're
on this that call, to thatafternoon at four o'clock, you know,
a lot of things changed and itbecame clear that if we were going to
(30:48):
be responsible, we needed to gofor a model without fans. So we
put all that in place that afternoon. We announced that during the night session,
and we woke up then on Thursdaymorning preparing to execute our plan to
activate a what we call limit access. I shouldn't call it no fans limited
access model. We had given asmall amount of family and friends access tickets
(31:12):
to teach of the teams that wouldbe participating. We had a staff that
was coret of the operations still involved, staff that wasn't core of the operations
would no longer be involved, tolimit our numbers and make sure that we
were doing responsible social distancing. Sowe got up at let's say, we
got to call seven o'clock on Thursdaymorning. We were prepared to play without
(31:33):
fans. And then I think whathappened really the night before that hit everybody
like a ton of bricks, wasthe NBA situation and Rudy Gobert, you
know when that happened, I thinkit hit it just made everything more real.
Here's a guy that you know,as a professional basketball player, that
the kids that we were serving inthis event aspire to be like. And
(31:56):
here he was, you know,affected and infected by this virus, which
which he'll likely recover from, butwe know has brought implications beyond society.
So I think that was really aseminal moment. So we got up Thursday.
We were still prepared to play withthe limited access knowing that we thought
we could assure the health and safetyof the of the of the event.
(32:19):
I should say that at every stepof the point and every decision making process,
we are in touch one with eachother as a leadership team, and
then with our board at times theexecutive Committee of our board, which are
three of our presidents who can actin emergency situations, to the full board
as well as our full board.And we are also in touch with our
Athletic Director group, who luckily wehad not formal meetings, but we had
(32:42):
most of them in Las Vegas.So at every step of the way,
it was sort of a couple stepprocess. Talk about what we know internally,
discussed that with our membership, andmake a recommendation and then go forward.
So all that happened both on Wednesdayand then Thursday morning. By the
time we got up on Thursday,Larry got on a call with the other
(33:02):
commissioners, it was about seven inthe morning Pacific time. Um, you
know, we we we finally founda huge advantage to being on the West
coast, which is these other conferenceswere making decisions on their tournaments and we
had a little more time because westarted later in the day in terms of
East Ghosts done. So um,I say that in jest obviously, but
(33:25):
basically what happened is we talked tothose conferences. Everybody was ready to go,
and then in those next couple ofhours more information started coming in.
We started feeling like we probably weregonna have to pull the plug. We
talked to the other conferences and reallysimultaneously everybody said, yeah, we're really
in the same place, and so, you know, thirty minute increments,
We all on Thursday, you know, cancel the tournaments and gave notice to
(33:50):
the teams, and certainly something thatwe never anticipated would happen. And I
think at that point we were allpretty convinced that even though your hours away
from an NC double announcement that theirtournament was probably not going to go forward,
even though they had a limited accessplan, it had just become it
just hadn't become responsible one to thebroader issues at large, and two to
(34:15):
the communities that we were serving,which were our student athletes and team administrators
and head coaches. You know,it's interesting, Jamie, because like you
said Tuesday night, I'm anticipating doingthe whole tournament. It didn't really I
knew obviously that it was becoming aglobal issue, but that it hadn't hit
home yet. And I told thembecause he asked me when we started this
(34:35):
podcast, you know when it kindof hit me, And it was when
I was sitting and I saw thatthe NBA had canceled their season. So
I guess my question is was itever a hard Was it ever a hard
decision? Meaning it seemed like nowwe sit here, you know, five
days later, all, yeah,they had to cancel it. But was
there ever any pushback or was itwas it a harder decision than you guys
(34:57):
thought it might be when it wastime to pull the t rigger on it.
I don't think it was a harddecision at all. Honestly, I
think we probably all knew in ourgut even on Tuesday that, you know,
if things progressed in a way thatwe couldn't control, that this is
where we would end up. Butyou have to plan for both scenarios,
right again, that the highest principlewas how do we still assure this great
(35:21):
championship experience for the student athletes?So we want to do all in our
power. You know, understand thatwe had broader, higher level responsibilities than
just this event to do that.But yeah, you know, we had
no one who was sort of fightingus on this aiden eCos or otherwise.
As you know, things were movingvery quickly on their campuses as well.
They were getting updates, and youcould sort of feel the inertia of everybody
(35:44):
in the room or on a calljust saying, yeah, boy, this
really sucks, but there's no otherchoice. Jay Man, I know you're
in constant contact with a lot ofthe coaches in our conference. When the
league says we're canceling the tournament,we already knew the NBA was suspending their
season and the nc doable a tournament, the whole deal. What was the
reaction in the feedback that you werehearing from from the coaches. You know,
(36:07):
I generally communicate to our coaches umvia text string, so everything that
we were emailing with the campuses,I was in parallel conversation via text um.
You know, I think it wasit was pretty quiet. We didn't
really hear hear from anybody. Wehad a couple of logistical questions about you
know, recruiting windows or otherwise,but you know, I think I think
(36:30):
Nick Cronin really said it bad.He was quoted in an LA Times article
I think the next day that chronicledhow it all went down for his team.
And boy was there a team atour conference. It was on a
better role than than UCLA. Idon't think so. So I'm sure it
was super disappointing for them. ButI think mixed quote was, you know,
we told the kids disappointing that ourthat our magical run is ending.
(36:50):
But it was something like, ifthis is the worst thing that happened to
them in their lives, they're goingto have great lives. So I do
think we need to keep it inperspective. I feel all the student athletes
that didn't have a chance to maketheir March Madness run and have their one
shining moment. But I think allof us, you know, to lock
arms as a society here and protectthose most vulnerable among us. And it's
(37:12):
been nice to see a lot ofthe coaches and even student athletes come out
and say how they how they understandthis. It's really about their generation,
you know, assuring that the more, more more vulnerable veteran generation, you
know, has what they need.Yeah, no doubt, Jamie, And
I guess that leads me to thenext question. Something that's been tossed around
here the last few days about maybeextending eligibility for some of these uh,
(37:37):
you know, especially spring sport athletes, but also winter sport athletes. Has
there been discussions already about that internally? Yeah, so the conferences are talking.
The NCAA and the NCBLA staff isworking on this. There's sort of
two buckets. I think they'll lookat it two different ways. One,
you have winter sports, most allof which whether it's basketball or swimming or
(37:58):
otherwise, had really completed their regularseason and had their postseason cancel either their
conference tournament, encitablate tournaments, Sothat's sort of one bucket. Then you
have a spring sports, some ofwhich had started sort of the beginning of
their non conference schedule or maybe gotteninto some conference games, but really missed
out on an entire season, andnow tho's obviously been canceled to the end
(38:20):
of the year. So my guessis they'll be treated differently. I think
we're more optimistic for the spring sportsthan we are for the winter sports.
There's just a lot of complications inthe winter sports, and there's a lot
of things will have to be figuredout. You know, rosters are going
to have to be changed. Wehave scholarship limits, so if they allow
kids to retain eligibility, they're gonnahave to increase scholarship limits for those sports.
(38:43):
They'll be financial implications, will bescheduling implications. I think everybody's you
know, prepared to manage those ina very uncertain environment, to make sure
that you know that these student athletes, you know, get the opportunities that
they that they deserve. It wasit was interesting. Dave Heikey, who's
the ad at Arizona, son asa senior at Central Michigan on their baseball
team, we got up from themeeting where everybody decided we were going to
(39:06):
cancel our tournament and at that pointwe'd also suspended all of our spring sports.
And he said, yeah, myson called me. He was on
his way on a trip to Floridafor a baseball trip, and he said,
you know, what does this mean? I'm a senior. Am I
just was it? Am I done? And that was sort of an interesting
comment. It really brought to lifea specific case of what this is like
for these student athletes. So I'mconfident, you know, either one of
(39:30):
the other spring or winter sports willwill likely get a dish ledge ability and
be able to play out their careers. But it's just, you know,
we got to move fast because thesekids need answers. But there's so many
layers to this to make sure thatthe school's prepared to do it in a
way that's you know, first ofall responsible to the kids. Secondly,
you know, pervert, you know, we assure competitive equity in the system
(39:52):
and all those other sort of regulatorythings. It's a big system, but
I think everybody's committed to trying tomake a way to make it happen.
I mean, before I let you, you're going what's next. I mean,
you're you're talking about, you know, the extra eligibility, and that's
you know, one bucket. ButI feel like there are so many decisions
that the conferences around this country haveto go and make a big picture this
(40:14):
for me, like these next moves, like what are the things that we
potentially could be seeing and the thingsthat are being worked on. Yeah,
don't think you want to speculate atthis point. In terms of timing,
I think we're all working on sortof the eight week twelve week timeline.
We're looking at UM you know alot of our non competitive events, whether
it's governance and how we meet withour with our membership, making sure that
(40:35):
we're threading the needle between providing theforum for them to get the answers they
need while also being respectful that theyhave a lot to manage on their campuses.
So it's a lot of communication.We have daily calls with our athletic
directors, we have daily calls withthe other conferences. We're really just convening
everybody to make sure that the communicationlines are open. But you know,
(40:57):
we have we have numerous contracts weneed to to to talk to talk about
UM. You know, a lotof a lot of legal advice. UM.
We obviously have events that aren't happeningthat that media UM companies are interested
in in understanding how we're gonna goingto manage. We obviously have a content
plan on our on our network thatwe're discussing. We actually think there's some
(41:19):
real opportunities here UM to sort oflean into being a public service at a
time like this, UM to peoplethat you know are adjusting a whole new
way of living in terms of alot of being quarantined and shelter in place
UM systems across our footprint in thecountry. So we hope we can be
we can we can sort of bea shining light for them and help them,
(41:39):
you know, enjoy what they canuh you know at home. So
there's there's all sorts of elements,um, that we need to plan.
I mean, in some respects thisis very difficult. In other respects,
it's probably you know, we're probablyfortunate I was talking to someone that didn't
happen in November or something. Youcan imagine we're in the middle of fall
season and winter and spring to plan, um, you know, it would
(42:00):
been really really complicated. So ifthere's a silver lining, maybe that's it.
But um, well we're right nowwe're going to try to get to
the summer. We're also using asan opportunity, you know. I called
it with my staff the pile.Everybody has a pile on their desk of
things that you know, they're alwaysgoing to work on when they get to
that point, whether it's after bigevents or to the summer. We're now
dusted off our piles and making surewe do some of that long range planning
(42:22):
that that everybody wants to get tobut somehow has a hard time sometimes.
So so that's sort of the environmentnow. It's still uncertain, but we're
doing all we can to just provideleadership and and take care of our staff
obviously too. We have a lotof people that you know live in the
Bay Area at different areas, andit's certain for them right now too.
We want to make sure that we'revery sensitive to how we manage this as
(42:45):
an organization. Jamie, appreciate thetime. I know a lot going on
in the league office and also inat home. Homeschooling begins for your boys
tomorrow as well. So yeah,that'll be that'll be a good juck juggling
at all, Jamie. Thanks again, man, Thanks Jamie. Yeah,
thanks for the time, and thanksfor keeping the podcast going so we can
(43:08):
keep people engaged at a time wherethey're looking for for other things to do.
It's great that you guys are keepingit going. So those are thoughts
that Jamie's z Anovich, Deputy commissionerfor the pactual of Conference and don you
can tell like there's just there's alot of inventory and the decisions that need
to be made. I think Jamie'spoint is well said. Need to be
(43:29):
made quickly for a lot of theseseniors. Yeah, and you know,
it's unfortunate. You can tell thatyou wasn't an easy decision. And the
question I asked them about it wasit ever a hard decision? And I
didn't mean it like that, I'min in the sense that it just didn't
think they'd even have to be makingthat decision on Thursday morning, you know,
based on Tuesday night when we started. But yeah, a lot of
(43:52):
stuff to be decided. But theydo a great job in the Conference Office
and the nca I'm sure we'll givesome clarity to what's going to happen moving
forward, but I guess i'd wrapit up with just unfortunate that we didn't
get to see our teams playing theNCAA tournament and finish our conference tournament.
You know, don We got onemore podcast tomorrow. It will be released
(44:13):
McKinley wright our guests from Colorado.He was absolutely awesome, really eloquent in
describing his personal feelings for not playingin the nc double A Tournament, not
to mention some significant news about hisstatus in the NBA Draft. So that
will be on tomorrow's podcast. Encourageeveryone to check that out If you see
it on social media, I giveit a share as well. Don we
got one more man, So lookingforward to doing that show with you and
(44:36):
wrapping that thing up. But alwaysbeen a blast. Yeah, it's been great.
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