March 18, 2019 • 27 mins
Doug continues his appreciate for Duke’s Zion Williamson and why he’s impressed with what he’s already done in just 1 season. He talks to Pat Forde from Yahoo Sports about the bracket and if the committee got the seeding right. Plus, he tells you why people around the NBA are getting tired of Russell Westbrook’s act.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug gottlie
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time that's twelve to
three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for the Doug Gottlieb Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs R. This is the best
(00:21):
of the Doug Godleive Show on Fox Sports Radio. Boom
Up America. Doug got Leave Show, Fox Sports Radio. Brought
to you by Farmers and Farmers. We've seen almost everything,
so we know how to cover almost anything. When it's
game time, have an experienced player help you stay ahead
of the game. Put their experience into play. At Farmers
dot com. We are farmers, you know. Um. I was
(00:48):
thinking about who Zion Williamson is. All right, everybody wants
him to be a former player, Roddy Rogers, Charles Barkley,
or current player, more athletic Draymond Green, Maybe of a
Larry Johnson, a mush of all of you can mush
them all together. You can mush like like when you
have Plato, you know, and you have red Plato and
orange Plato and green Plato and brown Plato, and you
(01:10):
mush it all together and then you have kind of
some multicolored Plato. That's what he would be, But that's
not what I was thinking of for Zion Williamson. Zion
Williamson is single handedly accomplishing two things all at once.
I am not a duke hater. I'm not um. What
(01:31):
happens in my sport that I have covered for sixteen years,
and it's happened since the first day I walked in
over at the old place is look. I walked in
and it was covered that the number one guy has
been Dick. Oh, let me tell you about Chewski and
Boy Williams and Tom is Oh. Oh, that's suppose slating sensational.
(01:56):
The the the percentage of commentary that is over overwhelmingly positive
as opposed to any sort of negative is like tend
to one used to be twenty one. And I don't
even think of commentary being or analysis being negative. But
sometimes when you truly analyze something, you go, hey, that
(02:17):
wasn't as good as it should be. This guy needs
to be better. This coach did made a mistake. Coach
to make mistakes. Players make mistakes. These things happen so
because I feel like I play it right down in
the middle. Sometimes I've been cast in the negative light,
(02:38):
but I'm not a Duke hater. I've always been a
Duke realist. I grew up a Duke fan. Bobby Hurley
was my favorite player. I watched them when both of
their national championship games. First one I watched in Vegas
as they took down You and l V. Then be
Kansas on Monday night. Second, want to watch in person.
Last time we were in the Twin Cities and they
(02:59):
went back to back national titles. It was the slammed
Phone game. I'll tell you about the slam Phone Game
a little bit later. But um, I do think that
much like in college football, we have a tendency to
celebrate when Notre Dame loses their first game, we have
(03:20):
a tendency to celebrate when Duke losing the n s
a trum for whatever reason, the attention that they have
gotten throughout the regular season, because of their coach, because
of their Jim, because of their history, and because of
the players that they have. When they lose, people generally celebrate,
and Duke is seen as at least slightly if not
(03:42):
more than mildly unlikable, and Zion Williamson completely changes that.
You're like, I don't love Duke, but dude, I love
that Diane Williamson. He just so good and nice and
plays hard and he's a kid, and he's smile ailes
and he doesn't trip anybody. A matter of fact, he
(04:03):
was tripped. He plays hard, and he he likes his teammates.
What the hell I find myself rooting for Duke. The
same is actually true for college basketball. Not that you
root against college basketball, but I do get the sense
that most of us have. And look, ESPN has kind
(04:24):
of done this this to themselves. They were so invested
in college basketball early on, they really built up the sport,
and now they've become a huge part of destroying the
sport because they put the NBA on in competition on
the Saturday night used to be a college basketball night.
I know it's part of the new TV agreement and
it's a genius to it, but you watch the two
(04:44):
next to each other and you're like, and the NBA
guys are a lot better, but Zion Williamson is the
one guy Like, I don't want to watch college basketball
as it was Zion's on. Well, hell, that's like in
pulp fiction when you're calling in the wolf. That's all
you got to say. Zion's on. You know, he's like,
(05:06):
he's he's like the he's like the new boyfriend of
your ex. Right, the new boy Zion Williamson is the
new boyfriend of your ex. Stick with me for a second. Right,
she dumped you, and you thought, hey, I'm ana catch
(05:29):
You wanted to have some sort of dysfunctional You wanted
to either wanted her to be with an ugly dude
so that you were the good looking ex boyfriend or
with a guy who didn't get her, didn't treat her right,
so that she always knew you were better. You were
better at nine and during the day and better look
(05:50):
at and you meet the guy you know, you go
to a wedding. You go to a wedding and it's
a mutual friend and you show up and you're still single,
and here you meet the guy. You're like, man, I
want to kick this dude's hair. Here he is he's
with my girl, Like I wanna, I wanna he's you know,
and if you have kids, like he's he's not dad
(06:12):
to the kids. But he's Jim Jim so nice and
you're like, man, I want to find some skeletons. Turns
out like he donates money and his time. He used
to be in the Peace Corps, right like he his
dad's like an army hero. He's just nice. He says
(06:33):
yes ma'am and yes sir. He goes to church every Sunday.
He opens the door for her. He buys her like
nice reasonable things, not over that gives her space, but
then is there for her, you know Dan, And he's
like financially successful, like somehow you just had this thing
invention in his mind, got it pad Like he's worth
(06:55):
like fifty million dollars. Like your favorite place to vacation
with here was Cabo. Turns out he's got a house
in Cabo. You know that range over she always wanted,
She's got one now he takes care of it. He
pumps her gas. I hate that, but I I'd really
kind of like to be dating that guy. That's who
(07:16):
Zion is. He's the new boyfriend of your ex who
you wanna hate, you so badly want to find little
things to pick apart. He's like, well it's jump shots dot.
It's actually better than I thought, well, maybe he doesn't play,
he actually plays really hard. Maybe he's super selfish, right selfish.
Maybe he'll sit out when he tweaks his name. Nope,
(07:38):
actually wants to play for his teammates. Well, maybe when
he plays, he won't play with reckless abandoned because he's
trying to protect the asset as he's the number one
overall pick and he's gonna make millions in all this
and Nope, Nope. Maybe he'll say something dumb when you
play put a microphone in the front of his face. Nope,
he says the right thing every time, all her dirt
(08:00):
calling because he's so perfect. Did you have to pick Duke? Right?
Picked some other level, but like he almost went to Clemson, now, right,
that would have been Clemson. You know, pick somebody else,
pick up, pick Butler? Who doesn't No one doesn't like Butler,
(08:22):
like pick Butler? Did you have to pick Duke? Duke
is a villain and trip guys, Christian Latner, Stefan guys.
You know Saint just Sankschevski, you know, dog cusses the
officials and nobody knows or when they're playing Wisconsin at
the half of the National championship game, he goes on
national TV. He calls out the refs and then all
(08:43):
of a sudden they get every call right, Like, did
you really have to pick Duke? Because now I find
myself going, you know, I'd really like to see Duke
play in the final four, and I kind of want
him to win, telling you the Zion character, gotta keep
an eye on that one. Too perfect, too nice, place,
too hard, place, the right way, place for his teammates,
(09:06):
and he plays for Duke. Something is off, something is amiss,
because I find myself I find myself with that, like
I almost I'm going to Dick Vital and going, hey, Ki,
borrow your Duke pomp pomp from every time you do
the game. I would like to borrow that and shake it.
When I watched them play this weekend, Zi Williamson accomplishing
(09:26):
what had previously been uh an uncommable, unclammable mountain, an
impenetrable fortress of hate, of hate rade, which is nobody
likes Duke, especially this time of year. Think about when
they lost a Mercer and Mercer's out dancing on mid court.
You're like, man, I love Mercer. They lost a VCU.
(09:47):
You're like, man, I love VCU. Now you're like, please, God,
don't let anything happen to Duke. I want to see
Si Williams and play six more games. Please please please.
H Hell has frozen over, pigs have started to fly,
and you find yourself rooting for Duke, even if you're
like a Yukon fan where you're just built to hate
(10:09):
the Blue Devils. Be sure to catch live editions so
the Doug Dot Leaps Show weekdays in noon eastern three
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
Radio app. Pat forty from Yahoo Sports joins us no
outrage this year. Maybe it's because I wasn't on the
show and I couldn't stir anything up. But I mean
I was, I was trying, But there's nothing I'm really
(10:32):
that fired up about, right, Like, you know, why do
you think that is? Because I think the committee did
a pretty good job. You know, I think it was
it was kind of cut and drive to a lot
of extent. I thought, I mean, the top eight were
the top eight and it was just gonna be a
matter of who's ones and whose two's, you know. I
do feel badly for Michigan State and Duke being in
(10:53):
the same region, because I thought that they probably deserved
better than to have to play each other to go
to the Final four. Um. And I don't like Kansas
getting a chance to play in Kansas City. And I
probably would have liked to have seen the SOCA second
SoCon team or a lipscum make the field instead of
(11:13):
a you know, a Temple or a Arizona State or
somebody like that, yeah, or or St. John's I'm I'm
with you on all of those. I would only, you know,
the counter would be like, I'm actually more bothered that
Michigan State has to play on a Thursday. Right. That
was that was a war that they had to play.
Now they got to around play on a Thursday. I
don't like that you played the last game. You shouldn't.
You shouldn't play in the first day. Um. You know,
(11:35):
the counter to kick Kansas is they just lost in
Kansas City, So it obviously not that big an advantage
um for for the Jayhawks, even if you know, proximity
will make it a prohibitive home court if they could
even get that far. But yeah, they're there. What's interesting
about the Kansas thing and interesting about is I hate when,
(11:56):
for example, they said, well, we had contingency plans. If
Tennessee won the s you See Championship, they would have
been a number one seed. Well, why didn't you have
a contingency plan if Michigan State won the Big Ten championship?
And oh yeah, by the way, if you had the
brackets done so early, couldn't you find tooth combedom and said, hey, guys,
you know we got Kansas playing in Kansas City. Can
(12:17):
we make an adjustment to that? Yeah? Sure, I mean
that's the thing, you know, I think that. I mean,
it's never gonna be perfect, but there were some things
that could have done that probably could have buttoned it
up a little bit more and left them a little
less open for second guessing. But you know, on the
whole of your your original point, you know, I don't
think there's a lot of egregious stuff out there. So
(12:38):
kudos to the committee because I thought it was a
really hard year to do it. Who made made easier
by some of those bids that were stolen, right they did, no,
no doubt about it, no doubt about it there, you know,
Oregon coming in and getting a bid and a couple
other people late there, I think did make it easier
for them. Um. On the other hand, Uh, you know,
(13:00):
I thought they you know, they handled an L s
U conundrum pretty well. Um. I thought that, uh you know,
and again I was pleased to see Belmont get a
shot in there. So, you know, some of the issues
that I was anticipating, uh, didn't didn't really materialize. Doug
Atlip Show, Fox Sports Radio. That's the voice of Pat
(13:20):
Forty who joins us. This weird thing happening across America.
People are rooting for Duke because of Zion Williamson. I
I equated it to finding yourself really enjoying the company
of your ex's new boyfriend or new husband. Right, That's
that's what it is. You want to hate the guy,
but you just can't. Yeah. No, I mean he has
(13:41):
so much fun to watch and he is a likable person.
I've interviewed him, I don't know, like three times, and
he's he's just a sweetheart of a guy. He's got
a great personality. Uh. You watch him on the court.
He gives tremendous, honest effort. He's you know, generous with
his teammates and not only with the ball, but being
excited for him. Uh. You know, there's nothing about him
(14:03):
not to like and enjoy watching as far as I'm concerned.
You know, if you if you can't get past the
uniform and and and at least enjoy watching him play,
then then I think you got a problem. Yeah, I
would agree, but it is. It is a weird thing
for so many college basketball fans who are just gonna
sit there with the rosary beachs normally and root for
them to lose. And now you you've realized, like, I
(14:23):
don't I want to keep I want to I want
to watch watch him play. Um, okay, who do you
think ultimately? You know, like I feel like five six teams? Um?
Five six teams. I mean, if you stretch it out
with Michigan and Michigan State, maybe too maybe the eight teams.
But I kind of feel like we know who the good,
the best teams are, we know who everybody else is fair,
(14:44):
I think so, you know, I mean that's usually I
try to find, you know, a three seed of four
seed somebody to to put past the top two lines.
And I think it's hard. I mean, I kind of
like Texas Tech, but now I'm scared about the way
they finished the Big Ten. Uh, tournament or a big,
big twelve tournament. I'm sorry. Um so you know I
(15:04):
I look at the top eight and I think the
champion is definitely gonna come from that group. Um you know,
Duke Carolina, Kentucky, Gonzaga, Tennessee, Virginia. Uh The the one
interesting thing to me, Doug, is the one reason of
the South region which will come here to Louisville. Somebody's
I think, going to the final four for the first
time in a long time, because unless the lower seed
(15:26):
breaks through, I mean, Tennessee's never been. Virginia hadn't vincince
at four Perdue, hadn't vincince eighty. Uh So, somebody's gonna
have a breakthrough. I think Virginia and Tennessee can both
say hey, I kind of like our draw. Here s
Doug gotlib show here on Fox sport Trader. That's the
voice of Pat forty. All right, let's let's get do
what's really interesting this time of year, which is who's
(15:47):
gonna be the coach at U C l A. Boy.
I don't know that it is interesting, and I don't
know what they do. You know, I really have enough.
I'll admit I haven't had my ear to the ground
on that much because we've been doing so much investigation
stuff with the with the scandal. But you know, is
it is it A does Luke Walton seek refugee status
(16:08):
from the n B A Eric Musselman's name is out there.
There's not a natural slam dunk kind of fit. I
don't think you know, it's not. There's not somebody just
sitting there and go, oh yeah, that's the logical U
c L A coach. So there might need to be
some creativity. I've heard some people throw around Kelvin Sampson's name. Uh,
you know, I don't know what the heck they're gonna do.
I I don't either. Um, the Musselman thing, I mean,
(16:31):
you know, obviously he's got the lineage, and he's actually
been a great college coach and you know, proven he
can do it with lesser resources. Um, there was some
extracurricular back when he was in the NBA, but that
was years ago, and I just don't know if you see,
I can get over that. On the other hand, you know,
there's Taco Patino, and if you can get over Patino stuff, heck,
you get over stuff A decade old from from from Musselman.
(16:52):
It is weird though, that it's, you know, name wise
one of the five greatest jobs in college basketball, but
here it is sitting open for half the year, and
it just feels like there's a lack of any sort
of knowledge or maybe buzz as to where they're going. Yeah,
it is strange, you know, And I don't know whether
the job is now considered damaged goods or people are
scared of it or what the situation is. But you know,
(17:15):
usually you'd have a congo line of very proven, impressive
coaches who would like to get in on something like that.
So you know, maybe Dan Garrel is just holding his
cards very close to his chest and knows what he
wants to do. Maybe he's waiting for somebody to be
done with a season, whether it's in the NBA or
whether it's in college. But there's not a lot getting
out about what's going on there. I'll tell you the
(17:36):
latest rumor in l A is John Calipari. Is there
is there a born on date? Is there a time
in which you have to like, you know what you
gotta you just you gotta try something new? Like how
many how many Top five recruits can you get? How
many one and dones. Can you deal? How many times
can you be in Kentucky? Is there ever a moment
where you go like, you know, maybe it doesn't that
(17:58):
that marriage doesn't go the distance? Yeah? Sure, I mean
the past history indicates that that it's like Notre Dame football,
so burnout job You don't have other than Adolf Rupp,
who was almost literally prehistoric at least in terms of
integration of the game. Uh, you don't have people that
stay there for twenty years, you know, Joe Joby Hall
retired early, Eddie Sutton was run out by scandal. Rick
(18:21):
Pettino hit the ejection button to go to the NBA
Tubby Smith. It was kind of that worn out marriage thing.
Calipari while he's one a ton, I do know this.
He's getting paid nine point three million dollars this year.
They haven't been to the Final force the one, and
a lot of people are saying, why does Duke have
all the players we used to get? So, I mean,
(18:42):
is there a little bit of at least restless natives? Yeah,
I would say so. And maybe he's looking around saying,
I don't have to have this. I could go coach elsewhere.
I don't know Richard Pettino is a former Louisville assistant.
Rick Pettino is a former Louisville head coach, and having
we've all gone through the process, so we'll just assume
that it just happened that Minnesota is playing Louisville. But
(19:04):
that's the that's that and the uh what Marquette versus
Murray State are the two that just happened to happen
that we love that they just happened to happen, right, Yes, yes,
And you know, if you want to get a little
further down the line, possibly Bobby Hurley playing Natotes, But
that's that's far less shusy than Patino family versus Louisville.
(19:25):
You know that one I said, this is uh, Richard
Patino in uh al Pacino's role in The Godfather as
Michael Corleone, and he can come in and say today,
I settled all family business. If he takes out Louisville here,
uh and Don Corleone cannot in approval. But there's no
(19:46):
doubt that that's going to bring a little bit of
extra use to that game. I don't think there's I
don't think there's any question. Are you going to a site.
Are you going to Vegas? Are you going to the couch?
What are you doing? I'm going to be like monitoring
from actually from the n C Double A Women's Swimming
Championships Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Yeah, watching Stanford and then after
(20:07):
that I'll be somewhere Saturday Sunday. Now, your daughter's a
legit swimmer. You're not one of these people that paid
five hundred grands that your daughter would get into a
swimming deal, right, I promise, First of all, I don't
have five grand Secondly, you just watch her? Yeah, no, no,
I I've seen all of the tweets from the various
swim meets. I just didn't know if you had somebody
else take them and put them on your account, you know,
so that you could you could get in under the
(20:28):
little bit under the under the under the wire without
anybody noticing. Again, not rich enough and I guess not
devious enough either. What do you do with with l
s U? Right? Like there was the weird Will Wade
statement that he wants to coach, yet he hasn't. He
won't talk with his but he's doing basically what Bruce
Pearl did. Well, He's like, I'm not gonna talk to im.
(20:48):
Ain't talking about president about what might or might not
have happened. Like that's a I actually kind of like
Yale in the game. Uh, Tony Bedford is gonna coach.
But what are your thoughts on the on the on
the L s U thing. Oh, it's it's crazy, it's weird,
you know. And it is similar to pearl stance, but
(21:09):
Wade has caught a lot more red handed, I would say,
than Pearl was. You know Pearl, it was like, my
assistance are involved here. This is Will Wade, you know,
on FBI transcripts saying you know about a strong ass offer.
So that's something that has to be explained and has
to be explained directly by him. I don't think you
can sit back and say I'm not going to talk
(21:29):
to you. And boy, there were some interesting comments from
an associate a d from l s U and explaining
the situation that basically, I mean this was not a
a a university that's lining up behind Will Wade. It
was like, yeah, you know what, he's got to talk
to us. He may have violated the law, he may
have broken into double A rules, that's the deal. Uh,
And so you know, They're gonna go forward without him
(21:52):
in this tournament. They have a ton of talent. Nas
Read is a monster, Tremont Water is a very good
guard that got good players, but a runnerless ship. It
looked like a little bit too in the SEC tournament.
Yeah yeah, No, I mean that they have really really good,
really good players. Is is how is how basketball people
would say, got really really really good players? Um, this is?
(22:16):
This does feel different than the Sean Miller thing. Obviously
your site is reporting Pat forty from Yahoo Sports joining
us on the Dug gallyp Show. You guys are reporting
in this as opposed to ESPN reporting last year on
the Sean Miller thing. Why is it different? Well, I mean,
I don't know. I don't know what went into ESPN
(22:37):
is reporting on that, but you know, we we reported
the what we had and uh, you know, I it
lays it out pretty specifically. It's just there's not a
lot of window room there. Uh you know, you don't
have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what
they were talking about. And I just don't know how
(22:57):
you explain it any other way than what everybody thinks
it was. I don't think so either. Fascinating fastening stuff.
UH last thing, who do you have within it? I've
got to um. When Zion came back and played like
he did, and they played like they did if the
uh ACC tournament, that answered my questions. I liked them
(23:17):
all along. I liked him. I was there when they
destroyed Kentucky the first game. I liked them all season.
When they got their guys on the court. I think
they're the best team all right. I saw the Kentucky one.
I actually have Kentucky winning it. I do think they've improved.
I'm a little cautious of Duke's lack of of scoring depth,
but I think they'll get there, and I'm I'm fast
to see how it how it plays out. Pat, enjoy swimming,
(23:39):
Good luck to your daughter, and can't wait to read
your commentary leading up to and covering the n C
A German. Thanks so much, Thank you appreciate that's Pat Ford. Yeah,
who sports does a great job. Be sure to catch
live edition so the Doug dot Leap Show weekdays in
noon eastern three pm Pacific. Russell Westbrook is just he's
become that guy, right, He's become that guy that everything
(24:05):
is difficult guy for no reasonable reason everything is difficult
for that guy, right, doesn't play well against Oklahoma's against
a golden state and doesn't want to answer questions. Got
a technical foul, So technically he's over the technical foul
(24:25):
limit and should be suspended for a game. But doesn't
we just a curmudgeon for curmudgeon's sake, And look, I
will not take the side of a fan who yells
things at him, well not, but I will also point
out that he kind of went off on a kid
(24:46):
who touched him when he was standing right next to
him courtside, and then on the dad during the game. Alright,
in and of itself, I don't think the dad needs
to be lectured. The kid could have been told like, hey, dude,
you gotta you know, please don't please don't touch us
when we can't see you. That's just weird. But it's
not like he's the first person to be touched and
(25:11):
then going off on a fan. It's like, look, I
don't think that's okay. But in fairness to other fans,
you were engaging and making eye contact and muttering back
and they can't hear what you're saying if not for
the cell phone video, and they think you're engaging with them,
and whether it's the officials, the other team, occasionally teammates,
(25:34):
media members, like, look, this is not that hard. This
is not hard work. This is not something that you
can't have a great It makes you just like Steph
Curry so much more. It's a lot like desion thing, like, hey,
but at the end of the day, you're playing basketball.
You miss shots, still playing basketball. He just become that
(25:58):
guy where everything he's just Debbie down Er, dude, everything,
it's me against the world guy and instead of being
an incredibly likable story and guy, right, because it's pretty
obvious this is not really who he is. You watch
him with his kid, you know, you watched with his kid.
(26:18):
You're like, man, that's pretty awesome. Takes his kid everywhere,
kid toddling around basketball floor while he's shooting around. Yeah,
you don't have that sort of flamboyant flair with clothing,
willing to willing to dress at times inappropriately or at
times just take a chance in what you're wearing. You know,
unless you'll you you gotta be wanting to hear some
(26:39):
negative feedback. It's like all that is fine, Like that's
the guy I think he is. But he's gotten to
this place where no one can question him. He can't
have a normal conversation, he can't have a normal back
and forth with a media member, with an official, with
a guy from another team, et. Everything is a fight,
(27:01):
and it's just that crap gets old. Hey, dude, it's old.
It's old for all of us. I know people in
the NBA like you know. I generally like him when
he got in the league. I liked how much you
wanted to prove people wrong. But like now, we already
think you're good. You don't just have to be obnoxious
about it.
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug gottlie
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time that's twelve to
three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
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(00:21):
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dot com. We are farmers, you know. Um. I was
(00:48):
thinking about who Zion Williamson is. All right, everybody wants
him to be a former player, Roddy Rogers, Charles Barkley,
or current player, more athletic Draymond Green, Maybe of a
Larry Johnson, a mush of all of you can mush
them all together. You can mush like like when you
have Plato, you know, and you have red Plato and
orange Plato and green Plato and brown Plato, and you
(01:10):
mush it all together and then you have kind of
some multicolored Plato. That's what he would be, But that's
not what I was thinking of for Zion Williamson. Zion
Williamson is single handedly accomplishing two things all at once.
I am not a duke hater. I'm not um. What
(01:31):
happens in my sport that I have covered for sixteen years,
and it's happened since the first day I walked in
over at the old place is look. I walked in
and it was covered that the number one guy has
been Dick. Oh, let me tell you about Chewski and
Boy Williams and Tom is Oh. Oh, that's suppose slating sensational.
(01:56):
The the the percentage of commentary that is over overwhelmingly positive
as opposed to any sort of negative is like tend
to one used to be twenty one. And I don't
even think of commentary being or analysis being negative. But
sometimes when you truly analyze something, you go, hey, that
(02:17):
wasn't as good as it should be. This guy needs
to be better. This coach did made a mistake. Coach
to make mistakes. Players make mistakes. These things happen so
because I feel like I play it right down in
the middle. Sometimes I've been cast in the negative light,
(02:38):
but I'm not a Duke hater. I've always been a
Duke realist. I grew up a Duke fan. Bobby Hurley
was my favorite player. I watched them when both of
their national championship games. First one I watched in Vegas
as they took down You and l V. Then be
Kansas on Monday night. Second, want to watch in person.
Last time we were in the Twin Cities and they
(02:59):
went back to back national titles. It was the slammed
Phone game. I'll tell you about the slam Phone Game
a little bit later. But um, I do think that
much like in college football, we have a tendency to
celebrate when Notre Dame loses their first game, we have
(03:20):
a tendency to celebrate when Duke losing the n s
a trum for whatever reason, the attention that they have
gotten throughout the regular season, because of their coach, because
of their Jim, because of their history, and because of
the players that they have. When they lose, people generally celebrate,
and Duke is seen as at least slightly if not
(03:42):
more than mildly unlikable, and Zion Williamson completely changes that.
You're like, I don't love Duke, but dude, I love
that Diane Williamson. He just so good and nice and
plays hard and he's a kid, and he's smile ailes
and he doesn't trip anybody. A matter of fact, he
(04:03):
was tripped. He plays hard, and he he likes his teammates.
What the hell I find myself rooting for Duke. The
same is actually true for college basketball. Not that you
root against college basketball, but I do get the sense
that most of us have. And look, ESPN has kind
(04:24):
of done this this to themselves. They were so invested
in college basketball early on, they really built up the sport,
and now they've become a huge part of destroying the
sport because they put the NBA on in competition on
the Saturday night used to be a college basketball night.
I know it's part of the new TV agreement and
it's a genius to it, but you watch the two
(04:44):
next to each other and you're like, and the NBA
guys are a lot better, but Zion Williamson is the
one guy Like, I don't want to watch college basketball
as it was Zion's on. Well, hell, that's like in
pulp fiction when you're calling in the wolf. That's all
you got to say. Zion's on. You know, he's like,
(05:06):
he's he's like the he's like the new boyfriend of
your ex. Right, the new boy Zion Williamson is the
new boyfriend of your ex. Stick with me for a second. Right,
she dumped you, and you thought, hey, I'm ana catch
(05:29):
You wanted to have some sort of dysfunctional You wanted
to either wanted her to be with an ugly dude
so that you were the good looking ex boyfriend or
with a guy who didn't get her, didn't treat her right,
so that she always knew you were better. You were
better at nine and during the day and better look
(05:50):
at and you meet the guy you know, you go
to a wedding. You go to a wedding and it's
a mutual friend and you show up and you're still single,
and here you meet the guy. You're like, man, I
want to kick this dude's hair. Here he is he's
with my girl, Like I wanna, I wanna he's you know,
and if you have kids, like he's he's not dad
(06:12):
to the kids. But he's Jim Jim so nice and
you're like, man, I want to find some skeletons. Turns
out like he donates money and his time. He used
to be in the Peace Corps, right like he his
dad's like an army hero. He's just nice. He says
(06:33):
yes ma'am and yes sir. He goes to church every Sunday.
He opens the door for her. He buys her like
nice reasonable things, not over that gives her space, but
then is there for her, you know Dan, And he's
like financially successful, like somehow you just had this thing
invention in his mind, got it pad Like he's worth
(06:55):
like fifty million dollars. Like your favorite place to vacation
with here was Cabo. Turns out he's got a house
in Cabo. You know that range over she always wanted,
She's got one now he takes care of it. He
pumps her gas. I hate that, but I I'd really
kind of like to be dating that guy. That's who
(07:16):
Zion is. He's the new boyfriend of your ex who
you wanna hate, you so badly want to find little
things to pick apart. He's like, well it's jump shots dot.
It's actually better than I thought, well, maybe he doesn't play,
he actually plays really hard. Maybe he's super selfish, right selfish.
Maybe he'll sit out when he tweaks his name. Nope,
(07:38):
actually wants to play for his teammates. Well, maybe when
he plays, he won't play with reckless abandoned because he's
trying to protect the asset as he's the number one
overall pick and he's gonna make millions in all this
and Nope, Nope. Maybe he'll say something dumb when you
play put a microphone in the front of his face. Nope,
he says the right thing every time, all her dirt
(08:00):
calling because he's so perfect. Did you have to pick Duke? Right?
Picked some other level, but like he almost went to Clemson, now, right,
that would have been Clemson. You know, pick somebody else,
pick up, pick Butler? Who doesn't No one doesn't like Butler,
(08:22):
like pick Butler? Did you have to pick Duke? Duke
is a villain and trip guys, Christian Latner, Stefan guys.
You know Saint just Sankschevski, you know, dog cusses the
officials and nobody knows or when they're playing Wisconsin at
the half of the National championship game, he goes on
national TV. He calls out the refs and then all
(08:43):
of a sudden they get every call right, Like, did
you really have to pick Duke? Because now I find
myself going, you know, I'd really like to see Duke
play in the final four, and I kind of want
him to win, telling you the Zion character, gotta keep
an eye on that one. Too perfect, too nice, place,
too hard, place, the right way, place for his teammates,
(09:06):
and he plays for Duke. Something is off, something is amiss,
because I find myself I find myself with that, like
I almost I'm going to Dick Vital and going, hey, Ki,
borrow your Duke pomp pomp from every time you do
the game. I would like to borrow that and shake it.
When I watched them play this weekend, Zi Williamson accomplishing
(09:26):
what had previously been uh an uncommable, unclammable mountain, an
impenetrable fortress of hate, of hate rade, which is nobody
likes Duke, especially this time of year. Think about when
they lost a Mercer and Mercer's out dancing on mid court.
You're like, man, I love Mercer. They lost a VCU.
(09:47):
You're like, man, I love VCU. Now you're like, please, God,
don't let anything happen to Duke. I want to see
Si Williams and play six more games. Please please please.
H Hell has frozen over, pigs have started to fly,
and you find yourself rooting for Duke, even if you're
like a Yukon fan where you're just built to hate
(10:09):
the Blue Devils. Be sure to catch live editions so
the Doug Dot Leaps Show weekdays in noon eastern three
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
Radio app. Pat forty from Yahoo Sports joins us no
outrage this year. Maybe it's because I wasn't on the
show and I couldn't stir anything up. But I mean
I was, I was trying, But there's nothing I'm really
(10:32):
that fired up about, right, Like, you know, why do
you think that is? Because I think the committee did
a pretty good job. You know, I think it was
it was kind of cut and drive to a lot
of extent. I thought, I mean, the top eight were
the top eight and it was just gonna be a
matter of who's ones and whose two's, you know. I
do feel badly for Michigan State and Duke being in
(10:53):
the same region, because I thought that they probably deserved
better than to have to play each other to go
to the Final four. Um. And I don't like Kansas
getting a chance to play in Kansas City. And I
probably would have liked to have seen the SOCA second
SoCon team or a lipscum make the field instead of
(11:13):
a you know, a Temple or a Arizona State or
somebody like that, yeah, or or St. John's I'm I'm
with you on all of those. I would only, you know,
the counter would be like, I'm actually more bothered that
Michigan State has to play on a Thursday. Right. That
was that was a war that they had to play.
Now they got to around play on a Thursday. I
don't like that you played the last game. You shouldn't.
You shouldn't play in the first day. Um. You know,
(11:35):
the counter to kick Kansas is they just lost in
Kansas City, So it obviously not that big an advantage
um for for the Jayhawks, even if you know, proximity
will make it a prohibitive home court if they could
even get that far. But yeah, they're there. What's interesting
about the Kansas thing and interesting about is I hate when,
(11:56):
for example, they said, well, we had contingency plans. If
Tennessee won the s you See Championship, they would have
been a number one seed. Well, why didn't you have
a contingency plan if Michigan State won the Big Ten championship?
And oh yeah, by the way, if you had the
brackets done so early, couldn't you find tooth combedom and said, hey, guys,
you know we got Kansas playing in Kansas City. Can
(12:17):
we make an adjustment to that? Yeah? Sure, I mean
that's the thing, you know, I think that. I mean,
it's never gonna be perfect, but there were some things
that could have done that probably could have buttoned it
up a little bit more and left them a little
less open for second guessing. But you know, on the
whole of your your original point, you know, I don't
think there's a lot of egregious stuff out there. So
(12:38):
kudos to the committee because I thought it was a
really hard year to do it. Who made made easier
by some of those bids that were stolen, right they did, no,
no doubt about it, no doubt about it there, you know,
Oregon coming in and getting a bid and a couple
other people late there, I think did make it easier
for them. Um. On the other hand, Uh, you know,
(13:00):
I thought they you know, they handled an L s
U conundrum pretty well. Um. I thought that, uh you know,
and again I was pleased to see Belmont get a
shot in there. So, you know, some of the issues
that I was anticipating, uh, didn't didn't really materialize. Doug
Atlip Show, Fox Sports Radio. That's the voice of Pat
(13:20):
Forty who joins us. This weird thing happening across America.
People are rooting for Duke because of Zion Williamson. I
I equated it to finding yourself really enjoying the company
of your ex's new boyfriend or new husband. Right, That's
that's what it is. You want to hate the guy,
but you just can't. Yeah. No, I mean he has
(13:41):
so much fun to watch and he is a likable person.
I've interviewed him, I don't know, like three times, and
he's he's just a sweetheart of a guy. He's got
a great personality. Uh. You watch him on the court.
He gives tremendous, honest effort. He's you know, generous with
his teammates and not only with the ball, but being
excited for him. Uh. You know, there's nothing about him
(14:03):
not to like and enjoy watching as far as I'm concerned.
You know, if you if you can't get past the
uniform and and and at least enjoy watching him play,
then then I think you got a problem. Yeah, I
would agree, but it is. It is a weird thing
for so many college basketball fans who are just gonna
sit there with the rosary beachs normally and root for
them to lose. And now you you've realized, like, I
(14:23):
don't I want to keep I want to I want
to watch watch him play. Um, okay, who do you
think ultimately? You know, like I feel like five six teams? Um?
Five six teams. I mean, if you stretch it out
with Michigan and Michigan State, maybe too maybe the eight teams.
But I kind of feel like we know who the good,
the best teams are, we know who everybody else is fair,
(14:44):
I think so, you know, I mean that's usually I
try to find, you know, a three seed of four
seed somebody to to put past the top two lines.
And I think it's hard. I mean, I kind of
like Texas Tech, but now I'm scared about the way
they finished the Big Ten. Uh, tournament or a big,
big twelve tournament. I'm sorry. Um so you know I
(15:04):
I look at the top eight and I think the
champion is definitely gonna come from that group. Um you know,
Duke Carolina, Kentucky, Gonzaga, Tennessee, Virginia. Uh The the one
interesting thing to me, Doug, is the one reason of
the South region which will come here to Louisville. Somebody's
I think, going to the final four for the first
time in a long time, because unless the lower seed
(15:26):
breaks through, I mean, Tennessee's never been. Virginia hadn't vincince
at four Perdue, hadn't vincince eighty. Uh So, somebody's gonna
have a breakthrough. I think Virginia and Tennessee can both
say hey, I kind of like our draw. Here s
Doug gotlib show here on Fox sport Trader. That's the
voice of Pat forty. All right, let's let's get do
what's really interesting this time of year, which is who's
(15:47):
gonna be the coach at U C l A. Boy.
I don't know that it is interesting, and I don't
know what they do. You know, I really have enough.
I'll admit I haven't had my ear to the ground
on that much because we've been doing so much investigation
stuff with the with the scandal. But you know, is
it is it A does Luke Walton seek refugee status
(16:08):
from the n B A Eric Musselman's name is out there.
There's not a natural slam dunk kind of fit. I
don't think you know, it's not. There's not somebody just
sitting there and go, oh yeah, that's the logical U
c L A coach. So there might need to be
some creativity. I've heard some people throw around Kelvin Sampson's name. Uh,
you know, I don't know what the heck they're gonna do.
I I don't either. Um, the Musselman thing, I mean,
(16:31):
you know, obviously he's got the lineage, and he's actually
been a great college coach and you know, proven he
can do it with lesser resources. Um, there was some
extracurricular back when he was in the NBA, but that
was years ago, and I just don't know if you see,
I can get over that. On the other hand, you know,
there's Taco Patino, and if you can get over Patino stuff, heck,
you get over stuff A decade old from from from Musselman.
(16:52):
It is weird though, that it's, you know, name wise
one of the five greatest jobs in college basketball, but
here it is sitting open for half the year, and
it just feels like there's a lack of any sort
of knowledge or maybe buzz as to where they're going. Yeah,
it is strange, you know, And I don't know whether
the job is now considered damaged goods or people are
scared of it or what the situation is. But you know,
(17:15):
usually you'd have a congo line of very proven, impressive
coaches who would like to get in on something like that.
So you know, maybe Dan Garrel is just holding his
cards very close to his chest and knows what he
wants to do. Maybe he's waiting for somebody to be
done with a season, whether it's in the NBA or
whether it's in college. But there's not a lot getting
out about what's going on there. I'll tell you the
(17:36):
latest rumor in l A is John Calipari. Is there
is there a born on date? Is there a time
in which you have to like, you know what you
gotta you just you gotta try something new? Like how
many how many Top five recruits can you get? How
many one and dones. Can you deal? How many times
can you be in Kentucky? Is there ever a moment
where you go like, you know, maybe it doesn't that
(17:58):
that marriage doesn't go the distance? Yeah? Sure, I mean
the past history indicates that that it's like Notre Dame football,
so burnout job You don't have other than Adolf Rupp,
who was almost literally prehistoric at least in terms of
integration of the game. Uh, you don't have people that
stay there for twenty years, you know, Joe Joby Hall
retired early, Eddie Sutton was run out by scandal. Rick
(18:21):
Pettino hit the ejection button to go to the NBA
Tubby Smith. It was kind of that worn out marriage thing.
Calipari while he's one a ton, I do know this.
He's getting paid nine point three million dollars this year.
They haven't been to the Final force the one, and
a lot of people are saying, why does Duke have
all the players we used to get? So, I mean,
(18:42):
is there a little bit of at least restless natives? Yeah,
I would say so. And maybe he's looking around saying,
I don't have to have this. I could go coach elsewhere.
I don't know Richard Pettino is a former Louisville assistant.
Rick Pettino is a former Louisville head coach, and having
we've all gone through the process, so we'll just assume
that it just happened that Minnesota is playing Louisville. But
(19:04):
that's the that's that and the uh what Marquette versus
Murray State are the two that just happened to happen
that we love that they just happened to happen, right, Yes, yes,
And you know, if you want to get a little
further down the line, possibly Bobby Hurley playing Natotes, But
that's that's far less shusy than Patino family versus Louisville.
(19:25):
You know that one I said, this is uh, Richard
Patino in uh al Pacino's role in The Godfather as
Michael Corleone, and he can come in and say today,
I settled all family business. If he takes out Louisville here,
uh and Don Corleone cannot in approval. But there's no
(19:46):
doubt that that's going to bring a little bit of
extra use to that game. I don't think there's I
don't think there's any question. Are you going to a site.
Are you going to Vegas? Are you going to the couch?
What are you doing? I'm going to be like monitoring
from actually from the n C Double A Women's Swimming
Championships Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Yeah, watching Stanford and then after
(20:07):
that I'll be somewhere Saturday Sunday. Now, your daughter's a
legit swimmer. You're not one of these people that paid
five hundred grands that your daughter would get into a
swimming deal, right, I promise, First of all, I don't
have five grand Secondly, you just watch her? Yeah, no, no,
I I've seen all of the tweets from the various
swim meets. I just didn't know if you had somebody
else take them and put them on your account, you know,
so that you could you could get in under the
(20:28):
little bit under the under the under the wire without
anybody noticing. Again, not rich enough and I guess not
devious enough either. What do you do with with l
s U? Right? Like there was the weird Will Wade
statement that he wants to coach, yet he hasn't. He
won't talk with his but he's doing basically what Bruce
Pearl did. Well, He's like, I'm not gonna talk to im.
(20:48):
Ain't talking about president about what might or might not
have happened. Like that's a I actually kind of like
Yale in the game. Uh, Tony Bedford is gonna coach.
But what are your thoughts on the on the on
the L s U thing. Oh, it's it's crazy, it's weird,
you know. And it is similar to pearl stance, but
(21:09):
Wade has caught a lot more red handed, I would say,
than Pearl was. You know Pearl, it was like, my
assistance are involved here. This is Will Wade, you know,
on FBI transcripts saying you know about a strong ass offer.
So that's something that has to be explained and has
to be explained directly by him. I don't think you
can sit back and say I'm not going to talk
(21:29):
to you. And boy, there were some interesting comments from
an associate a d from l s U and explaining
the situation that basically, I mean this was not a
a a university that's lining up behind Will Wade. It
was like, yeah, you know what, he's got to talk
to us. He may have violated the law, he may
have broken into double A rules, that's the deal. Uh,
And so you know, They're gonna go forward without him
(21:52):
in this tournament. They have a ton of talent. Nas
Read is a monster, Tremont Water is a very good
guard that got good players, but a runnerless ship. It
looked like a little bit too in the SEC tournament.
Yeah yeah, No, I mean that they have really really good,
really good players. Is is how is how basketball people
would say, got really really really good players? Um, this is?
(22:16):
This does feel different than the Sean Miller thing. Obviously
your site is reporting Pat forty from Yahoo Sports joining
us on the Dug gallyp Show. You guys are reporting
in this as opposed to ESPN reporting last year on
the Sean Miller thing. Why is it different? Well, I mean,
I don't know. I don't know what went into ESPN
(22:37):
is reporting on that, but you know, we we reported
the what we had and uh, you know, I it
lays it out pretty specifically. It's just there's not a
lot of window room there. Uh you know, you don't
have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what
they were talking about. And I just don't know how
(22:57):
you explain it any other way than what everybody thinks
it was. I don't think so either. Fascinating fastening stuff.
UH last thing, who do you have within it? I've
got to um. When Zion came back and played like
he did, and they played like they did if the
uh ACC tournament, that answered my questions. I liked them
(23:17):
all along. I liked him. I was there when they
destroyed Kentucky the first game. I liked them all season.
When they got their guys on the court. I think
they're the best team all right. I saw the Kentucky one.
I actually have Kentucky winning it. I do think they've improved.
I'm a little cautious of Duke's lack of of scoring depth,
but I think they'll get there, and I'm I'm fast
to see how it how it plays out. Pat, enjoy swimming,
(23:39):
Good luck to your daughter, and can't wait to read
your commentary leading up to and covering the n C
A German. Thanks so much, Thank you appreciate that's Pat Ford. Yeah,
who sports does a great job. Be sure to catch
live edition so the Doug dot Leap Show weekdays in
noon eastern three pm Pacific. Russell Westbrook is just he's
become that guy, right, He's become that guy that everything
(24:05):
is difficult guy for no reasonable reason everything is difficult
for that guy, right, doesn't play well against Oklahoma's against
a golden state and doesn't want to answer questions. Got
a technical foul, So technically he's over the technical foul
(24:25):
limit and should be suspended for a game. But doesn't
we just a curmudgeon for curmudgeon's sake, And look, I
will not take the side of a fan who yells
things at him, well not, but I will also point
out that he kind of went off on a kid
(24:46):
who touched him when he was standing right next to
him courtside, and then on the dad during the game. Alright,
in and of itself, I don't think the dad needs
to be lectured. The kid could have been told like, hey, dude,
you gotta you know, please don't please don't touch us
when we can't see you. That's just weird. But it's
not like he's the first person to be touched and
(25:11):
then going off on a fan. It's like, look, I
don't think that's okay. But in fairness to other fans,
you were engaging and making eye contact and muttering back
and they can't hear what you're saying if not for
the cell phone video, and they think you're engaging with them,
and whether it's the officials, the other team, occasionally teammates,
(25:34):
media members, like, look, this is not that hard. This
is not hard work. This is not something that you
can't have a great It makes you just like Steph
Curry so much more. It's a lot like desion thing, like, hey,
but at the end of the day, you're playing basketball.
You miss shots, still playing basketball. He just become that
(25:58):
guy where everything he's just Debbie down Er, dude, everything,
it's me against the world guy and instead of being
an incredibly likable story and guy, right, because it's pretty
obvious this is not really who he is. You watch
him with his kid, you know, you watched with his kid.
(26:18):
You're like, man, that's pretty awesome. Takes his kid everywhere,
kid toddling around basketball floor while he's shooting around. Yeah,
you don't have that sort of flamboyant flair with clothing,
willing to willing to dress at times inappropriately or at
times just take a chance in what you're wearing. You know,
unless you'll you you gotta be wanting to hear some
(26:39):
negative feedback. It's like all that is fine, Like that's
the guy I think he is. But he's gotten to
this place where no one can question him. He can't
have a normal conversation, he can't have a normal back
and forth with a media member, with an official, with
a guy from another team, et. Everything is a fight,
(27:01):
and it's just that crap gets old. Hey, dude, it's old.
It's old for all of us. I know people in
the NBA like you know. I generally like him when
he got in the league. I liked how much you
wanted to prove people wrong. But like now, we already
think you're good. You don't just have to be obnoxious
about it.
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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