DAVID BENEDICT NCAA TOURNAMENT

UCONN Athletic Director David Benedict discuss the 2025 NCAA Tournament

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Really tough not to make it into the NCAA tournament.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, hey, listen, extremely proud of that program, not just
this year, but you know collectively what that program has
produced the last five years. You know, two of the
last four years super regionals. I think, yeah, of course
it's disappointing, but I think you have to put it

(00:26):
in context and some of the things that obviously are
working against not just SHOECOM, but all Northeast teams. I mean,
we had a situation where the first eight weeks of
our season were on the road. That takes its toll
and debbs, you understand, you know, traveling, you know, I
think sometimes people think it's fun to travel when you're

(00:48):
when you're traveling, you're competing, you're expected to be at
your best, and you're you're going to school and all
that stuff. Over time wears on you. And this year
in particular, more so than any year that I can remember.
Prior to opening up Elliott Ballpark, it was the least
amount of time that we were able to get outside,

(01:10):
you know, even when the weather is not ideal. You know,
we've been able to get a lot of practice time
in on Elliott Ballpark because you know, the facility is
set up that you know, if it rains, okay, you
can delay practice, but you can get out. And this year,
because of how cold it was or snow or ice,
you just were very limited. So I think with all

(01:33):
that being said, even though we had some very good
non conference wins against Vanderbilt, against North Carolina, against Miami,
it just ultimately wasn't enough. And then starting the conference
season on the road against the two best teams in
the league besides US, obviously it was a disadvantage because

(01:54):
you had limited practice time outside. You've been on the
road six secutive weeks already, and then you get sent
on the road, you know again to start the conference season.
So you know, it was not set up in a
way to really help us, which I think, you know,

(02:15):
for Northeast teams you need a little help and you
need a little luck. And we can all disagree with
obviously the committee's decision, and I certainly think we should
have gotten in prior to a couple other schools, But ultimately,
you know, I think whether the fan base is going
to get pissed off at me for saying this or not,

(02:37):
this is the reality of the way things are moving.
And you can complain about it, you can say things
about it, you can disagree with it, but this is
what's happening. And so you know, I'm sure that's frustrating.
It's certainly frustrating for me. It's frustrating for our coaches.

(02:58):
But whether it's the CFP that we were talking about,
you know, prior to getting on the show here, or
if it's the way the baseball tournament played out, which
you had the last four n we're all power conference schools,
and so you know, they're as I've told our coaches,

(03:19):
and I've told them this many years ago, they're not
going to vote you off the island. They're just going
to separate land from the islands so far that you
can't get there anymore. And so I don't think they
want to kick you out. It's just going to be
so hard that it's going to serve the same purpose.
And you know, it's it's I don't want to say, yeah,

(03:45):
I don't know if those of you saw that commissioners
sank because I think even now within the context of
the power for you're having some disagreements because of some
of the discussions about the new CFP model, and you know,
just the big ten of the SEC get four spots
in the ACC in the big twelve and we get two.
And what's the best thing for the game. I'm not

(04:06):
here to debate all that. Ultimately, we just have to
be better. And the one thing that I appreciate about,
you know, coach Penders, is he's never looking to make excuses,
so he owns it. Obviously disappointed, but certainly proud of
those guys. They did an unbelievable job the last twenty

(04:29):
six games to even put themselves in the conversation.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
And the guy gets some scrappers too, the way he
fills out his roster, and just this team. I'd like
this team so much because of the speed and the
small ball they play. I feel bad for Ryan Daniels,
Player of the year, that is one of the better hitters,
if not the best hitter in the entire country. You
see what he can do against some of this premiere
pitching from some of these other schools is unfortunate. We

(04:53):
met a lot of kids this year, some newcomers. One
kid that we promised we would ask about when we
talk to you next. The picture that kind of came
on the scene that DIBs and I fell in love
with two weeks ago. Oliver Pudvar has his own sunflower seeds, chips, sunflowers,
And I don't know how this works in the word
of world of Nil, but I keep on tripping over

(05:15):
these situations. I think Pudvar is running into one right now.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Now.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
He says he's in talks with people at the campus,
and I said, Man, we know the big guy. We're
gonna ask Benedict next time we talked to him about
getting the sunflower seeds on campus. How does that work,
like when a player on campus, a student athlete, actually
is the owner of the product, Like, is it different
in any kind of way rather than just a regular

(05:40):
anil deal.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, it would because, as you guys are probably familiar with,
I mean, the state of Connecticut has a lot of
a lot of rules. No, no, yeah, you know when
you talk about this, you know, like the availability of
those number one, I don't I'm not the purchaser for

(06:05):
our concessions people. You know, Aaron Mark does all that,
so I'm sure they if they were selling sunflower seeds,
they would have like a national deal and account with
one vendor, you know, in our bookstore. Barnes and Noble
kind of the same way. I mean, it's very unlikely
that they're going to purchase one item uniquely like that

(06:25):
and stock it in one store. It's just it doesn't
necessarily work that way. But again, that would be Barnes
and Noble's decision, you know, in the bookstore. So we
we certainly could point our student athletes in the right direction,
but we are not involved in the decision making process,
and we can't be because those companies typically pay for

(06:49):
the rights to run their shops or run their businesses,
and you know, ultimately, if we're telling them how to
do things and they're not making money, then it's really
our responsibility.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
So but is it cool for Pudvar to just pass
him out, like keep some in his back pocket if
he sees a friend throw them some chips, sunflower seeds
or is that against the rules?

Speaker 2 (07:09):
No, I mean, I don't. We We certainly aren't frisking
people in the in the uh, in the ballpark or
any of our facilities for for bringing you know, stuff
in in their in their purses or or whatever bags.
But no, I that's not gonna I'm not sure how

(07:29):
wise of a business strategy that is. But yeah. I mean,
if if it will evoke some people to to try
his product and eventually go buy it, you know certainly
that that might be a strategy.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Talking to David Benedict, the ath let's direct to the
University of Connecticut women's softball since the last time we talked,
they were uh knocked out of the tournament and a
couple of quick games. Your thoughts on the the women's
softball season.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, well I went down to baton Rouge and got
a chance to be with the be with the team
and see those games in person. Number one. I mean, hey,
Jordi Ball, if if you didn't get a chance to
watch that at that that student athlete play and compete
for Nebraska, I mean, she is one man wrecking crew,

(08:23):
and you know, unfortunate that they didn't advance to the
College World Series. But listen, I think my approach going
into that that tournament, or the first round the NCAA's was, look,
we're playing with house money at that point. Our program
and our team did something that we hadn't done for
twenty four years. So just getting there was a massive accomplishment,

(08:47):
and I think when you're doing something for the first
time in twenty four years and there's nobody on your
team that has any experience. It's hard. You know, there's nerves,
there's there's anxiety, and you know, I was not surprised.
I was very pleased and happy that we competed like

(09:09):
we did. The second game against LSU. Three zero was
very respectable and frankly, you know, you don't give up
a few walks in the beginning of that game and
it's probably a one zero game. And you know, ultimately,
as good as we were offensively in hitting the long
ball all year, we just weren't able to really touch
the pitchers up of Nebraska and or LSU. And so,

(09:32):
you know, very good learning experience. I think the team
was appropriately disappointed in their performance, but at the same
time put it in perspective that you know, especially the seniors,
left their mark on this program, and you know, coach
Valentino's message to the group was all right, like, how
are we going to get better? So next year when

(09:56):
we make it, we're not going home after two games.
And so I feel really good about the overall season,
the next step in success of that program, and I
definitely can see us, you know, making more progress, and hey,
look if you watch some of the softball, which I

(10:17):
think college softball is great sport. Liberty, you know, beat
the number one overall seed in Texas A and M,
which has never happened before, So anything can happen. I'll
never say never again. So when you talk about the
CFP and the sixteen seeds beating the one seed, you
know that won't be on a neutral site, so there's

(10:42):
a little bit more of an advantage for the home team.
But you know that that was amazing and Liberty was
a great story. I don't think they advanced the College
World Series, but I mean, what an amazing job they
did in beating Texas A and M. Who's you know,
the number one overall seed in the SEC chance.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Now that spring sports are coming to a close in
the NCAA, I know your summer is going to be
probably one of the most busy summers of your career
with what's going on in the NCAA. We're waiting for
this House legislation to finally pass through, to all the
teas to be crossed and the eyes to be dotted.
What's something you can tell our listeners that you are
waiting for as an athletic department that once you get this,

(11:23):
the ball will be rolling and you can move forward.
Is there something specific that you can say that this
is a really big deal and we're kind of putting
on the brakes on everything until X, Y or Z happens.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah. Well, there's massive implications on so many aspects of
what we do in all of our sports. So there's
obviously the just revenue sharing, which is the direct sharing
of money with student athletes. There's the financial aid aspect,
because they said, hey, look, we're no longer going to
have financial aid limits like we have today, which you know,

(11:58):
if and when this gets approved, communicate how we're approaching
that piece of it. We're going to we're going to
tweak some things here that will help provide our coaches,
especially in the Olympic sports, some leverage to continue to
improve and invest in their programs and their roster. There's
the actual roster limit, which now is really the only

(12:21):
thing holding up the settlement based on what Judge Wilkins
is communicated. And so there's obviously been conversations about well,
how do we grandfather this in That becomes very convoluted,
and so we're trying to understand kind of how that
would work. But there's no real good answers for it
because it's like, well, you just did designate anyone that

(12:42):
you would have cut or offered a scholarship to that
then once the roster limits were communicated, you would have
had told that tell them to leave. Well, you know,
how do you approve that? And does it just lead
to people adding a bunch of people to their roster
because now you can say, well, hey, this person doesn't count,

(13:03):
so we'll just go recruit another one. But listen, so
you have roster impacts and yeah, we're just we're waiting
for the settlement conversation. Even the twenty point five million
dollars that you're allowed to share up to that, there's
discussions around well what counts because before it was like, well,

(13:27):
you've got to count any additional scholarships and you can't
count any additional Alston money and any direct revenue sharing.
Well now they're saying, well, we're not going to count
additional scholarships and we're not going to count Allston because
I think what they're finding out is some of the
biggest schools have already you know, maxed out or gone
way over their cap, which is okay to do right now,

(13:51):
because what a lot of schools are doing is they're
pre paying kids because there is no cap. But as
soon as July one happens, any dollars that you would
directly share with the student athlete goes towards that twenty
point five million dollar cap. So a lot of your
Power five programs have basically front loaded payments through their collectives.

(14:13):
I assume increase, yeah, to increase what they what they
can distribute, which you know ultimately is you know, within
the context the rules. I just you know, am really
interested to see how it works out the following year
when they say, well, we only have half as much money,
you're you know, two thirds of what we previously had.

(14:35):
So usually you don't pay people less, should pay them more,
assuming their their meet their expectations. But you know, yeah,
there's you know, Benzer to your question, there's just so
much writing on all of this, and so those are
the high level things, and then it's you know, how
do you operationalize all of this, which you know, we

(14:55):
got a lot of people that already have a lot
on their plate that have taken on all lot because
these things didn't exist, you know, six months ago, twelve
months ago, and so now there's just a lot more
on everyone's plate.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
David, always great to catch up with you, my man.
We appreciate your time every Tuesday, have a great week,
and we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Likewise, go Husky.