Speaker 1: The volume. Hiver Buddy, Welcome in to our Sunday Night
Speaker 1: YouTube or Monday morning podcast, whichever you prefer or saw
Speaker 1: first three things to talk about. Number One, it got
Speaker 1: me to a television set. I do not watch as
Speaker 1: much women's basketball as I do the NBA or men's basketball,
Speaker 1: but the Caitlin Clark story at Iowa got me to
Speaker 1: a TV set. You know, kind of a Steph Curry phenomenon.
Speaker 1: In terms of shooting from a distance. Few do setting records,
Speaker 1: but I had predicted on social media that LSU would
Speaker 1: win Iowa. Was a cool story. LSU was a deeper,
Speaker 1: better team, and I also felt much like TCU when
Speaker 1: they got blown out by Georgia. Remember they expanded so
Speaker 1: much energy against Michigan and the upset, and then they
Speaker 1: fell emotionally and physically flat against Georgia. A week later
Speaker 1: that Iowa came out and it was such a big
Speaker 1: emotional win over number one South Carolina. They were bound
Speaker 1: to be flat and they were plus. LSU was deeper, longer, better,
Speaker 1: So you know, listen, there's a lot being made of
Speaker 1: some of the taunting at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: I've come to terms with over the course of two
Speaker 1: hours three hours of physical competition. Stuff happens. Coaches say
Speaker 1: things to reffs that they probably regret, players make moves,
Speaker 1: talk trash. Maybe they do, maybe they don't regret. But
Speaker 1: the right team won. LSU was a deeper, better team,
Speaker 1: and Caitlin Clark was just a really great player, great story.
Speaker 1: But I felt like it was a fairly predictable conclusion.
Speaker 1: I also feel like San Diego State, with a last
Speaker 1: second win in it will be impossible to duplicate that
Speaker 1: energy so high after beating Florida Atlantic that they're bound
Speaker 1: to be a little flat against Yukon. And like LSU
Speaker 1: and the women's Natty, I think Yukon and the men's
Speaker 1: Natty will separate about halfway through the first half and
Speaker 1: win the game going away. I just think it's really
Speaker 1: hard to be at TCU football, IOWA women's basketball, of
Speaker 1: San Diego State College basketball men. When you have these historic, shocking,
Speaker 1: expansive wins, he just can't duplicate it the next time
Speaker 1: out a few days later. So I think the Husky
Speaker 1: is the Yukon Huskies will end up being crown national
Speaker 1: champions on Monday Night. Something else that we talked about,
Speaker 1: we talked about it a couple of times. But Tyler
Speaker 1: Kepner is a baseball columnist for the New York Times.
Speaker 1: He's very, very good. In fact, his book is A
Speaker 1: History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, which I haven't gotten
Speaker 1: to yet, but I purchased it about a year ago.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get to it. So I follow him
Speaker 1: a lot and read his stuff, and he already statistically
Speaker 1: notice this. Games are now faster in Major League Baseball
Speaker 1: two hours forty one minutes, that's the average. Steals are up,
Speaker 1: more base runners eighty seven point five percent success rate,
Speaker 1: and more batted balls are turning into hits, all incredibly predictable.
Speaker 1: Now the diehards, the rigid baseball seamheads will say, well,
Speaker 1: the game's not better. Remember TV networks pay the freight.
Speaker 1: They don't care what's better. They care what drives are rating,
Speaker 1: and long does not generally in sports drive a rating.
Speaker 1: Succinct short can help. So you could have a baseball game,
Speaker 1: but if it's three hours and nine minutes. In two
Speaker 1: hours and forty minutes, the chances it will be slightly
Speaker 1: higher rated are with the more succinct, shorter game. And
Speaker 1: so what you're going to see happen this year. Not
Speaker 1: that it will be a major renaissance, but you will
Speaker 1: see an uptick I would imagine in Fox ratings and
Speaker 1: ESPN ratings based on the brevity of the action. Doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what's better, what translates to a better rating, what's
Speaker 1: more compelling, What can people stay watching longer? The pitch
Speaker 1: clock speeds the game up, So it's different in football again,
Speaker 1: it's once a week. It's okay if a sport asks
Speaker 1: you to hang around for three hours and thirty five minutes.
Speaker 1: If it's once a week. Baseball, you got five six
Speaker 1: games a week. You got to speed it up. Can't
Speaker 1: be a three and a half hour schlog. And so
Speaker 1: New York Times Tyler Kepner already the pitch clock, the
Speaker 1: elimination of the defensive shift, are already paying dividends, and
Speaker 1: there's no looking back. Baseball sees it. It's exactly what
Speaker 1: baseball wanted, and it's happening in a week. Here it
Speaker 1: was another story. I probably like the business side of
Speaker 1: sports more than you do, but I like it. And
Speaker 1: one of the cool things about owning this company the
Speaker 1: volume I can talk about what I want to talk about,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this stuff I don't talk about
Speaker 1: on FS one or Premiere Radio. So the WWE has
Speaker 1: been purchased by a company that had previously purchased the UFC.
Speaker 1: Now the WWE and the UFC together will form a
Speaker 1: separate company. And here's why it's interesting to me. I
Speaker 1: know Nick con and Dana White, who run the w
Speaker 1: w E and the UFC respectively. And boxing, because it's
Speaker 1: been so poorly managed forever, has really wilted and mostly vanished.
Speaker 1: There are occasional fights I like, but it's just not
Speaker 1: consistently delivering entertainment. And I said this years ago and
Speaker 1: I covered boxing in Vegas, that the UFC took advantage
Speaker 1: of the scarcity of boxing matches the cost whenever there
Speaker 1: was a good one. So UFC, whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not, just delivers a more consistent product. WWE same
Speaker 1: delivers a more consistent product. And so to combine those
Speaker 1: two for a new business, to me is utterly fascinating.
Speaker 1: And I went to the Rustlemania with my son on
Speaker 1: Saturday night. At so far I knew I could watch
Speaker 1: on YouTube TV highlights of the college basketball games, which
Speaker 1: I did Sunday morning. So the best way to describe
Speaker 1: eighty thousand people at Rustlemania is if you take yourself
Speaker 1: or you take life too seriously, you're probably missing the
Speaker 1: point on Rustlemania. I don't think my son, who's not
Speaker 1: a big sports fan. You know, he likes to ski,
Speaker 1: he likes to water ski, anything in the pool he's
Speaker 1: good with. You know, he's played a little basketball, a
Speaker 1: little soccer, a little football, but not really a team
Speaker 1: sports kid. The environment. I haven't seen him laugh like that.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen him smile like that for three straight hours.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you when it's just a spectacle. And
Speaker 1: you know, I watched it as a kid, and then
Speaker 1: he used to lampoon make fun of wrestling fans. But
Speaker 1: then when you have kids, things change. And as a dad,
Speaker 1: I'm always looking for connecting points with my son, who's
Speaker 1: very much into science and tech, two things I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily into. So I'm always looking for like connecting points.
Speaker 1: And so I told him, I said, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: to this, and I have a feeling you're not going
Speaker 1: to know all the storylines, but you're just gonna boo
Speaker 1: and cheer thumbs up, thumbs down, And we got pretty
Speaker 1: good seats and I gotta tell you it was as
Speaker 1: good a night as I've had in a long time.
Speaker 1: And I've said this before. My wife isn't into sport.
Speaker 1: She loves going to UFC because she likes the spectacle,
Speaker 1: the crowd, the glamour, the cocktails. My favorite sports to
Speaker 1: go to for years and years was boxing, but there's
Speaker 1: just notn't that many fascinating boxers or boxing matches. So
Speaker 1: I just found that story at WWE and UFC being combined.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. My wife and my son's favorite thing
Speaker 1: to go to and now they've morphed. Can't wait. I
Speaker 1: want to bring in Mike Shashevski, the legend coach k who,
Speaker 1: as you know, has retired in the last year and
Speaker 1: John Shire has taken over that program at Duke. We
Speaker 1: got a lot of things to talk about. He'll talk
Speaker 1: about that Yukon basketball team, which I think is going
Speaker 1: to be the national champion. On Monday Night, with the
Speaker 1: NFL season over all, eyes in the sporting world turned
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Speaker 1: last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. So, Mike, I thought
Speaker 1: it was It's an interesting year. I follow recruiting, so
Speaker 1: Kentucky Duke, Michigan State, ukon or having very vibrant recruiting years.
Speaker 1: So I imagine next year the big brands will be
Speaker 1: back at the top of college basketball, that's my guess.
Speaker 1: Or or has the transfer portal created a new phenomena
Speaker 1: where the San Diego States the Florida Atlantics are going
Speaker 1: forward going to have older players elite transfers. How do
Speaker 1: you view this wacky kind of unique March madness this year. Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's a sign of the times. I think
Speaker 1: there's going to be a mixture and they're going to
Speaker 1: be more more really good teams. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: many great teams, because to be great, I think you
Speaker 1: have to be together for a little bit more than
Speaker 1: one year. And so over the years we've had good
Speaker 1: recruiting classes and we've been able to try to mesh
Speaker 1: them in one year, and then a lot of them go. Well,
Speaker 1: now when they were talking about one and done, they're
Speaker 1: about eighteen hundred one and done in the transfer portal.
Speaker 1: And so now each year in the last few years,
Speaker 1: so probably be more this year. And so how can
Speaker 1: people build chemistry in one year? And so the people
Speaker 1: who go to the transfer portal a lot, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to spend time trying to figure out how they
Speaker 1: how they developed culture. I just think like when the
Speaker 1: year started, I said, it's going to be wide open,
Speaker 1: and I didn't think it would be this while. But
Speaker 1: it's wide open, and I don't I don't think anything's
Speaker 1: going to change next year. You know, Um, replacing a
Speaker 1: legend is hard. I think you did it the right way.
Speaker 1: You gave it a lot of thought right and john
Speaker 1: Shire to me, really works. But have you ever thought, okay,
Speaker 1: because if I'm John Shire, I'm like, okay, I want
Speaker 1: to be respectful to coach k and the culture. But
Speaker 1: what if there's something I really like it really is
Speaker 1: different than Mike, Like, have you ever thought about replacing you?
Speaker 1: Is not the easiest thing in the world. Well, I've
Speaker 1: talked to my wife about it, and that time she
Speaker 1: said that it wouldn't be that hard. But most of
Speaker 1: the time she said it would be hard. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just picking the right person, but giving the
Speaker 1: amount of time that's needed. John was with me for
Speaker 1: nine years and when he was announced as a head coach,
Speaker 1: we had a runway of about seventeen months before he
Speaker 1: ever coached, so he could recruit two classes on his own.
Speaker 1: In other words, were with them knowing that I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be the coach, and the develop the relationships
Speaker 1: that were needed. And I think you saw it this year.
Speaker 1: He had great relationships with his team and we had
Speaker 1: an outstanding year. I've always told me, just be you man,
Speaker 1: being you. A lot of what you are will be
Speaker 1: us because we've spent some much time together. But you
Speaker 1: can't fill someone's shoes. Just be comfortable into shoes you're wearing,
Speaker 1: and you know our culture and you develop it the
Speaker 1: way that you think is right. I have all the
Speaker 1: confidence in the world and John, I am a big
Speaker 1: fan of new things, but also regulation, be at Wall
Speaker 1: Street or tech. I am for the transfer portal and NIL.
Speaker 1: But there needs to be guardrails, right for everything. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter if it's our freeways, our government, Silicon Valley,
Speaker 1: or college sports. It was a little to me wild
Speaker 1: wild West. For the first fifteen months, it was just
Speaker 1: the gold rush. Right. Is there anything you see so
Speaker 1: far if you could make a change and go, like
Speaker 1: on the NIL, let's start with the transfer portal, Because
Speaker 1: the NIL some schools are just not going to partake
Speaker 1: in it. But transfer portals here for everybody. Is there
Speaker 1: anything you would say, hey, let's be very careful of
Speaker 1: this or maybe alter this. Yeah. I think, first of all,
Speaker 1: comment both concepts are really good. There were intended consequences
Speaker 1: that are easy to see. You know, an athlete should
Speaker 1: be allowed to you to benefit from their name, image
Speaker 1: and likeness. An athlete should have the opportunity to move
Speaker 1: and so okay, that sounds really good. Yeah, But if
Speaker 1: if it's a business, you say, okay, these are the
Speaker 1: intended consequences, what would be the unintented In other words,
Speaker 1: put the guardrails up before you let the horses out,
Speaker 1: and once once they're out, Like, I don't see how
Speaker 1: you can control NIL completely. And it's a pre market. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have a better NIL than meet, what are
Speaker 1: you going to give it up? Is someone going to
Speaker 1: put a limit? Where do we put a limit on
Speaker 1: anybody in our society and how much they make? And
Speaker 1: so the transfer portal, I think it's been confused a
Speaker 1: little bit with the extra year of COVID, you see,
Speaker 1: I mean that combination nil, you add that to it,
Speaker 1: add that to it, and so you have guys who
Speaker 1: you know, there are three different schools. You know, they're
Speaker 1: in a five year year period. I think the average
Speaker 1: age was a year and a half older this year
Speaker 1: than it's normally been for college and for college teams.
Speaker 1: And the thing that happens too when these kids stay,
Speaker 1: there are less scholarships for the high school kids. And
Speaker 1: so that was not an intended consequence, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think first of all, we think Congress is going
Speaker 1: to solve all this. We got to be Rooney Tunes here,
Speaker 1: and but they the main thing Congress can do is
Speaker 1: to make it equitable in every state, which it isn't.
Speaker 1: Transfer portal is equitably nil, it's not. There's some states
Speaker 1: that don't allow it, and so it's got to be
Speaker 1: equal for everybody. And you know my big thing. I
Speaker 1: wish we could take men's and women's basketball and make
Speaker 1: it its own entity, just like football is, and be autonomous.
Speaker 1: Have a certain foundation of rules with the NC double A.
Speaker 1: But let our two sports, our sport, be run like
Speaker 1: a business, have a marketing plan, have be autonomous. Football
Speaker 1: is autonomous. The game of basketball is not. Speaking of
Speaker 1: the game of basketball. I just read where the NBA
Speaker 1: is proposing going forward a positionless all NBA team, which
Speaker 1: and I remember years ago I worked in Portland. This
Speaker 1: is a long time ago. Bob witsit with the GM
Speaker 1: and I remember Bob smart guy saying Colin, you guys
Speaker 1: in the media get too caught up on positions. I
Speaker 1: just want good, good, long, fast, twitchy basketball players. I
Speaker 1: don't care. So Bob was about twenty years ahead of me,
Speaker 1: right unintended consequence, I do like an old school point
Speaker 1: guard who distributes first score second. That's me. I'm probably outdated.
Speaker 1: What do you make of positionless basketball, or does it
Speaker 1: Lebron make everybody think it's easy? Or the truth is,
Speaker 1: positions are pretty good. It's just Lebron's blown it up
Speaker 1: because he can do anything. Well, you know your love
Speaker 1: for the point guard. I'm a point guard, so in
Speaker 1: some essence you have a love for me. But maybe
Speaker 1: it's not that big. But the old fashioned point guard
Speaker 1: just doesn't exist, or it's like an extinct animal right now.
Speaker 1: You know, really, in the late eighties and early nineties,
Speaker 1: we started at Duke what I call positionless. I always
Speaker 1: used to tell my staff and family, Well, this isn't
Speaker 1: a baseball team. There's not a third baseman they go
Speaker 1: to a position. Why the heck do we have guards,
Speaker 1: forwards and centers? You know, just introduce him as as
Speaker 1: players and in other words, like you and I are
Speaker 1: two of the top four players on a team, and
Speaker 1: we are both the two guard. Am I only going
Speaker 1: to play one of us? Or am I going to
Speaker 1: play my four best players? I'm going to play both
Speaker 1: of us, So why put a limit on us? Saying
Speaker 1: that you know we're two guards, we're really good basketball
Speaker 1: players and both of us can shoot. I always like
Speaker 1: saying that because I wasn't I wasn't referred to as
Speaker 1: a good shooter. So that's that analogy. Actually, I feel
Speaker 1: pretty good about it. Well, you were a defender and
Speaker 1: you were tough. You had the many of the Chris
Speaker 1: Paul qualities I like, which is that's where I'm I'm
Speaker 1: very much about. I like the new basketball. I think
Speaker 1: it's very very skilled. I covered our vedas a bonus
Speaker 1: who was pre Yokich, almost like a point sound. He
Speaker 1: would have been the greatest player, one of the great
Speaker 1: if he was here young, yeah, young, like in his
Speaker 1: early twenties, he would be one of the top five
Speaker 1: or ten players in the history of the game. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: no question about it. You got him later in his
Speaker 1: probably mid thirties or yes, yeah, yeah, But he was
Speaker 1: a great player, not a good Oh oh, I mean Mike.
Speaker 1: He would hit a twenty four footer and he would
Speaker 1: make a behind the back pass. I got the heavy
Speaker 1: footed Arvidas Sabonis. Yes, remarkable player and a fun guy
Speaker 1: to cover. So do you remember, because really what you
Speaker 1: you you Nick Saban, it doesn't matter if it's Beheim
Speaker 1: Mark few your talent accumulators. So what you're doing is
Speaker 1: you're a and you're finding kids who aren't fully developed
Speaker 1: emotionally physically. It's very difficult a pro football coach. I
Speaker 1: get four years of film through college. I know what
Speaker 1: he can and can't do. You're taking kids. I'm a
Speaker 1: late I'm a I blossom late. I think in my career,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people do. Um, how often
Speaker 1: do you see a player and did you know instantly, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: that person will be a pro now at Duke. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people would suggest, oh, it's Duke guys.
Speaker 1: But you've recruited some three star guys in your career
Speaker 1: right follow it. How often did you see a lebron
Speaker 1: Ish player and go okay, that's done? Or do players
Speaker 1: develop more slowly than most of us think? Yeah, well
Speaker 1: there are there are a few. I mean you can
Speaker 1: see Scion if Grant Hill was in this time, Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, uh dose players, Uh, Jason Tatum, you know
Speaker 1: Bagley one, Dell Carter could have probably stayed another year.
Speaker 1: But now you can see it. But you also you
Speaker 1: also can see like where their bodies In other words,
Speaker 1: do they fit the dimensions of an NBA player? Winspan.
Speaker 1: It's not just height it's wingspan, speed, okay, and then
Speaker 1: are they where are they emotionally? We try to recruit
Speaker 1: kids with good character because they're gonna in order to
Speaker 1: not just to get there, but to stay, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have to have balance. And so we're able to see
Speaker 1: that pretty much with the guards. Like when I saw
Speaker 1: Tias Jones the first time, I said, Wow, this kid's
Speaker 1: like a machine. Now he is an old point guard.
Speaker 1: And when he has his name on that ball, you
Speaker 1: can't when he throws it, you better catch it because
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to turn it over. When I saw
Speaker 1: him the first time, I said to have him. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that he would be a pro right away.
Speaker 1: I felt that he would be a pro after a while.
Speaker 1: Mike Dunleavy when we recruited him, he saw out of Portland. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he was six six and a half one seventy five,
Speaker 1: had no hair on his chest, did not shave. Three
Speaker 1: years later he was six to nine and a half
Speaker 1: and two thirty. And so there's some guys brandon Ingram.
Speaker 1: When we recruited him, I told his parents they were
Speaker 1: going to the McDonald's game. I said, we're not allowed.
Speaker 1: The first day the pro people will be there. Your
Speaker 1: son will be a top five draft pick. After the
Speaker 1: workout and they said, what do you mean. I said,
Speaker 1: he's got all the dimensions. He's got you. Not only that,
Speaker 1: but he can play any position. He can be a guard.
Speaker 1: And so you can see those those type of things
Speaker 1: and predict them, and some kids you can't. Batty did
Speaker 1: not fit. He wasn't a great athlete, but after a
Speaker 1: while he became. He was intellectually ahead of others. And
Speaker 1: in today's game, the younger players are not They're more athletic,
Speaker 1: but they're not as savvy about the game as the
Speaker 1: players even five years ago. That's something with all the
Speaker 1: workout guys and that they're great, but they teach you
Speaker 1: stuff with the ball. And if we're playing a forty
Speaker 1: minute game in college, if you have the ball three minutes,
Speaker 1: that's a lot. So you better learn the game without
Speaker 1: the ball. You got to learn to get your shot
Speaker 1: before you get the ball. That's not taught to the
Speaker 1: level that it used to be. So I think we're
Speaker 1: getting better athletes, but more undertaught players as far as
Speaker 1: the game goes. I always love when the Patriots played
Speaker 1: the Chiefs because I get a chess match between Belichick's
Speaker 1: brain and Andy Reid's. I love that. I love when
Speaker 1: they play. Was there a coach and maybe it's a
Speaker 1: well known coach, it's a Jim Calhoun, Um, it's a
Speaker 1: Dean Smith. But is there a coach maybe that I
Speaker 1: wouldn't think of off the top of my head. That
Speaker 1: you love the intellectual chess match that he was just
Speaker 1: move for move. You always knew it was not only
Speaker 1: between Duke and a team, it was between you and
Speaker 1: that coach. Yeah, I think that the frequency of the
Speaker 1: time he competed against Dean Smith, you know, because he
Speaker 1: you know, he was a remarkable coach and he had
Speaker 1: immense loyalty from from his players. You know, he really
Speaker 1: really wanted a great coaches of any sport. My buddy
Speaker 1: Jim valvano U the spontaneity of doing anything at any time.
Speaker 1: There was some predictability with some coaches up to a point,
Speaker 1: and then there was the unpredictability of like like Jim
Speaker 1: and uh. But you know, sometimes you play against your
Speaker 1: coach against the team that you say, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I can coach a team better than John Becker
Speaker 1: at Vermont, you know, and who year after year just
Speaker 1: produced his that that high level of team. I thought
Speaker 1: one of my good friends, Fran Dumphy, who got back
Speaker 1: into college coaching when he was the coach at Penn,
Speaker 1: he was on a decade movement of just he got
Speaker 1: it at a high at a high level. But uh, now,
Speaker 1: I think you weren't from coaching against all different types
Speaker 1: of people. But those are a few of the ones
Speaker 1: that made an impact on me. I remember covering I
Speaker 1: was a young sportscaster. I was in Denver. Bobby Hurley
Speaker 1: had about with stomach sickness all yet at that yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I remember you saying it could have been
Speaker 1: to me or a group because I was in Vegas
Speaker 1: as a sportscaster. You and this meant so much to Tark.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much this meant to Tark.
Speaker 1: You said, we play hard at Duke. I've never seen
Speaker 1: any team play that hard between Gurgerich and Tark, and
Speaker 1: I covered Tark. You have no idea. You and Mickey
Speaker 1: were very complimentary of him. It meant so much to him,
Speaker 1: and I was. I look back at your career and
Speaker 1: I think that's one of your great moments because that
Speaker 1: team was stocked they so you lost in Denver the
Speaker 1: following year. One of your stars was a true freshman.
Speaker 1: You'd been beaten badly by him the year before. There
Speaker 1: was a psychology there. Go back to the time you
Speaker 1: beat you and lv If. I said to you, through
Speaker 1: or four moments of your career. I remember walking out
Speaker 1: of that game and thinking, I don't think the media
Speaker 1: gets what just happened. I thought it was just an
Speaker 1: incredible moment. You know, I've done I've done a lot
Speaker 1: of speaking, and since I retired, I did a couple
Speaker 1: of commercials. I've done some things and one of the
Speaker 1: statements and one of the commercials has closed the gap.
Speaker 1: And we were able to close the gap from ninety
Speaker 1: to ninety one. Grant Hill helped us close that gap,
Speaker 1: but also the experience. We were pretty good, but then
Speaker 1: we got to be really good. And the ninety one
Speaker 1: semi final Final four game with Vegas, it's one of
Speaker 1: the epic games in the history of our sport. One
Speaker 1: I had Jerry Tarkanian were good friends, and I had
Speaker 1: ultimate respect because anybody who can get his team to
Speaker 1: pay that hard with that especially that level of talent,
Speaker 1: you got to be crazy good. But we were really
Speaker 1: really good, and I thought what helped us in that
Speaker 1: game was that it was a semifinal, not the final.
Speaker 1: They had won forty five in a row, they had
Speaker 1: beaten us psychologically, we have an advantage, you know, we
Speaker 1: do have an advantage, and they had destroyed everybody, and no,
Speaker 1: not beaten, they crushed, crushed everybody. So we got We
Speaker 1: were talking about if we can get them in the
Speaker 1: last few minutes. We've been there before, they haven't been
Speaker 1: there before. And everyone talks about Latner shot against Kentucky
Speaker 1: and which they should. But one of the defining moments
Speaker 1: for me it was Hurley shot with just over two
Speaker 1: minutes to go. I think they had gone up by five.
Speaker 1: A Tark went to his amba defense and before I
Speaker 1: could say anything to call out anything, Hurley comes down
Speaker 1: and he jacks up at three and he hits it.
Speaker 1: So for me, I think in possessions two points, there
Speaker 1: were three two point possessions. His shot knocked it down
Speaker 1: to one two point possession. It was really wanted the
Speaker 1: biggest shots in my you know, for my career that
Speaker 1: a player took and I didn't call it. I didn't
Speaker 1: call it, and then we were fortunate we got their
Speaker 1: guard filed out. Uh you know, and um Greg Anthony
Speaker 1: and uh Waitner hit some free throws and god bless America.
Speaker 1: You know, we won a lot of sad people in
Speaker 1: Sindon City. Believe me, I was a sportscaster there. I
Speaker 1: want to pivot to Yukon San Diego State. So I
Speaker 1: had Duke winning. I felt it would be a hard
Speaker 1: Brackett hard marks to predict. I didn't think there was
Speaker 1: a great team. I thought there were a lot of
Speaker 1: good ones. And then after about three games, I just
Speaker 1: said on the air, Okay, Yukon's gonna win this thing.
Speaker 1: This this They're really good. And Hurley the coach had
Speaker 1: said in January early January, there's a quote he said,
Speaker 1: you better get us now because we're figuring things out
Speaker 1: really quick. So I tend to like them over San
Speaker 1: Diego State. You've had many classic battles with Yukon, the
Speaker 1: toughness of the program, their ability to find talent everywhere.
Speaker 1: You've watched them in this tournament. If watching them from outside,
Speaker 1: what makes them good and why do you think it
Speaker 1: took them a while to figure it out? Well, they
Speaker 1: have a lot of new pieces and and Danny and
Speaker 1: I are really well, we're really the Hurley family and
Speaker 1: our family and we're bonded together. Uh you know, to me, uh,
Speaker 1: to me what they've been able to do. They have
Speaker 1: great depth. Okay, and by the way, I hate when
Speaker 1: people say there are no blue bloods in the final four.
Speaker 1: You have to be you have to be kidding me.
Speaker 1: With Jim Calhoun built, you know, one of the great
Speaker 1: coaches but also maybe the greatest builder of a program.
Speaker 1: You know, since nineteen ninety nine, they've won four national championship.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe give them a different color, but certainly
Speaker 1: they're at the level of all the teams, use of
Speaker 1: the few teams that you say are blue bloods. And
Speaker 1: uh so, what they have is incredible depth. They stay fresh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been amazed at their rim protection, their
Speaker 1: their backup center, how good he is, and their bench.
Speaker 1: Their bench comes off feeling like they're starters. And I
Speaker 1: think any coach, if they use eight or nine players
Speaker 1: in a game, if they can teach and get across
Speaker 1: to their players that when you're in you're not replacing anybody,
Speaker 1: You be you and have a starters intellect. I think
Speaker 1: all of them have starters intellects. And and they're not afraid.
Speaker 1: They aren't. They are not afraid, just like they're just
Speaker 1: like their coach. And I want to commend Danny too,
Speaker 1: because I've watched him mature as he's always been a
Speaker 1: good coach. A lot of times he was fighting referees
Speaker 1: more than the other teams, That's right, he admits that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's he's changed that, uh completely, but uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and they could keep it going. Yeah, they know they
Speaker 1: have a lot of underclassmen. It'll be interesting to see
Speaker 1: what happens with the success maybe a national champion. Well,
Speaker 1: the guys on that team stay, but let's try to
Speaker 1: win a national championship first. Well, what strikes me is
Speaker 1: you say Dan Hurley has changed you did with one
Speaker 1: and done. I think the great coaches in my lifetime
Speaker 1: Nick Saban. There's a great New York Times article talking
Speaker 1: about Lane Kiffen, and he and Lane could have battled,
Speaker 1: but he came to an understanding when Lane was on
Speaker 1: his staff, is I can't stop these offenses anymore. Years ago,
Speaker 1: Alabama was known for linebackers. Now they're known for quarterbacks
Speaker 1: and wide receivers. The world changed, and you were very
Speaker 1: good at that where the one and done. I think
Speaker 1: your talk your comment was well, I started getting beat
Speaker 1: by him the one and done. We'll take a view
Speaker 1: to my program. Do you remember the epiphany, Mike, the
Speaker 1: moment you're in a car, you're talking to Mickey that
Speaker 1: you just said, Okay, Mike, get over, Mike, I gotta
Speaker 1: evolve here. All right. Well, I don't know if there
Speaker 1: was one moment, but over a period of time, yeah,
Speaker 1: we stopped. Yeah. Remember in the late nineties, guys could go.
Speaker 1: We recruited Kobe Bryant, Lebron left, Kevin garn and so
Speaker 1: we stopped looking like I just did. About a month ago,
Speaker 1: a conversation with Lebron and he and are very close,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, you didn't recruit me, and
Speaker 1: I said, I knew you were. I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: get you. And he started laughing. He said, you're right,
Speaker 1: And so I had that mentality for a while. And
Speaker 1: then these guys had to go to college, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, over a period of time, I said, why
Speaker 1: aren't we recruiting these guys? But don't these guys are
Speaker 1: are not different than the guys we recruited. In other words,
Speaker 1: they got talent they're pretty good academically and they got
Speaker 1: good character. So really it wasn't it wasn't that we
Speaker 1: recruited a different kid. We recruited kids that might go
Speaker 1: or had had a chance a chance to go, And
Speaker 1: that was a good decision to make. That was a
Speaker 1: really good decision to make. Yeah, Stanford admits with some
Speaker 1: of their best students. If you have an idea, it
Speaker 1: will beat the diploma. You have to leave early. And
Speaker 1: I think that to you, you came with an understanding
Speaker 1: is listen, they're all good kids. Some are just going
Speaker 1: to be able to leave early. Like that's the world
Speaker 1: we live in, right, No, you're and you mentioned you know,
Speaker 1: Duke is the same way. And there are young men
Speaker 1: and women here who don't complete their four years because
Speaker 1: after their sophomore years they're starting a startup company. But
Speaker 1: where the one or kids and other sports, you know,
Speaker 1: in tennis or golf or whatever, there were there were
Speaker 1: kids going early, but because at the spotlight on our program,
Speaker 1: it appeared that only our guys went early. And now
Speaker 1: everybody's a one and done that. I love I love how,
Speaker 1: I love how how that's changed. Finally, um, before I
Speaker 1: get the affleck Um, there's a lot of things you're
Speaker 1: gonna miss. The camaraderie, although you still have that because
Speaker 1: you have an office. But is there anything that you think,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't miss blank. Now there's a list
Speaker 1: of the things I don't. I don't uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the main think that I don't miss his preparation, you know,
Speaker 1: the In other words, everybody wants to win, and from Lester,
Speaker 1: you're an idiot, you know. Do you want to win? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I want to win. Somebody says I want Lewis as
Speaker 1: I'll see you later. I'm want to talk to the
Speaker 1: person wants to win. And but not as many people
Speaker 1: prepare to win. You know, I've coached some amazing anal
Speaker 1: preparers Lebron Kobe Bryant, JJ Reddick, and I was kind
Speaker 1: of that way. And but also preparing means recruiting and
Speaker 1: so much time. It wasn't a change to transfer port
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's just too much time. I'm seventy six
Speaker 1: year old and you have coached almost fifty years. I
Speaker 1: don't miss any of that. And like people say, boy,
Speaker 1: what the final four? I'm excited for these guys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been there a lot. One lost and now it's
Speaker 1: okay to watch it's I'm. The one thing I do
Speaker 1: miss is the development of a relationship with a young
Speaker 1: man and uh, I still keep that somewhat with John Shire,
Speaker 1: you know, even though I'm not at practices, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep away in games so he it's his thing.
Speaker 1: But privately we talk many many times and uh and
Speaker 1: uh I've loved that level of relationship that he and
Speaker 1: I have and uh and I'll always have that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm okay, I'm I'm having I'm busy, I'm happy.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of speaking all over and anyway,
Speaker 1: I've been the luckiest guy in the world coaching at
Speaker 1: West Point Duke in eleven years with the US. You
Speaker 1: gotta be kidding me, you know, it's been an honor
Speaker 1: to do all those things. Yeah, I think successful people
Speaker 1: have a threat of common threat as they are grateful. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard. Everything's hard. Parenting is hard, coaching's hard. Life
Speaker 1: can be hard. Aging is hard. But you're grateful for it.
Speaker 1: And you can tell I think you'll look great by
Speaker 1: the way this off the zoom cameras often don't make
Speaker 1: people look the greatest. You look healthy. I just walked
Speaker 1: my dog too that I have a new dog, one
Speaker 1: year old lab. His name's Coached. His name I didn't
Speaker 1: name him. And we have a lot of lands, so
Speaker 1: he's I I love taking him out running around. And
Speaker 1: we got him at eight pounds and eight weeks at
Speaker 1: our basketball banquet. He's just over a year old, and
Speaker 1: now he's eighty two pounds. To the very last, you know,
Speaker 1: days of my mother's life. A wonderful lady. Her animals
Speaker 1: give her such incredible joy, and I got that from
Speaker 1: my mom. We've got Buddy and Yosi and fitting in
Speaker 1: the cat, and we have a little bit of land
Speaker 1: in Utah. We got goats and three horses, and there's
Speaker 1: just something about the love. It just keeps you young.
Speaker 1: They made me. Yeah, and like this morning, you know him,
Speaker 1: we have some streams here and that he'll run through streams.
Speaker 1: He's jumping and look I got two artificial niece and hips.
Speaker 1: When he starts doing all that stuff, I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I wish I could do a little bit, just a
Speaker 1: little bit of that. So finally, um, I love that
Speaker 1: you're doing afflet because I think Stavens really really fun.
Speaker 1: We see these football coaches we see Mike Kachevski is
Speaker 1: very intense, but it's playful. It's fun. I think an
Speaker 1: athlete gets it and talk about it well. I love
Speaker 1: doing it with Don Staley. I think she's one of
Speaker 1: the really great people in our sport. And then I
Speaker 1: love doing it with Afflet because I really believed in
Speaker 1: what they're doing. I didn't realize there's such a gap
Speaker 1: between you know what insurance pace and then the bill
Speaker 1: and huge amazing. So I got educated. I've been out
Speaker 1: recruiting too long and I didn't know that. So they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we got a goat. We got a duck.
Speaker 1: It's the Afflack duck, and we got the gap goat.
Speaker 1: And I said, all right, let's see how that works.
Speaker 1: I said, but one one stipulation. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: talk to any animal. Okay, I'm only going to talk
Speaker 1: to Dawn because I know I'll get it. And the
Speaker 1: expertise that they put together to put you know, for
Speaker 1: these commercials there are one hundred and thirty people there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you're doing it over and over again, and and
Speaker 1: I laugh with them. I got some street cred from
Speaker 1: the commercials really, and especially being with Dawn. The Duck
Speaker 1: and the Gap goat Holy mackerel. Yeah, Well about once
Speaker 1: a year, you and I get a chat and I've
Speaker 1: always appreciated um, and you text me from time to time.
Speaker 1: I always appreciate that. I know you're a very busy person.
Speaker 1: I learned things every time and I just Mike, it's
Speaker 1: been a pleasure to cover you in your career and
Speaker 1: I just want to thank you again. Yeah, thanks a lot.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'd become a big Las Vegas guy.
Speaker 1: You know, with US, we practice there for eleven years
Speaker 1: and we go there all the time. And it's ironic,
Speaker 1: you know, it's ironic that although the first time I
Speaker 1: coached the US team in an exhibition game there, they
Speaker 1: did booming all right, even though I was the US coach.
Speaker 1: But I understand it. I didn't I didn't take it personally.
Speaker 1: But Vegas, what they've done with Vegas sports wise, it's incredible.
Speaker 1: The Final Four will be there and in a short time,
Speaker 1: and hopefully an NBA team will be there in a
Speaker 1: short time. Because to any coach, all right, thanks the volume.
Speaker 1: Make sure to check out the Draymond Green Show. I
Speaker 1: brought Draymond Green into the volume because one of the
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