Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox
Speaker 1: Sports Radio.
Speaker 2: He was the sixth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves
Speaker 2: back in nineteen ninety nine. He's while he's ERBIAX CBS
Speaker 2: Sports college basketball studio analyst, also works for the New
Speaker 2: York Knicks. Good to talk to you again, Wally. Do
Speaker 2: you have your Miami of Ohio sweatshirt on? Is that okay?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 2: You're repping.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 4: Reppin' Ohio baby. Yeah, I know you went to Dayton.
Speaker 4: I went to Miami. We were rivals back in the day.
Speaker 4: Dayton's gone a good path. They just missed the tournament
Speaker 4: in Miami, lost by two in their conference championships. So
Speaker 4: Travis Steele's doing a great job. I'm excited about where
Speaker 4: the program is.
Speaker 2: If you didn't go to Miami, where were you going?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I wanted to go to Saint John's, but they didn't
Speaker 4: recruit me. They had Felipe Lopez going there, so they
Speaker 4: didn't really give me an opportunity.
Speaker 3: That was a little under recruited.
Speaker 4: Other schools I was looking at was Harvard, North Carolina State,
Speaker 4: Iowa Siena. That was another one I really wanted to
Speaker 4: go to Duke, but again didn't recruit me. Really wanted
Speaker 4: to play for Rick Patino, didn't recruit me. I really
Speaker 4: wanted to play in the Big East. So I ended
Speaker 4: up at Miami. Played for great coaches. Sean Miller was
Speaker 4: an assistant, Bad Moda was an assistant. Herb Senec who's
Speaker 4: still coaching at Santa Clara doing a great job.
Speaker 3: He was the head coach.
Speaker 4: So I went to kind of the cradle of coaches,
Speaker 4: which Miami is known for in football and also in
Speaker 4: college basketball. All those guys are thriving. So I got
Speaker 4: some great coaching for four years.
Speaker 2: But would you have stayed there in the transfer portal,
Speaker 2: nil era, No, I just.
Speaker 3: I loved it. It's an amazing school.
Speaker 4: I got my degree, I have great friends. It's just
Speaker 4: an awesome campus, awesome place. But in today's landscape, the
Speaker 4: way players from mid majors are getting kind of taken
Speaker 4: away from small teams and going to the big schools.
Speaker 4: You look at a team like Florida, you know, Walter
Speaker 4: Clayton junior from my own, Elijah Martin from fau Will
Speaker 4: Richard transferred from a mid major.
Speaker 3: A lot of those top tier teams and we heard
Speaker 3: Bruce Curle even said it.
Speaker 4: He said he loves to get transfers that come from
Speaker 4: mid majors that haven't had the glorious meals, pregame meals
Speaker 4: that have been driving the games back and forth on buses,
Speaker 4: which we used to do in Miami of Ohio and
Speaker 4: the Mid American Conference. They really appreciate coming to those
Speaker 4: big schools from mid majors.
Speaker 3: They work hard, they grinders.
Speaker 4: A lot of the top players in this tournament left
Speaker 4: are transfers from mid major schools.
Speaker 2: John cali Perry said yesterday in Pat McAfee show, at
Speaker 2: least I think it was yesterday, but he was talking
Speaker 2: about how you got to wait for the transfer portal
Speaker 2: before you can get a high school player. But I'm
Speaker 2: guessing these coaches have contact with these high school players
Speaker 2: and you kind of have a sense of who on
Speaker 2: your team is going to be transferring or put their
Speaker 2: name in the portal. So is it that big of
Speaker 2: a deal that we have the transfer portal window open
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 4: I think it could wait a little bit longer. I
Speaker 4: think it puts a lot on a coach that are
Speaker 4: still coaching's plate because they need to focus on trying
Speaker 4: to win a national championship and win games, and you
Speaker 4: can't be recruiting guys watching film on guys in the
Speaker 4: transfer portal on the side, because you don't know whether
Speaker 4: those guys are going to pull the trigger and go
Speaker 4: to school and take a sure thing as far as
Speaker 4: the scholarship and opportunity and an nil opportunity, it's got
Speaker 4: to be crazy.
Speaker 3: Listen, the coaches have been doing it for years.
Speaker 4: Like for example, Herb Syndic, God bless them, we had
Speaker 4: a great freshman year.
Speaker 3: He ended up going on to NC State.
Speaker 4: You know, we hired Charlie Goles and my career kind
Speaker 4: of exploded, so it worked out great for me.
Speaker 3: But coaches leave when they have good.
Speaker 4: Seasons to take better opportunities. Now players have the opportunity
Speaker 4: to do the exact same thing. I think it's better
Speaker 4: for the game of basketball. I think if it's elevated
Speaker 4: the play of the players and of the teams, because
Speaker 4: iron sharpens iron, and now the best players they can
Speaker 4: go to the best teams and play for the best coaches.
Speaker 4: And I think that's why we see eight teams left
Speaker 4: from the SEC and the Sweet sixteen.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what kind of tweaks are you going to
Speaker 2: make If I said you're going to run college basketball,
Speaker 2: what's the one thing you want to change.
Speaker 4: The one thing is to make sure there's a lot
Speaker 4: of promises out there as far as transfers and nil
Speaker 4: money and stuff like that that don't get delivered. If
Speaker 4: there's any way that it can be a lot more.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a wild wide West, and it's like
Speaker 4: a promise that might never come to fruition.
Speaker 3: If there can be a.
Speaker 4: Way to just guarantee stuff and happening, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: a contract something like that, a two year deal where
Speaker 4: coaches know who's going to be playing for them for
Speaker 4: at least two years and not just one, and they
Speaker 4: can just transfer after one. Something like that. Maybe giving
Speaker 4: a guy one transfer in their four years without sitting out,
Speaker 4: then if they want to transfer again, they have to
Speaker 4: sit out a year. Goes back to the old roles
Speaker 4: back when I played, where if you transferred, you need
Speaker 4: to just sit out a year and pay your dues
Speaker 4: kind of in order to play for a new coach
Speaker 4: on a new team and a new campus. So I
Speaker 4: think those are a couple ideas that are being thrown round,
Speaker 4: but overall, the quality of the game.
Speaker 3: Is very good.
Speaker 4: I love seeing high level basketball, and I like watching
Speaker 4: the best basketball players in college in the amateur level.
Speaker 4: And this year we've gotten to that point where the
Speaker 4: best players are playing on the best teams for the
Speaker 4: best coaches.
Speaker 2: Talking to while the Zerbiak, CBS Sports College Basketball Analyst.
Speaker 2: So you faced Michael Jordan at the end of his
Speaker 2: career with the Wizards. You had Lebron early in Lebron's career,
Speaker 2: in Kobe kind of middle of his career.
Speaker 4: I had Kobe the whole entire time picking my butt out.
Speaker 4: They're not just out of the playoffs. He felt like
Speaker 4: every year with Kobe and Shack. When I was with
Speaker 4: the Minnesota Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett's Frett Well and Cassel,
Speaker 4: that team was just dominant.
Speaker 3: So Kobe was outstanding.
Speaker 2: Okay, most frustrating out of that three to cover.
Speaker 4: H Well, I didn't play against Jordan in his prime.
Speaker 4: The hardest guy for me to cover. I've always said
Speaker 4: this was Paul Pierce. I played against him for years.
Speaker 4: He was such a smart basketball player. For me, being
Speaker 4: six seven sixty eight, Paul Pierce had had had the
Speaker 4: height that could match up with me, and I just
Speaker 4: had a lot of problems guarding him. You know, he
Speaker 4: changed speeds, He's so smart. He was one of the
Speaker 4: most underrated superstars I think in my generation. The opportunity
Speaker 4: to play with him in Boston also for a year
Speaker 4: and a half, got to know him as a guy.
Speaker 4: But he was a handful for me. Obviously, Kobe was
Speaker 4: because he was so quick.
Speaker 3: So fast. But the thing I could kind of I could.
Speaker 3: I could post up Kobe a little bit, and you know, because.
Speaker 4: I had a little bit of a size and strength advantage,
Speaker 4: so I could get some buckets on him.
Speaker 3: I couldn't stop him though, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: On the other end, was Jordan still talking trash back
Speaker 2: then at the end of his career.
Speaker 3: Jordan talked the most trash to me on the golf course.
Speaker 4: I've played with golf with Michael a couple of times,
Speaker 4: and he's a lot of fun to play golf with.
Speaker 4: He's a lot of fun to play against in basketball too,
Speaker 4: But he talks a.
Speaker 3: Lot of trash on the golf course.
Speaker 4: He's he's a big time competitor, and he talked a
Speaker 4: little bit of trash. But when he was with the
Speaker 4: Wizards and I was with the Timberwolves. In the three
Speaker 4: years that I played against him, we won. We were
Speaker 4: six and zero against the Wizards, back and forth, home
Speaker 4: and away. We beat him every single time. So I
Speaker 4: caught him at the end of his career. But nothing
Speaker 4: but respect for him. He's my goat.
Speaker 3: With all due respect to Lebron, my teammate.
Speaker 4: I got Lebron number two on the greatest of all
Speaker 4: time lists Michael Jordan. What he accomplished when he needed
Speaker 4: to win a game, he won it. When he needed
Speaker 4: to make the big shot, he made it. And the
Speaker 4: way he dominated basketball on both ends of the floor
Speaker 4: for his career. He's my greatest of all time.
Speaker 2: Okay, but is there something Lebron could accomplish that would
Speaker 2: change that list?
Speaker 3: You know what he's doing. The longevity, it's incredible, it
Speaker 3: really is.
Speaker 4: It's just the tightness of Jordan's career, making it to
Speaker 4: six finals and winning all six. Obviously had great teammates
Speaker 4: and a great coach, but he dominated his era of
Speaker 4: basketball like nobody else. Did you know the longevity of
Speaker 4: Lebron If you want to enter a different argument, the
Speaker 4: fact that he's still doing it at forty years old
Speaker 4: is absolutely incredible. I think They're a legitimate title contender
Speaker 4: this year, so it's amazing. But the fact that Michael
Speaker 4: Jordan did it in a small span of time and
Speaker 4: just dominated every finals, I just don't think there's anything
Speaker 4: Lebron can do to surpass that. Fifty thousand points plus
Speaker 4: amazing accomplishment and I got them number two, right behind
Speaker 4: Michael Jordan.
Speaker 2: Looking at the games tonight BYU Alabama, Maryland, Florida, Arizona, Duke, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: Texas Tech, where's the surprise slash upset in that group.
Speaker 3: BYU Alabama is must be TV. That's the game to watch.
Speaker 4: This BYU team coached under Kevin Young, an NBA mind
Speaker 4: that came from the Phoenix Suns. Spreads the floor, out
Speaker 4: shoots a lot of threes. They get up and down
Speaker 4: the floor. They have outstanding big rebounders down low. So
Speaker 4: Alabama's going to have to bring their hard hat and
Speaker 4: they're going to have to rebound. This game is going
Speaker 4: to be first one to one hundred. I'm really for
Speaker 4: this game. I think it's being played in Newark out
Speaker 4: there in New Jersey. This is gonna be a great one.
Speaker 4: As far as upsets, I think Maryland might be able
Speaker 4: to pull an upset. I mean Maryland. They have a
Speaker 4: great crab five. They announced standing save an outstanding starting five.
Speaker 4: They're rested after the first weekend. Florida looked a little
Speaker 4: bit vulnerable against Yukon. I love Walter Clayton Jr. He
Speaker 4: shot him out of that game making some big shots.
Speaker 4: And if Yukon could have hit some open threes which
Speaker 4: Danny Hurley drummed up for his guys, they could have
Speaker 4: won that game. They just missed too many open shots.
Speaker 4: Caravan and McNeely, I think that could be an upset.
Speaker 4: Special look out for the Maryland terms.
Speaker 2: If you were Cooper Flag, give me a reason why
Speaker 2: you would go back to Duke.
Speaker 4: Because it's a lot of fun to play in college
Speaker 4: basketball on campus.
Speaker 3: There's nothing like it.
Speaker 4: The thing is, there's a lot of risk if he
Speaker 4: does go back. You know he's the surefire number one.
Speaker 4: He's ready for the NBA. What you get when you
Speaker 4: go to the NBA the coaching, the professionalism off the court,
Speaker 4: the physical therapists, the trainers, the strength coaches. It is
Speaker 4: an all inclusive program to maximize your basketball abilities. Not
Speaker 4: saying that Duke is not the same, because Duke is
Speaker 4: at one of the highest levels in college. BYU is
Speaker 4: doing the same thing with Kevin Young coaching. They're trying
Speaker 4: to become basically a G League team, an NBA development
Speaker 4: team in college to get guys ready to play at
Speaker 4: the next level. But Cooper Flag just has so much
Speaker 4: to risk. If he doesn't come out, he's going to
Speaker 4: be the number one pick in the draft. The number
Speaker 4: one picking the draft makes a lot of money guaranteed,
Speaker 4: So we'll see. I know he's thrown out the idea.
Speaker 4: I think it would be great for college if he
Speaker 4: came back. I would love it because I love watching
Speaker 4: him in a Duke uniform. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: it's a very risky move if he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the Wizards could be there. I mean it's
Speaker 2: hard to say, Hey, you know, they won the lottery
Speaker 2: and I'm the prize I get to go to Washington.
Speaker 2: If you were going to go to Washington right now,
Speaker 2: or you had a chance to stay at Duke for
Speaker 2: one more year, what would you do.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you that's a great point, you know, but
Speaker 4: there but what if the flip side is what if
Speaker 4: something happens it is, you know, at Duke and he
Speaker 4: hurts himself.
Speaker 3: You know, just something funky happens.
Speaker 4: That's a huge risk to take, you know, and you
Speaker 4: never know with with how the draft is going to
Speaker 4: pan out. You know, we've seen teams jump up in
Speaker 4: the draft and you have to trust that. You know,
Speaker 4: most organizations in the NBA, they're figuring out once they
Speaker 4: get talent, they're figuring out how to maximize that talent
Speaker 4: and how to be pretty relevant. Washington's has been pretty
Speaker 4: irrelevant for a pretty long time. And I understand where
Speaker 4: you're coming from, but it's just I think too big
Speaker 4: a risk for a guy like Hooper to take.
Speaker 2: Good to catch up with you again, Walie, thanks for
Speaker 2: joining us.
Speaker 4: Always fun. Enjoyed the Sweet sixteen. It's going to be
Speaker 4: a lot of fun the rest of the way. All
Speaker 4: the to San Antonio.
Speaker 1: Crining a champ.
Speaker 2: That's Wally zurbiank CBS sports college basketball analyst, former store
Speaker 2: at Miami of Ohio.
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Speaker 2: He's the SEC Commissioner. He's Greg sank Back on the show, commissioner,
Speaker 2: thanks for joining us. When did the SEC first start
Speaker 2: to focus its resources maybe on making the Conference of
Speaker 2: basketball powerhouse? Was there, you know a moment where you said,
Speaker 2: why don't we just take the headlines in other months? Well?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can speak to when it became really raw
Speaker 6: for me, and it was March of twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: That was the end of my first basketball season as the.
Speaker 6: SEC's commissioner, and we had three teams selected to the
Speaker 6: NCAA Tournament on the men's side. Now, Dan, that was
Speaker 6: the fourth time that had happened in the prior to
Speaker 6: ten years, so it's not like we had a great
Speaker 6: trend going. But when you're in the commissioner's share, that
Speaker 6: moment was pretty raw and we had to do some
Speaker 6: things differently from our end in the conference office.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what was the plan that you put in place?
Speaker 3: Yeah, a couple of things.
Speaker 6: One, we had had some consulting relationships where we really
Speaker 6: weren't talking about the right things. You remember the old
Speaker 6: RPI which is now the net. We would spend an
Speaker 6: ordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to
Speaker 6: game the RPI and scheduling. We weren't talking about hiring
Speaker 6: the right people. We weren't talking about facilities, we weren't
Speaker 6: talking about recruiting. The day after that selection, Sunday, I
Speaker 6: transitioned away from one advisor and I brought Mike Trangheesi in.
Speaker 3: The next day.
Speaker 6: And what Mike did is help us talk about the
Speaker 6: right things. The other bonus with Trengeese and I grew
Speaker 6: up outside Syracuse, New York, so watched the Big East
Speaker 6: Form was like when Mike said you're good at basketball
Speaker 6: to the media, you were automatically.
Speaker 3: Good at basketball. But one of the things he did
Speaker 3: was he.
Speaker 6: Talked to our ads as they were going through the
Speaker 6: hiring of coaches, and not tell them to to who
Speaker 6: to hire, but talk to them about perhaps who not
Speaker 6: the hire, who may not be ready for the stage
Speaker 6: that we have. Those kind of conversations became much more relevant.
Speaker 6: We had some other tweaks we needed to make, but
Speaker 6: that was a big part of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Did you take the same approach to football at any
Speaker 2: point where you guys have been successful winning titles, but
Speaker 2: now with more teams in the playoffs, and is there
Speaker 2: any a different shift in philosophy?
Speaker 6: You know the reality of this job and a long
Speaker 6: time ago, I was Southland Conference commissioner. I was like
Speaker 6: way off Broadway. You never called me for an interview,
Speaker 6: so I never had the opportunity. I made a decision
Speaker 6: that every day in that role, you had to think
Speaker 6: about football one way or another. And I think the
Speaker 6: reality of the Southeastern Conference is football is dominant on
Speaker 6: a daily basis. We have twenty one other sports. But
Speaker 6: we also have to recognize the conversation allocation, the time allocation,
Speaker 6: so football is a bit more natural. Do we talk
Speaker 6: about issues, Absolutely, We're talking about scheduling in the conference.
Speaker 6: We talk about non conference scheduling, we talk about CFP impacts.
Speaker 6: That's daily. We had to be a little bit more
Speaker 6: intentional on the basketball front ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Are you in favor of more teams qualifying for marech Maendness.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm in favor of fully exploring that. I think
Speaker 6: there's advantages to doing so, given there's more Division one
Speaker 6: members right now, there's one less conference. But what we're
Speaker 6: doing is excluding from participation some of the top fifty teams.
Speaker 6: And I think when you look last year at North
Speaker 6: Carolina State on eleven seed makes it to the final four,
Speaker 6: you've had two or three teams playing Dayton that have
Speaker 6: made it to the Final four or made it into
Speaker 6: the Elite eight and Sweet sixteen. What that tells me
Speaker 6: is there's a competitive balance at the high end, and
Speaker 6: we have to think about providing access.
Speaker 3: Now. I wouldn't just run to.
Speaker 6: Expand for the sake of expansion. I've never put a
Speaker 6: number on it, I think, and I've been clear that
Speaker 6: it needs to be fully explored. I'm pleased at the
Speaker 6: NCAA leadership and the committees involved are doing so.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to Greg Sanki, SEC Commissioner. I'm more concerned
Speaker 2: about transfer portal and nil with college football or college basketball.
Speaker 3: I think both are are relevant.
Speaker 6: You know, I watched the rhetoric right now, Dan, and
Speaker 6: I mean, we forget that we've just seen coaches transfer,
Speaker 6: right We've seen head coaches leave a program last week
Speaker 6: to go to another program. I've had in my league.
Speaker 6: I've had it in my league a year ago, where
Speaker 6: a coach leaves Program A and the SEC to go
Speaker 6: to Program B. That's reality. The commentary about young people
Speaker 6: doing the same thing needs to be.
Speaker 3: In the context that the adults have that advantage.
Speaker 6: Now. There needs to be an orderly process so when
Speaker 6: you watch coaches move, it's a pretty tight timeframe. There
Speaker 6: are anomalies to that, and I think we need to
Speaker 6: tighten up the time frame. Don't forget, like three or
Speaker 6: four years ago, the transfer portal was opened three hundred
Speaker 6: and sixty five days a year. It's been narrowed, it's
Speaker 6: been moved back a week. Plenty of opining that we
Speaker 6: shouldn't have the transfer portal open during the NCAA tournament.
Speaker 6: I'll give you that, but I also know there's a
Speaker 6: lot of backroom conversations that take place, and at least
Speaker 6: right now with the portal open, everything's on the table.
Speaker 6: If somebody is looking to leave, they go in the
Speaker 6: portal and it's known and people can deal with that.
Speaker 6: It makes it busy for sixteen teams, and I'm empathetic there,
Speaker 6: but we ought to just think contextually about what happens
Speaker 6: big picture in the game quick the nil front we've got,
Speaker 6: we're going to see in a week and a half
Speaker 6: the outcome of a lawsuit settlement, and whether that provides
Speaker 6: meaningful oversight of third already name itage and likeness activity.
Speaker 6: It can be a much healthier environment.
Speaker 2: What if we cap the number of transfer portal players
Speaker 2: that you can bring in, or like, I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to everybody you know says we have a problem. I
Speaker 2: just haven't heard solutions here. How can we make this
Speaker 2: better for all involved?
Speaker 6: Yeah, we've talked about solutions. So I think some of
Speaker 6: you have to go back. There used to be an
Speaker 6: NCAA limit on the number of entering team members in
Speaker 6: a year or over two years. The basketball community really
Speaker 6: ended up railing against that. Miles Brand was the president,
Speaker 6: but that came in. We go right back to that
Speaker 6: and create some continuity. I do think you have to
Speaker 6: remember that we have had attorneys general in states file
Speaker 6: lawsuits over transfer policies, even common sense transfer policies. We
Speaker 6: also have to remember the NCAA has a habit of
Speaker 6: being asked for waivers and granting waivers, which I think
Speaker 6: magnifies the problem. So if we if we came to
Speaker 6: a point where said, hey, the rules are the rules,
Speaker 6: here's the timeframe you can engage in certain behavior, and
Speaker 6: there are no waivers and there are no lawsuits out
Speaker 6: of those waves, that'd be idyllic for us.
Speaker 3: Compared to where we are.
Speaker 2: Now, twelve teams in the college football playoffs. When do
Speaker 2: we go to fourteen, we'll see not this season. It's
Speaker 2: a topic of conversation.
Speaker 6: My view is it took us a heck of a
Speaker 6: long time to just get to twelve. I think twelve
Speaker 6: was a success. By all accounts. You saw continuing interest
Speaker 6: through the playoff. We actually took a deeper dive as
Speaker 6: a CFT management committee. So that's like gobblygook for the
Speaker 6: commissioners and the Notre Dame ad Looking at an analysis
Speaker 6: of viewership throughout the playoff, a lot of positive stories.
Speaker 6: You would hear this like year over year comparison of
Speaker 6: a particular game being down. That didn't tell the full story.
Speaker 6: So I think it was the right time to expand.
Speaker 6: I think it worked well. I think we learned a lot.
Speaker 6: We've got some work to do before the twenty five
Speaker 6: season to make some adjustments. I think the bracketing where
Speaker 6: we had these seeds that got moved into the top
Speaker 6: four and people lost home games, I'd like to see
Speaker 6: that change.
Speaker 3: I think that's immediate.
Speaker 6: I do think there's some relevance to thinking about expanding
Speaker 6: the number, whether it stays at twelve or fourteen. I
Speaker 6: think even sixteen's a relevant conversation in advance of the
Speaker 6: twenty sixth season. That doesn't mean we just go there,
Speaker 6: but like that NCAA tournament expansion, we should be looking
Speaker 6: at what are the impacts and what are the opportunities.
Speaker 2: Give me an alternative to these selection committees.
Speaker 3: Well, we had the.
Speaker 6: Old BCS computer r anchorings, remember those days, and everybody said,
Speaker 6: you know, how can we have computers making these decisions?
Speaker 3: We need people?
Speaker 6: And what we have now is how can we let
Speaker 6: people make these decisions?
Speaker 3: We need computers. So it's the full on pendulum swing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Dabor, there's something in the over the combination of
Speaker 6: a committee and better informed data help support decisions. What
Speaker 6: I do think is really important from a Southeastern Conference
Speaker 6: perspective is the number on the left hand side of
Speaker 6: wins and losses the most important or the right hand side.
Speaker 6: And what happened last year and maybe the last couple
Speaker 6: of years causes, at least among my athletics directors, the
Speaker 6: question of we need to lose fewer games. That creates
Speaker 6: thinking about non conference scheduling that kind of dumbs it down.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's good for the game.
Speaker 6: I don't think Nebraska canceling the Tennessee series is good
Speaker 6: for college football, and the citation was that members of
Speaker 6: the CFP selection committee said, well, it won't hurt you
Speaker 6: that much for dropping the game. I think that's problematic.
Speaker 6: I tend to think we should play nine conference games,
Speaker 6: but to get there, we have to have more clarity
Speaker 6: on the CFP selection process. So in answer to your
Speaker 6: direct question, there's likely a balance that can be struck
Speaker 6: between the human thought process and the analytics. We know
Speaker 6: that people didn't like just analytics, and now they're trending
Speaker 6: towards we just don't.
Speaker 3: Like humanity as much as we thought we did. So
Speaker 3: Where's the middle ground? Is another one of those works.
Speaker 2: Would you be in favor of a college football schedulings are.
Speaker 6: Some of these outside ideas have said that I'd welcome
Speaker 6: a conference commissioner having more authority over just deciding conference
Speaker 6: and non conference schedules. I don't think the culture of
Speaker 6: college football lends itself to csurs. I probably said to you,
Speaker 6: like the Russian czar thing didn't work out very well
Speaker 6: over time, and remember, like the eighties, drugs are and
Speaker 6: we still have problems. So I don't think just identifying
Speaker 6: that one mechanism solves the problems. I'd welcome if people said, hey,
Speaker 6: you go set my commend schedule, pick the number of
Speaker 6: games in this league and our non conference opponents. I
Speaker 6: pursue that in a different way, but that's not something
Speaker 6: that resonates within a room of athletics directors and have
Speaker 6: football coaches quite the same way it does on a.
Speaker 3: Zoom with you.
Speaker 2: One other item, and this is off topic with football
Speaker 2: and basketball, but it does relate to it. Can we
Speaker 2: can you see where we separate college football college basketball,
Speaker 2: and then you have these other sports that we don't
Speaker 2: want to lose. They're not revenue producing but softball and
Speaker 2: lacrosse and soccer, and we make them regional so they're
Speaker 2: not flying. You know, Cal and Stanford aren't flying cross
Speaker 2: country for wrestling or volleyball. That we make this regional,
Speaker 2: so you know, your budget is not at stake here
Speaker 2: and you can still keep these smaller you know, sports,
Speaker 2: Olympics sports.
Speaker 6: Maybe I don't know what kind of awards you give
Speaker 6: for g decision making, but I think you just gave
Speaker 6: me a gold start because we are a regional conference
Speaker 6: and for example last.
Speaker 2: Week, well you guys are, yeah, but college college sports
Speaker 2: is not.
Speaker 6: Well, that's because others made different decisions and they have
Speaker 6: to to live with those decisions.
Speaker 2: I'm running college sports to me, so it's why I'm
Speaker 2: asking you know that that that's I'm making you the
Speaker 2: college football notts are you're you're running college sports. Why
Speaker 2: don't we let these other sports, smaller sports, non revenue producing,
Speaker 2: stay regional while football and basketball, if you want them
Speaker 2: going cross country, great.
Speaker 6: Again, I'm gonna I'm gonna hold the Southeastern Conference up.
Speaker 6: Was the bright shining example of decision making. And here's
Speaker 6: a why I actually think I'm not gonna speak to
Speaker 6: everybody else. They made their decisions for different reasons, but
Speaker 6: I've made those decisions. I think you can look at
Speaker 6: what we've done and say, no, they wouldn't have done.
Speaker 3: The same thing.
Speaker 6: We had a pack stadium for l Issue at Texas
Speaker 6: last week in baseball packed, we had a pack stadium
Speaker 6: for Auburn or Texas and softball. I think those build
Speaker 6: on each other. I think those build on each other.
Speaker 6: So your question kind of the foundation was take football
Speaker 6: and basketball. I think if you're going to do something
Speaker 6: in basketball, you're doing it for men's and women's basketball.
Speaker 6: We have to acknowledge that, and I'm going to have
Speaker 6: baseball programs first round draft picks in baseball who say,
Speaker 6: wait a second, I play in front of more people
Speaker 6: for conference baseball games, and my basketball team plays in
Speaker 6: front of it. And I'm going to sign an eight
Speaker 6: figure contract with a signing bonus. That's enormous, right, Why
Speaker 6: don't I deserve the same treatment as my basketball colleagues
Speaker 6: men or women.
Speaker 3: I think there are.
Speaker 6: Distinctions that can be made, but I think some of
Speaker 6: that has to play out decision making. So for the
Speaker 6: Southeastern Conference, I think what we do in football has
Speaker 6: great meaning and what we do in basketball, and you
Speaker 6: saw it with our environments in basketball this past year.
Speaker 6: I think what we do when football and basketball plays
Speaker 6: out in baseball and softball and meaningful ways. I think
Speaker 6: people want to be in those environments. If you want
Speaker 6: to spend your time preparing, learning and competing, not on airplanes,
Speaker 6: You're going to come and challenge yourself here at the
Speaker 6: highest level.
Speaker 3: That's my recruiting pitch.
Speaker 6: Others may have to make different decisions because I think
Speaker 6: you've seen with these coast to coast conferences people opining about, Hey,
Speaker 6: maybe we need a central hub for competition, so we're
Speaker 6: not flying all over the place. I think they're probably
Speaker 6: all learning from this first year as they go. But
Speaker 6: I really like the way we've configured ourselves because it
Speaker 6: meets the exact question that you've asked me on a
Speaker 6: sport by sport basis.
Speaker 2: He's the former Great commissioner from the Southland Conference. He's
Speaker 2: Greg SANKI great to talk to you again, enjoy the
Speaker 2: rest of the tournament. Good to visit with you again.
Speaker 3: I certainly hope I do.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Greg.
Speaker 1: Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six ams on
Speaker 1: Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: Jim Kirchin of the Mothership and a Hall of Famer,
Speaker 2: he joins US opening day double dip with the Mothership
Speaker 2: Brewers Yankees at three Eastern Tigers and the Dodgers seven Eastern.
Speaker 2: Joe Buck will be on the call for the game
Speaker 2: in New York, and you can catch Timmy on Baseball
Speaker 2: tonight following the Brewers and the Yankees. Let me hit
Speaker 2: you with a poll question. Are the Dodgers good for baseball? Yeah?
Speaker 7: I think they are, Dan now, the way they do
Speaker 7: business as we know is completely legal, and if everyone
Speaker 7: else had the same advantages of them, they would do
Speaker 7: the same thing. I think they're great for baseball because
Speaker 7: wherever they go, they're gonna draw a lot of people.
Speaker 7: I think every great drama needs a hero and a villain,
Speaker 7: and to some people, the Dodgers are the villain.
Speaker 8: There's also a chance they will be so good this year.
Speaker 7: That they potentially could make history in some kind and
Speaker 7: of course be the first team since the potentially Yankees
Speaker 7: ninety eight through two thousand to win.
Speaker 8: Back to back World Series.
Speaker 7: So look, I understand this isn't fair to smaller market
Speaker 7: teams that they can defer all of this money, and
Speaker 7: I think it needs to be changed, and it will
Speaker 7: be changed, I believe. But to say that they're terrible
Speaker 7: for baseball, I'm sorry. I'm just not buying it. Dan,
Speaker 7: those two games in Japan were really cool, and the
Speaker 7: Japanese players are so good, and the rookie Sazaki's going
Speaker 7: to pitch in the big leagues this year.
Speaker 8: I think it's good for baseball.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: Was it good for baseball to have Opening Day in Japan?
Speaker 2: And the reason why I bring this up is, couldn't
Speaker 2: you play two spring training games over there and accomplish
Speaker 2: the same thing. Did it have to matter to the
Speaker 2: Japanese baseball fan.
Speaker 8: Look, Dan, I'm older.
Speaker 7: Than you, Okay, I'm sixty eight, and I enjoyed a
Speaker 7: parade in Cincinnati and that was the first game to
Speaker 7: lead to the season.
Speaker 8: Still do a p in Cincinnati.
Speaker 7: But I believe they should all start on the same
Speaker 7: day we should start in this country.
Speaker 8: However, I'm also a realist. This is all about money, Dan.
Speaker 7: We're growing the game. Those games in Japan were tremendous,
Speaker 7: and the more and more growth that baseball can get,
Speaker 7: the better it is. If you're asking me what would
Speaker 7: I like, I would like every team to open the
Speaker 7: same time on April the first in this country. But
Speaker 7: am I going to argue with what we saw and
Speaker 7: the Otani show and the Suzaki Show.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not arguing how many teams can win the
Speaker 2: World Series.
Speaker 7: Dan, I'm again in the big minority here. The beauty
Speaker 7: of this sport is its unpredictable nature. I think the
Speaker 7: Dodgers are the best team, and I think there are
Speaker 7: six other teams in the NASH five other teams in
Speaker 7: the Nation League, maybe six that have a chance to
Speaker 7: win the World Series is if, of course, every thing
Speaker 7: goes right. I'm not so sure about the American League.
Speaker 7: I don't see a great team in the American League,
Speaker 7: although the Rangers can just mash when everybody is healthy.
Speaker 8: But the beauty of the sport.
Speaker 7: Dan, is that there's so many teams in the American
Speaker 7: League that are pretty good and not great.
Speaker 8: It's gonna be a free for all.
Speaker 7: And there are so many really good teams in the
Speaker 7: National League that's going to be an equal free for
Speaker 7: all to see who maybe gets to play, Say the
Speaker 7: Dodgers in the NLCS.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's run down the teams. You got the Phillies
Speaker 2: and the Braves. Are you in the Mets in there?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 7: Now the Mets have to get there starting pitching healthy
Speaker 7: Sean and I has got to be as good as
Speaker 7: he was down the stretch. So those are three teams
Speaker 7: I think could win it. From the East.
Speaker 2: Who else?
Speaker 3: All Right?
Speaker 8: The Brewers are pain the neck to play, Dan.
Speaker 7: They catch it, they're hungry, they're young, they're aggressive, they
Speaker 7: steal more bases than almost anyone. They are a dangerous team.
Speaker 7: So I'm gonna put them in there. And then in
Speaker 7: the National League. Of course, you have the Dodgers, you
Speaker 7: have the Diamondbacks, who are vastly underrated, especially with the
Speaker 7: pitching they have now. And I know the Podres aren't
Speaker 7: spending much money right now, but they're going to be
Speaker 7: a nightmare also if everything works there, so I think
Speaker 7: you could find six seven teams that could win the
Speaker 7: World Series from the National League.
Speaker 2: How much does Otani pitch this season?
Speaker 7: I thought he would be ready sooner than this. I
Speaker 7: was told in spring training he might be ready on
Speaker 7: May the first. We don't need him until then because
Speaker 7: of all the off days in April. They could go
Speaker 7: to a six man rotation. I'm not sure when he's
Speaker 7: going to pitch, but I promise you when he does pitch,
Speaker 7: he's going to be really good. Let's say it's let's
Speaker 7: say it's mid Let's say it's the All Star break.
Speaker 7: When he gets back, he's going to be really good, because,
Speaker 7: as you know, Dan, he is a machine in getting
Speaker 7: his body and everything else ready to play in the
Speaker 7: big leagues and be like no one we've ever seen.
Speaker 2: But because of that, I don't know how he does
Speaker 2: in factor into the MVP every year. If he's still
Speaker 2: able to pitch and hit. He's like Travis Hunter at Colorado.
Speaker 2: He's a two way player that nobody is like that,
Speaker 2: so he has a decided advantage. It feels like every
Speaker 2: single season going in, you know, for the MVP, he.
Speaker 7: Does dan And I'm sorry, I don't like it that way.
Speaker 7: When I first started voting for these things in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 7: it depended on whether your team won or not. Chipper
Speaker 7: Jones won in nineteen ninety nine because he carried his
Speaker 7: team the last two months into the playoffs.
Speaker 8: I refuse to believe that we're just going.
Speaker 7: To give it to Otani before this season starts, even
Speaker 7: though he's the best player in the game period. But
Speaker 7: let's say Juan Soto hits three seventy and hits forty
Speaker 7: homers and carries the Mets into the playoffs. You're telling
Speaker 7: me that's not an MVP season and is gonna get
Speaker 7: aced out just because the most remarkable player we've ever
Speaker 7: seen is really good. Again, I'm sorry, I can't look
Speaker 7: at it that way. I want to watch the season
Speaker 7: play out.
Speaker 2: Give me the next player to make six hundred, seven
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars.
Speaker 7: I'm not sure anyone's going there anytime soon. But I
Speaker 7: think Gunnar Henderson of the Orioles has a chance to
Speaker 7: get somewhere near there because he's so young, he's so good.
Speaker 7: He plays a premium defensive position, shorts up exceptionally well.
Speaker 7: Louis Gonzales remember him from the Diamondbacks. He met Gunner Henderson.
Speaker 7: I was standing right next to him last year and
Speaker 7: he shook Gunner Henderson's hand at the at the batting cage,
Speaker 7: first time he'd ever met him. Gunner walks away, and
Speaker 7: Louis looks at me and goes, I think that's the
Speaker 7: biggest shortstop I've ever seen it, and I think he's
Speaker 7: got the biggest hands of any shortstop I've ever seen.
Speaker 8: That's what we're dealing with here.
Speaker 7: And Dan great high school basketball player, tremendous athlete, He's
Speaker 7: going to figure everything out, and an absolute dirt dog
Speaker 7: when it comes to playing the game and playing it properly.
Speaker 8: He would be next on my list.
Speaker 2: Can we do anything about those elbow things that these
Speaker 2: guys wear when they go to the plate.
Speaker 8: I think it's a little too late for that, Dan.
Speaker 7: We what we really care about is protecting our players
Speaker 7: and making sure they don't get hurt.
Speaker 8: Dan, we have healthy scratches.
Speaker 7: Now, I got three hits last night, but he ran
Speaker 7: an awful lot last night. So one of the people
Speaker 7: are saying he might be a little tired. We're going
Speaker 7: to give him the day off. So as long as
Speaker 7: we're trying to keep our players healthy, I think what
Speaker 7: they're going to allow dear and arm arm, armor and
Speaker 7: stuff like that.
Speaker 8: And yet the.
Speaker 7: Irony is, or the paradoxes, the more we've protected, the
Speaker 7: more it seems they get hurt.
Speaker 8: It's a little confusing to me.
Speaker 2: And I rail on this and I have for a while,
Speaker 2: and then nothing can be done about it.
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 2: But the White Sox had six pitchers go down in
Speaker 2: spring training and they all need Tommy John surgery. And
Speaker 2: you know, this is it's concerning that. You know, maybe
Speaker 2: maybe it's analytics that God is to this point here,
Speaker 2: but if you're the commissioner of Baseball and you're watching,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's not a question of if, it's
Speaker 2: when this happens, and it's a health issue for Major
Speaker 2: League Baseball, So what do you do about it?
Speaker 7: Well, Dan, you have to go all the way back
Speaker 7: to Little League. And I know this sounds corny. You
Speaker 7: got to stop the ten twelve year old from throwing
Speaker 7: off a mound twelve months.
Speaker 8: Out of the year. That's how guys are getting hurt.
Speaker 7: Dan, you know when you played baseball as a kid,
Speaker 7: November fifteenth came around and whatever you were doing at
Speaker 7: that time, you picked up a basketball. And that's what
Speaker 7: we should be doing more often. When you play this game,
Speaker 7: which is so diabolically difficult to play, and you're throwing
Speaker 7: off a mound twelve months out of the year, no
Speaker 7: wonder you're going to get hurt. Plus, the industry has
Speaker 7: demanded that our pictures throw as hard as they can
Speaker 7: on every pitch, and when they don't throw a heater,
Speaker 7: they want them to spin a slider or curveball at
Speaker 7: the highest rpm ever, and we wonder why they're getting hurt.
Speaker 7: The reason you were a good high school pitcher is
Speaker 7: you played other sports that made you a better pitcher
Speaker 7: when March came around because you just got back from
Speaker 7: the basketball season. I am really worried that we are
Speaker 7: specializing with our young kids. We have to go back
Speaker 7: to the Little league and make those changes. Otherwise we're
Speaker 7: going to keep having these Tommy John and other arm injuries.
Speaker 2: What would Pete Rose's stats be, Tony Gwynn stats, Rod
Speaker 2: Caruz stats, Wade Bong stats if they played in today's game.
Speaker 7: Well, with the shifting a little bit different. I think,
Speaker 7: first off, they would be great players today because great
Speaker 7: players transend all ears.
Speaker 8: If you're going to play.
Speaker 7: Rod Grew the way that they play certain guys, he's
Speaker 7: going to get two bunt hits a game.
Speaker 8: And I'm not making that up.
Speaker 7: George Brett, who's a very humble man, told me a
Speaker 7: couple of years ago when everyone was shifting all over
Speaker 7: the place.
Speaker 8: He said, if.
Speaker 7: I played today at for fifty.
Speaker 8: He would see where to hit it. Tony Gwynn was
Speaker 8: a magician.
Speaker 2: But would they be power hitters because of the analytics though?
Speaker 2: Tim when they're coming up in the minor leagues, they
Speaker 2: you know, the emphasiss is on power.
Speaker 7: Yes, I'm well aware, and it really bothers me that
Speaker 7: we would take a player like Wade Bogs who's hit
Speaker 7: three twenty eight lifetime walks well over one hundred times
Speaker 7: because he can a hard line drive single to left
Speaker 7: field better than any left handed hitter I've ever seen,
Speaker 7: and they would tell him wait, you're unbelievably strong. You
Speaker 7: need to hit forty homers. That's that's what they would
Speaker 7: do with him today, And he wouldn't hit three twenty eight.
Speaker 7: He'd probably hit two eighty eight with thirty five homers.
Speaker 7: But I would rather watch way Boggs hit it to
Speaker 7: all fields than be just another guy who hits a
Speaker 7: million homers.
Speaker 2: When was your first Opening Day?
Speaker 7: My first was in nineteen eighty two. I count that
Speaker 7: dan as my first one, even though I did eighty one.
Speaker 7: But eighty two, I was the full time beat writer
Speaker 7: covering the Texas Rangers and the first three games of
Speaker 7: the season got snowed out in New York, so we
Speaker 7: had to open in Cleveland. Seventy four thousand people in
Speaker 7: Cleveland for Opening Day. The next day they had like
Speaker 7: three thousand people. So it was memorable for a lot
Speaker 7: of reasons.
Speaker 8: And this is so.
Speaker 7: George Wright was the rookie lead guy for the Rangers.
Speaker 7: He got three hits on opening Day. I went to George,
Speaker 7: rookie from Oklahoma City. I said, George, did you have
Speaker 7: a good time today? He goes, yeah, I've never been
Speaker 7: to a major League game before. So the first game
Speaker 7: he had ever attended in his life.
Speaker 8: He got three hits.
Speaker 7: And I just found out like six months ago that
Speaker 7: Mickey Rivers, the mischievous center fielder, maked an injury in
Speaker 7: spring training in order for George Wright to make the team.
Speaker 7: And that's how George Wright ended up on the roster
Speaker 7: on opening day because Mickey loved George right, he said,
Speaker 7: I'll fake an injury and you could play center field
Speaker 7: out opening Day, and then he got three hits in
Speaker 7: the only game he'd ever attended in his life.
Speaker 8: That is the beauty of baseball.
Speaker 2: Have fun today, Tim, great to catch up with you
Speaker 2: as always.
Speaker 8: Well, good to see you, Dan. Take care.
Speaker 2: That's Tim Kirkchin, ESPN baseball analyst and a member of
Speaker 2: the Baseball Hall of Fame.