H4 N2K, Gary Parrish

0:00Celebrate the holidays at Advent Health Sports Park December 20th. Start your day with brunch and bowling with Santa at 10 a.m. Then hit the ice for skating with the Grinch at 2 p.m. Fested fun, photos and family memories all in one magical day. Don't miss it at Advent Health Sports Park. Our number four of the program begins with what you need to know. And we've got Gary Parish coming up and coming up rather quickly. Which just about all you need to know. Exactly. Whatever questions you have, probably be answered to Sour. Everything you need to know about the NCAA tournament. Dark Horse Cannon. It's favorites. K. You Mizzou. We'll ask him about K states. New coach. Absolutely. We're going to have all of that covered. But before we do that for your need to know, want to give you a little sound bite from former Kansas J. Hawk Hunter Dickinson, who was on the Run Your Race podcast with the opinson. Who was in the North Carolina National Championship team in 2017. Yes. And AJ Richardson. He was just a friend of his. It's involved with a lot of things like this.

1:01Multimedia adventures. Yes. And Dickinson had the chance to speak a little bit on what the season was like last year at Kansas. And I imagine many J. Hawk fans listening are not going to be a very big fan of his answers. I mean, obviously, again, like they just think they expect greenness. But the team, like the team was just like, bro, like we didn't feel like we had support. And again, it's never as bad. It seems like we had great support. Like the Alan was always rocking. And like we had a ton of fans that were supporters. But we also had like a ton of people who were just, hey, like we would always make the joke. After we win a game, you go on Instagram and see how many comments we had. Yeah. It would be like 30, 40 Instagram comments. And some of those would even be like, oh, thank. Yeah, we won a game. What we do on a loss. We would have like 500 really comments. So just like going in. Yeah. And just like. And so for me, like it got to a point where I was like, I didn't like playing.

2:03Yeah. Like we would come to the gym and it would feel such like a job. Like the games got to a point where it's like, well, I don't even want to like play right now. And I was like one of the ones that handled it better. Like so you can only imagine how some of the dudes are feeling. Yeah. Yeah. Like you don't want average 18 into 11. So I can only, no, I can only imagine, bro. I can only imagine. And so it just got so bad to a point where it. Like dudes were just like, yo, they were through with it. Yeah. They were just like through with it. They were like, yo, just. Hurry up and have like I obviously was my last year. So like, I'm like, yeah, we gotta, we gotta try to fix it. I found the way. I was trying my way. But some dudes are just like, give me out of here, bro. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think it was that discrete that they didn't want to be out there. The way they lost to BYU and Utah and some of those home games. Man, it. That goes to show you now in the portal era. There will be players, whether you believe it or not, that will just want the season to end

3:05so they can leave again. It's hard to overstate how. Bad, I think that those comments just ridiculous. Those are bad. You're taking a lot of money and you're playing at Kansas. That's part of the deal. That's a while we just didn't feel like playing anymore. Here's another part of this too. The don't play. They don't take the check. The guys that wanted to hop in the portal and not wanting to play anymore. We kind of forget that Dewan Harris and KJ Adams were experiencing their final year and to have that little respect for how they were going out. Yeah. That's a pretty tough look there. But those were the comments from Hunter Dickinson on the podcast that he was on. But I don't imagine many KU fans were. Oh, good liking that or liking him for what he had to say. Gary Parish coming up next. Welcome back into the program on sports radio 810 WHB. I'm your host, Jack Johnson, filling in for Seren Petro. Curtis Seabolt here. Kyle Collier is producing this thing. And who better to have on the show with March Madness about to begin than Gary Parish get all of his thoughts on the bracket.

4:05Maybe some dark horse teams to make a deep run or one of the top teams that might be able to go the entire way. But first things first, Gary, how are we doing this evening? I am wonderful. Just sitting in New York City getting ready to get the first four going in a few hours. Well, let's start here with the local teams in Kansas City beginning with Kansas who got the four seed. They get Cal Baptist late on Friday night. And if they do advance, it'll either be St. John's or Northern Iowa. But to be honest with you, Gary, I was quite surprised that after the showing in Kansas City and what St. John's was able to do in their conference tournament that the J. Hawks actually get the four seed over St. John's. So that's surprising. Or this just come down to strengthen schedule in KU by far and away has the tougher schedule. You know, I think the committee, broadly speaking, did a pretty good job. But if you want to dive in and start nitpicking, this is a place to look, you know, my top 25 and one that I publish every morning during the season at cbsports.com.

5:05I know means is they end all be all, but for whatever its worth, I would have had Kansas as a five seed in St. John's as a four seed based on the way the top 25 and one looked after all the games were played heading into the bracket show. So yeah, I would have had that flipped around. I don't know that it's the biggest deal in the world, but I do think it's wrong. I think I'd rather take on Cal Baptist in Northern Iowa, probably, maybe that's the only difference. I don't even know. Like, here's the truth. If you are the Kansas J Hawks and you are a four or a five seed, the opponent should not matter. If you don't get out of that game, you did not play well. If Kansas plays to its talent, if Kansas plays to its seed, Kansas should be fine. They would be a double digit seed over either one of those opponents, but I think after that is where things start to get a little more difficult because that East region that the Bayhawks are in, it is loaded, not just with great coaches and big brands, but with

6:10any number of teams that could reasonably make a run to Indianapolis. I think that is, you know, I know Duke is the number one overall seed in this incident of late tournament. If I were Duke, I would not be thrilled with the types of teams, brands and coaches they surround them with in that East region. What kind of team do you think is the best or worst matchup for a team like Kansas? It's hard to say because we've seen so many different versions of Kansas throughout the season. And ultimately, my fear for, you know, Bill's team is that they just didn't spend enough time together with Darren Peterson and Melvin Council on the court figuring out how to play together to actually ever reach, you know, all of the potential, the individual talent suggests is possible, particularly when Darren is playing at a high level. They just didn't spend enough time together and they've had moments where okay, there it is, both Darren and the team, but never in any sort of consistent way, evidence being

7:12that they head into the incident of late tournament, sure as a top four seed, but having lost I believe, you know, five of their previous nine games. Obviously, one thing that can get challenging for Kansas is on the offensive end. I think in part because in some games they're playing with the ball and Melvin Council's hands a lot other games, you know, Darren Peterson can be disruptive of that. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't put the ball in his hands. In fact, there's a reasonable argument that says the ball should always be in his hands if he's on the court, but they really had to figure that out and the offense can get bogged down a little bit. And so to answer your question more directly, you run into an offensively gifted team that is going to score points on you regardless of how well you're guarding because they're one of the best offensive teams in the country. Then you've got to figure out how to keep up and you've got to try to figure out how to keep up with an offense that ranks outside of the top 55 and adjusted efficiency according to Kempom. So to me, that would be the concern. You get one of these games with a top 10 adjusted offense and they're scoring points,

8:15six straight possessions they scored, eight of nine possessions they scored. Are you capable of doing that regardless of how good they are defensively? Do you just get bogged down because ultimately, though the cliche is defense wins championships and it is possible. The best defensive team in the country will win the championship this season. But in truth, broadly speaking, offense is the key to winning the offensively tournament in Kansas does not have the type of offense that suggests, you know, that this type of offensive team doesn't usually go too deep in a bracket, particularly when it's surrounded by very offensive teams. You mentioned, I think, one of the most interesting, I guess, divisions or pairings in Peterson and Council. And there's a notion, fairly popular among Kansas fans for sure, about the possibility of Darren Peterson, phenomenal talent, just going off and having a run where he carries the team further than anybody believes. But if you look at what Kansas has done this year, that hasn't been the case. I looked at these two guys in the top nine scoring games that Darren Peterson's had

9:20this year. Kansas is five and four. The top nine scoring games that Melvin Council has had, they're nine and no. I almost think that Council is more of an X factor than Peterson. That's the dilemma is that I think on a surface level, and I can promise you these were the conversations that were happening in the preseason, there was, you know, some thought that Darren Peterson could have the highest usage rate in college basketball, because of who he is, and because at least in theory on paper, he wasn't going to be surrounded by other high level, you know, the type of guards or players or wings that they'll self has consistently had in that program over the past two decades. In other words, Kansas might have was always going to have the most talented player in the country, but not the most talented team in the country or even one of Bill's most talented rosters. So there was some thought you hope Flory develops sure whatever Melvin Council is he is, but at the end of the day, this whole thing's going to run through Darren Peterson, give him a ball screen, let him go.

10:21Well, then he didn't have a lineup so much. You have to, you're forced to play a different way. That different way involved putting the ball in Melvin Council's hands and that different way resulted in wins. So now what do you do? The results are the results and they're undeniable, but you also have, in many people's eyes, the number one pick in the draft available. How do you not put the ball in his hands? And I just think that this has been a situation that they've never figured out. I'm sure Bill and his staff will look back on this and, you know, they'll wonder if they should have done this or should have done that. Ultimately, it's just been uneven from the jump and I don't know what the best path forward is because if you ask me on one hand, if you're trying to, like who cares about going to the round of 32 or even a sweet 16, this is Kansas. You're trying to get to another final four national championship. What is the best path to do that? In my head, it's still Darren Peterson just becoming Derek Rose or something like that. But I also then look at the same numbers you look at and go, okay, but we've had 19

11:22weeks of college basketball. And Kansas with Darren Peterson turning into Derek Rose and taking over games, that's not really something that the results show has been a thing. So why all of a sudden do you think it's going to be a thing in week 20 when it was really never a thing in any of the previous 19? I understand that point as well. Well, I'm going to cross pollinate here because I see a parallel and have begun to see this more and more with the last few weeks with the way this city and the NFL looked at the chiefs last year, a team of which a lot was expected. And as they kind of meandered their way throughout what was for the most part of 500 season until the end, anytime something good would happen, people think, well, maybe this is going to spur the run. We kept waiting for that run to happen. Then they lose the game. They shouldn't lose. And we think, okay, maybe maybe not. And it wasn't until we got to the end of the season that you looked back and went, that was never going to happen. The run was never going to come. I almost feel like there's a similar attitude towards Kansas. If they could just get this together, if Darren Peterson can just do this and if Melvin

12:24Council can just do this, they're going to go on a run. Are we going to get to the end of the season and look back and say, yeah, that was never going to happen. That is usually the way it goes. I think the chiefs are the accurate parallel. And it typically happens with things that we've seen be great or things that we thought were going to be great. We assume just give it time and it'll get there. I remember, I was going to say famously, perhaps it's not as famous because I can't remember the specifics except I think Charlie Villanileva, a random name was on the team. But there was a Yukon team that was just loaded with NBA prospects, was always supposed to be good. And they just weren't. And then every once in a while, they'd have a game. Like they beat somebody, ranked and you'd be like, okay, that's it. That's what it was supposed to look like. And then even I can remember whatever year this was, they get in the NCAA tournament and maybe they're like in that eight, nine range and somebody's like, oh man, this is a nightmare for the one seed because that Yukon team, now you run into them in the round of 32.

13:24And that's the team that was preseason ranked here and they got this prospect and that prospect and, oh man, this could be a nightmare if Yukon just finally turns it on. And then I don't remember exactly what happened, but Yukon did not finally turn it on. They were just a, you know, a mediocre basketball team instead of play tournament. Same way they were a mediocre basketball team relative to their potential all season long. And that is my experience at least that, that if you are after 19 weeks, suddenly waiting for a basketball team to be something you thought it would be, but that it's never really been at any point consistently. If that impossible, you know, NC State couple of years ago was bad all season and then just went to the final four. That kind of stuff can happen. That's part of what makes this event a lot of fun and really profitable for television networks. But it's unlikely. It doesn't usually go that way. And so, you know, if you look at my bracket, it's very public at cbsports.com. I've got Kansas going out in the round of 32. I don't think I would have predicted that stay in October, but given the way the season unfolded,

14:28I think if you're predicting anything much further than that, you are betting on something that you haven't really seen. How much of the maybe overdone, if it is overdone assessment that Kansas can go on a run here is due to just bad intel. And that by that, I mean, people still think of this Kansas program as the Kansas program before NIL and before the transfer portal. And before as far as the regular season, before the addition of teams like Arizona and Houston to the big 12 conference, how much of it is people still think this is the Kansas team of four years ago? Yeah. We don't have to lie to each other. I mean, the only reason you're asking me that question is because you've heard people make that point. And so have I. That yeah, college basketball changed in some very big ways. And is it an interesting, you know, there's certain programs that have fallen off a little bit since that happened? That is something that people point to with Kansas. It is also true that, you know, when the league expanded and added an Arizona and a Houston,

15:30they're placing in that conference or at least they're dominance in that conference, it coincides with what that happening. Obviously NIL, transfer waivers, all of this stuff has turned the sport totally upside down. But, you know, those schools, new schools, came into the league three years ago and you're past three big 12 champions are Houston, Houston, and Arizona. So there's a lot of that sure, but I think the main reason you leap open the possibility for a Kansas team that has been all over the place much of the season and enters having lost five of the previous nine. The main reason you leap open the possibility that that team could maybe go on a run when a team similar, you wouldn't give a much of a chance. I don't think it's as much about the history or anything else as much as it's that they still have Bill South, who is widely regarded as one of the best basketball coaches of all time and still in the sport. And they still have Darren Peterson, who, whether he's going to be the number one picking

16:32the draft or not, any more is probably more up for debate than it was or it has been at any point in the past year, but he is still in a lot of people's eyes the most talented basketball player, not in the NBA in the world. So you combine those things and keep in mind you don't have to be better than Duke and Michigan and Arizona to go to a final four necessarily. There's no guarantee you play those teams, you just got to win four games between now and then you got to win four games. And the reason you get Kansas a shot isn't necessarily because of those Wikipedia page or where Darren Peterson will be picked, but it is because you can reasonably assume in just about any game you get in. You can say this honestly. I don't know if we got the better team, but I think we got the better coach and I think we got the most talented player on the court. And that's a pretty good combination that won't guarantee anything. That's how you're a four season instead of a one. Look, almost any game Kansas play, you just can look in the mirror and say we coach

17:33them in the gym and we got the best player in the gym. Now let's go see if we can win a game that spans 40 minutes. We don't have to beat them four out of seven. We don't have to beat them by 40. We have to score more points than them over the next 40 minutes and we've got the best coach and we've got the best player. If you simplify it to that, that's how you can wrap your head around maybe doing it. But again, I don't want to talk out of both sides of my mouth. I've got Kansas losing in the round of 32. You know, Gary, I think it's interesting when you say, you know, this is Kansas. You're not playing for the round of 32. You're not playing for the sweet 16. Take a team like Arizona who's lost two games this year to Kansas and Texas Tech. They've got immense pressure due to how long it's been since the last time they got to a final four. I mean, you are the one seed. You're not the top dog, but you're one of the top dogs in cases like this where you're so dominant for the entirety of the regular season. You win your conference. You win the conference tournament. If it's anything less than the final four, do you look at the season and say, well, it

18:34doesn't really matter. We won all those games because we didn't reach the ultimate goal or do you still kind of compartmentalize it and go a 30 plus win season, a regular season title, a conference tournament title is still something you can hang your hat on. Fans live and die with the weight in. So if you lose in the round of 32 as a one C, your fans are going to call that disappointment pointing, even if you can look back big picture and reasonably and accurately say we had an incredible 19 week season and then week 20 was war was the worst and week 20 was the place where we couldn't afford to have our worst week. You can make sense that as a coach, Tommy Lloyd is the type of man who is best equipped to do it because he thinks in that way, but I've seen coaches have great seasons losing the round of 64 and they feel sick. I've seen coaches have terrible seasons, go to the final four and they get contract extensions. Ultimately, everything is determined by, you know, how it ends a few years ago.

19:38I can remember vividly, Tony Bennett being at a lunch in or a banquet or something with him. It was the year after it was the same year for Daniel loft to UMBC in the round of 64 to become the first one seed to ever lose to a 16 seed in the history of the NCAA tournament. But voting for national coach of the year had already taken place before the NCAA tournament he had started. So Tony Bennett had to show up to a banquet to accept a national coach of the year award, like a few days after losing to UMBC and making history not in a good way. And so did he have a great season? He got a one seed and he was the national coach of the year. I watched him accept that award. He almost looked embarrassed. He looked sick. There was nowhere on earth he would rather be. And so there's an example of they had an incredible seed and so much that he was voted national coach of the year, but because of the way it finished, he did not interpret it that way. It's that with him badly up until he was able to win a national championship the following

20:41year. Another indication of that is, I mean, how many mid major coaches over the last 20 years or so years have had 27, 28 win seasons, they hit the NCAA tournament. They're just kind of another coach of a successful mid major. They win two games and suddenly they're the hot commodity to go take a power five conference job. Off with just two games. The first 35 games didn't really matter. You won two games in March, suddenly you've got the golden ticket. This is the point I've, you know, the hiring process is still different now than it used to be because of NIL and, you know, revenue share and you're buying rosters as opposed to building them with relationships and other things. But one of the points I had, you know, in discussions that have with athletic directors over the years is that you can really make them a state getting caught up on who gets hot in the NCAA tournament as opposed to look at the people who can actually run consistently successful mid major programs over four months.

21:43I'm way more interested in how somebody does over four months. If I'm looking at who to hire to do my job, how did you handle that job run your program over a four month period as opposed to how does your basketball team play in a three-week tournament? Because, you know, Shocker Smokers, who's had an amazing career. This is not going to, you know, he's not the best person to make this point with, like saying, heat might actually be, who went on a run in the NCAA tournament very early in his career at one of the directional Michigan schools and because he was the hot name in the tournament, he just, you know, got the Arkansas job and clearly was not equipped to handle that job. He got it based on nothing more than his team did well in the tournament once he got there. But the Shocker Smokers story is interesting because even though he's not the great example of this, it's sort of hammers from the point. He became a national coaching star in the NCAA tournament. VCU went on that final four run.

22:43VCU, nobody was talking about them during the regular season at all. They weren't even the best team in their league, but they got in the NCAA tournament and then they go to the first four and then they go to the final four. And if you look back on it, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but it is totally a byproduct of little more than hot shooting. I think that season, it was something like VCU in the entire season. November through selection Sunday, they made more than 10 threes, maybe twice, whole season. I think they did it three times on the run to the final four. And so a man's entire career was launched because his team got hot at the exact right time. Now, obviously he has proven to be a quality coach over the years. He's not a byproduct of just that hot little run, but he became a national name because of that hot little run, Andy infills another great example. Nobody even knew his name before Dunk City happened in Philadelphia. He won two games in the NCAA tournament. Next thing you know, he's a packed 12 coach and he's been a power conference coach every

23:45year since, but the only reason he ever got the USC job is because he a one of conference tournament at the low major level and then happened to win a couple of games in the NCAA tournament. If he does, he has the exact same season and then goes to the tournament and losing around the 64, he's not even a candidate for the USC job. Those two games in March changed his life and that happens on all the time in the sport whether it's smart or not. I guess one fan base who loves to hear what you just said would be Kansas state fans who just hired a coach who had three has 300 wins has been a success at two different mid-major stops, but has yet to win an NCAA tournament game has only been in one and it wasn't at the place he just left. Sounds to me like you're a much bigger fan of the hiring of KC Alexander than a lot of folks might have been. Well, the first thing you got to understand is I, okay, who was the other option, right? If you tell me you're picking between KC Alexander and Dusty May and I say that's respectfully

24:46I'm just trying to make a point, well then what are we doing, right? You know, one guy's got a Wikipedia page that looks a certain way, another guy's got a Wikipedia page that looks a different way. But your options weren't KC Alexander or, you know, the next 38-year-old rising star in the business who's already been to two final fours. This is a hard job to hire for and this league is tougher than ever and arguably the toughest. And so I know you can point to a lack of NCAA tournament success or wins or all of those things with KC, but when people say things like, how many games, how many NCAA tournament games did he win at Belmont? I think it's always important to turn around and go, how many was he supposed to win at Belmont? I'd say probably zero, you know, the number is probably zero and so he probably did exactly what most coaches would do, you know, as the head coach at Belmont. That said, I should acknowledge it is, should they have been in more NCAA tournaments?

25:49Yes. There was a track record there of winning the league and then not actually winning the auto bid in the conference tournament. That's a problem. But if I were trying to argue on behalf of KC Alexander, the place to start is that when he got the Belmont job in 2019-20, remember that's the year where the NCAA tournament gets canceled, he won 15 and three and tied for first in the league. The next year, first in the league. The next year, second in the league. The next year, tied for third, even with a conference change. The next year, tied for fourth. The next year, fourth, this year, first. So this is a man who has been for a while, consistently successfully running a men's basketball program. He's competent. He knows how to do it. If you give him the resources, he'll have a shot to make Kansas State respectable again. But this was always the type of coach you were going to hire. The Archie Millers and the Shaka smarts, there was a time where you had these 8, 10 or otherwise mid-major coaches who had really accomplished a lot of stuff and they had just

26:53sort of stayed there and they were waiting for the next big jobs to open. Those type of kids that don't really exist anymore because the hiring and firing process has been expedited. It happens at such an extremely extreme rate now. It happens more quickly than it used to happen that the next batch of obvious and great candidates they're not out there. Every idea is, you know, it's harder to hire your next coach because you're asking them to compete against Bill Self in this league and Calvin Fanson and Tommy Lloyd and there's nobody out there that's going to have a Wikipedia page that suggests they're ready to do it. But you look up and you just hope you get it right. I guess I put it this way. I promise you, there wasn't a full bunch on the marked bind and Wikipedia page that made Vanderbilt think it was getting one of the best coaches or guaranteed to be getting one of the best coaches in the SEC when they hired him. Todd Golden at Florida, who was he before Florida hired him? At this point in college basketball, unless you're Duke or one of the programs like that,

27:56it's very hard to hire an established star. You've got to hope that you're hiring somebody who will use your job to turn into a star. That's what Todd's done at Florida, it's what Mark's done at Vanderbilt. I mean, even at Kentucky, you know, they had to hire the BYU coach at Louisville. They had to hire the Charleston coach. This is where we're at in college basketball and I think Kansas State got a good coach who has been running a program competently and I would bet on him doing the same thing and that. Yeah, there are certain places when we talk about, you know, wherever you are, whoever your coach is, if the phone rings from Lawrence, you'll pick it up. You know, from other, there are certain schools you'll always pick up the phone. Kansas State isn't one of those and particularly had the misfortune brought on by themselves largely of having to try to hire a coach while they're embroiled in a legal battle with the guy they just fired. That's probably not easy. The other thing I noticed is it, I'm going to go into a research project expecting to see evidence of something of whatever dynamic led me down that path. And this is one of those ones where it's amongst the opposite.

28:57And I thought I'd see a good list of the mid majors that have been hired by Power Fives and having a lot of deep runs for the most part. Most of them don't. Like you said, there's nobody who's got, well, he's been to seven tournaments in one, you know, eight games or whatever. And a lot of these guys have resumes, not that dissimilar to Casey Alexander. That's exactly right. Watch when Georgia Tech makes it higher. It's not going to, you know, it'd probably be a less established, less accomplished person. Like Brooks Savage is the coach at East Tennessee State. Young guy who I've known since he was literally in college as a grad assistant at Tennessee. He was on staff with Bruce Pearl and Steve Forbes. And all those guys when they had the balls rocking and rolling up until an unauthorized, not allowed barbecue blew everything up. And Brooks was around then and he just had East Tennessee State in a conference tournament championship game. And I just remember thinking on that day, right now nobody outside of the industry really knows

30:03who he is. But if he wins this game tonight and goes to the NCAA tournament, he's a young good looking guy. He's got a young, beautiful wife. They've got a beautiful family. And then if he gets in the NCAA tournament and the cameras start picking up on all this dust, same way I did with Andy and Phil and his family. And then they win one game, upset somebody. He will be like the next Georgia Tech coach. He will get a $15 million contract. Like his whole life changes with just wins. And that's the way the sport works. And those those those established guys, they don't they don't exist anymore at the mid-major level. They're all already at the high major level. And so you're exactly right. You start looking like just Google whatever job you think opens that it's comfortable Kansas state and look at the candidates. The reported public candidates for those jobs. It's very it's very similar to the KCL exam. All right. We're going to take a quick break here. When we come back, we're going to talk Mizzou and their seating with Gary Parrish on the program back here on the program on sports

31:04radio 810 WHBE. I'm your host, Jack Johnson, Phil and infrastructure and petro courtesy bolt sitting here. Kyle Collier is producing this thing. We are chatting with Gary Parrish here, getting his thoughts on all thing. It's NCAA tournament. And up next, Gary, I do want to get your thoughts on the Missouri Tigers. They're the ten seed that we playing in St. Louis against Miami. Was this a good spot for them? I know they were on a bubble for the for a while. They lose three games in a row to close out the regular season. They lose of course in the SEC tournament, but they were firmly in. Were you ever concerned that they were going to have to sweat it out come selection Sunday or were they firmly in it the entire way? I thought they were in safely. I didn't think they were going to go to the first four. I know others did. So I wasn't surprised by the ten seed. And then they just get, you know, I think an advantage based off of bracketing principles. You know, I know Miami fans are upset that they got to play Missouri in St. Louis, but as the committee chair explained, Miami is a seven seed. We only geographically

32:09predict top four seed. And so it's not ideal for Miami to be playing Missouri in St. Louis. But our bracketing principles do not suggest that we need to try to avoid that. If you don't want to play what could be interpreted as a possible road game, then be a top four seed next year. And we'll treat you that way. And so it's a nice little break from Missouri and now we see it to take advantage of. That's interesting because that's a good way to look at it because a lot of people look at it from the Missouri's perspective. What did they deserve? But it is really the other team. It's Miami. And I ask people this, anybody who is upset because some double digit seed plays 90 minutes from home, do this for me. You plot out 64 teams to eight venues over a course of two days with the restrictions that you mentioned on who can play who in the first or second round or whatever and have that not happen. Cal Bap, Kansas is going to play Cal Bap just 90 minutes away from their campus. It's unavoidable and it happens every year. Why do people get so upset about

33:13this? It's largely unavoidable. The other thing just to drill down on this point. Every year people will spot things in the bracket like, oh, look at this team wins and this team wins. That coach's father used to work for that coach at that school. Oh, I bet they did that on purpose. The truth is they just put the bracket together and then those things exist because there's so many different combinations of possible storylines. You could randomly like hit auto shuffle on some computer thing and just make it shuffle the bracket and spit out a new one every three seconds and you would immediately find all these storylines that people every year think are intentionally put together but they just exist because when you have so many possible stories and a 68 team bracket these things are hard to avoid. So yeah, I don't get caught up too much on seven and ten seeds and where they're playing because at the end of the day, those teams are not supposed to factor into what we're actually trying to do anyway, which is crown a proper national champion.

34:17Where I have an issue with location is when it gets to a point like what we have in the South region right now. Florida is the one C. That means the committee evaluated every basketball team in the country and they decided that Florida deserved to be one of the top four seeds in this bracket along with Duke, Michigan and Arizona. Houston is the two C. Houston is then placed in the South bracket because it's the best number two C according to the committee and Florida's the worst number one according to the committee. Got all that. I'm on board so far. The problem of course is that the South region final will be played in Houston in the Toyota center and that's where if I were in charge of this, I would have a bracketing principle that says we then manipulate the seed line to get the one seed away from a road game in the elite eight because I think it is fundamentally unfair that Florida could have a season over 19 weeks that that results in them getting a number one seed, the end of late tournament. Then you look up in the elite eight and you're playing Houston

35:20in Houston. There's 15,000 Cougars fans. You've turned it into a road game. I experienced this up close one time, 2006, NCAA tournament, same type of deal. Memphis is the fourth number one seed. UCLA is the best number two seed. Memphis gets shipped out west. They have to play UCLA in the elite eight in Oakland. It was like 15,000 UCLA fans. It was a road game. UCLA won it. Perhaps UCLA wins that game no matter where it's played, but it was clearly a road environment for Memphis and that seemed unfair for the number one seed. This is the same deal with Florida. If I were on the committee, I would change the protocols and make it where we will never put a one seed in a possible position to be in an elite eight game against a two seed on the road. We can't avoid everything that happens, but the most likely thing that we're going to get in the elite eight. Even if it's not technically likely, what I mean by that is the committee chair will tell you, ones and twos play each other in the elite eight, only about 30% of the time. That's fine,

36:24but it is still the most likely, likely matchup you're going to get at that stage, and I would try to avoid that. If there's any scenario where a one has to play a two seed in its home city, we rip that out immediately and do something else, and they just do not do it, and I think it's wrong. Nobody's really screaming about it now, except for probably me and Todd Golden, but just watch. If that game materializes, and it's Florida Houston in Houston for a trip to the final four, that'll be the point where everybody on TV is saying, hold up, why do we have a system in place that requires Florida, a one seed, the reigning national champ to play Houston in Houston to go to the final four? Nobody's really yelling it now. Let that game get here, and everybody will say the same thing. Yeah, for stat nerds, a plurality is often just as important, if not more important than a majority, so just to put that out there. How about this Missouri team, though? What do you think of where they are, what their trajectory is? They've had really an up and down season. It's largely was due to the arrival at the beginning of conference

37:27play of Trent Pierce and Jaden Stone, and they kind of took off from there, but they've been up and down, and now it seems like they only have one guy they can really count on, and that's Mark Mitchell. And other guys have kind of faded. They seem to have some problems with their point card position. The bench is starting to look thin. What's the ceiling for this Missouri team? It can't be high. While acknowledging that a few years ago, NC State was parable on the way to firing its coach, but then it won the ACZ tournament, got an auto bid and ran all the way to the final four, and nobody could see that coming. Nobody even pretended they could see that coming. So if you can acknowledge we have just a couple of years ago experienced something that nobody could see coming, then you have to leave open the possibility that anything can happen. But the truth is, you know, the inter-incipital tournament on a three-game losing streak, and to me, the more problematic thing, if you're trying to project Missouri to do too much in this dance, is that if you take away the eight-nose start, then you shouldn't because it's something

38:31that really happened, but if you take away the eight-nose start, the team is just 12 and 12, the rest of the way. They're Auburn. If you take away the 12 and 12 start, I mean, the eight-nose start, and so the truth is, they were just a little better than Auburn, a little better than Oklahoma, in terms of resume, to put them in this bracket. But when you are outside of the top 50 and offensive efficiency, you know, outside of the top 50 and more specifically, outside of the top 75 and defensive efficiency, there's just not a lot of number stuff there to suggest. You're the type of team that's about to get hot. I in my bracket have Miami winning that first round game, but as always, we'll see. Gary Parrish of CBS Sports joins us as he always does on Tuesday to talk about NCAA basketball. I didn't really have a final four prepared, but I just realized I can have four little fun questions. So I'm going to do a makeshift final four with you here at the end, Gary. First off, of the 68 teams that made it, if you take one team that you thought deserved it, the least it would have been. You know what? I'm not saying this to pet myself on the back.

39:38I'm not a bracketologist, but the 37-at-largest were the same ones that I had. The 68 team filled, the same ones that I had. I think the committee got the four number one sees, right? I think they got the 68 teams right. The truth, like if you want me to answer like specifically, like just logic, it's Miami Ohio. There's, you know, their numbers and resume looks like nobody else has numbers and resume, but I'm just, if you want to make it a rule, if you finish your regular season, unbefeated, regardless of what conference you're in, we'll put you in the NCAA tournament. That's a fine rule for me. Almost never happens for any team and any conference. So I wanted Miami Ohio in the bracket, but did they deserve it based on the way we usually think about at-largest teams? There's an argument to be made that maybe not. A team that didn't make it that had the best case. I know everybody had a good case. I guess Steven Pearl tried his best to make his case. His father Bruce also did, but they lost 16 games, and only 117. And so this is one, and I actually believe

40:41this is true pretty much every year. If you are in a powerful conference and you are left out of the tournament, you just, you weren't good enough. You just, you had so many at bat, like one at bat after another, and you just couldn't, you couldn't get enough hits. And by hits, I mean, wins. So I never want to hear a powerful coach complain about missing the NCAA tournament. You, you messed up, or you just weren't good enough, but you have no valid complaint. With the mid majors, sometimes you do, but this year, I don't think anybody had a real complaint that the bracket, the bracket, I think what it should have been. Outside of Kansas, top 4 seed that you don't think will make it to the sweet 16. Top 4 seed that I don't think will make it to the sweet 16. Let's look at my bracket here and see. I'm worried about Alabama now. Obviously, their second leading score is facing a felony drug charge, because he had more than two pounds of marijuana. He's either a drug dealer, or he's about to have a party, one of the two. Either way, that, that obviously

41:44messes with Alabama, that team is good. Place fast shoots a lot of threes, but because of style of play, also vulnerable, now they go in with distractions and without, you know, their second leading score. Let's go with Alabama knocked out before the sweet 16. Double digit seed that you think will make it to the sweet 16. Double digit seed that I've got making it to the sweet 16. Let's go with, I don't know that I've actually got one in my bracket, but Santa Clara is a team that I could see actually advancing pretty good. I know in that first round of play in Kentucky, and so that sounds like a mismatch. Kentucky, big blue nation, big brand, one of the biggest brands in the sport. Santa Clara, the third best team from the West Coast Conference with a fraction of the payroll, but Herpes Index is great. I took, once it took in, she stayed to five straight NCAA tournaments. No coach has done that there since him, and that's a team that won 26 games in a league with Gonzaga and St. Mary's. And so it's well established that Kentucky spent more than

42:49$20 million on it's roster. Santa Clara didn't spend anywhere close to that, but in terms of caliber of basketball teams, there's not much difference. I won't be surprised that Santa Clara beats Kentucky in the round of 64, and then wins another one, and you can see Herpes Index in the in the sweet 16. Gary, great stuff as always, and we'll look forward to your tournament coverage all week long. Thank you. I'll see you guys later. Bye-bye.