Mike DeCourcey Joins The Show!

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1:04with a tasty caffeine kick. That's right, caffeine just got a flavor upgrade. And it's not just one flavor. Five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and 17 flavors. 17. So if you're craving that candy flavored chaos, but actually want energy that works, grab fruity rainbow five hour energy shots. Pocket sized zero sugar big flavor. Available now at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon. Have you or a family member been diagnosed with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer that can be removed by surgery? Consider talking to an oncologist about your treatment options. Why? Because knowing your options before you have surgery can help your care team develop a treatment plan that's right for you. Learn about a potential treatment plan before and after surgery. At askbeforesurgery.com that's askbeforesurgery.com and talk to an oncologist before your surgery. I Robert Levenger, insurance agent.

2:26This is you better you bet presented by betmgm on Westwood One Sports. Imagine being 30 and 0 at anything. And still having people looking at you going, I don't know, probably not good enough. We'll talk about teams that should be in or on the bubble, may not be in, still need to do more work, are solidly in place ready to punch tickets to the dance. Coming up here on Westwood One Sports. It's you better you bet. Mike DeCorsi joins me in one moment from Fox Sports, the Big Ten Network and the sporting news to discuss all of it. Don't forget you can take us with you anywhere in the world in the Westwood One Sports app and always live across North America on Sirius XM channel 375.

3:28No better place to be during March matchups than Vegas. This year college basketball fans can win a VIP trip to the court of legends event featuring the Cavendor twins. Simply place sports bets and your position on the leaderboard will determine if you win one of the 25 grand prize packages. Just sign into your betmgm account. Opt into the promotion and start placing sports bets of at least $10 to climb the leaderboard. Make this March wonder remember join the court of legends leaderboard and make it legendary with betmgm. All right, this guy has been watching college basketball for years and that's not meant as a way to age you. Mike DeCorsi of the sporting news, Big Ten Network and Fox Sports. Good morning Mike. I realized that's like I should have just been like he's very experienced. Instead I started making you sound old which was okay. I grew up on Austin car so I can I I'll have to do as mentioned that and and I aged myself pretty well. But you've been watching this game for years.

4:30Have we ever had a 30 and O team on the bubble going to their conference tournament needing to win their conference tournament and is that what Miami of Ohio is this year? Yeah, I will say that we haven't ever and I don't think they're on the bubble now. Although I would advise strongly to finish the regular season undefeated and that's going to be a challenge because they have to go to an arch rival Ohio U which is already oriented toward doing anything you can to get in Miami's way and also the fact that my Ohio is a solid team in the Mac and you're playing them on the road so that that it's a challenge to get through that and then you have to get through at least one game at the conference tournament to feel somewhat comfortable. But as it stands now I don't think they're a bubble team. The most important metrics relative to being selected to the NCAA tournament

5:34are what are called resume metrics. That's what I call them because it's shorter than saying record metrics. It's too many words for me. But the idea with the resume metric is this is what you've done. This is not how many points you won by. This is not how efficient or powerful you are. Did you win or lose? Who'd you play and where'd you play them? And yes, Miami did not play the most imposing schedule in college basketball but the math on what who they did play and the fact that they beat all of them adds up to right now the 30th team in division one. That's a solid eight seed if you went by that. Now they probably won't go directly by that in terms of seeding the Red Hawks. They might if they finished the regular season undefeated make them an eight seed. That's what I've had the mass. I would change that if they were to lose either tonight or in the conference tournament. But I just don't think that the people who have been assailing them

6:37as an NCAA tournament candidate are using the proper tools because if they use the proper tools they'd see that's not really that big an issue now. Everybody circumstance changes as they progress through their schedules. But as of now and now can take you all the way back to the beginning of February at least. They've never been a bubble team. Mike DeCorsi of the Big Ten Network and Fox Sports as well as the sporting news with us here talking about punching some tickets to the dance on you better you bet presented by Bed MGM from a team that some people think still has some work to do Miami of Ohio even though they're undefeated to the teams that are solidly in. When you look at the possible one seeds in this bracket Mike and the way they've progressed through the final few weeks of the regular season who are the teams that you look at and say I'd be shocked to not see them in at least the elite eight if not the final four. Well I think the three of the four I think Arizona,

7:38Yukon and Michigan what should have great chances to get there. Yukon still has some development to do. Braille and Mullins they're most talented player the player who is projected most highly by the NBA draft even after a inconsistent freshman season which is mostly not his own fault. He's been injured twice and so it's been hard to be consistent in that circumstance but after a relatively inconsistent freshman season you still see him projected as a lottery pick. Braille and has to get to his A game and Yukon has to get to their A game which incorporates Braille and because he's their difference making player they're a rock solid at every other position. Guys who do all the right things or have won before Alice Carebans won it twice they have guys who do their jobs but Mullins is the guy who can get that last bucket that you need against a great opponent to get you where you want to go and that's the that's the one component that

8:44for for me leaves them as the question on the one line not necessarily whether they get there or not we'll see how they play over the weekend what they do in New York at the garden in the Big East tournament but more so whether they're not they can last once they're there. Were you as I wasn't surprised and certainly not shocked but were you as impressed maybe is the right word by what Duke did to Michigan a couple of weeks ago I mean and does that really since then have they've been a title contending team I think in many people's opinions all year but was that the moment where you went okay not just the team beating up on the ACC as they did last year but a legit title contender yeah I mean I think you always had to look at them as a title contender although they have apparent flaws relative to that when you have a player like Cameron as you're as you're a player a guy who is a definite NBA first five pick and probably higher than

9:45that I'm trying to be as as as lenient as possible trying to be as cover myself as much as possible relative to where he'll be selected but he's definitely going early in the draft you're you're going to have a shot to win it but what they did defensively to Michigan make Michigan as stagnant as they were particularly in the first half but really through the entire game that that that really impressed me and then you look at Cameron Boosers record and Chris like if there's a game and he's playing in it especially if it there's a title on the line they win every time he won four state championships in high school basketball you want a national championship in the peach champ which is the biggest summer a you off season event whatever you want to call it they want three different age groups 15 under 16 under 17 under you want two gold medals with a basketball in the hoop summit US one like everywhere he goes he wins and so I'm not

10:46betting against a team that has that guy not hard anyway I there may be another team that I select to win it once we see the bracket but man it's not going to be easy to go away from a guy who wins this consistently as he does less than 10 days away from the brackets hitting Mike DeCorsi of Fox Sports and the Big 10 Network and sporting news with us here on you better you bet Chris Mackin for Nick Costos check them out on social media at TSN Mike you mentioned it wherever Cam Booser goes and plays in big games he wins wherever Kansas goes we just wonder if Darren Peterson is actually going to play in those games a little less so the last couple weeks the server has died down and they seem to be appreciating that he needs to ramp up just in time for the tournament but it's it's not really working for Kansas they've hit plenty of speed bump in the last few weeks so with another one of these guys who has looked at as a lottery pick and a guy

11:46who can maybe throw a team on his back can Peterson actually do that for Kansas once we get beyond the first weekend of the tournament he absolutely can but there's they're running out of time to get it right and it it goes back to the fact that he's missed double digit games and and on top of the double digit games that he's missed he also was semi absent the the TCU game misses a lot of the second half gets insert reinserted for that final regulation play draws a foul on a three pointer drops three free throws forces overtime sits all of overtime Oklahoma State 18 points I think it was in the first half early second half feels something asks out doesn't return those things happened on multiple occasions and so that the team has built a formula for how to win without it but he's such an uncommon player that playing with him

12:47takes some practice it takes getting used to him and when I say that I mean I say that in the best way he's an incredible talent but it is different when you play with somebody who is ball dominant and not that he's selfish but it you have to figure out okay where's he going with this what does he want me to be on this play where does he want me to be on this play and what where do I have to get in case he does decide to shoot so that I can help with the offense rebound there's so many things that you have to get used to when you're playing with somebody like him and they just haven't had that much time it's been good for them to have him out there 30 plus minutes in four consecutive games even though they went one and three at this point getting better with there in Peterson means more than winning or losing a regular season game I know that sounds counterintuitive but it's true because the games that they want to win are still a couple of weeks away. Can you come out of the big 12 and win a championship this year after going through the

13:47gauntlet I mean I know Arizona is certainly a team that everybody would look at say well yeah obviously Chris but I just I and they've gotten hot as of late too so maybe it's just the right time for them but we have this it's yearly conversation right Mike oh would you rather come out of a 2025 ACC where you don't really have to do much or would you rather come out of a 2026 big 12 where every night is a slugfest against a quality opponent it feels like or more nights than not can the champ come out of the big 12 after going through this gauntlet I love that you asked that question for this reason although Gonzaga would not be considered an obvious title contender they had to for so many years deflect the question of have you been tested enough can you win out of the WCC well now you're asking can you win out of a too tough league well the answer to that is only is only 11 months old Florida came out of the deepest and most successful conference in the history

14:48of college basketball 14 teams into the field two teams in the final four they had I think it was seven in the sweet 16 if I remember correctly so yeah you can absolutely do it now what's interesting about the big 12 situation is that for the sake of television and for the sake of the popularity of the game they backloaded their schedule to a great degree and the big 10 did this as well where most of the most difficult tests for those two leagues if they predicted right which they both did Michigan Michigan State Arizona Kansas Houston Iowa State those intersections all happened late January in the case of Michigan Michigan State they played on the 30th I think a January but from then on they were mostly playing high level teams from their league and it has been a challenge for all those teams and of course Michigan and Duke compounded that by playing one another on a neutral floor in the middle of February so they've all been kind of ground down

15:54a little bit and they have to get refreshed so I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the teams maybe take not on purpose or anything but maybe leave their top conference tournaments a little early and and you know and then get the rest but you don't want to leave too early because those teams that get eliminated in the quarters of their conference tournaments they usually don't do well in March so they're they're going to want at least win once in their various conference tournaments before they before they take off for the NCAAs you mentioned Florida and SEC so I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to mention something else that I think gets said a lot this time of year in college basketball that is very counterintuitive but is Florida need a loss in the SEC tournament before they get to the dance I mean 10 in a row now I want to say 15 of 16 20 of 21 something like that red hot playing the best basketball in the country arguably could they stand to maybe lose

16:54in in their second SEC tournament game and go home and rest up for a couple of days well here's could they use the rest everybody can use the rest and that and I believe the SEC still SEC still has a Sunday championship game so you get a little less because of that but in terms of the ego part of it I don't think this Florida team does because they know what it's like to lose they lost a bunch in November and and and so they don't need to be reminded of that they lost early in the conference to Mizzou they know what it means to lose they know how it feels to lose they they don't want to go back there so I don't I well you certainly can take something from a loss I mean after Michigan lost to do we saw a lot of conversation from Dusty May that had coached there about what they could learn from it and there were things they did need to learn from it because they got really stagnant on offense in Florida's case I think they know what they need to be to be great they know that they they want to overpower teams with that unbelievable front court they want

17:59to dominate the backboards with chin alloo he's just an amazing rebounder but when he doesn't get him condoms been getting a bunch too so they know who they need to be to be great and I don't think they need to be reminded of it 96 Kentucky team the greatest team I ever covered in my career that team needed to lose when they went to the SEC tournament because victory had become so easy for them there there were so many occasions where it just they walked out on the floor the ball was thrown in the air and it was over and they needed to be reminded that they weren't invincible but I don't think this Florida team does Mike love picking your brain especially this time of year about college hoops thanks so much for the time we'll look for the updated brackets at Fox Sports thanks again man thanks Chris always my pleasure absolutely the great Mike DeCorsi of Fox Sports Big 10 Network and the sporting news follow-up on social media for all the bubble updates you could possibly need or want at T.S. and Mike yeah I don't see any way in the world that Miami of Ohio

19:07even if even if they had one ugly loss here at the end of the regular season even if they got bounced early in the Mac tournament they started the season 30 and oh there's no way they shouldn't be in the tournament absolutely ridiculous we talked plenty of AJ Brown Max Crosby the smoke surrounding those names earlier in the show I want to get back into a discussion about the first few dominoes possibly falling this weekend on the NFL off season with free agency starting on monday we'll do that next right here on you better you bet on westwood one sports this is westwood one sports some of my friends over at pure talk have been sending me customer feedback from consumeraffairs.com where thousands of people rate and review the top wireless providers here for instances a nice note from james in roly north carolina who writes quote after hearing microzad we made the switch

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21:12casualty insurance company and affiliates national average twelve month savings of seven hundred forty four dollars by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2022 and may twenty twenty three potential savings will vary discounts not available in all states and situations I'm done carrying around bulky drinks and I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out of my pockets so yeah I traded them both in for fruity rainbow five hour energy shots these little guys are as pocket sized as any candy but instead of a sugar crash you get a zero sugar caffeine boost candy can't even compare at this point fruity rainbow five hour energy shots treat your taste buds to an explosion of fruity flavor with a tasty caffeine kick that's right caffeine just got a flavor upgrade and it's not just one flavor five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and seventeen flavors seventeen so if you're craving that candy flavored chaos but actually want

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