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00:00Of course, Mike, of course, he's a legendary scribe in the sporting news and you catch him on Fox Sports, college basketball coverage, Big Ten Network.
00:08He's on the take for the Indiana Hoosiers.
00:10And we get him luxuriously on coast to coast here on SportsCrit every week.
00:16And he's excited about the regionals starting tonight as well in Newark and in the city by the Bay.
00:21And earlier in the week, you wrote about on Monday, you wrote about ranking the teams.
00:28And I was looking at your rankings and I, as usual, agree with you.
00:33I like you have Duke one, Florida two, Houston three and Michigan State four.
00:39I give Michigan State a lot of credit for their physicality, their defense, their coach.
00:45This guy means business when it comes to, you know, Sweet 16, Elite Eight.
00:51He's won a national championship.
00:54I guess some people would be surprised he hasn't won more.
00:57How good do you think this team is?
00:59They play tomorrow night against Ole Miss.
01:00How good is this team compared to some of the other ones that he's had over the years where he's come this close?
01:07Oh, I don't think this team is as good as 2000 or even a one.
01:11It's probably better than the 05 Final Four team that did such a nice job to get there, but really wasn't elite.
01:21But the thing that this team has is a tremendous amount of depth.
01:26And a number of players who are willing to sacrifice their own game, minutes, shots, role to make sure this team is successful.
01:36That's been the most amazing thing about it in an era when that doesn't happen very often and very easily.
01:42You know, that transfer portal is always spinning.
01:45And so the idea that you would have basically 10 guys that only a few will play exceptional minutes and the rest will just fill a role
01:55on a given night, depending on what works, who's hot, how the opposition wants to play them and other significant factors.
02:04I think that he's done a tremendous job with this group.
02:06It's not going to be easy for them and they're going to have to play much, much, much, much.
02:11I don't know how much time we have for how many matches they're going to have to play better than they played in the first weekend.
02:17They were really poor for a lot of the game against Bryant and they were not a whole lot better over the weekend.
02:24They have to execute better than they did in those two games.
02:28New Mexico really caused them problems.
02:30They didn't do a great job of staying in front of Donovan Dent.
02:33And if Nelly Jr.
02:34Joseph hadn't gotten into foul trouble for the Lobos, I'm not sure whether or not the Spartans could have won that game.
02:40They need all their guys to play better.
02:42And OK, so Jace Richardson had a rough game.
02:46That's going to happen.
02:47But you're not winning these games at this level without Jace Richardson not only not having rough game, but he has to be
02:53exceptional. So you have Auburn at five and they got a big game with Michigan tomorrow.
03:01The end of the season, they lost three or four, but they look pretty good the first weekend.
03:08How do you think they're going to do against the Wolverines?
03:11Well, it's an interesting matchup because there are very few teams that can go in against Michigan and say, oh, you got seven foot, seven plus
03:19center and a seven foot forward who's a creator.
03:21Well, we don't have very many seven foot creators out there, but we can match Jani Broome against him and we can put Dylan Cardwell
03:27inside to cope with Vlad Golden and we'll be fine.
03:31I mean, that's that's the prevailing theory going into the game for Auburn.
03:35I think they have reason to believe that'll be enough to stop those two guys or to slow those two guys.
03:40It'll be a different challenge for Broome and actually probably relative to the NBA.
03:45It's probably a pretty good challenge for him because he's going to have to show that he can cover a big guy who plays on the move.
03:51And that's what the NBA wants to see.
03:53I'm sure that's not what he's thinking about, but it certainly could be helpful to him if he were able to slow or shut Danny Wolfe down.
04:00Danny Wolfe is the is a really unusual player in college basketball to be seven foot, to be able to handle the basketball, to be able to create
04:08offensive opportunities out of pick and roll out of various different sets.
04:14He's got so much that he can bring.
04:16And very few teams like Auburn have someone that looks like they can match with him.
04:22Yeah, I would agree with that.
04:23Now, you have Maryland at six and they're playing tonight against your two Florida.
04:28And a lot of people think the Gators can win it all, except the people that think Duke is going to win it all.
04:35Yeah, I think that Florida is, you know, that's another team, honestly.
04:39And both of these teams are two more teams that I was not pleased with how they played on Saturday and both their cases was on Sunday.
04:47Neither team played well.
04:49Maryland forgot they had a front court.
04:51I mean, I'm watching down the stretch, Scott, and I'm like, that is Ethan Morton guarding Derek Queen.
04:57Derek Queen is 6'11", 260.
04:59Ethan Morton is 6'3".
05:01Why is Maryland not passing him the basketball?
05:04They finally did on the final possession and won Maryland the game.
05:10But down the stretch, they did not throw the ball inside against a smaller team at all.
05:15And that was distressing.
05:17Look, if those guys on the perimeter, Jacoby Gillespie, Rice, Sultan Miguel, are all lighting it up and you're busting threes all over the place, OK, I get it.
05:26But that wasn't happening.
05:28So Maryland has to play much better.
05:29But the reason they're six is Derek Queen.
05:32They have to obviously win this game.
05:35And it's not going to be easy.
05:36And I don't expect it to happen.
05:38But if they do, they are a threat to win it all.
05:40Not a great threat to win it all.
05:42But I still look at this field and wonder beyond Duke, beyond Florida, beyond a couple of other teams, who really looks like a champion.
05:51And I don't mean like looks like a champion of the SEC or a champion of the Big East or Big Ten or whatever.
05:57I guess no Big East.
05:58But I'm talking about what champions in the past of the NCAA tournament have looked like.
06:04Very few teams in this tournament have those ingredients.
06:07So you have Bama at eight.
06:10They got a tough game with BYU tonight in Newark.
06:14Yeah, that's going to be a fun game, Scott.
06:16I think Gil was talking about that, or excuse me, Gabe was talking about that before we were before you and I connected.
06:24He's 100 percent right.
06:25It's going to be a blast.
06:27Those two teams.
06:29It's the only time in my career, Scott, when I can remember saying, hey, what's the total on that game?
06:35Because I'm just so curious about whether they think that that that they're going to go for 210 points or something, because neither team is very good defensively.
06:46And both teams are extraordinary offensively among among the very best.
06:50If you ask me, OK, you pick based on who's got the best offense.
06:54I think those two might be two of the top three teams that we discuss.
06:58But it doesn't work that way.
06:59You have to be able to guard two.
07:01So each of these teams has the ability to get to the final four.
07:04But I don't think either of them can win at all.
07:07So you talk about Tennessee and Kentucky.
07:10Kentucky's beat them twice.
07:12And, you know, I played a team the other night in my title game that we beat twice and had to beat them a third time.
07:18And we did. You think Kentucky can beat Tennessee a third time?
07:21Everyone said I couldn't win three against this team, but we did.
07:25Do you think Kentucky can do it?
07:27The fascinating thing about this, Scott, is that Kentucky did it twice at much less than full strength, much, much farther away from full strength than they are now.
07:36Look, Jackson Robinson's not coming back.
07:39He's gone for the year. So they're not at full strength, full strength, but they're closer than they were in either of the first two.
07:45And they still got it done. And I think that makes it really interesting.
07:49The first time around, Lamont Butler did not play at all.
07:51Andrew Card played a minute and that was the end of his night.
07:55The second time around, Carr was limited and so was Butler.
07:59And now they both, at least entering the game, are as close to health as we're going to see them.
08:04Butler was able to go 30 plus minutes on the weekend and produce excellent numbers across the board.
08:10Carr didn't have such great numbers, but he was obviously a contributor or Mark Pope wouldn't have played him 30 plus minutes.
08:15So it's a different team this time.
08:19And as it was the time before, as it was the time before.
08:22And I don't think I've ever seen that, Scott.
08:24I don't think I've ever seen where two teams played three times and one of them had to play a different opponent each time.
08:31So you wrote about Cooper Flagg today and you think they'll handle Arizona.
08:35And how do you think Cal will do against Texas Tech?
08:39Yeah, I'm really proud of that story, Scott.
08:41And I hope people give it a read, comparing Carmelo Anthony's run in 2003 to what Cooper faces now.
08:48It's going to be a challenge.
08:50Arizona has excellent perimeter play.
08:52Caleb Love is playing the best basketball of his career, and that includes what happened in 2022.
08:59So it'll be hard, but I think they'll get through.
09:01And then I can't wait to see what Arkansas does defensively against Texas Tech.
09:06I think they'll bother him.
09:07Do they have enough offense on the hog side to get it done?