Will Florida land Boogie Fland? Champs are loading up. Plus: how coaches approach handling portal decisions; most intriguing stay-or-go NBA decisions on the board

Summary

Episode Summary: Eye On College Basketball – May 19, 2025

In this episode of CBS Sports' official college basketball podcast, Eye On College Basketball, hosts Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander delve deep into the latest developments surrounding the NCAA transfer portal, NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) implications, and key player decisions that could shape the upcoming college basketball season. The episode primarily focuses on the potential commitment of Boogie Fland to the University of Florida, the strategic maneuvers of championship teams bolstering their rosters, and the evolving landscape of player transfers and NBA draft considerations.

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1. Boogie Fland's Potential Commitment to Florida

Gary Parrish opens the discussion by addressing the high-profile visit of Boogie Fland to the University of Florida. Fland, a former McDonald's All-American and a pivotal player for the Arkansas Razorbacks last season, is at the center of recruiting chatter.

• Likelihood of Commitment: Parrish expresses strong confidence in Fland's commitment to Florida. He states, "I do think he's about to get himself a Boogie Fland." (03:22), indicating that while negotiations may not be entirely finalized, all signs point toward a Florida dedication.

• Financial Considerations: The conversation shifts to the financial aspect, with Parrish estimating the cost of securing Fland. He remarks, "I would say Fland and Florida, if that marriage comes together, would be anywhere between 2 and 3 million." (05:51), countering rumored higher figures and emphasizing Florida's budget constraints and strategic spending on player compensations.

2. Impact of Transfer Portal and NIL on Championship Teams

The hosts explore how the transfer portal and NIL deals are redefining team rosters, particularly for reigning national champions aiming to retain their competitive edge.

• Strategic Roster Building: Parrish highlights Florida's proactive approach, stating, "They have a real chance with the addition of Lee and Presumably." (06:11), underscoring the importance of acquiring experienced players through transfers to maintain championship aspirations.

• NIL as a Retention Tool: Norlander adds, "We're keeping better basketball players in college than we used to," (07:00), acknowledging that financial incentives are playing a significant role in players' decisions to stay in college rather than pursue immediate professional opportunities.

3. Coaches' Approaches to Transfer Decisions

The conversation delves into how coaches are adapting their strategies to handle the complexities introduced by the transfer portal and NIL agreements.

• Open-Door vs. Hard-Line Policies: Parrish advocates for flexibility, mentioning, "I would say it would probably be best to have an open door policy." (14:25), while also recognizing the practical challenges coaches face in maintaining roster stability.

• Maintaining Program Integrity: Norlander emphasizes the importance of setting clear boundaries, stating, "If you don't want to renegotiate now, you can hit the road... We are not talking about it again until this deal expires." (16:33), highlighting the necessity for coaches to uphold contractual agreements to preserve team cohesion.

4. Predictions on Player Decisions

The hosts provide insights and predictions on several high-profile players contemplating their next moves, be it staying in college or entering the NBA draft.

• Cedric Coward: Parrish is cautiously optimistic, giving a 60-40 likelihood of Coward returning to Michigan, while Norlander believes that most named prospects will opt to stay due to lucrative NIL deals.

• PJ Hagerty: The discussion reveals skepticism about Memphis's handling of Hagerty's situation, with Norlander critiquing the approach of waiting for his decision without offering immediate incentives. He suggests a more proactive strategy, "Take my money now, and if you don't want it, that's fine, but I'm going to offer it to somebody else." (26:22).

• Other Notables: Players like Darren Williams, RJ Lewis, and Jameer Watkins are also analyzed, with predictions leaning towards returning to college to maximize NIL benefits unless compelling NBA draft assurances are presented.

5. Future Implications of NIL Regulations

A significant portion of the episode examines the potential future of NIL regulations and their broader impact on college basketball.

• Regulatory Caps and Enforcement: Parrish and Norlander engage in a critical discussion about anticipated caps on NIL deals, expressing concerns about independent oversight that could potentially void lucrative contracts. Norlander humorously anticipates scenarios where substantial NIL deals might be invalidated, leading to legal battles and a resurgence of under-the-table practices.

• Cheating and Competitive Disparities: Both hosts warn of a possible return to traditional cheating methods if strict NIL caps are enforced. Parrish predicts, "cheating is coming back in a major big way," (31:23), fearing that unequal financial capabilities among schools could exacerbate competitive imbalances.

• Financial Implications Across Conferences: They dissect how different conferences, particularly those without football-centric revenues like the Big East, might struggle under new NIL caps compared to money-rich programs like the SEC, potentially leading to talent drain and diminished championship prospects.

6. Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook

Parrish and Norlander wrap up the episode by reiterating the transformative effects of the transfer portal and NIL on college basketball. They emphasize the necessity for adaptability among coaches and athletic programs to navigate the evolving landscape effectively.

• Awaiting Further Developments: The hosts indicate that upcoming legal decisions, particularly the House case settlement overseen by Judge Claudia Wilkin, will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of NIL and transfer regulations.

• Hope for Integrity and Fair Play: Despite the challenges, there's a shared optimism that the situation will evolve, with Norlander asserting, "We will not stay there long," (38:14) envisioning a future where compliance and integrity are maintained through dynamic rule adjustments and oversight mechanisms.

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Notable Quotes

• Gary Parrish (03:22): "I do think he's about to get himself a Boogie Fland."

• Gary Parrish (05:51): "I would say Fland and Florida, if that marriage comes together, would be anywhere between 2 and 3 million."

• Matt Norlander (07:00): "We're keeping better basketball players in college than we used to."

• Matt Norlander (14:25): "If you don't want to renegotiate now, you can hit the road... We are not talking about it again until this deal expires."

• Matt Norlander (26:22): "Take my money now, and if you don't want it, that's fine, but I'm going to offer it to somebody else."

• Gary Parrish (31:23): "Cheating is coming back in a major big way."

• Matt Norlander (38:14): "We will not stay there long."

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This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the shifting dynamics in college basketball, emphasizing the profound impact of individual player decisions and institutional strategies on the broader competitive landscape. Parrish and Norlander offer listeners a nuanced perspective on navigating the complexities of the transfer portal and NIL, underscoring the need for strategic adaptability in pursuit of sustained success.

Transcript

[Gary Parish]

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[Matt Norlander]

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[Gary Parish]

I do think he's about to get himself a boogie Fland.

[Matt Norlander]

All right.

[Gary Parish]

He is currently on a visit right now to Florida. You know, I guess it's not done done, but all indications would seem that Boogie Fland, who former five star prospect obviously and was a key piece on the Arkansas Razorbacks last season, looks to be poised to remain in the sec. And when that I don't know. I would think it's going to be by the end of the week. Florida is also coincidentally enough, scheduled to go to the White House to celebrate his national championship, which is also like the fastest one I can ever remember. Typically these things do happen like two, three, four, six months later, but they're turning around like that and and they're going and celebrating that on Wednesday with the White House trip there. I do think Flan's going to wind up committing to Florida. Again, not done done I guess, but I'm expecting that to happen. He was a 13.5.5.1 assist, 3.2 rebound guy at Arkansas last season. Played 21 games. Remember he missed 15 games due to that thumb injury that kept him out. And then he was able to return at the back end right when they got into NCAA tournament play. And that was that was obviously a big factor in helping them advance to the sweet 16. But I was told that once Fland, I don't know if Caliperi has this rule across the board gp, but I was told basically like, you know, with Cal these days it's like if you're gonna go in the portal, by all means, do it. But there's no. Like, you go in the portal and you come back. Like, if you decide to go in the portal, you're in the portal and you're leaving. And that's the way a lot of. Not all coaches, but a lot of coaches look at it that way. So a return to Arkansas was not on the table there. As for the price tag, that's what's going to be interesting, I guess. I don't think we'll ever have the exact number there, but as, as it's been explained to me, like Florida, which has money to play with, is, you know, easily north of 7 million or so, if not 8, 8 and a half in general has the capacity to do that. That staff is apparently pretty hard line when it comes to what we're willing to pay players market value. I mean, Denzel Aberdeen asked for a significant boost in nil compensation. Compensation. He was projected to be a starter on a national championship winning team. And my words, not, you know, not any sources connected to Florida. Basically, I said, take a hike. Like, we're not going to. We're not going to pay that amount. Desmond Claude, who's currently still to be determined where he's going to land and has has a scheduled visit to, to Alabama, you know, the number attached to him was very, very big. And for whatever reasons, like, Claude was at one point thought to be a Florida lean. That didn't come through. So there's been some pretty outrageous figures attached to Flan that I don't find to be based in any kind of reality. But if you are broadly asking me to guess, this is a, this is a guess. This is not intel. I would say Fland and Florida, if that marriage comes together, would be anywhere between 2 and 3 million.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah, I heard a number even bigger than that. But, like, you know, we all hear a bunch of crazy numbers. It's. It's really hard or challenging to separate fact from fiction, but it's a significant amount of money and it, it does seem to be an example of, of something that just quite literally would not have happened five years ago. But I'm open to listen to you if you disagree. Five years ago, somebody like Boogie Flynn, McDonald's All American, comes out of high school, goes to Arkansas, you know, has team underachieved throughout the season, but then, you know, had some postseason success. He wasn't a part of all of it because of an injury, but there was a moment in time where he got hurt and it was unclear if he'd ever play at Arkansas, he'd ever play again last season, and by extension unclear if he would ever play college basketball again. Because maybe he's not going to be picked in the lottery or even the first round, but he'd be picked somewhere and it's just time to get on with it. You never really wanted to be in college anyway. It was always the thing you thought you needed to do or had to do before the NBA and you did it. Now it's time to go. And I don't doubt that Boogie Flynn even had that or something similar to that mindset. But at some point your reality becomes a little clearer than it might have been previously and you start to lay out what are your actual opportunities on the table. And for him, if it's to go into a draft with an uncertain future or just take multiple millions of dollars to play for the reigning national champs and be a starter in that program. Like for me, this is a. A pretty easy decision, which it appears it was easy for him too because the NBA is now off the table and he's going to play college basketball. But it's also an indication that for all of the headaches and issues NIL has created, and I know some fans don't like the transactional nature of a lot of this stuff, the truth is we're keeping better basketball players in college than we used to. And Boogie Fland is an example of that. And I have never believed it was a coincidence that four of the best 10 Kinpom teams of all time happened to be in the Final Four last season. I thought that was a byproduct of rather than these days. When you lose people from good programs, you have to replace them with either bench guys or high school players. You can now replace them with experienced, proven college basketball players. And Florida is a great place to look at that right now. They won a national championship. They're bringing back, at least on paper. As long as there's no surprising decisions here. Really talented front court players, but needed to replace guards most notably Walter Clayton. They go to Princeton at a transfer. Xavier and Lee now go to Arkansas. Look like they're on the verge of adding another transfer and Boogie Flan. Yes, those guys are going to cost millions of dollars. Florida will have a legitimate chance to repeat because of NIL and transfer portal that frankly just would not exist without that. I don't think Florida without the transfer portal could repeat next season, but they'll have a chance to do it because of the addition of Lee and Presumably.

[Gary Parish]

The addition of Flay Fair direct bottom line assessment by you that I would agree with entirely. If the transfer portal did not exist in its current iteration or even maybe the previous iteration, call it two, three years ago, would the Gators have a really objective chance at winning back to back national titles? I the answer is no. And there'd be nothing wrong with that by the way. It would just be the nature of losing a lot of players after and you know, under the guise of them having gotten Walter Clayton Jr. Will Richard and and Elijah Martin, you know, say this was 7, 8, 9, 10 years ago or whatever. But now it's, it's very. Yeah, they, they do have a real chance with the and we're, you know, for obvious purposes here as we talk here on Monday, maybe we find out by Tuesday, maybe we have to wait until Friday or Saturday. But with the, with the expectation that, that Flynn will say yes and decide yes, I'm going to pick Florida over any other school if and when that happens you've got him and Lee. And it's also like how they, how they play together like the pieces and how they fit. Rumen Chinliu, who we all expected to come back but you know, for official purposes like he did officially decide okay I'm out on the draft process that just happened over the weekend here and so they get him back and then we still wait on and we'll get to a little bit later on in this expected to be abbreviated version of the pod. We'll get to some names on stay or goes. But Alex Condon is one of those names and I got told by some NBA sources that if he can get a first round guarantee he'd really give strong thought to staying in the draft process. Now the fact of the matter is like guys who are not projected to be top 15 picks like the idea that that franchises will go to an agent and say if you're there, here's a guarantee we're going to take you in the first round. It just doesn't happen that often. That being said, apparently that's some of the feedback right now with Condon. I would expect Condon to return as well, which is all the more reason why they're going to be in this national championship conversation. And fland his playmaking ability, I mean he can really be a, you know, a creative lightning bolt on the floor and between him and Lee and unless you've been super dialed in on, on the Ivy League or if you can remember Lee when he was on the Princeton team that went to the sweet 16 a couple of years back. Like, he's, he. He's going to be a very, very good complimentary piece in that backcourt with this group here. So, yeah, a big picture overall, you got how coming back, like a hand logged in back. This is a roster that deserves consideration for preseason top 10 status, unquestionably. I know. GP, you'll update that and we'll advance that plot if and when Fland actually commits and we can reassess there. But, yeah, real chance to have hope and expectation of. Okay, here's our roster. We're the reigning national champions, and now we want to go try and do what UConn just did also, you know, and, oh, by the way, this is just a good plot point for college hoops in general, which is for the most part, like, in a fairly healthy place. But the idea that we could have, in three consecutive off seasons leading into a season, programs in position to repeat as national champions is a really good thing. We had it with Yukon going. We didn't know if Yukon would win that second straight national championship. But that became something that was on the table and then became very, very real once we got to that season starting. And then last season, even with UConn not being able to do it, it was a. It was a talking point leading up into the season and was one of the biggest stories in the first month of the season. And now we're going to have it with the Florida Gators once, if and when Flynn decides to. To join the boys down at Gainesville.

[Matt Norlander]

So you bring back that front court. I don't know if it's highlighted by Hauck, but you mentioned him, and I do think he should be on the short list of players if you're putting together a list of, like, guys who could be breakthrough college basketball stars.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah, he's too good. I don't know, like, just as a devil's advocate, like, was he too good to even be a breakthrough? I don't know, but I know, I know what you're saying. Like, he could. He could because of the nature of the national championship GP and what he did there. But, yes, can he elevate to suddenly becoming, you know, an all American level player? Which. I'm gonna shut up. And you can take this here. That's the other thing. When you were talking earlier, like, when I look at Florida's roster, they've just got a lot of really good pieces. I actually wonder who will emerge to become the guy on this team, and will they have that kind of situation or Be truly a strength in number situation where they've got three, four guys capable of being the guy on a given night. Kind of like the team that just won the title.

[Matt Norlander]

That's right. So look, you're right. I will. I'm not going to update on the idea that Boogie Flynn will commit to Florida. I will update when he commits to Florida. We'll tie the update to the headline. But to your point, if he does and you can go Lee Flan how Condon Chigniello in the like. That's a, that's a really good starting lineup and that's a team that. Yeah. Preseason top 10 and a realistic chance to repeat his national champions. All of that's on the board. You said something that I thought was interesting. I want to ask you about it. It's not I expected to talk about, but it's May 19th. What else are we going to talk about? You said your understanding with John Calipari is that, hey, you can get the transfer portal if you want to, but you'll shut the door behind you.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

Good luck. I know some coaches do do it that way. Others not so much. There's another pretty high profile example of Penny Hardaway with PJ Haggerty. And Penny has publicly said, we will, we're waiting. You know, if he wants to come back, there's. We have a place for him. So that is literally the opposite of, of the way other people would handle situation. Do you have an opinion on what's right or what's wrong, what's good, bad, what's smart, what's dumb?

[Gary Parish]

I would say it would probably be best to have an open door policy. But that being said, like one at least emphasize this and how it's been explained to me, not just with Arkansas, but other coaches having this kind of policy, so to speak, even if it's like an unofficial one. They would just for the purposes of building out the roster, the changeover that comes and not wanting to like plenty of coaches keep a roster spot like open. Like that's, that's a thing that happens. They'd rather just not be sitting in limbo for anywhere from what really could be at the end of it, like two full months. They just don't want to have that be part of their process. It's like we would love for you to stay here, but if you feel like you need to, if you feel like there's enough here that makes you want to go and explore the transfer portal, then commit to that and it can be a clean break. That's Fine. There's no, there's no Will.

[Matt Norlander]

Will.

[Gary Parish]

There's no bad feelings. You know, sometimes there is with coaches and players. I'm not going to create a Pollyanna environment here with a lot of them, but I would, as a general rule, broadly speaking, I would be open to having the player come back. But let's, let's be clear. There are obviously instances where the coaching staff, maybe the locker room, etc. In general, on any. Just your occasional player, where it might be just like, it might be just better if we just, you know, get a clean break. Like, you know, you go here and this. I'm not saying this was a situation with Flint specifically because I don't think that was the case whatsoever. But, but it was told to me that, you know, in this case, it was, you know, go into the portal. You're in. Best of luck to you. Love, love being with you. But. But if you're going to make this decision, we're going to continue moving on, doing what we need to do. I, if I was a coach, I just, I would, I would want to at least have that option there. But I understand the coaches that say, I don't want to do it. I don't want to deal with this. I've already got too many moving pieces. I'm trying to recruit too many different guys and this will. They won't they. Will they come back and, you know, maybe 90% of the time not coming back anyway. I don't, I don't want to even have that be on the table.

[Matt Norlander]

I don't know that I would have any hard and fast rules if I were a coach. I, I might take it on a case by case situation other than this rule, because I think you as a staff, you get put in a lot of weird situations within IL now where you don't. It's all, it's all new. It's like, how do we handle this? And it's not like, you know, if you're a young coach, you could pick up the phone and call Mike Shasheski and be like, so back in 87, when you were dealing with, you know, it's like there's no, Nobody has a wealth of knowledge about how to handle these situations. It's also new. So I don't know that I have many hard and fast rules other than this one. Perhaps we're not renegotiating in times where we're not renegotiating. So, like the Tennessee quarterback situation, we will do a deal with you and we will hold up our end of the bargain, so to speak. But if you try to come and negotiate with us the day before the spring game, no, then go. We're not negotiating the day before the spring game. If you want to come to us and say if you don't do A, B and C, I'm leaving the day before the spring game, buddy, go. And we might both be worse off for this, but I'm not. That's where I'm going to make it clear to the world, most importantly, my locker room. This is not the way we do things here. If you think you deserve more money, there's a time and place to talk about it. After each season we're having all these conversations, but once we have an agreement, we are not coming back to it the day before a game, middle of the season, any of that stuff. I think that would be a hard and fast rule. Otherwise you just find yourself renegotiate with everybody all the time. And that sounds exhausting and expensive. Do you think astronauts fight over elbow room? Probably because advanced tech doesn't always mean more space.

[Gary Parish]

Until now.

[Matt Norlander]

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[Matt Norlander]

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[Gary Parish]

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[Matt Norlander]

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[Gary Parish]

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[Matt Norlander]

Oh, I do it all the time. It's no big deal.

[Gary Parish]

I don't think I did. So I talked to a coach a few days before the portal closed. And the coach said, we were talking just about how you don't really know how much players are getting paid. And the coach was relying on some relationships he had with other head coaches and like, hey, listen, you know, I will be honest with you. I've. Because a lot of these times these coaches know each other 15, 20, 25 years and they feel like there's inherent trust between them. Hey, listen, if you're in on that player, like, I can't even, I can't even pay for this guy or whatever, or vice versa. And. But the coach told me, he said back in January whenever it was like, there's probably a general understanding in the program of how much money that this program had in nil for the forthcoming cycle. So whatever that figure is. But the coach said, like, he made sure to have a separate, smaller sl. His. His term slush fund of X amount of dollars to be used only in a break glass in case of emergency situation where there were one. If there was like one or two players that came back and said, hey, you know, during the portal process, like, he, he braced for this. Hey, listen, we, we, you know, we like it here, but can you just give us, you know, can we just get 30,000 more, 50,000 more, whatever it is. And he, the head coach did not tell anyone essentially that he was. He told me he didn't really tell anyone on his staff that he was doing this. Well, lo and behold, in this coach's mind, and I didn't ask which specific player. And I'm not going to tell you what coach. I'm not going to do any of that on the show. But he said there were two players that I was willing to maybe go there with. And lo and behold, one of those players, agents and families came to him and said, hey, you know, we, we're gonna stay. But you know, considering what we're hearing, like, can you Maybe can we get just a little bit more? And so, sure enough, that coach did do that. He only told me the anecdote with the agreement that I could not share it until after the portal line. Portal deadline came and went. Because if I put it out there and like you tweet it and then all these. Then. Then suddenly like everyone starts asking for it. So maybe for next year's, next year's cycle, this will become a thing. But to what you're talking about, gp I think some coaches, when they get up against it, like, some coaches have a hard line, like it's not going to happen. But there are instances where if you're not at, you know, a top 10, top 20 program, you might need to have a little bit of flexibility. Because the alternative is, well, we kind of need this guy because, yeah, this guy. This, like not having this guy. You lose him into the portal and you replace them. Like it really might be a difference of three or four wins next season. And so I thought that to be. To be a very interesting thing that very, very on the. On the down low, very quietly. This coach was like, yeah, I've got a slush fund. It wasn't. It wasn't a ton, but it was enough just to maybe satiate some 11th hour desires. And lo and behold. And that's why I only know it because the coach called me. I was like, you got. You got to hear this. And I was like, okay, you can't see after the deadline, I was like, we're good. So I'm under.

[Matt Norlander]

I'm understanding of that. I actually think that's smart. Flexibility is important not just in running a college basketball program. Probably every aspect of life. Probably every aspect of life. Flexibility is important. I'm learning that as I get older. I. Because there is a cut your nose off, despite your face element to all of this. Oh, you want more money from me? Well, I'm not renegotiating now. You can hit the road, buddy. Okay, well, now you just lost your all American point guard, right? You know, there is a. So congrats on having principles, but now you suck. All right, Good luck trying to win, but your principles are rock solid. So, yeah, flexibility is important. I just. There are. The only place I don't think I would have it is I would make it clear to everybody in my program and everybody thinking about joining my program, we do not renegotiate with you mid season a week before the game. You don't get to score 27 against on a Thursday night in November. And come Talk to me on Friday morning saying, you need another 20 grand or you're getting in the transfer portal. Then go. We're not. This is not the way I'm live my life. You know, you're the Golden State Warriors. You signed Jimmy Butler to a contract. Well, he's probably a bad example. Let me use somebody else, okay? That's easy. He's the bad example. You're some other franchise. You sign a. Unless you want me to pick an NBA player, go ahead.

[Gary Parish]

I just got to pick a random one here. Hold on. I'm going to the Nuggets roster right now. Can I go to a Nuggets depth chart? Hold on.

[Matt Norlander]

Let's just make it Jamal.

[Gary Parish]

No, no, no. Jamal Murray is too good. Jamal Murray is too good. I'm going. I'm going. How about. How about Peyton Watson?

[Matt Norlander]

Okay, Peyton Watson's great. What I was about to say, and I don't know why I picked Jimmy Butler, but what I was about to say is you're an NBA franchise. You sign Jimmy Butler to a contract, you don't have to talk to him about that contract anymore. Except that's obviously not true with Jimmy Butler.

[Gary Parish]

That's correct. I think you need to talk to him about the contract. Like bimonthly.

[Matt Norlander]

Yes, but with Peyton Watson, maybe you don't have to worry about Peyton Watson showing up in your office the next morning talking about, I played well last night. I need more money. I need more years. I just would let it know this is not the way I'm running my program. I'll talk to you after the season. I'll. I'll negotiate. I'll negotiate with you throughout that process. But once we have a deal, we have a deal. And we're not talking about it again until this deal expires. And if it's a one year deal in theory, then we will talk to it. Talk about it again after the season, but not. Not until then. That would be a hard and fast rule for me where I don't know that there would be any hard and fast rules, but I've talked about this a lot here in this studio, so I want to ask you about this specifically, the PJ Hagerty situation. Penny Hardaway's made it clear where you're leaving a spot open for him, and if he wants to come back, he can. Which I like that because again, nose and face and all that stuff.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

The thing I've said for anybody who cares, is that if I were Penny Hardaway, I would leave the door open for PJ Haggerty, but I would not hold this money for him. I would be out there shopping right now, and I would make it clear to PJ Hagerty, if you decide you want to come back and we have enough money to get you, then that'll be great, but we're not waiting on you. I'm going to offer this money to somebody else, and if they don't take it, somebody else. And if they don't take it, somebody else. But the idea that I'm just going to let you shop yourself to other programs, see if you can get a better offer, and if you can't, then just come back and take my $3 million. No, if you want my $3 million, take it now. I'd be more like Grant McCaslin than Penny Hardaway. I said, hey, you want my $4 million? Take it now. But you're not getting in the draft and you're not getting the portal. Take it now. And he did J.T. toppin. Yeah, I would. I think I'd be more like that. Now, J.T. toppin and P.J. haggerty are different people. Texas Tech and Memphis are different places. I got all that. But I. If I'm. What I don't like about the way Memphis at least has publicly said it is handling the P.J. hagerty situation is that if somebody is going to have this money eventually and I don't, and this is the way I've sort of set it up right now, let's just say Dusty May has invested a lot of money in Yaxel Lindenborg, all right? If Yaxel stays in the draft, that money gets freed up and you don't have to spend it. It's not like a Visa gift card with an expiration date. But like you, you probably are going to spend it, and then suddenly. I'm not saying Michigan would then get involved in PJ Hagry. What I am saying is that somebody who's got money tied up in a prospect right now, who's in the draft, but they think they're coming back to school, but they stay in the draft, suddenly that money gets freed up, and you might just out of desperation, decide to throw it at a P.J. hagerty. And if you're Memphis, you've just been sitting there for months waiting on something like that to have. I just think I would tell pj, take my money now, and if you don't want it, that's fine, but I'm gonna. I'm offer it to everybody else. I can. And if, if you decide you want it before I've given it to somebody else, come get it. But once I give this to somebody else, we're done. And you know that's not even as clean as I would like it. But I don't, I don't know that I would just be waiting around for somebody's month long decision as much as I would try to put some pressure back on them to make a decision a little. Because think about it in your own career, like let's, let's, let's say you're, you're becoming a free agent. CBS Sports still wants you. But also two other places might, if CBS Sports says, hey Matt, just take your time. Whenever you decide to make a decision, just come back. You might just keep waiting to see what else materializes how big these other offers get. But if CBS Sports comes back to you and says, hey, we love you and we understand you look at stuff but you, if you don't want our job, we're, we're going to offer to somebody else and if, if, if you decide you want this job back before we give it to somebody else, then cool. But if we, once we give it to somebody else, you just gonna have to move on. That would put more pressure on you to make a decision right now. And I, I think there's no perfect way to handle all this, but I think there's some benefit to programs reapplying pressure on transfer portal players. Make the decision now or we will move on. Or at least we'll do something else with this money. Because just sitting down out and letting somebody shop themselves for months, it just seems like it's going to end up at a disappointing outcome.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah, I think more times than not it will Also keep in mind for our audience sake, you know, we're waiting on the fate of this House case settlement by the judge Claudia Wilkin, who as I understand it like once she is done with this, she's, she's retiring. So it's as it's been explained to me, like she's giving it the utmost thought care as she would most of her previous cases across her decades. But once we get to that, if we get to the point that we think we're going to get to with revenue sharing, like some of this stuff will just be non negotiable and when it comes to what is quote unquote true nil or whatever, like, so some of what we're talking about here will still be applicable after the fact, but a lot of this stuff could be on Its way out could be going the way of the dodo bird. So that will leave it to college athletics. There's, there's, there's where you think you solve one problem, two more crop up. And I do think that's coming around the corner with the house case settlement. So I would think we're going to get to that before the end of the month. But just keep in mind as we discuss nil packages and guaranteed money, a lot of things that players have been doing to make a lot of money over the past three years, purportedly.

[Matt Norlander]

Right.

[Gary Parish]

Those methods are set to shrivel now. How. Which has led me to think that cheating is coming back in a major big way. And I say that like half serious, half tongue in cheek. But if you're going to try and cap on. I. I was talking with some head coach, power conference level, like Thursday of last week or whatever, and they were just kind of just, you know, like, they were. They were kind of asking a lot. Not like they had the answers or asking me. I was like, are we really going back to this? Are we going back to.

[Matt Norlander]

It's outrageous.

[Gary Parish]

We really think that we're going to, you know, turn back the clock, put the toothpaste back in the tube and suddenly go to a situation where the top 10 players on the college basketball market in the transfer portal. Like this year on. Let's just. I would say on average, a top ten player. I would say on average is getting four, four and a half million. Okay. We really gonna go back and say, okay, now that player is going to suddenly go. Now he's gonna. Even though it'd be good money, but are they Gonna now make 2 million? A million and a half? There's a. There's a lot of skepticism out there on all that. I don't know.

[Matt Norlander]

Minute 28 of the May 19 episode, 2025. Come get it whenever you need it.

[Gary Parish]

Okay?

[Matt Norlander]

It'll be here for whatever you need it. You might not need it for a year, might not need it for five years. 28th minute of the May 19, 2025 episode of the Island College Basketball podcast. Come get this whenever you need it. I'm about to tell you how this is going to go.

[Gary Parish]

Okay?

[Matt Norlander]

This is going to get ruled on. These new rules are going to go into place. There's going to be caps on what schools can do.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

There's going to be an independent, for lack of a better word, approver that looks at it.

[Gary Parish]

Is the company that's. Yes, yes.

[Matt Norlander]

They're going to look and they're going to have the power to approve deals and say, okay, this is good, or void deals and say, you can't do this. Yeah, okay. And that's going to happen. And I don't know if you saw the report out of ACC meetings last.

[Gary Parish]

Week, but like 80 would have been, wouldn't have been valid, something like that.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay. Okay. So now let me tell you how this is going to go. Somebody and it, you know, probably be Texas Tech.

[Gary Parish]

Sure, why not? Although, although, ironically enough, the billionaire who is like supporting Texas Tech and a lot of stuff is willing to get involved with Congress to make all this stuff law.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah, maybe it'll be St. John's we'll see.

[Gary Parish]

Sure.

[Matt Norlander]

Somebody, somebody is going to offer somebody millions of dollars in the form of nil. Deloitte's going to come in and say, no way, we're not doing that. That is, LeBron James doesn't get that kind of money to show up at that kind of bank. So no, you're not getting $4 million to show up at a bank or whatever. The deal is void. All right, we're going to court. We're right back where we were. I'm not a lawyer, but somebody's going to need to explain to me why zero cap limit was a big problem. Like, hey, anything more than zero is a problem. But, but that or is, is, that's not what I mean. Somebody's gonna have to explain to me why if the ruling is you can't tell people they can't have nothing. That's, that's illegal. How do you get less illegal by saying you can have something, but not as much as these people want to give you.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah, I, I, let's just save it for the house case settlement stuff when it comes down because this is like.

[Matt Norlander]

It'S going to be a void and it's going to be a voided contract and then a lawsuit and we're going to be right back where we were. And short of that, you know what we're going to have cheating again. You really think, do you really think some SEC program is going to be in a recruiting war with Villanova and, and gonna have to sit there and deal with this possible fact. Villanova can legally offer you X amount of dollars and we can only legally offer you a fraction of that in part because we have big time football and they don't. So now we just got to lose this five star program. Changing prospect to Villanova. Do you really think an SEC program is going to let that happen or do you really think so.

[Gary Parish]

Because it's funny.

[Matt Norlander]

No. You know what they're going to do? They're going to do the same thing they've always done, which is at the end of the day, do what they got to do to get the player on campus.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

That's where we're headed.

[Gary Parish]

Listen. Yes.

[Matt Norlander]

Lawsuits and cheating. That's where we're headed back to lawsuits and cheating. It'll be, it'll be if it, it'll go back. It'll be lawsuits that, that change the rules again if they win. And if the lawsuits fail, then we're just back to cheating. You cannot cap the sec. I mean, like, just stop it. You're not capping the sec.

[Gary Parish]

Try, try and, and slow these people. They will not be defied. Okay? They will not be defied. That is absolutely true.

[Matt Norlander]

You're telling me we're gonna have the SEC meetings and John Calipari and Bruce Pearl and Todd golden and NATO are all going to be down there, like, yeah, guys, I just lost another player to Creighton because we didn't have the money. And, and the rules, the rules got in the way.

[Gary Parish]

Oh, man.

[Matt Norlander]

I mean, what are we talking? You know how stupid that sounds?

[Gary Parish]

I know.

[Matt Norlander]

Just so people know I'm not just making things up. That is literally what the rules suggest is going to be the reality.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

That. That NATO won't have as much money.

[Gary Parish]

Theoretically. Correct. Like so. Just a quick parameter on like, so, hypothetically, Alabama could have 20, almost 23 million in a given fiscal year to spread around its entire. All of its college athletes, all of it. Now, obviously, the football team would take up a higher percentage than anything else. But the men's basketball team, the women's basketball team, hell, baseball, all this stuff. Right. That 23 million would be pulled out to Alabama. And how Alabama does it could be different from how Auburn does it, could be different from how Ohio State does it to North Carolina, etc. Right. But the Big east, for the most part, these schools don't have football to worry about with now. They won't have 23 million. But just as an example, like Marquette brings in a ton of money, doesn't have to worry about football. And even if Marquette was only bringing in, even if marquette only had 9 million, it's still the ratio breakdown through pure school payments. Just, just through payments through the school, not, you know, Deloitte checking off. Okay, what's a valid nil deal? That's the other part of this. Through those means, Marquette could theoretically go to an incoming freshman. I won't Say, through the portal, because Shotgun sure as hell ain't doing that yet for the most part. And say, okay, we can. If you come in as a freshman, we can afford. I'm just making up numbers here. Okay. But, you know, you come in, we can afford to pay you, you know, $450,000. Where. Where that money at the SEC, you know, in theory, might be like, well, Alabama can afford to pay a player, like, $115,000. Like, there could be a sizable gap between those two.

[Matt Norlander]

Yes.

[Gary Parish]

And there's an ongoing curiosity debate over, like, are we really going to truly arrive at that reality two, three years from now? And if we do, or even shorter than that, then, yeah, cheating's coming back in a big way.

[Matt Norlander]

We will not. We.

[Gary Parish]

If.

[Matt Norlander]

If we do arrive at that reality, we will not stay there long. All right? We will not stay. There is no scenario where John Caliperi is going to be in his office talking about, really? Like that kid from Detroit, but I just don't have as much money as Shaheen Holloway. Like, that's not happening. That's not going to happen. All right? And I know that Deloitte did. I know that Deloitte can come in.

[Gary Parish]

Because it's the start of the Seton hall dynastic era.

[Matt Norlander]

Play all of this back in five years, and you will realize how stupid it all was. I am telling you from the job, you'll remember we were both on the conference call. The NCAA was like, we're going to bring in nil, but it will not be allowed to be a recruiting tool. I literally pushed star pound one or whatever you got to do and said, can you explain to me how nil is not going to be a recruiting tool?

[Gary Parish]

This is after Pat Ford's question, of course.

[Matt Norlander]

After Pat Ford got his question out. Can just. Gary Parish, CBS Sports. Can you explain? You keep saying nil will not be a recruiting tool. How. How is that going to be? How? They could never answer it. And now here we are. I'm doing the same thing right now. The plan they're trying to put in place is so idiotic, we will all laugh about it later. I'm laughing about it now. If the plan is put into place, the rules are put into place, there is a realistic scenario where an SEC school cannot legally outbid a big E school and maybe even an A10 school. Okay, that ain't half that. That's crazy. And they will either cheat or avoid the. You ready for this? Here's one that's coming. Florida gives somebody a big nil. Deal. Deloitte comes in and voids it and they say, you can't give Boogie Fland a four million dollar nil deal. Kevin Durant doesn't have a form, and I know he does, but you get the point. Kevin Durant doesn't have a four million dollar nil. Okay, okay. Yeah, I should. I'm just picking the wrong people. But you get the point. So here's what, here's. But here's what's going to happen. They're going to come in and say, there's not even an NBA player who gets paid this amount of money. A much more famous NBA player who gets paid this amount of money to do the things that you're getting asked to do to receive this amount of money. So we deem this all illegitimate and we're not allowing it. At what point does somebody stand up and say, okay, just because nobody is paying an NBA player this amount of money to do these specific things, what if they wanted to? They could. You wouldn't stop them. So why do you think you could legally stop Boogie Fland? And now we're right back to where we were. Lawsuits on top of lawsuits. In the meantime, cheating. And then some other committee that'll be formed will come up with some new ideas and we'll probably laugh about them, too.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah, let's go kill some birds. I'm psyched. Yeah. That's our reality as we are moving toward it. Hopefully by the end of May, once the house case is settled, we can even try and talk a bit more about this. But yeah, we went down an unexpected rabbit hole. Let's take a break.

[Matt Norlander]

Please, God, take a break.

[Gary Parish]

We'll hit on it. Listen, this is. We're starting off on a slow news week. That might change as the week goes along, but I want to at least give you up to date information on the stay or go guys that we're waiting on. So we'll do that real quick, try and get out of here before too long. And I think GP's injured. We can talk about it as well. But first, let's get a word from our partners.

[Matt Norlander]

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[Gary Parish]

Oh, you want to do this before the stair goes? Let's go. What happened?

[Matt Norlander]

Grade 1 hamstring strain. And it's only. I'm only calling.

[Gary Parish]

Hold on. Okay, let's start. Let's start from this. Let's start from the start. Is grade one the worst? Are we looking at a grade three? Four. Five is worse.

[Matt Norlander]

Grade one is better than grade two or grade three. And I'm only calling it grade one because I don't want to sound hyperbolic. I will be going to the doctor's office later today.

[Gary Parish]

Hold on. This hasn't been evaluated yet?

[Matt Norlander]

No, I mean, I've personally evaluated it.

[Gary Parish]

Okay. And you are a doctor.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay, I am a doctor. I have personally evaluated my own hamstring. But I am gonna. I want a second opinion. I want a second opinion. It could be a torn.

[Gary Parish]

It could be a completely opinion. I'd want a second as well.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah, no, I'm the first opinion. I am Dr. Parish. First.

[Gary Parish]

You know what? To be. To be fair. To be fair on this, when it's your body, you should have the first opinion. All right. Like, that should. That should count, at least initially, the most, how you feel. So I. I respect it.

[Matt Norlander]

It sounds. It's just another version of my body, my choice.

[Gary Parish]

It's not. Continue.

[Matt Norlander]

It's not. You're right.

[Gary Parish]

It's not.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay, man. I played 18 holes of golf yesterday and then went to my son's baseball tournament. I probably did like 16,000 steps yesterday, and every one of them was great up until the last one. I don't know what happened. We were at baseball.

[Gary Parish]

Hamstring injuries. Go. By the way you're going, it's all great until the last one. Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

We got home late. We were at baseball till 11:30 last night. Came home, my patio furniture is in my pool. We had Terrible weather down here. It's. It's a. Like, I. I'm not exaggerating. I have two friends right now who have trees in their homes.

[Gary Parish]

Oh, my gosh.

[Matt Norlander]

Like, the weather got crazy. Like, trees are in their living room right now. It was crazy. So get home late last night, and it's like, all right, Gonna go upstairs, get situated, come downstairs, watch the latest episode of the Last of Us and then call it a night.

[Gary Parish]

I haven't started the second season yet.

[Matt Norlander]

It's good.

[Gary Parish]

Season one of the rehearsal. This show is ridiculous.

[Matt Norlander]

I try to watch.

[Gary Parish]

It's.

[Matt Norlander]

It's the rehearsal. I realized I'm gonna have to watch it. My wife and I have very different interest in television.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

And I tried to watch it with her, and I just realized this is not the thing to watch.

[Gary Parish]

My wife watched one episode with me. She's like, I'm not watching this.

[Matt Norlander]

That's. My wife. Watched five minutes, and she was like, what are we doing? And so I'm gonna have to get that. Get to that on my own.

[Gary Parish]

By the way, I'm yesterday. I'll get to this as well. Met an actor on one of the most critically acclaimed. Unexpectedly. Met an actor from one of the more critically acclaimed shows in TV right now. Continue.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay, so that's my plan. And I swear, there's nothing more to it than this. I am walking upstairs, and I've just. I took a step and I slipped ever so slightly, but it was nothing major. Wasn't like I slipped and fell. It was like I just sort of slipped and. And lost my balance going up the stairs. And I felt it, man. Like, when you watch Steph Curry just, like, come up and immediately remove him. I am not.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah. Walking up the stairs.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay. This is actually funny.

[Gary Parish]

When I think about Steph Curry and his hamstring injury. Just picture that. Only it's me walking up my stairs.

[Matt Norlander]

This is what I was going to say. When you see Steph Curry strain his hamstring, immediately grab it, and then walk off the court. And it's like, he knows I'm done. I can't play. I can't do anything for weeks. It's because you feel that immediately. And I. I went through that last night in my own little way. I know what it's like to be Steph Curry is what I'm trying to tell you. Not everybody who has been talking about Steph Curry over the past couple of weeks knows what it's like. I do. I am a modern day.

[Gary Parish]

You do this for content's sake. They're out of the playoffs.

[Matt Norlander]

I should have done it a week ago.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah, your timing is awful.

[Matt Norlander]

No. So my wife's downstairs and she hears me yell, ah. I yelled. I don't know if Steph yelled, but I did a good. Yeah, Ah. And then I did go down, and so I didn't fall, but I did pull it. And then like, collapse, collapse.

[Gary Parish]

And she was like, crumple. That sounds like a crumple situation.

[Matt Norlander]

I crumpled.

[Gary Parish]

Crumpled.

[Matt Norlander]

So she yelled at me. She's like, are you okay? And I said, I don't think so. And she goes, did you fall?

[Gary Parish]

You said, I crumpled.

[Matt Norlander]

I crumpled. I said, I think I just strained my hamstrings. She said, what? I said, you, you. Do you remember what happened to Steph Curry? She said, yeah, I said that. That's. It's the same.

[Gary Parish]

Yell this to her from the stairs.

[Matt Norlander]

She said. She said. She said. But Steph Curry heard himself running around a basketball court with nine other large men on it. What were you doing? I was just walking upstairs.

[Gary Parish]

This is pathetic.

[Matt Norlander]

It is pathetic.

[Gary Parish]

So I, I, this is in my future eventually as well. I'm aware of this.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah, bro, it hurts so bad. Like, I am, I am hurting so bad right now. Like, I'm not the type, you know, me, I, I went through, like two month period. I couldn't even speak. I didn't go to the doctor one time. I was just like, I'll figure this out. I'm going to the doctor as soon as we're done with this thing. I can't walk. It hurts like hell. Don't ever, don't ever disrespect somebody for sitting out a basketball game with a hamstring strain. I almost set out two podcasts today with a hamstring stray.

[Gary Parish]

You know what? You'd never know it through the first 40 minutes of this. This is classic us, by the way. I was like, we can. We'll get done in 35 minutes.

[Matt Norlander]

Well, then we start talking about the stupid Deloitte and the voiding deals and salary caps, and it's just like, what are we doing anyway? I'm gonna survive. But I have a new appreciation for hamstring strains. If you, if you play basketball and you ever have to miss a game with a hamstring strain, I will not be the analyst who calls you the P word. I know. What, I know what you're dealing with.

[Gary Parish]

Should never be that analyst anyway.

[Matt Norlander]

Regardless, they exist.

[Gary Parish]

I know. Just never, never, never crack the door for that being the situation. Regardless, no matter what the Circumstances.

[Matt Norlander]

I don't think I've ever called a basketball player the P word. Certainly not publicly. I, I've probably done it privately. I don't think I've ever done it publicly. It hurts, man. That's what I'm trying to tell you.

[Gary Parish]

Okay, real quick, we can, we can get back to the basketball. But since you mentioned you're Severance guy.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah.

[Gary Parish]

Guster just so happened to be playing in Connecticut yesterday. Okay. At matinee show. Good. Just unexpectedly they were playing, you know, this town gave them God knows how much money. They came, they played a 90 minute set and it was a good time. Got to catch up with the Buds and, and I said the reaction to our, to our new intro music has been overwhelming, which it hasn't. But it has been very, very good and well received and all that stuff. And they, and they appreciate it and all that. But as they're getting ready to play, my wife looks over just like, oh, my God, it's the guy from Severance. And so, like, I'm looking for Adam Scott. It's not Adam Scott, however, it was Michael Chernis, the guy who plays Rickon, the brother in law. He's known. So we wound up meeting him, talking to him. Super cool dude. He's known the band for like 20 years. Doesn't live too far away. Said they have not yet started shooting season three, but it will be shot. And, and yeah, he just. My wife was like, how does it feel to be on a show that's like this huge cultural phenomenon? He's like, it's actually been. It's been awesome, but totally not what anyone thought because we started shooting this in Covid and we thought it might be just, you know, a show that a very small faction of people might like. And it's become this huge thing. He's an awesome actor. I was like. I was like, I have, you know, I kind of knew you since, you know, he was on Orange is the New Black. That's like. I was a. I really like Patriot. He's like, oh, Patriot. Now you know what you're talking. If you've never seen Patreon on Amazon prime, it's actually like, it's a different kind of show. It's two seasons. But he was really, really cool, good dude. And then he told me, because I'm gonna go to. At least I'm planning to go to Nick's Pacers this week at the Garden. And I was like, if I see Ben, I'll say hello. Because Ben Stiller created Severance. He's like, no, you really, like, you might see him. And he told me, Carl Anthony Towns is a massive, massive Severance fan. Like, has watched parties at his house and apparently they played the Severance theme music maybe when they introduced him or at the Guard. I didn't know this was a thing. But he's, he's met Cat, you know, his cat. And Cat's like this huge Severance fan. So really, really cool dude.

[Matt Norlander]

So anyway, I, I love, I love Severance. I don't know what's going on half the time. I, I'm just confused the whole time. But I. What I appreciate about the show is I think everybody's confused. I don't think anybody's supposed to know what's going on.

[Gary Parish]

I know that it really is it, but it's good. It's. It scratches the itch. We needed a show like that. And yeah, there's a lot, there's a.

[Matt Norlander]

Lot of good stuff out there right now. Like, I mean, the studio is in season one on Apple tv.

[Gary Parish]

Plus, we just started. I'm like, I'm like five, six episodes in. It's better than I thought it was. I was like, all right, let's give it a go, whatever. And it's actually been, it's been good. Like as much as a navel gazing show about Hollywood could be. I've actually like it.

[Matt Norlander]

It's really, it's good. I enjoy it.

[Gary Parish]

The one.

[Matt Norlander]

And then we're gonna get to basketball because I'm. Yeah, I don't want to be here any more than you want.

[Gary Parish]

And you gotta go to the doctor.

[Matt Norlander]

And I gotta go learn how to walk again. I've got to go to physical therapy.

[Gary Parish]

In all honesty, would our audience prefer us, the YouTube audience already know. Like the people that find these videos and are like, what the hell are these two talking about? I want to hear, I want your latest on this. Would they rather have us here talking about your hurt hamstring and TV shows or stay or go decisions? I honestly don't.

[Matt Norlander]

I don't know either. I don't know. We'll talk about it. So this new documentary dropped on Netflix and I was like, I don't know. I feel like I know everything about that. I don't need to watch it. American manhunt. Osama bin Laden. Have you heard about this?

[Gary Parish]

No. Bin Laden, but yeah, yeah, have you.

[Matt Norlander]

Heard of Osama bin Laden? So three part documentary on Netflix. It was number one on new shows all week or weekend or whatever. So we just started it, I guess Friday night. I was like, I just put it on. And it's great. I mean, it is terrific. If you, even if you live through it and think you know everything about it, you'll learn stuff. It's got real voices. Like Liam Panetta's a voice in it. Former CIA people are voices in it. And it's all about 911. And then the years it took to find Osama, how they did it. Just. I thought it was great. It's. It was, as of yesterday, a hundred percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes. A hundred percent. It's really good. So if you, if anybody is just looking for something to binge. Three part documentary every episode, around an hour or so. It was. I thought it was terrific. Absolutely.

[Gary Parish]

Up right now. Rotten Tomatoes. See if it's dropped off from 100 right now. 100. Yeah. There you go. Average tomato. Oh, popcorn meter 58. What's going on here?

[Matt Norlander]

Well, that's the American public. They don't know what they're talking about. I don't know if you've been following how America votes and things.

[Gary Parish]

Oh, boy. Okay, quick stay or go stuff and then we'll get out of here. So you get your hamstring evaluated.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah.

[Gary Parish]

And if you grade one, though, I mean, we're not even talking grade two.

[Matt Norlander]

Oh, it could be grade two. In all seriousness, I saw somebody say Aaron Gordon had a grade two and I saw a doctor jump on Twitter and this is. You could trust.

[Gary Parish]

That's reliable.

[Matt Norlander]

You can always trust all this stuff. Any doctor on Twitter. You could trust it. Don't worry about it.

[Gary Parish]

Of course.

[Matt Norlander]

But the doctor said I would be surprised if it's a grade two, because with a grade two, it would be difficult to even walk. I am having difficulty walking. Keep in mind, I'm not trying to switch a ball screen. You know, I'm not. I am not going to the doctor because I can't switch a ball screen right now. I'm going to the doctor because I have a. I have trouble walking. So I might be discounting what I'm dealing with right now. This could be grade two, grain three. It could be a grade three.

[Gary Parish]

The ambulatory situation. Not good. Over on GP side. Okay, let's run down these. Plus, there goes Cedric Coward. As of tape time, he has not announced. I don't see any way possible he returns to. Returns. He never went. He went on a visit. He's committed to Duke. He's never going to suit up for Duke. There is. There is now buzz in NBA circles that, like, he really has a shot at the lottery which the the most recent player who resembles this kind of track was Jalen Williams out of Santa Clara, who wound up I think going 12th in the draft like three years ago. Cedric Howard felt unsure enough about his NBA prospects as recently as a few weeks ago to commit to Duke while being in the portal and going through the draft process but showed out very well at the combine and frankly I'm surprised and don't know why it hasn't been announced yet. He has top 20 stock. There's no way that he's going to play at Duke. I I, I guess 99 he's going to the NBA with that there's been a ton of buzz and smoke that this dames are incoming freshman will eventually commit to Duke. And I don't, I don't know if there's two things at once with here with like they're going to wait for Damesar before Coward. I don't know what's going on there but I, I would expect that we can talk a bit more about this later in the week once we get more on Coward and then once we get if domes are is indeed waiting in the wings to announce a commitment there GP but yeah, I know you bumped up Duke when Coward gave the commitment and so we'll deal with the ratings. I got rankings once those get adjusted. But before we talk any other names, he's the most notable of them all because he's going to have this awesome story. He's going to go from I mean almost nobody has seen this guy play, broadly speaking. And now it's feeling like I'm not going to say lock, but it's feeling like really, really good chance he goes in the top 20.

[Matt Norlander]

Obviously the, the thing that could change it would be Duke just decides we want you and we're going to keep throwing money at you until you decide to commit. But it doesn't appear they're even going down that path. It doesn't appear like Duke's going to try to get into a bidding war with the NBA draft. And so yes I'll indicate I don't want to say all but most indications are that he is probably going to remain in the draft. And if you're John Shire, that's one of those. You know, you're, you're out there think of this as a grocery store. You got your money and you're out there shopping and you buy something and you think it's yours. Like when on the day you purchase it you're like, all right, well that's that's one starter and, and, and then it, it's, it's, it appears it's gonna be over before it even happens because he measured well and blah, blah, blah. So that's just the tough part of this. And there's a lot of coaches out there right now that are waiting on things like this, which I guess is what we're talking about. But, but for John Shire, this looks like it could be a losing bet. You know, Dusty May's got one that seems kind of up in the air right now with the axle like. And this is also what I was talking about as it pertains to the PJ Hagerty thing. You just keep letting somebody shop themselves to everybody. There will be a program. This will happen to PJ Hagerty if nobody makes him commit anytime soon. Eventually this will happen. A school that has money tied up in a player who is in the draft, but they think he's coming out of the draft, he's going to withdraw to the draft, he stays in the draft. It's like, oh man, we didn't know we were going to lose that guy. Oh God, now we got $2 million here. What? And who's available? We need a player. Well, the all American from Memphis is still sitting out there. What's he going to cost? I don't know. 3, 4. Geez, I don't want to spend that much. But we need a player. We just lost the guy the draft. Let's call so and so with a billion dollars, see if he can get us another million. Let's go. P.J. hagerty shopping. Like that kind of stuff happens and that will happen. And right now, if you're any coach that's got a borderline prospect still sitting out there, these are nervous times because your season could quite literally be dictated, determined by the decision this young person makes.

[Gary Parish]

Agreed. So with that in mind, here are the names and kind of the reads right now. As of Monday afternoon, you mentioned London Borg. I think Michigan is hopeful but not banking on it. But my read is 60, 40. He goes to back to Michigan. But there have been some wild swings over the past couple of weeks there. And if he can get into a spot where he feels like he's likely to be taking the first round, like I don't know that that will, that will be an interesting one. But I would lean, I would lean slightly toward returning to Michigan. Tahad Pettiford been told that if he gets a first round again, is he going to get one? He had a really good combine. If he gets a first round guarantee probably almost definitely gone. If not probably would come back to Auburn. Man I would, I would just love to see him back in college basketball because he's such a fun player to watch. It would improve the product and and you know good one of the would be one of the better players in the country. So we'll see on Pettiford but my understanding is if some team tells him we're going to take you if you're there at the 25th or 27th or whatever it is like he'll stay but not then he would return but that one feels a bit tricky. Darren Williams I think will come back and when he does o Ohio State is the school to watch there though not a guarantee. They're considered the favorites to get Darren Williams formerly at Texas Tech. We talked Hagerty. There's been a lot of NC State smoke there. We'll see if that does indeed wind up coming to be and if it does by the way, you know when are these going to happen? Well some guy I'm not going to run on every guy in their timeline but a lot. Some of these guys are taking it to the very end like Milos USAN Houston is a perfect example. I think he takes it to the final 24 if not 48 hours. He wants to be gone, wants to be in the draft. His stock is all over the place. Houston still has a spot for him coming back. You know there's. There's really something to be said for coming back and being a key guy on a preseason top three team that can win the national championship and in the process, I mean I don't know what Houston summers would be but I would have to think of reuse and you come back you're looking at least two and a half million if not three but we'll see. I know that he wants to be gone. He wants to be drafted. RJ Lewis is just the same way wants to be gone, wants to be in the process. But his feedback has been a little bit spotty there. He that's another one doors closed. He's not returning to St. John's if he goes back to college he can make 3 million plus by returning to college. We will wait and see on that. But he did not have a standout showing at the combine so we wait on RJ Lewis. A couple more names for your gp. Do the Arrow and Carter Knox. I think they both wind up back at Arkansas. Maybe Knox got a little bit more positive feedback than was expected but we I guess we wait and see on, on that I mentioned Condon. Think he'll be back at Florida. Ortega away, I think will be back at Kentucky. And then the one that feels the haziest to me of them all is Jameer Watkins, who wanted to go pro a year ago as looking, but, you know, what kind of money are you looking at kind of situation. So those are just some names and where we stand right now, I think we'll get at least one or two decisions in this week from the names I just gave you, if not more. And then when they're bumping up against the deadline here toward the end of the month, keep an eye out. Last thing for me, there are three guys that are gone for good that I just wish came back because I thought they could one, improve their stock, help their teams in the process and that, you know, do what you want with your lives, but I just wish they had stayed. I wish. Drake Powell at State of Carolina, he was arguably the best athlete at the combine, but man, I thought he had a chance to really bust out as a sophomore and improve his stock. Nonetheless, he's going to take a chance and go anywhere from 25 to 45, I guess, and, and live with it. LeBaron Phylon thought could have been tremendous had he come back. Similar to Pettiford at Filons also, he is all over the place, like tremendous speed, good quick twitch, but he's gonna stick in there. And then Thomas Sorber at Georgetown, he's gonna capitalize on his momentum here. I actually thought he had a chance if he came back to Georgetown to be, to be an even more impactful player. But those three guys are gone for good. Wish they had stayed. Any thoughts on any of the guys I just gave you before we get out of here?

[Matt Norlander]

Well, sober could be like the Biggie's player of the year. If he came back to Georgetown, I.

[Gary Parish]

Mean, he could have been in the mix and he, you know, listen, this happens every year. Just there are a few guys where I feel like they're. There's a strong case for having them stay. And man, if you stay, you could become one of the biggest deals in college basketball. And there's something, There's a lot to be said for that. But you want to try and capitalize on, on your NBA future, go ahead. They're all, I think all three of those, it's fair to say they're all taking a chance by doing this and maybe it winds out working out for him.

[Matt Norlander]

I think it works out for Silver. I don't know about everybody. I think it works out for him. I do believe of all the other guys you named, most of them are going to go back to college. I think most will go back to college for nil. And that is, you could take that exact same list of players and rewind us five years. And I would say I think most of them stay in the draft because it was just a different mindset. It was just like, I just need to, maybe I'll get picked, maybe I want, but I need to go make a paycheck somewhere.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah.

[Matt Norlander]

And now we were living in a world, everybody knows this. You can make, in some cases, significantly, much more money playing college basketball. And for just about every player we have just named, that is going to be their reality. They can make more money in college next year than they will be able to make playing professional basketball next year, wherever they're at. And that's why, you know, we could take it player by player if you wanted to, but I think the majority of those guys are going to be back in college one way or another.

[Gary Parish]

Yeah. Well, as they make the decisions, we'll talk about it on the show moving forward. But there are, these are a lot of, these are like fairly big, impactful names that can really help, you know, determine the plot points of, of next season. So we'll, we'll see on that. You've got a doctor's appointment to get to. You go ahead and, you go ahead and do that and then you can keep me, keep me a prize, keep me updated on, on your health here. And, and I guess, you know, watch out dipping into your car. You know, just every. Up the stairs, man.

[Matt Norlander]

It's one thing when you get hurt. Like, in all seriousness, Steph Curry got hurt playing basketball. I wish I could tell you I got hurt playing basketball. I just got her just walking.

[Gary Parish]

In all seriousness, and we can wrap, but I've got a few buddies who play pickleball and I, my, like my older one, he occasionally wants to do tennis and I guess, you know, tennis is different, but I'm like reticent to do pickleball because of the, because of the, the number. Like you're just asking to pop an Achilles or hurt a knee or whatever like that. So I'm a little, I've played it, but I'm not looking to get into it on a weekly basis. Basis. That's all.

[Matt Norlander]

Because stuff like this, I just need to stop moving. It looks like everything.

[Gary Parish]

I'm not a doctor like you. The answer is. The answer is not less movement.

[Matt Norlander]

I can Tell you, don't make the answers to move less. I was hoping that it would be.

[Gary Parish]

I was hoping.

[Matt Norlander]

All right, well, then I'm gonna. I'm gonna move less for a temporary amount of time. I'm gonna get an official diagnosis on my hamstring, and then I'm going to try to learn a little. I'm going to try to start moving a little more. And stretching. I'm going to stretch some.

[Gary Parish]

Definitely a key. Yeah, you gotta. Gotta get those stretches in. That's big time.

[Matt Norlander]

Don't think you should have to stretch just to walk upstairs.

[Gary Parish]

No. Theoretical.

[Matt Norlander]

But maybe you do. I don't know. Hey, we'll see. Shouts to Devin Downey. Shouts to Chester, S.C. shouts to Terry Teagle. He's a legend. Hook Lauren now. Thank you guys once again for watching listening to the Ion college basketball podcast. If anybody knows how to get a couch out of a pool, send me a text or direct message or something. My couch is. I got a couch in a pool. We have bad weather. Apparently the winds got so bad they blew a couch straight into a pool.

[Gary Parish]

At your house.

[Matt Norlander]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Gary Parish]

It's called bearing the lead. That should have led the show. We're doing the shots and you're just mentioning now there's a couch in your pool?

[Matt Norlander]

I got a couch in my pool. All. Every bit of my. Not every bit. Most of my patio furniture in my backyard is at the bottom of my pool.

[Gary Parish]

Few things scream, you're not in my tax bracket. Like, there's a couch in my pool.

[Matt Norlander]

By the way, man, you guys don't understand Mississippi cost of living. It cost you, like, $11 to get a pool down here. Okay, you guys don't understand what it's like to. To live in Mississippi. You barely have to have money. You can. You can have a giant house and a pool and whatever. It's. It's. It costs a living down here. Something else. Yeah, I got to get a couch. It's. We had terrible weather. It's been rough between my hamstrings.

[Gary Parish]

You're not doing it. Okay, you try. Do anything with that. You're pulling your back out. Not happening. Ask someone else.

[Matt Norlander]

Okay, I'm gonna. Oh, that was always my plan. Trust me, that was always my plan. Thanks for watching. If you haven't subscribed, please go. Subscribe anywhere. Subscribe to podcast, Apple, Spotify. More of us than there are of them. That needs to be reflected. So do that. We'll talk to you again real soon. Till then, take care.

[Gary Parish]

I Paramount podcasts.

[Matt Norlander]

Novocain is now streaming on Paramount plus.

[Gary Parish]

You're gonna love this.

[Matt Norlander]

It's an adrenaline rush of fun. This is the best.

[Gary Parish]

And a bloody good time. Looking forward to it. Novocain.

[Matt Norlander]

Rated R. Now streaming on Paramount plus.