Transcript
Colin Cowherd (0:00)
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Doug Gottlieb (2:55)
Now let's get this party started. You're listening to FOX Sports Radio. What up? Welcome in. This is the Herd. Wherever he may be and however he may make it as part of your day. Thanks so much. I'm Doug Gottlieb in for Colin Cowherd. And for the next hour I want to talk sports with you. NCAA tournaments going on, watching Robert Morris. Keep it close here with, with Alabama. Bobby Moe is, we're in the same league, the head coach of Green Bay, Robert Morris won our league and won our conference tournament championship as well. And they're giving, they're giving Alabama heck of a game. Baylor up eight on Mississippi State and Iowa State up 12 on Lipscomb. Lipscomb. Lipscomb is just another school in Nashville. Nashville has Belmont, Lipscomb and of course Vanderbilt. Meanwhile, Bama is up 49, 44 on Robert Morris. The Colonials. The Colonials. Last night, if you're watching, Arkansas came from behind. They had a lead and Kansas came back, had a lead of their own and Arkansas ends up taking down Kansas. The Jayhawks lose the first round since it was like 2006 was the first time they lost in the last time they lost in the first round. You know, it's always interesting on people's. For a long time they would, you know, talked about Bill Self and losing early in the tournament. Like that's been nearly 20 years. And this was a weird bunch, right? Seven seed, even though he had a couple fifth year seniors, they end up losing to John Calipari. And I do get it. I heard we were running a promo where Ben Maller, who of course does our overnights at Fox Sports Radio said, you know, he thinks that Kansas should make a change at coach. And I mean, I think it's hysterical. Respectfully, yeah. Ben, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. Now if Bill decides, hey man, I don't want to do it anymore, I'm just, I'm kind of fried. I need a break, by all means. But yeah, it's like four years ago he won a national championship. They won, I don't know, it was 12, 13 big 12 titles in a row. Yeah, no, he's game hasn't passed him by. Games changed, you know, roster compositions changed. Now I'm of the belief that it just, you know, takes guys a year to figure it out because yesterday he was throwing out a team at times that had four transfers on the court. Four. Four. And you know, for. You can tell me all you want about, about how much they paid, but if we just use the NFL as our guide. NFL is our guide. The hit rate on free agents in the NFL is 33%. So if in the National Football League, where they do a great job of scouting, right. In league, I mean, in, in the actual league, remember, like, the hit rate for free agents is 33%. Hit rate for first round draft picks is 50%. Now that's to the level of expectation based upon where they're drafted, the level of expectation based upon where they're signed as a free agent. But the point is that think about those numbers. Now, translated to college basketball, where you can watch a Zeke Mayo, you can watch a, you know, pick a player on their team and sit there and go like, man, he was so good at South Dakota State. Or he was so good at Wisconsin. He was so good at Northern Illinois. Why is he. Well, it's a higher level of competition, and you're playing for a coach that has a different level of expectation, a different way of playing. You know, we started the show by telling you like the, the ways in which both of these men became hall of Fame coaches. Well, nobody does that. People don't do that anymore. They just don't. They don't do it anymore. What they don't do is they don't. You can't do a team of freshmen the way that John Calipari did when he was the head coach of Kentucky. You'd say, well, Duke's got freshmen first. I mean, they have a unicorn, right? An absolute unicorn in Cooper Flag. But the other part to it is not all of Duke's lineup is freshmen. You know, yes, they have three absolute star freshmen. They do. They absolutely do. But their entire lineup is not. And their best players, their best player is. But they won the ACC championship game without them. You know, without them. Tyrese Proctor is a junior. He started for three years. He's their point guard. Is he great? No. Has he lived up to a one and done expectation? No. Is he really good? Hell, yeah. Caleb Foster is a, is a sophomore. He played high school basketball in Southern California. He's played a lot of hoop. I mean, heck, you even look kind of like further down. Mason Gillis only plays 15 minutes a game for him, but he's 24 years old. He played at Purdue for a national championship last year. So it doesn't mean that their whole team is made up of freshmen. Sion James, senior. Right. He's been around the block a couple times. But the way in which Cal did it previously, he can't be done anymore. It can't be done anymore. One, he doesn't have the market cornered on the best of the best. Two, too many of those freshmen are just too young and you know, you're playing against 24, 24 five year old guys. And for Bill Self, yeah, he's always had a pro or two, but he's also had program guys that have been there for, in five years, maybe he takes a transfer and a McDonald's All American, but he doesn't have all transfers and a McDonald's All American play. So the point is that when the, when the sport or when your business changes, some are quick to adapt. But the idea that guys that have been doing it for 30 years can adapt, I think is laughable. Not everybody can. You know, it's probably one of the reasons that so many of these older coaches retire. We'll see what happens with Tom Izzo at the end of the year. You know, Tom Izzo has tried to adapt. Now, he hasn't adapted by taking a lot of transfers, but he's adapted by trying to keep players and, and build from within much the way that Purdue has. And they nearly won national championship much the way that UCLA did a couple years ago when they, when they were so successful. You know, two years ago, UCLA, everyone in their program had started in UCLA's program. And then last year they had a down year. This year they went out and, and went into the portal, kept a couple of guys, but then went out and rebuilt the portal. So you have to learn and adjust. But the idea that here's two guys that have been doing a long time, make a lot of money, hall of Fame coaches can't figure it out. Eventually they will. And if they, if they don't feel comfortable doing it, they'll retire, they'll step aside. But the idea that, you know, fire Bill Self because they had a disappointing Big 12 season and a disappointing early exit in the NCAA tournament to me seems laughable. Now, if he was a guy that had his head in the sand, said, we're not doing it that way, we're not paying guys or not like, okay, but that's, that's clearly not going to work. That's not what he said and that's not what he's going to do. But coaching changed and coaching different sorts of players and managing players with agents is just different. Have they always had runners? Yeah, some of the guys have always had runners. Has there always been More to coaching than just xing and owing. Of course there is, of course. But you have to remember that in the NFL, the free agent hit rate is 33%. Why should we think that the rate's any different in the free agency world? College basketball. And if a bad year is a seven seed and a first round exit and an average year is a Big 12 championship and a great year is a final four in a national championship, I'm going to go with that guy. But it's not for everybody. And just like anybody's business. What, what changed it. It's not one factor. You guys have read Tipping Point, right? Music. I know you've read, read Tipping Point and everyone comes in with the perception that Tipping Point is about one singular factor that causes something to tip. But that's not really, when you read the book, it's not really what it's about. It's about a couple of different factors. And what changed College athletics wasn't just nil, wasn't just the portal. It's also Covid because it's extended the careers of so many players, right? Like Wisconsin's guy, John Tanji, like he's a fifth year senior. Ask any basketball player, like if after their senior year was done, it's like, hey, you come back and play one more year, do you know how slow and how easy the game would become? Colorado State has a, has a key. Colorado State right now is beating Memphis. Colorado State's best player, okay, is Nick Clifford. Nick Clifford played his first three years at Colorado. He's played his last two years at Colorado State. He's from Colorado Springs. So yeah, in his fifth year after doing it for four other years. He's incredible. He's kind of figured it out now. Not every guy figures it out that way. Hunter Dickinson couldn't really figure it out at Kansas. It didn't seem like he, he, he ever really evolved as a player. But there's lots of guys who are getting those opportunities. And it also makes it very difficult to get or even keep younger players because even if you do get a freshman and you do play him, he's going to want a bigger role. And you know, if you play him in a bigger role, you're probably not going to win. Sports changed. Evolution is here. It's not one point, it's multiple points. And the older coaches, sometimes they'll struggle, but my guess is they figure it out. They'll figure it out coming up next in the herd. Oh, by the way, I thought this, this might help you. Here's Grant McCaslin, who's head coach, Texas Tech, he joined us earlier in the day when we asked him about the changing world to college hoops.