The EvanMiya College Basketball Show

Evan (00:05)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Evan Mia College basketball show. I'm your host, Evan Miakawa. And man, is there a lot to talk about this week. Florida is looking like a national title contender again. Texas Tech had a big win over BYU. Later on in the show, we will be doing a full deep dive on Kentucky to talk about their two big comeback wins. And then at the end of the show in place of analytics corner this week, I have a surprise fun bonus segment at the end of the show that you guys are gonna wanna stick around for.

So a lot to get into. Full disclaimer, we are battling through some adversity today. I've been sick all weekend and was rested up yesterday to try and feel good enough to film this today. ⁓ And so happy to get this to you. I'm just a little bit under the weather. In addition, we're also dealing with some technological difficulties today. The audio quality is a little bit off and the video has been on the fritz. So there may be parts of this interview that are not on video if you're watching on YouTube.

⁓ Some of the episode will be audio only. you're on the regular podcast feeds, you won't really notice that. Just wanted to say that upfront, but we've got a lot of fun stuff to talk about today. And with me to get into the big storylines of the weekend is the great Jeff Borzello from ESPN. Borzello, I want to start with Florida. They were ranked third in the AP poll in the preseason. I had them fourth in the preseason on my site. They started the season five and four, which was not

at all the expectation for this team, ⁓ coming off winning a national title this year. Losses to Arizona, Duke and UConn, not too bad. TCU is the more egregious one there. And so I think a lot of people would have said a month and a half into the season that this was the most disappointing team compared to the high expectations for them. But it's now mid January and that's not the case anymore. They have four straight wins against top 50 teams, comfortable wins against Georgia, Tennessee and Oklahoma. And then on Saturday, the big SEC test that we were all excited for.

Florida 98 on the road, Vanderbilt 94, a huge victory for Florida.

So Borzella, what do you take away from Florida's win over Vanderbilt and what they've been doing on this four game winning streak?

Jeff Borzello (02:14)
Yeah, I to me, they've been the best team in the SEC even before the weekend. I thought they were the best team in the SEC on paper moving forward. But it was hard to make that argument given that they had five losses and Vandy had zero before a few days ago. So to me, going on the road, beating Vandy, I just think it solidifies them as as the favorite in the league moving forward. And I think it puts them right back in that final four discussion again. ⁓ Their guards are figuring it out. That's been obviously the biggest issue for for two and a half months.

Boogie Flann before he got his haircut was not making the expected transfer impact he was. Xavian Lee, ⁓ before the number change, was not making the expected impact that he was ⁓ kind of projected to make. if those two can figure it out and start playing well at the same time, which has been even when Boogie Flann has played well lately, Xavian Lee wasn't playing well. Xavian Lee had a great game against Fandi. Boogie was OK. ⁓ If those two can play well together at the same time,

that takes this team up a level. But to me, the X factor lately, besides the guards has been Ruben Shinyehlu. I mean, is, you you can make the argument he's the best post defender in the SEC period. Now he's also producing on the offensive end, on the glass, on the offensive glass. And I tweeted the stat on Saturday, three of his four highest scoring games in his career have come in the last eight days, in the last three games. Like he's out of nowhere, he's becoming a legitimate

like offensive producer for them. And if he could do, mean, we know what Conning can do. We know what Thomas Howe could do. The guards we just talked about, if all five are kind of clicking at the same time, again, I mean, the ceiling for this team to me is another final four run. And then obviously you kind of get deep in the tournament and we'll see what happens.

Evan (03:58)
Yeah, I mean, Florida is now up to seventh on my site. That definitely puts them in the group of national title contenders. And they're only one of five teams right now in division one that has both a top 10 offense and a top 10 defense on my site. You mentioned the front court. mean, this was the known quantity for this team coming into the year of this front court supposed to be the best in the country. They've got four guys who were great contributors on a national title team last year, all coming back and

Thomas Haug has become the go-to player on this team. think that was something I was expecting during the season, but Ruben Chinhulu, he had 20 points on great efficiency, 10 rebounds. Their front court scored 54 points against Vanderbilt. And that is something that they are very capable of doing and is part of why I still think they're probably the best front court in the country. But Davian Lee, 20 points on Saturday, zero turnovers.

That's a big deal that you have a guy who has had a game where he's able to score that much and not be loose with the ball. ⁓

Jeff Borzello (05:02)
I also liked that he had the confidence late when they needed a bucket. He hit the go-ahead three in the final minute or right around a minute. To me, and I was at the game against UConn where he had not played well for a while and he had a great half. But to me, just having that confidence to still make those big shots when you haven't really had a great year, you know there's more proven options for you to pass to. And he said, I'm gonna take the step back three and win the game. ⁓ I think when those guys are all playing with confidence and obviously, I think.

know, Todd Golden kind of allows his team to do that. Um, you know, I think they have the makings, like you said, offense defense, their bench is starting to get play a little bit better. I say a Brown played really well against Vanderbilt. You know, that was kind of one of the issues maybe early in the season could, could they go more than six or seven deep? I think they have a kind of eight man group now. Um, and I don't, I don't think they're playing their best yet. I think they're, they're going to be better in six weeks than they are now. And so yeah, to me, they're, they're clear sec favorite and,

I'm not going to say they're going win back to back, I'm not going to rule it out completely either.

Evan (06:02)
No, not at all. And on the Vanderbilt side of things like, yes, this was a tough week being undefeated and losing two in a row. They're down to 15th on my site. But I'm not super concerned about a loss to Florida for this reason. ⁓ I think the big concern for Vanderbilt through this stretch where they hadn't played that many great elite teams was they have a great back court, but their front court is a little thin. How are they gonna deal with?

⁓ some of the better front courts that they're going to see in SEC play. Florida is like the top of the top when it comes to that. And I thought they more than held their own. ⁓ Jalen Washington off the bench had 14 points. And so if that's how they're able to perform again, they lost the game. That's disappointing, but it wasn't like they just were a total mismatch against this Florida front court. So, you know, to me, I think that as at least that's one test passed, even though they lost the game when it comes to their ability.

Jeff Borzello (06:56)
Are you concerned at all about

their defense? You know, obviously they didn't play well defensive against Texas. They didn't play well defensive against Florida. They were okay. I mean, they weren't great. The first, I think three SEC games in season. Like, I don't know what your, your, your site says about them defensively, but it seems like they've been giving up particularly inside the arc. mean, I mean, Tanner and miles are just absolute nuisances defensively, but around the rim inside the arc, they've been pretty vulnerable. And that to me, that's a concern.

I don't know if there's a ton of teams in that league that could really cause them issues in that sense, but when they play bigger teams in the tournament, again, like you said, Florida is maybe the biggest and best front court they're to play and they were fine. I have slight concerns. If we're kind of nitpicking about top 12, top 15 teams, that's just a mild concern for me.

Evan (07:46)
I mean, absolutely. Their defense is 30th in the country on my site and that's worse than every other team in the top 15. So, you know, it definitely is a concern. Honestly, the foul trouble has been a real issue. We saw this in their game against Alabama that they won at home. We saw this again against Florida where they've just racked up a lot of fouls for whatever reason. I don't know if that's something we're going to continue to see. Maybe you just blame it on the stripes in that situation, but I think that does disrupt things.

Jeff Borzello (08:13)
I mean, think like, Miles

in a couple of their biggest games in the win over Alabama in the game against Florida, he fouled out of both games. ⁓ You know, when you have kind of ultra aggressive defensive guards like Tanner and Miles, you you're going to run the risk of picking up a couple of cheap fouls and then, you know, it just becomes something that's kind of in the back of your head. But that is something I noticed was was miles kind of fouling out of maybe their two biggest games of the season so far.

Evan (08:36)
Yeah, I want to quickly ask you about Kentucky. I've got a longer segment later in the show where I'm going to do more of a deep dive, so we won't take super long on this, but quick thoughts on what Kentucky was able to do this week in their comeback wins against LSU in Tennessee. Obviously a really pivotal week for the Wildcats. What were your takeaways there?

Jeff Borzello (08:53)
I mean, I wish they wouldn't get down by humongous deficits in both games. wish that, know, Kentucky putting together 40 great minutes would be really interesting to see. I mean, even the blowout win over Mississippi State, they were down after I think 10 or 12 minutes. They weren't great in that game for 40 minutes either. ⁓ I think they're starting to figure out something without Jalen Lowe. Acquaintance, we don't know when he's going to come back, if he's going to come back. But offensively, I think they were fine. ⁓ You know, if the offensive is essentially going to run through

Denzel Aberdeen, Otega Owe, I think that's good enough. And they're shooting the ball a lot better lately. That was kind of the, when they were losing games in non-conference, was, was people were questioning, okay, Mark Pope, you, you kind of built your, your reputation on, you know, kind of pace and space. We're going to have a bunch of shooters on the floor and the team was not good. You know, even in some of their wins, they were making three or four or five three-pointers. Now they're making double digit threes. So if those two guys can keep playing the way they are, Malachy Moreno has been.

You know, he's been an asset, obviously, at the game winner against against LSU. ⁓ offensively, I don't really have too many concerns. I think they're starting to figure out the rotation. He's playing guys like Cam Williams, more minutes guys, you know, the fans were calling from calling from to play more minutes earlier in the season. Jasper Johnson's playing a bigger role. ⁓ so from that standpoint, I'm not, I'm not that concerned that they won't be able to score enough points defensively. don't, I still have questions and I also am quite, you know,

LSU and Tennessee are not two of the better offensive teams in the league and to get down by huge deficits against them, it's concerning given that if they do that against, you know, ⁓ a Vanderbilt or Florida, I think it's going to be just tougher to come out of that hole. ⁓ But to me, they're like comfortably an NCAA tournament team. I don't think they're a top 25 team yet, but I think the kind of

Rock bottom, sky is falling, they're gonna miss the tournament, Mark Pope's gonna get fired. Horror stories of ⁓ three weeks ago are kind of in the rear view mirror now.

Evan (10:48)
you

I mean, with Big Blue Nation, you know, if they lose their next game, all of a sudden, I could feel like it's changing. ⁓

Jeff Borzello (10:59)
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair, yes. It only takes another

⁓ one bad half to start the meltdowns again.

Evan (11:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will save my thoughts on Kentucky for later in the show. But I want to get to what maybe was the most fun game of the weekend, at least on paper. Texas Tech beats BYU at home 84 to 71. I think this is really billed as number one, a very entertaining game. Both of these teams play very fun style of basketball. And number two, both of these teams have some really big star players. You could argue that their top two or three players are better than than most other teams in the country. And that's really what this game came down to was

how the big three of Texas Tech was able to play against the big three of BYU. This game was tight for most of the game until late when Texas Tech really ripped this open. The big three for Texas Tech had 69 points in this game. JT Toppin, 27, Christian Anderson, 22, and then Lawan Watts kind of really asserting himself at least in this game as being like, hey, I can carry the Lotus well, 20 points. And BYU's big three of Robert Wright, Richie Saunders, and AJ DeBansa only had 59.

And both of these teams don't really have a lot of scoring options outside of that. ⁓ We'll touch on that in a second, but to me, the fact that Texas Tech against a very, very skilled BYU team was able to end up comfortably winning was very impressive and I think bodes well for them going forward.

Jeff Borzello (12:24)
And the BYU has become a lot more condensed as the season's gone on. They've become so reliant on that big three. And it's worked. mean, like you said, you're not going to find probably more talented top three players than Richie Saunders, Rob Wright, and AJ DeBansa. The thing that surprised me about Saturday's game, not only them getting out-dueled by Texas Tech's big three, is the time of the game had happened. BYU has built their sort of reputation of like, we're a second half team. Doesn't matter the deficit. We have the guys that can come back. All three of our best players, we can just

They can go on a run and you won't stop us. I think 43 of Texas Tech's big three points came after halftime, ⁓ which again, that's not something that really anyone's done against BYU this year. DeBonse, it was maybe his worst game of the season, at least in probably the last more than two months. And it's going to be hard for BYU to win games against really good teams if all three guys aren't clicking.

If the box is not scoring 20, mean, the other the other two were fine. Rob Wright had a his career high. Twenty eight points. Saunders had 18. DeBonse can't have 13 points on 17 shots if they're going to beat good teams. And he has not done that in in big games. I mean, he was awesome against you kind of the comeback. He was incredible against Clemson at the garden when they came back to win that game. They're going to find a hard time. They're going to have a hard time beating good teams when he's not playing well. And Texas Tech. They are I mean, it.

It's rare to find a top 15 top 20 team that ignores the bench completely almost like they have. I mean, I know like Nolan Grosz played a couple of minutes and you he played a couple of minutes in that big win over Duke when he had a guard cam boozer. I think they played a combined like eight to 10 minutes total from their bench, which is just kind of unheard of ⁓ in a big game against a good team. You know, you usually have somebody playing 12 minutes, 15 minutes off the bench.

So again, they're gonna probably go as far as Christian Anderson and JT Topping can take them, to me is gonna be pretty far. If LaWan Watts can play as aggressive in a service he did against BYU, ⁓ this is a clear second weekend team in the tournament. And Watts has been, people said, okay, he's kind of a logical Darren Williams replacement from a skillset standpoint, from a profile standpoint. He had been inconsistent, but he's come up pretty big in a couple of big games. I I thought he was pretty good against Duke.

⁓ in that win earlier in season and obviously was incredible against BYU. So it's just a, I find it fascinating these kind of big three type teams and Texas Tech's big three, one on Saturday.

Evan (14:58)
I have big concerns about the depth for both of these teams. I think they're both top 20 teams, but I want to actually get into this because this is really interesting. Yeah, you mentioned the lack of bench production for these teams. ⁓ Texas Tech had 15 points scored outside of their big three, zero bench points. In this game, BYU had 12 points outside of their big three, just seven bench points. This was a concern that I had for Texas Tech coming into the year. If you look at my...

team preseason projections article on my blog. I had a little blurb in there talking about, hey, the top two players on this team are great, but where is the production gonna come from when you get to your seventh and eighth best man? And when you actually now quantify this now, ⁓ both of these teams do not stack up well in this department at all. BYU, slightly less concerning, but when you rank all the players on each of these teams on my website and you go down to the eighth best guy.

And you say, where does that stack up against all other teams in terms of how good their eighth best man is? Basically, this is a way of saying like, how reliable are you when you get down to that seventh eighth man? BYU's, Kenard Davis is their eighth best guy, according to BPR. And that's 36th best in the country. So mildly concerning there, but you have the stars to go with that. But Texas Tech. Yeah. Yeah. I know Texas Tech. Uh, Tyree Bryan is your eighth best guy. He's a hundred and what? No, 1,591st best player in the country.

Jeff Borzello (16:10)
And he's a starter, by the way.

Evan (16:21)
That's 77th amongst all Division 1 teams in terms of ranking their 8th best guys. 77th.

Jeff Borzello (16:28)
I'm curious what has sort of happened to him. I think he started the first like 15 games of the year, 12 games of the year. And there were expectations that he'd be, him and Donovan Atwell would kind of be alternating and making shots from the perimeter. And he's totally disappeared. He played three minutes and that went over Duke. He played three minutes against BYU. They need something from him. mean, they've, they kind of struck gold late in the summer with Jalen Petty. Without him, I mean, this team,

Evan (16:30)
Yeah.

Jeff Borzello (16:56)
I don't even know what they would look like. It would be a skeleton crew. So they need something from, I think Tyree Bryant is maybe the most likely, the VCU transfer has not played in a month, two months. They kind of need him just for some interior depth. If any of these guys get into foul trouble in a big game and that happened against Duke back in December, yeah, they still somehow won.

Evan (17:20)
And they somehow won that.

Jeff Borzello (17:23)
I think they got to figure something out. I Graham and Kassel has to expand this rotation somehow. They can't have Nolan Grove is playing six minutes as their sixth man come March, but hey, it worked on Saturday.

Evan (17:33)
Yeah, I do not. If they cannot get more production from their bench, I do not think you can win more than two to three games in the tournament. I just don't. OK, we're going to get into a freshman draft segment in a second, but I want to briefly touch on Miami, Ohio. We brought this up before we started recording here. There's been a lot of conversation about where this team belongs in the APU Top 25 and things like that. Right now, I have Miami, Ohio as the 30th best team in terms of their resume. Now,

A lot of people, when they look at resumes, ⁓ they're just mostly looking at who are the good teams that you've beaten. And there are no really notable teams on this list in terms of high major teams, that sort of thing. But when you talk about how impressive it is to go have won 16 games against the Division 1 opponents that they've played and have lost zero is really, impressive to me. I think that I think there's a case that you could make that if you were feeling the tournament right now,

Again, they've not lost a game, so I guess it makes sense. But if you're a field internment right now, they would be like comfortably in as a not large team. Where do you fall on this whole conversation about Miami, Ohio, your resume, ranking and all that stuff?

Jeff Borzello (18:48)
I had them 25th in my AP poll vote this week. ⁓ If I was fielding a tournament, seeding a tournament, they wouldn't be a seven seed. But I think they need, they've earned, or you have to give them credit for winning 19 games. And like, we've seen how hard it is to win on the road in conference play in general. mean, we've seen, know, Purdue and Michigan and all these teams have, Yukon have all struggled on the road, even against not great teams in their league. I mean, Yukon.

Evan (18:50)
Love it.

Jeff Borzello (19:16)
You know, needed to win in the final minute against Georgetown on the road the other day, like road games in league player hard. They've already won at Toledo, which is kind of a perennial contender in that league. They won at Bowling Green, which is one of the best teams in the league that this year, they beat Wright state, which is not in the league, but is a, ⁓ know, before they had some injuries where were a contender in their league. Like they've done enough to me. Like they do have three quad two wins. It's not like they are totally bereft of anything remotely impressive from a resume standpoint.

And hey, they might lose to Kent State on Tuesday. If I had to pick it, I'd probably pick Kent State. But I don't make my AP poll based on who I'm taking on a neutral floor tomorrow. I just think that Miami, Ohio has earned a vote or earned a spot in the top 25 in my opinion. It's not like I'm comparing them to teams with bulletproof resumes. You're comparing them to the Iowas and the Georgias of the world, which

They have huge deficiencies in their resumes as well. ⁓ So I just think that what they've done is enough to get a spot in the top 25 this week. And again, they might not be in it next week. They might lose to Kent State on UMass this week. And we're never going talk about them again. But through 19 games, I'm giving them a spot.

Evan (20:31)
I mean, it is harder than ever as a mid-major to have any control over who you're able to play. So all you can do in this world of, of, you know, big money and, and good teams being scared to play good high majors or good mid-majors like this is just be who you've played. And they've done that. Okay. I want to end with a fun segment here. I want to have a discussion about this incredible freshmen class that we have arguably the best ever that we've had. And, know, there's the big three at the top coming into the year of Cameron Boozer, AJ DeBonsa and Darren Peterson. But.

There are so many other meaningful freshmen. And so rather than just discussing this, I wanna actually turn this into a fun little game where each of us are gonna draft a starting five of our favorite freshmen. If you're a sort of put them on the court tomorrow and have them perform for the rest of the year, we're gonna try and compete against each other to draft the best starting five. And so the way that we'd...

Jeff Borzello (21:23)
Let them know how you're going to determine a winner though, because you

have the answers to the test that I guess I could look them up also. But you know who your lineup analysis tool likes and who it doesn't. So you have an edge going into it.

Evan (21:34)
We

will determine this by people in the YouTube chat and other places deciding that can be our official ruling. I will run this through my lineup analysis tool after the fact to see who had a better grade just because it's interesting. ⁓ But that doesn't have to be the definitive answer here. OK, so what we decided we're going to do is I will have the first pick and then Borzella will take the second and third pick and then we will go back and forth after that until we filled out our roster.

I'm going to start here and it feels like there's a lot of players you could take number one, but I'm just going to go with the player who is hands down been the most productive this year in college. And that's Cameron Boozer. ⁓ To me, I think he is the of all the freshmen. He is the Ben the best and would be the best for me. There's also not a lot of other great, ⁓ you know, fives that you could put out there in this freshman class. So I'm taking him at number one.

Jeff Borzello (22:31)
Yeah, that mean that I think that it had I had the number one pick I probably would have, you know, forced myself to take him just because he's the player of year favorite. He's done it literally every single night. I think the bonds had closed the gap on him for that play. And then we saw him have 13 points against Texas. The Boozer has not had any down games. His down games are like 19 and 12. ⁓ That's a fine pick. I'm going to go to me. I felt there was a clear top three, ⁓ a full hamstring, Darren Peterson at two.

and AJ DeBonse at three. And I feel really good starting with those two guys.

Evan (23:06)
Yeah, I think you get more value in your first two picks there than I will with Boozer and whoever I go with next. So think that's a pretty obvious pick. Okay, I'm going to take, for my fourth pick, I'm gonna take Kingston Fleming to play point guard. I mean, what an incredible year he has had. No one really saw this coming. We knew that there would be some good freshmen for Houston, but Kingston Fleming has surpassed all expectations and he is.

one of my favorite players in the country to watch. So I'm going to pick him to run the point for my team.

Jeff Borzello (23:40)
Good pick, good pick. I was debating between two point guards. I'm wondering if now I can wait and not force myself to take a point guard here.

And I will go with.

I'll take Caleb Wilson.

I feel, I mean, I still think he's, he's got a really good shot at being a first team All-American. He's been incredibly productive. He had, he's always had the physical tools. That's never been a question. I think he's shown a lot more as a defensive player, as a passer. ⁓ He's kind of had a nonstop motor. ⁓ Carolina is struggling right now, but he is still continuing to produce at a high, high level.

Evan (24:18)
Yeah, I think that was my other pick I was considering. I think, ⁓ I think to me, those are, those are the clear top five for me right now. I think this is where it starts to get really interesting. So some of the strategy for this is like, what positions do I think are really going to be the most ⁓ coveted?

Jeff Borzello (24:34)
Yeah, that was, mean, like, had

I not taken Wilson, I feel like I would have been really kind of grasping at straws in the front court.

Evan (24:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓ okay. I am going to go with, I think my next pick I'm going to take Koa Pete. I don't necessarily have him ranked as my next best freshman, but in terms of where he would slot in in this lineup, ⁓ and what we have on offer here, I think this is a good pick at this spot. And, you know, I think he started out the year really explosive in that game against Florida and it's been, you know,

hit or miss since then, but he's got such a tremendous skill set. think he plays really well with others. mean, Arizona has a team full of guys who are unselfish. And so I want that on my team. So I'm taking co-op here.

Jeff Borzello (25:18)
Yeah, he was on my board. I thought he would last a little longer. It feels like I'm gonna have to go with a smaller lineup here with, mean, DeBonce playing at the four is not unheard of. He sort of does that now, so that'll be fine.

Who do you have again? have Boozer, have Fleming's, and you have Pete.

Evan (25:37)
Co-op Pete.

Yep.

Jeff Borzello (25:39)
I'm trying to project who you would take with your next pick. ⁓

Evan (25:41)
Yeah.

Jeff Borzello (25:43)
I'll take...

I will take Darius Acuff.

I thought about waiting because I didn't think he would take him because I don't think him and Fleming's in the backcourt would be what you wanted to do. But man, he's been so, so good. I mean, he just is kind of impossible to keep out of the lane. gets to the free throw on a ton. He's made some big shots. He's played awesome in big games. ⁓ Yeah, him and Darren Peterson is my backcourt. I feel pretty good about.

Evan (26:13)
Yeah, and your team is going to be looking very electric there for sure. So I, yeah, I think he's probably ⁓ the best pure point left on the board here. ⁓ Okay. I think I'm going to take, ⁓ I'm going to take Keaton Wogler. I'm going to put him at the two. Yeah.

Jeff Borzello (26:33)
That's who I was gonna take. I

thought he had a better chance of, I don't know. It's all right, I'll survive.

Evan (26:39)
Yeah, it's

the other thing too is I just don't know if there's a lot of other options I could have put in there to be good at that spot. So and you know, between Fleming's and Keaton Wogler, I've got a backcourt there of guys who were not expected to be anywhere near as tremendous, but great recruiting jobs by both Houston and Illinois. Wogler has been fantastic. I still think not a lot of people nationally are really aware of what he's doing at Illinois. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him getting more.

love as we get closer to March.

Jeff Borzello (27:08)
I had

this debate with somebody the other day, like how high could he go in a mock draft right now? Like to me, just, I think we had him at like 16 or 17 or something like that. And I'm just like, you know, head to head against like LeBaron Filon as an NBA prospect, I'm taking Wagler. Like I just kind of keep moving him up, up and up. And you know, to me, he's going to end up as a lottery pick at the end of the season. Like just given his size, his passing ability, his incredible shooter. I think he's awesome.

Evan (27:35)
Yeah. All right. It's your last pick. You've got Darius a cuff, Darren Peterson, AJ DeBonsa and Caleb Wilson right now is your four who is going to be your final pick.

Jeff Borzello (27:44)
I will take... ⁓

Give me Braylon Mullins, ⁓ just like a lights out shooter. I think he's really going to kind of come on as we progress toward the end of the season. To me, one of the impressive things is he missed the first six weeks or so of the season, and he barely had a runway. And within two games, he was already starting for a top five team in the country. ⁓ So his shooting ability, and he's shown more than just a shooter. He's got more to him than just kind of standing on the perimeter and making

Evan (27:48)
Mmm.

Jeff Borzello (28:15)
catch and shoot jumpers. can go off the bounds. He's got some size. He's been pretty good defensively. I know. I needed a floor spacer and I think I got it in Mullens.

Evan (28:26)
Yeah, I think you absolutely made the right call there in terms of looking for a guy who's going to space the floor and hit threes and not get in the way of your other stars there. So I think that's a good pick. Okay. So your final team is Darius Acuff, Darren Peterson, Brayla Mullins, AJ DeBansa, Caleb Wilson. Is that how you would put them in terms of one through five there of what positions they're playing?

Jeff Borzello (28:45)
You said Acuff, Peterson, Mullins, DeBansa, Yep.

Evan (28:48)
Yep.

Yep. Okay, cool. Okay. For my last pick, I've got a couple options here. I can either go for more of like a wing or I could potentially add another front court player and maybe have Boozer play at the four if I wanted. ⁓ I think I'm going to go ahead and take ⁓ Braden Burys to fill out my team and put him on the wing. ⁓ And it's fun to have both him and co-op Pete on the floor though. That won't make any impact whatsoever on the.

the lineup analysis tool that I run this through. ⁓ I think he's another unselfish player who's gonna fill in and allow, honestly, when you look at this team, I've got Kingston Flemmons, Keaton Wogler, Braden Burrys, Koopeet and Boozer. There's not like a ton of high alpha energy on this team. It's a lot of guys who are very unselfish. And I think you, yeah, your team looks way more, has way more aura maybe than my team does. ⁓

Jeff Borzello (29:36)
I have nothing but alphas on my team.

Evan (29:43)
So, okay, so yeah, final teams. I have Kingston Fleming, Keaton Wogler, Braden Burys, Koa Peet and Cameron Boozer, and Borzella has Darius Acuff, Darren Peterson, Braylon Mullins, AJ DeBonse, Caleb Wilson. I think from intimidation standpoint, yours looks stronger than mine. ⁓ But ⁓ I think my team actually might beat your team because my team has more winners on it.

Jeff Borzello (30:00)
Yeah, yeah, I got dudes on my team, man.

No chance. No chance.

More winners? No way. Yeah, maybe. Okay, I take it back. You might have more winners. Just because you have two guys from the number one team in the country that you inherently have more winners than I do.

Evan (30:17)
That's fair. That's fair. ⁓ OK, well, we will let the chat decide in the YouTube comments or anywhere else online. Let us know whose team you think is better. I will be running this through my lineup analysis tool after the fact as well to see how it grades out there and if they're close or not. ⁓ So but that was really fun. Thank you so much, Brazil, for coming on. You do fantastic work. This was a really fun conversation and you just provide so much great ⁓ analysis to the space. So I really appreciate you coming on.

Jeff Borzello (30:47)
I appreciate you having me on, great luck with the podcast. I'm pretty pumped that you started one. And obviously last week was great. I'm on this one. So this one's going to be great. yeah, so best of luck with it. And really, thanks for having me on.

Evan (31:00)
Absolutely, thank you.

Evan (31:01)
Fantastic stuff from Jeff Borzello. He does a great job. He's been a mainstay at ESPN for years. ⁓ I love his work. He covers the sport so well. He has so much great written content over at ESPN. ⁓ he actually just had an article, speaking of freshmen, he just had an article he put up on Friday of the men's college basketball mid-season freshmen grades where he actually went through this entire ⁓ impressive freshmen class and grading how they've been so far.

So that's definitely worth checking out and kind of seeing more of his extended thoughts on this freshman class. ⁓ I did end up running the, just ran the players in our draft, our freshman draft through my lineup analysis tool. And the way that this tool works is you can find it at evanmia.com for premium subscribers. And basically you can punch in any lineup of five guys in the country, does not have to be on the same team and see how that lineup would hypothetically evaluate on the court in terms of the overall efficiency of that lineup.

And basically it breaks it down in terms of your offense, defense, all of the two point shooting and assists and turnovers and blocks and all that stuff based on the individual players you have in that lineup and how they mesh mesh well ⁓ positionally as well. Because if you put six or five centers into a lineup, it will grade really poorly because it will recognize that there's not enough spacing or ability to generate shots and things like that. So.

When I punch these into the lineup analysis tool, the winning draft goes to Borzello by just a little bit. And I'm not super surprised by that. I thought he ended up having a really good draft. I do think there was probably a little bit of an advantage letting him draft two and three and not doing a full snake draft the whole way there. But, you know, guest privilege and all that. ⁓ But his lineup of Darius A. Cuff, Darren Peterson, Braylon Mullins, AJ DeBansa, Caleb Wilson.

has a plus 58 grade in terms of points per 100 possessions and mine had a plus 57. So just a point behind of Kingston Fleming's, Keaton Wogler, Braden Burry's, Koope and Cameron Boozer. I do think I got the best player in that draft, but the rest of the lineup probably edges in favor of Forzello. So congrats to him for winning the draft in terms of the lineup analyzer. Let us know in the comments or on social media who you think won.

⁓ But at least there's an edge for him there.

Evan (33:26)
Next up, we are going to do our weekly team deep dive. And this week it is the Kentucky Wildcats who had about as good a week as any team in the country when it comes to boosting their outlook on the season and helping their chances at making the tournament. And with me to do that is Jack Pilgrim from Kentucky Sports Radio who does a great job covering Kentucky from a lot of different angles.

Evan (33:50)
It's been a really interesting week for Kentucky. I mean, about seven days ago,

We found out that Jalen Lowe, the only point guard really on this roster in terms of who was ⁓ having meaningful minutes on this team out for the season. And he had been in and out of the lineup for much of the season. The shoulder injury ultimately ends up taking him out. So there was a bit of a downer to start the week of like, okay, well, how is Kentucky going to cope without him? Thankfully they already had a lot of practice ⁓ without him, but it had been very hit or miss. But then you have these two results this week, both on the road in the SEC,

And every single game on the road, SEC, no matter who you're playing is going to be difficult. That's how loaded the SEC is this year. Kentucky has a massive comeback win against LSU on Wednesday. They win by a point after being down 18 early in the second half. And then on Saturday, they basically did the exact same thing just on the road against Tennessee and even better opponent, Kentucky 80, Tennessee 78. They were down 17 late in the first half, two massive comeback victories. So

It's been an up and down week. Jack, what are your biggest takeaways this week for the Wildcats?

Jack Pilgrim (34:54)
This team was desperate. They hit rock bottom. The fan base had kind of turned on this team and said, all right, well, they're not making the tournament. They're toast. And then Jalen Lowe goes down for the year. go, all right, well then now we officially have no reason for hope or optimism. for them, knowing the circumstances, knowing that they had already kind of the fan base had turned.

like the no resume whatsoever when you're actually looking at it in terms of the NCAA tournament like I think even the bubble conversation was being like polite to them for how they had been playing so knowing all of that and how they started even against Mississippi State to come back and win that one by 24 and then you go on the road Baton Rouge a game where you know clear desperation on Matt McMahon side you have your athletic director 24 hours before that saying hey if you don't make the tournament you're fired so that's

team that desperately needed a win and to get down by as many as 18 points to start the second half and just clawback tooth and nail whatever it took it wasn't pretty it was gutsy and to win the way they did there it was like okay well

work we can't be we can't surviving by Malachi Moreno full court heaves like that's that's not a sustainable way to live but then you go down in Knoxville and then the way in which they responded down there after again going down 17 points but that felt like Kentucky basketball in this new post Jalen Lowe era it was Denzel Aberdeen creating for himself it was Otega Owe as poorly as he played to start the game finishing and making some big plays late finally the team just hitting shots like Pope talked about this team being one that

was capable in a long term going to be an elite three point shooting team, but nothing up to that point had suggested that that was going to actually happen. And then to his credit, they continue to make shots. Colin Chandler stepping up big Jasper Johnson coming off the bench and doing his thing. What he was known for in high school and for them to chip away at that lead and pull it off in a way that does kind of feel long term sustainable, maybe not quite the deficit, but to win in which the way they did. I think it was definitely promising, definitely

back on the right side of the Insta-WT tournament conversation.

Evan (37:05)
I think it's fair to say that there is nothing about this Kentucky Wildcats team this year that is anything like what we thought they were going to be like this season. You have to just completely throw out everything that you thought about this team coming into the season and the way that conversations were happening before the season officially started. ⁓ But I think something that you have to point to now is that maybe the biggest thing that was a problem early in the season was that regardless of what players were available or not available, you looked at this team and it just didn't look like they were really fighting.

It didn't look like they were putting in everything on the line for this team. It seemed like they just were content to just show up and see what happened. That's not what happened this last week. That's the biggest thing for me that I look at just outside of the numbers and their tournament picture and all that stuff. They were fighting for the Jersey this week. ⁓ Coming back from those comeback wins. And this is not the only season Mark Pope has had this kind of comeback record. They had a big comeback last year against Gonzaga.

So this is something that he is capable of and the team is finally showing that amount of energy and commitment to really scratching claw their way back. I think to me, outside of all that other stuff, the fact that that is in the positive direction now is, thankfully, hopefully that seems to be corrected going forward. And at a minimum, you can say that everyone out there is gonna be given their best. So ⁓ I think that's really encouraging in terms of overall team strength.

Obviously this team was hoping to be a top 10 team this season. They're not that right now. They may never be that this season. I have them 26th on my site in terms of national picture. That's comfortably good enough to be in the tournament. think resume wise, they're comfortably in the tournament now. ⁓ Defensively, I think that was supposed to be on paper, this team's strength. But then you have Mark Pope coaching the offense. ⁓ But the offense I think still is, know, hasn't really fully clicked yet. And obviously there are a lot of reasons for that.

having your point guard being one. ⁓ But a lot of encouraging improvements this week. And so I think that's going to bode well for them going forward.

Jack Pilgrim (39:06)
Yeah, you brought up the hard thing. It was... This team...

got booed off the floor in Nashville against Gonzaga after losing by 35. You had DeMarcus cousins of all people, kind of the face of the one and done one of the many faces of the one and done era for Kentucky basketball. When Mark Pope kind of stresses the name on the front of the Jersey and the importance of understanding the tradition, you know, DeMarcus was kind of known for being one of the, bad boy, part of the bad boy era of college basketball where it's like, Hey, these guys are only here for eight months. They don't care about the school. They don't care about the tradition. They only care about checking some boxes.

and become a top five draft picks in eight months. They don't care about what it means to be Kentucky basketball. That guy was saying these guys didn't care. They didn't have the heart, the program that meant so much to him in his one and done season in Kentucky. They aren't embodying what it means to be a Kentucky Wildcats. So it was a ⁓ massive look at yourself in the mirror moment. I wrote a column calling them heartless portal mercenaries. I mean, that was the vibe they were giving off in that...

long extended first half stretch in the non-conference. It was embarrassing. mean, it was, it was unacceptable in terms of what just kind of the messaging that Mark Pope has talked about since the minute he took the Kentucky job. So for that to be their reputation to start the year. And then for us to be only talking about their heart and saying, Hey, it's ugly. It's grimy. None of this is probably just like you, you can't live down 18 points, but guess what? You know what? They're the cardiac cats. are finding ways they are used. They're putting their hearts and souls on the

line to win basketball games and that's kind of what fans have been asking for from the beginning. Just show you care. Just show that this thing means something to you and man this week especially we've seen that more than any stretch since they arrived on campus.

Evan (40:52)
The Kentucky Wildcats are the underdog story that no one realized they needed. The thing about these comebacks is this is probably not sustainable going forward, right? I mean, the thing is, it's good to know that this team has it in their back pocket that no matter the deficit that they have shown the ability in the last two games, I mean, they've had comeback deficits in all three of their last wins, their last three wins. ⁓ But you can't necessarily, I mean,

Doing this on the road at Tennessee is very impressive. Tennessee, they've not been as good as people hoped this season, but I still think they're a top 25 team. They're one of the top four or five teams in the SEC. Doing this on the road in Tennessee, that's really impressive. But can you expect that to continue when you're on the road against Vandy or Florida or in March Madness, when it really all comes down to it? I don't know.

And the troubling thing for me still with this team is one of the things I track on my website is looking at how do teams play up or down to competition in terms of playing the bad teams on your schedule versus the elite teams on their schedule. Kentucky is still the worst team in the SEC when it comes to playing up to good competition. Like they just haven't shown the ability yet to put in their strongest performances against the best teams on their schedule. so this week certainly was a trend in the right direction there, but there's still a lot of season left.

And so that's still something that they're gonna have to work on going forward. And you would hope that they can stay closer in these games instead of having to rely on these, you know, these cardiac moments to come back from behind.

Jack Pilgrim (42:28)
Absolutely. And that's 100 % the scariest part for Kentucky fans. Like, hey, is this the high point? Like, are we going to look back and go, wow, congrats, we came back from down 18 points and, you know.

It's not going to amount to anything. This adversity that they've hit like this, we're going to be looking back at like, that was the season that Malachi Moreno hit the random buzzer beater down in Baton Rouge. Not that they did anything in the tournament or won the, the SSE regular season championship or did, you know, made magic in, Maura in Nashville, whatever the case may be. So you're, you're hoping it's all of this is just kind of based on hope that, okay, well they haven't played together. This is Denzel kind of just understanding this is now his,

his team he has the keys what do you do with you know what do you do with them where do drive the team and all the other players kind of fitting into their own roles sliding up or down the rotation because Denzel was on paper supposed to be the two Otega the three going going down now it's like okay well is Otega your two does Cam Williams slide up to be your three Yelevich is now starting is that sustainable how long can you know can you trust him is has he emerged as the guy so ⁓ so many other questions that have to be answered before

we can feel any type of confidence but if you're looking for confidence it's that the way those last two games unfolded were how you the chaos that comes with March Madness you get weird stuff that happens you don't learn anything by going down to Baton Rouge and winning by 30 because that's not that's not the reality once you get to the SEC tournament once you get to the NCAA tournament so finding ways to win for a team that just didn't win anything to start the year finding ways to win these quad one games I mean you stack back-to-back quad ones away from

home in just dramatic, unnecessarily ugly fashion, but for them to pull it off the way they did, says, okay, well, if they can do that, then maybe that gives you hope going into March that when adversity hits, they will be able to overcome that.

Evan (44:27)
I do want to talk a little bit about what the recipe for success is for this team because, you know, I think you had maybe 10 to 12 guys on the roster this year who were given lots of money and promised minutes this year. Obviously there's been a lot of fluctuation back and forth between guys being in and out of the lineup. know, Jalen Lowe and Jayden Quaitens being the biggest two that have missed a lot of time and Lowe's obviously out for the season now. ⁓ But I think something that people quickly identified early in the season is like, Hey, there's probably too many guys who are

all expecting to play minutes and you're going to have to shorten that rotation some. So I want to talk a little bit about what your thoughts are on ⁓ what the best starting five is for this team going forward, what the rotation should be. I want to start with the starting five. feel like in the late game against Tennessee, Kentucky has been experimenting with different starting lineups. You mentioned Jelavich was in the starting lineup for the last two games, but it was the last four minutes that the real clutch time it was Aberdeen, Oway, Colin Chandler, Diabate and Marino who were in basically

the last four minutes of the game. That's really what got them the victory there. ⁓ So that might be the direction that that Mark Pope is leaning. What do you think is is Kentucky's best starting five going forward?

Jack Pilgrim (45:37)
I think the thing that we made fun of them the most for, for being like, ⁓ know, Pope...

went too deep in, in, you know, he couldn't lay in the top end talent. So he overcompensated with depth and now there are too many miles to feed and all of them are unhappy that they're not playing enough while still making way too much money. How can you justify paying as much, you know, money to Mo Diabatte as you did, and then having him only play 12, 13 minutes back to back games in the sec. Like, isn't this why you signed a Mo Diabatte for as much as you did? So that was kind of one of the things that people were poking Mark Pope for, but

As we're seeing this unfold, it's like Kentucky doesn't win in Knoxville without Modi Abate down the stretch. Just two games before that, fans have been talking that he was out of the rotation. You need to play away from him. He doesn't fit the offense. He's a non-shooter. He's a space crusher, all of those things. And then he goes and gets four offensive rebounds on the second half in Knoxville and you go, well, that's why you signed Modi Abate. So I don't think that there is a set answer in terms of the best starting five or how many people need to be in the rotation.

It is a constant like there will be one game like Jasper Johnson Kentucky doesn't stay in it in the first half to not go down by 25 in Knoxville and potentially crush any chance of a comeback without Jasper Johnson who had been DNP'd for the first time since like elementary school a couple games before that so Gjelovic starting he was another guy that was deemed out of the rotation now starting for your team two games later so I think this is a team that it's going to be a matchup by

matchup basis is going to be individual personnel, going to be kind of big picture team identity like Tennessee tough rugged physical team well that's a Modi Abate game you know the more Alabama's and the you know the teams that are more spacing heavy speed pace

shooting heavy, you got to lean closer toward the, you know, the Cam Williams go small, those things. But that's why you built the roster the way you did. So I think the thing that was kind of crushing them early without having an identity and not knowing who to play when I think it's going to be kind of a game by game basis moving forward, or that's going to be maybe your, potentially your biggest strength.

Evan (47:48)
Yeah, I think if they can lean in on that fluidity as a strength, that's great. I think the reality is that for a lot of teams, especially once you get into February and March, having a constantly changing lineup or rotation can lead to some inconsistency in terms of not knowing exactly what's going on. So my opinion on this, and this might be a little bit of a hot take in some of this, but I think that Kentucky number one needs to shorten their rotation.

I also think they need to settle in on a more consistent starting five. This is just my opinion. But I think when you look at the numbers of everything I have on my website, evaluating player efficiency and their impact on team performance, I think that the best lineup for Kentucky going forward, in my opinion, is the four of Denzel Aberdeen, Otega Owe, Mo Diabate, and Malachi Marino. And then it's either Colin Chandler or Ken Williams in there.

Those have been their most successful lineups this season for the most part in terms of what they've done on the court. I think those are your best skilled players. think from a like efficiency perspective, Owe Marino, Chandler and Aberdeen are your best four in terms of the numbers that they put up. And then in terms of impact on team performance, Cam Williams and Mo Diabate have been really great this year. The team has been at their best when they've been on the floor. So I think it's those six, some combination of that is your best starting five going forward. Obviously I think there can be games when

You have a Jasper Johnson starting instead of Denzel Aberdeen based on what he provides at the point being more of a traditional point guard. ⁓ And then obviously the fact that you have Chandler and Williams playing pretty well and they're both able to provide slightly different things at that spot, but both very impactful in different ways I think is really useful. But I do think it would be a bit of a danger if this team is still figuring out its starting lineup by the time we get to March. And that is my personal opinion on where I think that starting lineup should land.

And then in terms of the rotation, like there's also a lot of guys who are playing minutes and I don't know how helpful that is in terms of your chances at finishing towards the top of the SEC, SEC tournament, March Madness. You know, I do think that a lot of teams end up shorting their rotation when we get closer to March. So, you know, do you think the team should still be playing nine, 10 guys, 11 guys even?

Or do you think they should start shortening up a little bit as we get closer to postseason play?

Jack Pilgrim (50:13)
Yeah, I think that's the confusing part about all of this for, Kentucky fans right now. Cause there we had been the exact argument that you're making of us saying, well, this is the obvious, this is obviously the five. ⁓ and then Pope kind of throwing different kind of just grenades out there to say, like throwing stuff against the wall, just seeing what sticks and then that sticks. it's kind of like, well, shoot, well, maybe, maybe we're the wrong ones. just, there's, there is so much movement and little spurts of success with

random groups in sample sizes of like, well, this team looked really good in playing this way. Like that St. John's game in the Indiana game, fans could just kind of set the mindset of like, Hey, this team is only capable of winning in the mud. It's going to have to be, you're going to have to hold teams to 60 points and you know, the office, the shooting's never going to come. The offense is never going to come. The ball movement's never going to get there, but Hey, if we can out toughie and out physical you, then that's how we're going to win games. And then we see a Bellarmine game, which Bellarmine is.

Bellarmine but they go 16 of 30 from 3. Cam Williams who had been you know seen his minutes shortened and extensively going 8 for 10 from deep so you go well shoot okay well that kind of kills my argument for that so this Modi Abate second half against Tennessee was kind of the perfect example where fans had kind of turned and said hey this guy this team has been at its best in terms of shooting and spacing and unlocking the best version of Otega O-Way because the spacing is crushed

He needs space to operate to be a downhill slasher when Mo is in there kind of clogging things up That he's not able to be the best version of himself. So we got to take Mo off the floor Well, Mo's the reason why you you know outside of Denzel Aberdeen. He's the reason why you went to Knoxville So it's I think on paper I agree with you, but this team is weird like it's just a really really weird team that I don't know if they're like

game by game Pope is still kind of throwing random things out there to see what sticks. I, you know, what happens when Jayden Quaitans comes back? I think that's like, we haven't seen the second half against St. John's was awesome, but he's put forth some pretty underwhelming performances there. What is his role? I know he personally wants to be more of like the Malachi out on the perimeter running some zoom action, being kind of a creator and a facilitator, not just a, you know, sompto serial kind of kind of player. We're just a pure athlete around the rim, rim run.

or clean up specialist, all that. So where do you throw him in into the mix? So I think there are a lot of questions and the answers are kind of few and far between at this point, but they are surviving and advancing by the game at this point.

Evan (52:49)
For me as someone who is not a Kentucky lifer, just kind of listening to you talk about this, you're in the weeds every single day. The way that you're talking about what's needed from all these different lineups and permutations, it just sounds really delicate to me. And that is certainly not what you were hoping to be in this kind of situation, but here we are. ⁓ I guess I will go ahead and close with this. What do you think is realistic expectations for Kentucky for the rest of the season? ⁓

After the LSU game, I kind of had them in the field, slightly on the right side of the bubble. Now I would say they're comfortably in, probably looking at a nine seed right now based on their resume. If I had to predict where they're going to be at the end of the season, I would say somewhere in the seven to nine seed range, ⁓ which I think a week ago, a lot of Kentucky fans would have taken. You've got a lot of tough games left in the SEC, including a lot of really hard road games. You're playing at Vanderbilt, at Arkansas.

at Florida. You've got another game against Florida and Tennessee at home. ⁓ So it's definitely going be a tough stretch. And like I said, the SEC, the top of the SEC is not as good as it was last year, no question. But the bottom of the SEC is still really, really stacked. And I think people are really under rating how good the rest of this conference is. have, know, all but South Carolina are inside the top 65 right now at evanmia.com. What that basically means is, especially any road game that you play,

For a team like Kentucky, it is no guarantee that you're going to win those games. So every win that they get in this conference is going to be big because you could lose any of them. So it's going to be a tough going forward. Every single game is going to be a grind. What are you kind of hoping for realistically for this team for the rest of the season?

Jack Pilgrim (54:32)
that right there is it what is the big concern for fans and why we made such a big deal of ⁓ a disastrous non-conference schedule because we knew that the SEC isn't as top-heavy in terms of you know the what it was last year I that was historical never see anything like that ever again but it's still pretty darn deep and like

Kentucky could have gone down to Baton Rouge and lost that game. And that was on paper, one of the like, Hey, you gotta have it games. So would it really stun you if on Wednesday they lost a Texas at home? Like what it's, what it's stunned you if you go down the list of all these schools that they stack some of these losses while also having a really, really unfavorable resume leading up to conference play. It's scary. They have not played their way.

into the tournament firmly to suggest like, you can coast the rest of the way. There is still a path for this to, you know, the, the, bottom to fall out and they miss the tournament and you know, fans are bringing out the torches and pitchforks. Like that's still a very real scenario, but we have seen them win in ways and beat some of these teams to where you can comfortably say like, all right, I think they're going to make the tournament. think as you said, I seven and nine is safe. You know, maybe if they stack some wins, you know, go win that one.

at Arkansas, go win that one at Florida, win some of those really tough ones. you can say...

Why can't they be a five seed? Why can't they be a six seed is four kind of the like, if they really go on a run, you know, you could probably talk yourself into a four, but man, we could also talk ourselves into the total opposite direction too. So, ⁓ I think this fan base is taking things day by day, week by week at this point. Like this is a little pod of Texas Ole Miss. You gotta win these two to feel better about next week, going to Vanderbilt in Arkansas. And then if you can maybe split that week, go into the following week and maybe you'll make up for that.

loss with two more wins. So this is a very fickle, touchy, feely, fragile. Delicate is a great way of phrasing that the fan base is optimism and just what this team is going to be down the stretch. There's a path for sure to go to on a sweet 16 run. Maybe if the ball bounces your way, you can go to an elite eight. think the dreams of a final four and winning at all. I don't see a path to that because as you said, you need consistency. They're finding ways to win.

ugly ways but you also need kind of a core group and you know the consistency to make a run so I think the expectations have taken a hit but they're still in that that comfortable middle ground where you can you still talk yourself to a sweet 16 maybe a lead 8

Evan (57:15)
Here's what I'll say. That's kind of my hope for Kentucky is there's a lot of work to be done to make the tournament, but if they get there, the profile of this team is the kind of team who often makes a lot more noise and March than what their seed line indicates. It's this kind of team who is really talented under performs during the regular season gets in somewhere in that like five to 10 seed range. And then if they're clicking by the end of the season,

Talent wise, they're a lot closer to those other teams in their region than people think. And we've seen this from a previous Kentucky team about 10 years ago as in making the final four as an eight seed. I'm not saying that this team is talented as that group, but ⁓ this is the kind of profile that you often have a team that ends up being a lot better than their seed line. Arkansas last year, I think is a good comp. Yep, that's the comp. 10 seed, underwhelming during the team. A lot of...

Jack Pilgrim (58:06)
That's the comp, yep.

Evan (58:12)
really talented players who weren't meshing well together. And then the team ends up getting it together, makes a sweet 16, almost makes an elite eight. I think that's the hope for Kentucky this year. And so if they can get in, at that point anything can happen.

Jack Pilgrim (58:27)
I think where we were a week ago, fans would take that and run to the bank with it. They would be thrilled with a Sweet 16 because I think a week ago after that Missouri loss, fans were going, all right, I think our videographer asked in the middle of that Missouri game, are we going to win a single SEC game this year? That was the mood of the fan base to go from that to where we are right now, talking possibility, the possibility of an Elite 8 is even,

we will take it and run with it. So hopefully we are in a game by game situation in terms of optimism, but hey, they've at least earned themselves a benefit of the doubt with three straight tough, tough, tough wins.

Evan (59:09)
Well, thank you so much, Jack, for coming on and breaking down Kentucky with me. This is going to be really interesting to monitor going forward. A lot of big games for Kentucky. Obviously, Kentucky is going to always move the headlines nationally no matter what. ⁓ But here's to hoping that they ⁓ continue to play well and build on that momentum. So thanks so much. You do such great work. And it was really, really great to have you on today.

Jack Pilgrim (59:28)
Absolutely, man. Thank you. You do great work as well.

Evan (59:30)
Great stuff from Jack. He does really great work over at Kentucky Sports Radio, kind of all across the board. His written content is there. ⁓ He hosts the Sources Say podcast, which I listened to last week to kind of hear his analysis on the impacts of a jail and low injury. ⁓ So he's really everywhere when it comes to Kentucky sports. And so was really, really great to have him on the show. ⁓ I want to kind of close the conversation on the Kentucky rotation.

I know that Jack mentioned that it's a very fluent situation game to game. And I do think there's a lot of merit to that. The fact that Kentucky has so many guys who can play meaningful minutes. But as I mentioned, I do think it's dangerous to be running late into the season with a rotation of 10 or 11 guys. That's what they have right now. And so I want to kind of take my best stab at kind of defining what that lineup rotation really should be for Kentucky going forward in order to get the most efficient minutes out of their team.

⁓ Basically right now when you look at Bayesian performance rating at evamia.com for Kentucky players, Otega OA rates comfortably, not comfortably, but he's the number one player on the team. And I think he's a do everything for this team type of guy. He's not been quite as good this season as people were expecting. He was the SEC preseason player of the year, ⁓ you know, in terms of the voting. He's certainly not been that, but he's still been their best player. But then you have like seven guys who are all in a very similar range between like

two and eight on this team in terms of their rating. So there's really a lot of options here, which is great. ⁓ But here is my opinion on what Kentucky's rotation should be for the rest of the season. And a lot of this is based on looking at the individual production of these players, how they've impacted team performance on the court, and a lot of the lineup data that I have at evamia.com. As I mentioned, I think you're starting five, generally speaking. This could be for most games, would be

a combination of Denzel Aberdeen, Otega Owe, Mo Diabate, Malachi Marino, and then either Colin Chandler or Cam Williams. I think both those guys have been great in different ways, kind of at that three spot for this team, and both are able to hit threes and provide spacing. So I think that's your primary six. Jasper Johnson is an important part of the equation because ⁓ Aberdeen is not a real, a true point guard, and he certainly stepped up a lot.

this last week in terms of his ability to run the point and be the point of attack guy for Kentucky. But I don't think you necessarily can expect the type of performance that we saw out of him on Saturday every single game. So Jasper Johnson, I think, is going to be pretty key. And then you've got Brandon Garrison and Jaden Quaitance. ⁓ Quaitance, obviously, has not been healthy for most of the season. He's been out recently. And I think people were expecting Quaitance to be like a really, really massive impact guy. I certainly was when he when he came in.

He's only played four games, just 65 minutes. So really not a lot of run, but in those games, I think he's been just okay in terms of his contribution. Five points a game, 57 % from the field, that's fine, but just 30 % from the free throw line. And for the amount of minutes he's played, 1.5 turnovers a game is not great. So I think it's gonna take him a little bit of time to really reach his best. So.

You've got Brandon Garrison and Jaden Quaitin, so I think are an important part of the rotation. But at this point, I don't necessarily think should be starting. So there's nine guys right there. Aberdeen, O.A. Chandler, Diabate, Marino, Cam Williams, Jasper Johnson, Brandon Garrison, Jaden Quaitins. I think that is the nine that Kentucky should be running with. And I think this is, again, just my own hot take opinion here. But if I am running this team, which I am not,

And so a lot of this could be wrong by the time we get to the end of the season. But this is this is what I believe right now. I think Trent Noah and Andrea Jelavits should not be in the rotation when it comes to the end of the season. I think both have had roles to play and we saw Jelavits starting the last two games. And so maybe you point to that being a contributing factor. But Jelavits in terms of his his contribution, both statistically and in terms of team performance, has been comfortably the worst on the team this year.

⁓ He's last on the team in terms of his on-off splits based on how well the team has played with him versus without him on the court. He's also last on the team in terms of his ⁓ individual statistical efficiency, according to my box BPR metric, which looks at how good ⁓ your box score stats are and basically pointing to how valuable of a play you are. He's last on the team in that and last on the team in team impact efficiency metrics. So there is really no argument from a statistical standpoint.

that he should be a starter on this team, let alone playing meaningful minutes in this rotation. Again, I could be wrong about this and he is a very talented player who I don't think they fully figured out how to get the most out of him. So maybe the hope is that you continue to play him so he become better, but there are already so many good meaningful players on this team. I'm not calling any of them really excellent, but a lot of good players. And I just don't think you have the ability to kind of...

mess around and still be running 10 or 11 deep by the time we get to March. So if you're cutting this rotation down, that is my nine, Aberdeen O.A. Chandler Diabate Marino, Cam Williams, Jasper Johnson, Brandon Garrison and Jaden Quaines. That's my nine. And that's what I would be doing right now based on what we have. as Jack mentioned, ⁓ nothing about this team or the way these players or rotations have played out is anything about what, you know, anywhere near what we expected going into the year.

So that probably will continue going forward and some of the guys who I mentioned may end up not being very good or vice versa. So it's been such an up and down season for Kentucky, but know, fascinating to watch them from week to week. And so we'll see how they do going forward.

Evan (1:05:29)
All right. To end the show, I've got a phone, a fun bonus segment for you guys. I am joined here by Steven Hartzell, who does a lot of things in college sports media, but I know him best from the college sports now podcast. It's around this time of year when he's joined by Matt Norlander to do a couple shows a week on college basketball. And so before we get any further, Steven, I want to kind of set this up. Can you please describe for the listeners what your relationship is with college basketball? How much of it do you consume during the season?

Stephen Hartzell (1:05:59)
first, Evan, thank you for having me on. It's good to be here. Congrats on the new venture. I know it's a big deal starting a new podcast. So, Mazel tov there. Yeah. I look, I, I live in a college sports world that is dominated by football and that starts in August, really kind of late July with like media days. And it runs through now when college football finally ends. ⁓ I'm more of a regular season college football guy. The playoff is just, it drags on. mean, it's, it's a month's worth of playoff games.

⁓ so I check in with college hoops, like in November, right? Like big Thanksgiving guy, like feast week, you know, this year it was the players era historically, like Maui invitational and, know, like the, the MTEs that kind of dominate like the Thanksgiving landscape. And then I kind of check out for a little bit until January when conference play racks back up. Now I will say, ⁓ every year for the last probably seven or eight years, I've had a chance to go to the SEC tournament, ⁓ and cover that.

wire to wire for the SEC radio network. It's one of the many hats that I get to wear here at Learfield. People, they listen to the podcast and Norland and I have a great time and that's great. That's not my real job. My real job is managing school radio networks. And one of those is the SEC radio network, which is considered a national radio network. So I get to go to Nashville every year. So it builds and builds and builds and it culminates for me that second week in March.

when I get to be there courtside and I'm there for every single game of what, at least last year, was the best conference basketball tournament maybe ever, right? Because the SEC was so good and obviously getting to see Florida and Auburn go toe-to-toe in that thing and then again in the Final Four was a lot of fun. So for me, it's a slow build, Evan. That's a long-winded answer to your question, but I am very casual until right around New Year's Day.

⁓ second, third weekend of January when I can finally put football season to bed.

Evan (1:07:59)
I think the thing, Stephen, that I appreciate the most about listening to you talk about college basketball is the fact that even though you don't claim to be like a person who consuming the sport from day one, you know, watching five games a night on Tuesday nights in November, December, you still ⁓ are not shy about your takes on the sport and about what you think is going on. I think it's very refreshing. I mean, most of the people that I listen to in college basketball media are people who are, you know,

lifers who are just exclusively covering college basketball. And you come in with this kind of fun, fresh energy that I think is, I just love listening to you. I love listening to you. and, ⁓ so for that reason, I want to do this segment here to close the show where, you've been starting to dial more into college basketball in the last couple of weeks. And so I want to kind of get, as you were kind of immersing yourself fully back into the sport and we'll be kind of, it'll be front and center for you for the next couple of months.

I want to kind of get your biggest takes on what you think are the biggest storylines in the sport. And we're going to kind of play a game of fact or fiction where you'll share one of your takes. And I will basically tell you if I agree with you or not. And the way I want to specifically frame this is the college basketball or college football season is over national title game last night. If you were at a watch party last night with your friends and you had a friend come up to you who respects you and your

appreciation for college sports and to say, Steven, I'm, I need to start paying attention to college basketball. I've not watched any games this year. Please tell me, according to your expert opinion, uh, what is going on in this sport? What are the main things I need to know? That's kind of how I want to frame this. So I want to kind of see what you have, what you have to say in this regard.

Stephen Hartzell (1:09:44)
Well, I would I would immediately tell that person I am not an expert. I just do a podcast with one and they should probably go read Norlander stuff or listen to his stuff because he does a really good job on CBS Sports. But, you know, the thing is for me, the biggest thing that stood out and I don't watch college basketball for the NBA draft. I know there's a significant portion of people who do. ⁓ But the the the talent and the number of talented freshmen at the top of this of this sport.

It's pretty overwhelming. Like I knew about AJ, DeBonsa, BYU. Like I knew about him. I saw the clips. I was like, yo, that, that guy is NBA ready. Like just look at it. ⁓ but I didn't know about like Darren Peterson at Kansas. Now I, the thing with Peterson is like, he just doesn't play very much. I think he's played like eight college games, but he's coming off of a game against your Baylor Bears, Evan, where he went for like 26 points in like 23 minutes. Like that's incredible. So.

If you pull up any NBA mock draft, you'll see him. ⁓ and I know he's got the cramp issues and like the soft tissue stuff with his hamstring, but like when he plays, he's incredible. I knew about Caleb Wilson, cause I live in the state of North Carolina, but I had never actually like seen this guy. So you look at Caleb Wilson, you look at Darren Peterson, you look at AJ DeBansa and you're like, NBA ready right now. Cameron Boozer at Duke. Like we're doing the thing again with Duke. Like they've got another really good big, co-op Pete at Arizona.

There's a couple of guards that are really good, like Kingston Fleming's at Houston is awesome. These guys are all freshmen. I didn't know about a Buca Acori. ⁓ he, Stanford lit up North Carolina this past weekend. I know he's not like an NBA draft lottery guy, but he kind of gives me like Trey young at Oklahoma vibes, just a, an undersized guard who's fearless. And he went off for 36 against the Tarheels. So for me, we're coming off of a year.

where people were talking about Cooper flag, generational talent, white guy at Duke who's going to be good, watch out. And while Cooper flag is, is great. And I got a couple of his rookie cards and I hope he does really well in Dallas. I was kind of taken aback by just how many really good freshmen there are again, and are sitting at the top of the draft class. So for me, you know, my, my, you know, my every man take on college basketball or one of them, ⁓ is just the sheer number of really, really good freshmen.

at the top of the sport. just feels like that was under reported or maybe kind of undersold going into the season. And that's really impressed me. Cause I mean, I just rattled off like eight guys that really cover the sport from coast to coast. Like every conference, every time zone there is pretty much represented. I think that's good for the sport when it's not just like, Hey, there's another guy at Duke. Hey, there's another guy at North Carolina. There's another guy at Arizona. Like we're actually spreading it out a little bit. I think that's a good thing.

Evan (1:12:36)
Absolutely. And I am in a complete agreement with you that the top of the freshman class is absolutely loaded and coming into the year. It was the big three of Cameron Boozer at Duke, AJ DeBonsa at BYU and Darren Peterson at Kansas. There was a lot of debate about those three who's going to be the top in college basketball, who's going to be the top in the NBA draft. And they have for the most part delivered. ⁓ Boozer and DeBonsa have been awesome. And Peterson, when he's played, has been awesome. But then outside of that,

The rest of the freshman class, when you look at the top 15 or so guys, just incredible. ⁓ So I absolutely agree with you there. I think even just giving Abouka Okori a shout out at Stanford, mean, most people still who are kind of casuals are not aware of what he is doing, but the scoring numbers that he is putting up for Stanford and his impact, ⁓ I think he was outside the top 100 recruits coming out of high school. So an incredible scouting job.

There and I will give Keaton Wogler, Illinois another shout. Illinois has a lot of dudes, but that's another guy who was not You know considered to be a top 10 top 15 top 20 freshmen coming into the year But he has been arguably Illinois's best player this year ⁓ so this freshman class is absolutely loaded and I think when we get to March Madness and We are watching these guys, you know on full display. There are so many of them. I think the freshmen are going to

command the biggest storylines, the biggest reactions when everyone is watching, they've been that good. And so I'm in full agreement with you on that one. ⁓ What else would you say really sticks out to you about college basketball so far?

Stephen Hartzell (1:14:12)
So here's Evan, here's where we probably get a little reckless and this is where you can push back. This is where you can push back on the takes. Okay. ACC revival question mark. Now hear me out. I'm in ACC country and I know that the ACC has been a punching bag the last couple of years as the league has declined, maybe been overtaken by the SEC, the big 12 and others. Virginia first year head coach, Ryan Odom cooking NC state.

Evan (1:14:16)
I love it.

Okay.

Stephen Hartzell (1:14:42)
first year head coach and will Wade not necessarily cooking. They're coming off a loss to Georgia tech over the weekend when they were favored by like 20, but you know, on their way back Miami under a first year head coach looking good with Jay Lucas, Louisville solid, not as good as we thought they were going to be at the beginning of the year, but in the pack Clemson proving they're not a one hit wonder. I mean, they went to the elite eight a couple of years ago. Brad Brownell has them back. We're not talking about Duke. know about Duke, North Carolina in the mix. I know they're coming off of a,

rough trip out West when they lost to Stanford and Cal. But I think the ACC is deeper than it has been. Maybe revival is a stretch. Norlander called it an uptick on our podcast earlier, but it's good to see that the ACC is back. didn't mention Stanford. They lost by 30 to Duke, but I'm a huge Kyle Smith fan. Like that guy took Washington state to the tournament. Okay. That, that is, I don't want to say it's impossible, but that's really hard to do. That guy can evaluate talent.

really well. Like look at some of the guys he had at Washington state. I think Stanford is like your, maybe your college basketball, like hipster pick. Like I'd love to see them make the tournament. They may not be ready to go this year. You tell me, but I think the ACC Evan experiencing a little bit of a revival in 2026. What do think?

Evan (1:15:58)
I think revival is probably a pretty accurate word with that. And I think it's specifically like when we got to the tournament last year, it was an aberrationally horrible year for the ACC. They had what three, four teams in the tournament and they probably came into the year. I mean, the conference is huge. It's 16, 18 teams and they only got, you know, the only team that was of really any notable substance last year was Duke. Duke was awesome.

They came up short in terms of winning a national title, but they were probably the best team in the sport last year. But outside of that, there really wasn't a lot of teams that moved the needle at all. This year, that is not the case. ⁓ You've got seven teams, I think, that would be in the tournament field right now. And NC State is good enough to get there if they start notching some wins in ACC play and kind of get turned around here. I think coming into the year, was like Duke is going to be number one, probably.

And then Louisville was like a really fun, like this is really great to see Pat Kelsey cook in. He's going to have a healthy roster. Unlike last year. Well, now it's not really been the case because Michael Brown has missed a bunch of games and kind of hard to say when he'll be back. So they've been a little bit disappointing, but Virginia, Virginia has been incredible. I have them as a top 15 team right now in the country. They also play really well against the best teams on their schedule. Like they've been really lights out. You know, they do have a

few random losses here that are like, whatever. there was a long time ago and they're really cooking. I think they could challenge Duke for an ACC title this year, which is pretty amazing to say, given that it's a first year coach. Ryan Odom was obviously a great pick, but it's tough for anyone to be successful in year one, but they've been awesome. then, yeah, you've got middle of the pack. These are all teams that'll at least right now probably be in the tournament. Clemson, Miami, North Carolina, SMU, like all of these teams are

There's some quality there. the top of the ACC, which I think is really what people care about, the top eight or nine teams there are all really exciting. And then you've got your Stanfords, like you mentioned, and you've got teams like Syracuse who on their good nights can play good ball. And Virginia Tech has had some moments this season. So I think when we're talking about the gap from what the ACC gave us last year to this year, it's a huge difference. So I'm comfortable calling it a revival. I think that's pretty fair.

Stephen Hartzell (1:18:19)
All right. I love it. It's good to see Virginia scoring too, right? Like that's Virginia was a tough watch. Like I'm sure there's some hoops hipsters that are like, no, you don't understand. You don't appreciate what Tony Bennett was doing. Look, man, at some point you just got to put the ball in the basket and like they are scoring at with Ryan Odom. Like they're playing a fun style and brand of basketball. So that's good to see. I have seen ACC tournaments where like Virginia's in the mix.

on, on championship Saturday or back in the day was championship Sunday. Like they would come down to Greensboro and they would pack that place. So Virginia being relevant again in the ACC. that's a good thing. Now the drag of the drags of that conference are still really bad, right? Like Florida state is, is, is falling off and Georgia tech is irrelevant. There are teams that still have a lot of work to do BC's bad, but it's nice to see them. You mentioned SMU. forgot about SMU. Shout out to Boopy, big Boopy Miller guy.

going back to his time when he was playing down the street at Wake Forest. So yeah, good to see the ACC back. Now for my third and final take, and again, this is where we get a little reckless, Evan. ⁓ Game of the year in college basketball. I'm throwing this out there now. I'm calling it. You like to call seeds in the middle of January, right? You've got the meme. Is that SpongeBob, by the way? Is that the meme that you use?

Evan (1:19:37)
Yes, and I didn't even grow up watching Spongebob, but yes.

Stephen Hartzell (1:19:39)
Okay. I have been told there's

a SpongeBob movie that's hitting the theaters. I will not be taking my kids to that. but I'm calling it right now. Game of the year in college basketball, Friday, January the 30th, Michigan at Michigan state. Now I'm calling this for a couple of reasons. One, both Michigan and Michigan state happened to be very good at basketball to it's on a Friday night. Fox national. I'm assuming this is a Jason Benetti game. I hope it is because he does a fantastic job for Fox.

⁓ it's a standalone game. It's like one of those prime time windows, no disrespect to the Saturday prime time games, but there's a lot going on on Saturday. It's hard to give a game the full attention because there's so many other games going on on a Saturday. So Friday, January 30th, Michigan at Michigan state part one, cause we get two of these. It's not, you know, the home and home rivalries in college basketball are kind of a thing of the past. Cause these leagues are so big. ⁓ I had a couple of other candidates like Duke, Virginia.

is a candidate, but we only get one of those. That's a Cameron indoor Arizona at BYU is coming up next week. That's a good game, but we get Michigan, Michigan state part one in East Lansing Friday, January 30th college basketball game of the year. I sound like a tout over here giving out my game of the year picks, but what do you think Evan?

Evan (1:20:57)
That's a little bit spicy. ⁓ I think from a like entertainment, which way is this going to go perspective? I think it's a good pick because right now I would have, if I look at my game prediction for that game, ⁓ Michigan would be favored by half a point in that game on the road and eats Lansing. So in terms of like the stakes and which way this could go, that's a pretty big one. And I think given all the storylines that we've seen about Michigan and how

incredible they've been when they've been great and how low they've been when they've not been great. ⁓ I think a lot of people will be tuning into that game. I would actually pick a different Michigan game as my game of the year. And it's their non-conference game randomly in February against Duke. Michigan plays Duke on a neutral court in February. And that's the teams that I have ranked ⁓ first and third in the country right now.

So in terms of having, we're talking about the best teams on the court and it giving it being a matchup that we're not used to having. Michigan and Duke playing in the non-conference in February, that's like really fun and refreshing. ⁓ And they both play a very unique style of basketball. I think it's a game people have been circling on the calendar for a while. ⁓ Maybe not in terms of the environment, it being on a neutral court. I think maybe from how it delivers on TV, ⁓ it won't be the best there from, but just from a like.

Stephen Hartzell (1:22:14)
Bingo. Bingo.

Evan (1:22:21)
I'm fascinated by how this game is gonna go. I think that is my pick. ⁓ But certainly from a like intensity perspective, I think your pick is a pretty good one.

Stephen Hartzell (1:22:31)
That's a chalky play by you going Michigan Duke in an NBA arena. Like I'm just going to push back on that, Evan, because like what sounds better? Like you were looking live at the Breslin center for Michigan, Michigan state, or you are looking live at the capital one arena in downtown. Why? Like it just doesn't, it doesn't bring the same panache and you know, Michigan, Michigan state, like I'm not a big 10 guy. ⁓ but like I didn't grow up to be a big 10 guy. Let me clarify. But the fact that you get this game twice.

Evan (1:22:46)
You

Stephen Hartzell (1:22:59)
You'll get it again in Ann Arbor final game of the regular season. Again, I just, so much as has kind of gone out the window with these conference expand with the conferences expanding, like the big 10 is 18 teams at the sec is 16 teams. Like, you know, we get Alabama Auburn twice. I remember a couple of years ago, it was number one versus number two. just, it, had that weight. You had people going down to Auburn who had never been, ⁓ down to that part of the country for a basketball game. Like that was really cool. So.

I don't know. was, looking at the schedule. You gave me some homework. ⁓ I like Michigan, Michigan say, I like both of those teams a lot. I think the big 10 storyline about them not winning a national championship in several decades is going to be a fun one to keep an eye on. Cause you got those two, you got Purdue and look, we've been talking for 20 minutes. You thought I was going to throw Nebraska out there. Didn't you? You thought I was going to give you Nebraska as my bag as my biggest story in college hoops, but I'm not taking the bait. It's not because I don't believe in them.

It's not because I don't believe in them. I'm a big Hoyberg guy, but no, I think the Big 10 is going to be fascinating, man. Some of these league races are going to be really, really fun at the top. So anyway, that's me shooting my shot, Evan. Thank you for giving me the forum here, the stage to talk a little college hoops with you, man. This has been fun.

Evan (1:24:15)
I'm gonna let you shoot one more shot here if I had to peg you right now for who you think the national champion is gonna be this year. Who are you picking?

Stephen Hartzell (1:24:23)
So I'm going to go Houston. Now I'm only going to, I'm only going to go Houston because I am, I have been a Houston, like not a hater, but it's just like, the metrics love Houston. love Houston, but they never get it done. And like, first, like, see, this is a loaded question because it's like, it's really hard to win a national championship. Obviously I had Florida last year and I, and, and I was like, it's going to be Florida.

Evan (1:24:25)
Ooh, my goodness, this is huge.

Stephen Hartzell (1:24:52)
in the national championship game and it's, they're going to like, thought they were going to win and they proved me right. But the Houston like dynamic, like those guys, I was trying to explain this to my dad. My dad's in his seventies, Evan, and like, he is a, he's a casual college sports fan. And he was like, I don't get the Houston, like I don't get it. And I'm like, these guys just play harder than everybody else. Like they're just like, watch these guys play like the work rate of, of coach Samson's teams.

And I don't know. just, have a feeling like the Kingston Fleming's edition is, is, is a significant one. It's not that Houston's had bad players in the past, but they haven't had like NBA lottery talent. Now you correct me if I'm wrong, Evan. just, it just feels like he kind of brings everything up a notch. Like if you have NBA players doing their, doing your thing, doing their thing in the tournament, that that makes a huge difference. Houston has one, like a bona fide lottery guy running the point.

So I'm going to go Houston, but I mean, my buddy Norlander has been trying to sell me on this, that like this college basketball season is absolutely loaded because you have all these blue bloods and like you look at the depth of these one and two lost teams. Like I could make an argument for like eight or nine teams, but I'm not going to do that. You made me pick one. I'm riding with the Cougs.

Evan (1:26:13)
There's a lot of good teams to pick from, I love the Houston pick. ⁓ This is a big development for you too, because I sent you a clip, I think once Houston was in the title game last year of one of your first podcasts ⁓ on college basketball last season in January, you specifically talked about how you didn't think Houston was all that and they proved you wrong. So I think Kelvin Sampson has bought you over ⁓ and I think it's well deserved. ⁓

Stephen Hartzell (1:26:38)
Yes, has.

Evan (1:26:41)
The thing about Houston I think is really fun is that ⁓ Houston always has dudes who have been on the team for a long time, who are really reliable. And then maybe you have a freshman who can contribute here or there or whatever, but they don't need that. This year, they have Kingston Fleming coming out of nowhere being their best player on the team. And then you still have Mylos Yuzan, Emmanuel Sharp, Joseph Tuggler, that big three returning from their starting lineup last year and some other guys.

You have Chris Sennack, who's been improving a lot as a freshman. So like this is something, a tool in Kelvin Sampson's ⁓ tool set that he's not normally had. I think that's really fun. And that's freaking scary for the rest of the Big 12. Houston's Big 12 record is immaculate. And I think the rest of this conference, I mean, the top of the Big 12, think is better than any other conference probably when you're talking about Arizona and Houston and BYU and Kansas. Like it's really exciting, but I think Houston.

Super dangerous. So I think that's a very reasonable national title pick at this stage.

Stephen Hartzell (1:27:46)
Thank you. Thank you for your support. I am going to give, I am going to give a shout out to my favorite player in college basketball. Evan, you're ready for this? Oscar Clough. That's my guy. He's been my guy since he was on Washington state. I jokingly told somebody in our, in our studios that he looked like the Unabomber because I was like, who is this guy? And then come to find out, I did a little research before our show. have him ranked as like one of the top 10 players in college basketball or most efficient players or something like that. Like that dude's journey to Purdue.

Evan (1:27:59)
Wow.

Stephen Hartzell (1:28:16)
Again, going back to the Kyle Smith stuff, like, I don't know how he does it, but like he has put multiple players in the NBA from Washington state. Okay. Like this dude just finds players. Like you go back and look at those teams at Washington state. had Mo gay, Jalen Wells, miles rice. Oscar Clough was getting like 20, 25 minutes a game for Kyle Smith at Washington state. Now he's at Purdue. had Ruben Chin Yalu, who's a national champion at Florida. Like, I don't know how he does it.

But like Kyle Smith is, just, I don't know, pound for pound. He might be one of those like coaches in college basketball that just like, even the ones that know, like, don't give him enough credit. He's just that good. I don't know how he's doing it, man. It's crazy. So shout out to Oscar Clough. Go, go, luck in the, in the dance, man. Go, go win a Natty for Purdue. That'd be something.

Evan (1:29:04)
Oscar Clef also just a great name to say. ⁓ It's really fun. and

Stephen Hartzell (1:29:06)
Yes. Tremendous name. Great hair flow.

Like just a big dude. like, like a college basketball guy. Like nobody thinks that guy's going to go to the NBA for a decade. Right? Like maybe he will cause he's big, but like not the most athletic dude in the world. Doesn't matter. Right? Like that's why college basketball is so great. Like let these dudes have their moment. Like let's go. So anyway, I, I had to give Clough a shout out, give that dude some more literature, give that man some attention. Go Boilermakers. Let's go.

Evan (1:29:35)
Yeah, he's great. That's a really fun pick. I think ⁓ yeah amongst a lot of other players in my top player rankings who are stars Oscar Clough is there at number four most valuable player in the country in terms of what he does for Purdue. So great shot there. This was really fun. I think a lot of people are gonna enjoy listening to this Stephen. So I really thank you for your hot takes which I kind of agreed with most of them really. So, you know, I don't think you're that far off. ⁓ And so yeah, I just really appreciate you taking the time. This is fun.

Stephen Hartzell (1:30:04)
Thanks for having me, Evan. Enjoyed it.

Evan (1:30:05)
Thank you so much to Stephen for that really fun bonus segment there at the end. ⁓ I really appreciate listening to him. And as he mentioned, ⁓ he is doing the College Sports Now podcast now twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays with Matt Norlander. I may or may not be a guest on that sometime in the near future during the season, ⁓ but that's a part of my regular listening ⁓ once they get the college basketball portion of that going in early January. So.

Definitely a must listen there. And I just really appreciate his insight and energy for the sport. I just think it's really fun. ⁓ Well, that is a wrap for our show today. I really hope you enjoyed it. ⁓ I endured through not feeling great today, but I really wanted to get get another podcast out there for you guys, no matter the circumstances. So ⁓ we will be back next Tuesday, hopefully full strength, everything technologically working and all that stuff.

Again, this is an ad free show.

So please help support the show by rating it, giving it five stars on the podcast platforms, Apple and Spotify, subscribing and liking on YouTube. That just really helps. I got a lot of really positive reception for the first episode last week. So hoping to keep it going there. Again, just thank you so much for listening. It really means a lot to me and I will see all of you guys next time.