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It's time for the latest on the madness of March. Here's Hall of Fame

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college basketball writer for The Sporting News and Fox Sports lead bracketologist Mike Decorsi.

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four two five two five five zero five hundred. Now with Mike Decorsi,

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here's Safti and Dick. All right, boys and girls back here at the

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Emerald Queen Casino hanging out until seven o'clock to that big thanks to our friends

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at Northwest Handling Systems for sponsoring our little shindig, little soiree every Monday at

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four o'clock with our friend from The Sporting News, Fox Sports, the Big

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Ten Network, Mike Decorsi and Michael How are you pal? I am very

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well, gentlemen. How are you? We are? Good man? Lots

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of action on the court to talk about, lots of stuff happening off the

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court to talk about, but I guess we can start at least back here

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in Seattle with the news of the Day. Danny Sprinkle Utah State officially in

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for Mike Hopkins. That was announced by you Dub today. Your thoughts,

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Mike, Yeah, I was with Danny Sprinkle yesterday and I don't know did

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he take did he Did he take the job before or after Zach Edy got

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his third file with the Boilermakers up thirty one points, So I'm not sure.

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No. I mean, he competed hard in that game, and I respected the fact that he acknowledged that defending Zach Edy is a chore and that

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they weren't unable to conjure anything successful. The good news for UH, for

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Danny, and for the Huskies and for everybody else that competes in the Big

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Ten is that although he has a COVID year of eligibility remaining, zach has

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made it pretty clear that this is his last season of college basketball. He's

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won two National Players the year, well, he's he won hours twice,

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and he will be the unanimous National Player of the Year by the end of

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the month. So you won't have to worry about him coming to coming to

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heck ed and and and causing any problems. I think Danny has done a

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phenomenal job at his previous two jobs. He's a great hire for for you,

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Dub and my understanding is it's a place he wants to be, which,

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of course, why wouldn't you for someone who's who's been a Northwestern guy

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pretty much his life. It's it's just an ideal spot. You guys know

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that. I believe that the Huskies program can be significant. I've been there

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when it has been during the middle two thousands, the great one run with

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Brandon roy and and and the terrific group they had then, So I know

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it can be done again. And I think they've hired a perfect guy to

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get that done. How likely is it that he is able to do something

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similar in year one with Washington that he did at Utah State, and you

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know, maybe bringing Osabor with him, maybe bringing U Douge with him and

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starting like that. Well, I mean I think to do something similar.

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I mean he went like twenty eight and five or something like that. That's

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a lot. I mean, can they get better? I think they can,

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but it's it's a bigger challenge now. The Big Ten is a terrific

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basketball league. I think you guys will be impressed by how competitive it is,

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how consistent it is how effective the coaches are. I'm not saying the

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Pac twelve was not an excellent conference in its best years, but I think

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it's been a while since they consistently put together a group of teams that is

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similar to what you'll see now with the Big Ten coming up there, it's

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an exceptional league. I've been a part of the Big Ten network for fifteen

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years. I know they haven't won a national championship since two thousand and they

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get bludgeoned with that a lot. But other than in the last three years

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and the last three years in the naas have not been sufficient for anybody in

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the Big Ten. But other than that, they were consistently putting teams into

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the final four and in the national championship game at a higher level than almost

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everyone. And it's it's it's a and the difference with the Big Ten and

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say the ACC, which is a consistently great conference, but I mean,

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let's be honest, I mean, most of their achievement is Duke in Carolina,

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and there's there's a subset of other programs that do well but from time

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to time, but it's mostly those two. The Big Ten is much more

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varied and so you'll see teams like, Okay, Michigan this year, Michigan

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State, that you're Ohio State, another Purdue now and then in the future

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it could be you Dub, it could be Oregon, it could be CLA.

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I mean, so we don't know where it's gonna come from, because

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that's the league provides you with that platform to chase greatness. Well, Mike

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de Coursi, who chased and found greatness is with us on the radio show.

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That's a compliment, by the way, guys, so I hope you

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all agree with that. But Mike, before we get to the games coming

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up from last weekend this weekend, I'm looking forward to that perdugan Zaga game.

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That's just got that that's just got war written all over it with those

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two balls, those two teams. But the other news in the Seattle area

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Kyle Smith taking off for Stanford and a lot of Wazoo fans are wondering why

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he would make that move, Why go from Pullman to Stanford and the acc

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Your take on that, yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, I'm

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not sure why that was the most appealing situation. I mean, it's obviously

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a beautiful area to live, and and and that's you know, that's a

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plus. I mean, the Bay Area is is phenomenal, and it's obviously

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very expensive to live there, so I hope he's well compensated. I don't

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know what the what exactly the appeal is there, but I assume that some

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of it is if I can win at Wazoo, I can win there,

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even though it's at the ACC, and the ACC three thousand miles away.

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I do think that it's it's logical to believe there might have been better opportunities

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out there, but you know, there's you're only hot for so long.

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And if indeed there wasn't anything else that was coming onto his doorstep and that

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was there, I guess I could understand. I mean that the future of

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Wazoo under these circumstances is not it's not known. It's not where where are

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they going to be? I know where they're going to be immediately, but

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where are they going to be in five years? Yeah, we don't really

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know what's going to happen. So I understand to an extent why he would

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do it. I just I do think that Stanford in the ACC still dust

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doesn't add up to me. Mike, what does the immediate future at John

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Calipari look like. I don't know. I know what it should look like,

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which is everybody calming down and going back to work and figuring out ways

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to make it better. It's not easy anymore, it's just not I mean

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it's it's not as easy as it was ten years ago. It's not as

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easy as it was five years ago. With the transfer portal, teams are

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thinner, their margin for error is smaller, and we've seen it become more

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difficult to consistently advance in this tournament. I mean, Kansas Bill self won

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it two years ago, and then how did he do the next two times?

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I mean he's not into sweet sixteen either year. This year, not

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only did they not make the sweet sixteen, I think they finished sixth in

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their conference. Carolina was in the championship game of twenty two. Where were

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they last year? Nowhere? They weren't even in the show. I mean,

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it's just more and more difficult to win consistently. This team was a

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little frustrating because it never seemed to learn from its mistakes. And I don't

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know how much of that is them and how much of that is coaching.

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But when there are certain things that John I specifically remember, like being one

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of his practices or a film session, and I don't even remember whether it

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was at Memphis or Kentucky, but I remember him specifically saying, we don't

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ever leave corner three point shooters ever, Like under any circumstance the guy's going

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down to dunket, we don't leave. That's what he said. And then

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this year I saw them do it twice and make that decision in games that

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cost them, that cost them defeat. Once against LSU, it was it

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was Reed Shepherd, and then on Thursday in Pittsburgh it was Rob Dillingham who

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left open the guy who made the game clinching shot for Oakland. I know

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they heard that because I heard it fifteen years ago or so from Caliperry,

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and my goodness, I don't even play for them, so I know they

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heard it more than once and it didn't matter. And so I can't totally

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say that it's his fault that they didn't win this championship, but it is

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the If the objective of sports fans is to punish coaches that don't deliver the

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results that they want every time, then fire them. That's the way to

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do it. But if your objective is, Okay, this wasn't good enough,

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let's get better, then you don't fire a guy who's in the Hall

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of Fame and who has won what he's won, and who won the games

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he won, even as recently as this year. I mean, they were not a perfect team, but the only way you get to a perfect team

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is you continue to build on these successes and failures that you've already gone through.

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Well, Mike Decorsi again is with us on the air, And if you were one of these guys that complained about the big boys not making the

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Sweet sixteen and the elite the elite eight in the final four, don't want

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to see these small schools from nowhere playing for championships. And you're happy because

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a lot of big seeds have made it through. And Mike, I got

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my eye on that perdugan Zaga game. I mean, this just has a battle written all over it. The way these two teams are playing right now,

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this could have been a national semi final. What do you make of

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that matchup this week? Yeah, it's it's a great game, and it's

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it's really exciting that it'll be I think that that doubleheader in Detroit is going

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to be phenomenal because I love the Creighton Tennessee game as well. I think

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that whoever wins that game, it's the one region where three of the four

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that are left that I believe have the absolute goods to win a national championship.

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Now that doesn't mean you do, and that doesn't even mean the fourth,

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which is Gonzaga, can't get to the final four, because they're certainly

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good enough to do that. They are certainly good enough to beat either Creighton

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or Tennessee and Purdue. I have no doubt about that. I don't think

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they're good enough to win it all, but I do think that they're good

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enough to win those games. And I know that sounds contradictory because I said

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the other three can. But it's when you get to those last two games

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that things get I mean, it's really hard now, trust me. Beating

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Purdue is going to be a monumentally difficult task for Gonzaga, but winning the

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last two are something altogether different. The pressure changes, the ability changes.

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It'll be really difficult. But stopping Zach Edie for Gonzaga will be an astonishingly

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difficult challenge. He has become so so terrific. And yesterday one of the

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one of the the reporters in the press conference said, and it's it's hard

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to know like who he's citing, right, because like he didn't say so

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and so said that Zach Edy's only good because he's tall. So I went

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and did some Google searching afterwards to see if I could find anybody who said

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that, and I could find maybe a couple instances where it was either said

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specifically that he wasn't going to be a good NBA player or that he maybe

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maybe he just as successful because he's tall. But it's not that guys.

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I mean, Rick Smiths was seven to four and he was a really good

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pro, but he wasn't this guy. I mean, we've seen Mark Eaton,

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really good pro, but not this guy. I mean, they weren't even close to this guy. It's it's to be what Zach Edy is takes

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incredible work and talent and skill and desire and all the rest of that,

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and he's not just good because he's seven to four. There were two guys

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in the SEC this year that were seven to five and together they averaged seven

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points game. He averaged twenty two and a half He's a really skilled,

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gifted player, and he's very hard to defend, especially when opponents have to

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make the choice of whether to file him or not, because if you don't

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file him, you're probably getting overwhelmed. But if you do and they call

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it, then you're probably in fil trouble. Mike de Coursey joining us brought

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to you by Northwest Handling Systems Each and every Monday. Mike mark Few,

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after losing to Baylor in the National Championship a couple of years ago, said

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he really wished he would played that game in the regular season against Baylor that

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got canceled due to COVID. Is it advantage Gonzaga that he has gotten to

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play perdue four months ago when he clearly wasn't nearly as good a team as

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he has now. Yeah, I think it's I think it helps, yeah,

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because it's not something you've never been through, just as in past tournaments,

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back when Jim Beheim was coaching Syracuse and teams would come up against that

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zone and they hadn't seen anything like it, and then they all of a

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sudden they were vexed and they didn't know how to attack it. And then

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he would he would wind up in the Sweet sixteen or Elite eight or Final

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four or whatever, even though he didn't have the better team. So if

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you played against Syracuse, I mean teams in the ACC and Big East,

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depending on which year you're talking about, they'd go against Syracuse and there'd be

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nights when they wouldn't be able to beat them. But they weren't. They

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weren't surprised or shocked or vexed or anything. They knew what to do.

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It's just whether you did it or not, or whether Syracuse's guys were better

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that night. And I think that it'll help the Zags do have been up

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against Edie and know what those challenges are, and without a doubt, it

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doesn't necessarily mean they get they get the W, but it does mean that

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they have an advantage over what Utah State had yesterday going in with some really

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good players. Osi Wor is a terrific player, but just they just couldn't

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find a way to stop Zach. They tried multiple defenders. What ended up

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happening Trey Kaufman Wren, the starting power forward, did a lot of damage

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from the opposite post. When that happened, Produce shot the ball reasonably well,

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maybe I shouldn't say reasonably. Well, they were for fifty percent.

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They've shot the ball great from three point range, and all of that made

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it really difficult for Utah State. I think in Zaga can can can be

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absolutely have a change. I don't want to say be competitive because that's patronized.

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They have a chance to win, They're gonna have to play absolutely fabulous

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basketball to do that. They certainly played that on Saturday. Well, Mike

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de COURSI is with us, and Mike, if you're a fan of the Cinderella story, I guess there's just one left really, and that's NC State.

14:35

I mean, what do you attribute that to? And do you give

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the wolf Pack any chance of continuing this run past Marquette? You know,

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I think part of it is simply, you know, there are certain teams

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that don't find themselves during the regular season, and ultimately some most don't find

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themselves ever if they don't find themselves during the regular season. But Carolina NC

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State did, and I don't I can't explain it because they played horror league.

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Really, by by the standards of an NCAA tournament team, they played

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horribly. Even in their first conference tournament game against Louisville. They nearly lost

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that. Louisville so one of the worst major conference teams in my three plus

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decades of covering college basketball, and they nearly lost that one. But then

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they just found it. And I don't understand how a team with a DJ

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Burns six' eleven, three hundred whatever he is, with those post skills

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that is passing ability. I don't understand how you're bad in the first place,

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or mediocre or whatever however you want to describe them. But they figured

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it out. They started to get some confidence, they started to make some

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shots. They started to remember that Burns is a is a weapon on offense

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like few else in the country, and they and they started to get they

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started to get going, and I thought they overwhelmed Duke physically. I was

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disappointed in the championship game in Yukon, excuse me, in UNC's competitiveness.

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I figure, I understand UNC knew they're probably gonna be a one seed and

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all of that, but like, once you're in a championship game, why

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wouldn't just go for it? Because you're gonna play the forty minutes whether you

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win it or not, so you might as well go for it. I did not see that from Carolina. I let State took the fight out of

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them. So I respect what they're accomplishing without a doubt. I don't know

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whether it goes past this, but to be able to get to the sweet

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sixteen after where they stood really on the last day of the regular season,

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it's one of the things that can happen in college basketball that can't happen in

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many other sports. Have you seen anything in the first two rounds that alters

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your thoughts about who's gonna win the championship or who's going to make the final

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four? It all well, I mean, I did pick Kentucky, so

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that alternately, Oh, come on, come on, I didn't. I

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didn't like anybody in that region. I didn't trust anybody in the in the

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Midwest, or excuse me, in the South region. I just didn't feel good about anybody, and so I took a flyer on their offense, working

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all the way through, and the offense, I you know, I should

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have known Greg's camp he would come up with a zone or something like that. If they played man the man, the kids still might have made thirty

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five threes, but they were still lost one hundred and ninety five or whatever.

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But camp be Zone totally screwed up Kentucky. Uh and it was a

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great play. And so other than that, I mean, I still think

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Connecticut is by far the best team in college basketball. I'm a little more

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encouraged about Purdue getting to the Final Four than I was on the day that

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I picked the bracket, and a little more discouraged about Tennessee. Don't Connects

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got to get it together. I mean, it's hard to criticize a guy

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who's the first team All American, and I don't mean to be that way,

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but I mean, they're not laughing through another game in which he shoots

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one of seven. Yeah's not gonna happen. I mean, not against Creighton.

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I can't believe guys a first team All American God Mikebody, but he's

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got he's got to do better than that. And he's had three of those

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in the last six games. So it's got to be more consistent than that

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if they're going to make it to Phoenix. Like I said, I'm a

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little more discouraged about that than I was going in. But as I pointed

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out in the column I wrote yesterday about Purdue, I've seen teams go out

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and win by thirty in their second round game and then losing the Sweet sixteen.

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And I was thumbing through some old final Champion tournament brackets and I found

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nineteen eighty eight when Purdue did it. They had did a terrific team.

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It was Big Ten champion in eighty eight, and Mitch Richmond came along from

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Kansas State and knocked him out. So it can't happen. Momentum. Momentum

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does only takes just so far in this tournament. Every game is a little

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bit different. Yep, Mike de Coursey, great stuff. Enjoy the Sweet

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sixteen, the Elite eight man. We'll talk on Monday. Appreciate the Passike

18:53

sounds great guy, Thanks all right, big thanks to our friends at Northwest

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Handling Systems. The Huskies have a brand new men's basketball coach. The worst

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kept secret in the history of college basketball. What's out about it? Next?

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