Straight Fire with Jason McIntyreStraight Fire - More NFL Free Agency Action + CBS SportsLine college basketball betting analyst Thomas Casale
On today’s episode, Jason discusses a few of the more noteworthy NFL free agent signings of the day (Joey Bosa to the Buffalo Bills, DeAndre Hopkins to the Baltimore Ravens, etc). Later, CBS SportsLine college basketball betting analyst Thomas Casale swings by to discuss all the biggest headlines heading into the start of Championship Weekend, Selection Sunday and the start of March Madness.
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This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
What is up, straight Fire fan, It's me Jason McIntyre. Straight Fire for Wednesday, March the twelfth. Today is one of the great days in college basketball. I know the NCAA Tournament's amazing, but on Championship week there are actually more games today than there are on the first Thursday and Friday in the NCAA Tournament. Today is a great day in college basketball. I hope you can cozy up with the television and just fire left and right. It was a decent night last night in gambling, really good night in sports. You had lots of wacky stuff happening. Joey Bosa cut by the Chargers, lands with the Buffalo Bills. Ooh, that's spicy out with Von Miller in with Joey Bosa.
I like that move.
Obviously, if Bosa can stay healthy, maybe they make him situational first half of the season so he's fresh down the stretch. I don't know what the strategy there would be to keep healthy, but Joey Bosa obviously still in his prime. He's just got to stay healthy. When he's healthy, he's a monster. DeAndre Hopkins not invited back by the Chiefs. He lands with the rival Ravens. Interesting. I'm sure Lamar Jackson is thrilled with that. And the other NFL play that was moderately interesting. Leonard Floyd cut by the forty nine ers. Okay, Leonin Floyd, good pass rusher. Another one when we talked about the Niners at length yesterday. He goes to the Falcons and now, all of a sudden, the Atlanta Falcons are trying to build something of a defense. They have for years been desperate for a pass rush. Now you look at the depth chart and they're like, Okay, we have Leonard Floyd, who's still got some left in the tank. Matthew Judon who's still got some left in the tank. They're a little on the older side, but you've at least got some potential there. They've got the young quarterback in Pennix, They've got pieces. Can they overtake the Bucks in the division? Tampa Bay just for some reason just keeps on winning it.
We'll see.
I don't know.
Somebody's trying to sell me on the pay. I'm not quite there yet. It's early though. We haven't done the draft. Free agency. It becomes official today and maybe we'll see Aaron Rodgers land some up. I'm sick of talking about Aaron Rodgers. I guess the beauty of all this guys be excited. There's almost no Cowboys talk because they're irrelevant. They have nothing going on that Dallas Cowboys don't matter right now. If you rank the teams in terms of interest level from talent to Super Bowl chances, to young quarterback to exciting players to great rosters, there's no way the Cowboys are top twenty. There just isn't other than quote unquote America's team. What is there spicy about the Cowboys? You know they're not getting off the DAC deal.
They can't.
I just you show you Tell me what is exciting about the Dallas Cowboys team, and I'll listen. But I'm just telling you they are right now irrelevant. But our guest today is awesome. If you like March badness, and I know you do, again, I'll repeat, I don't do a lot of gambling on the NBA.
I'll lose some.
I don't gamble in baseball at all. I don't touch hockey at all. So this is the last big event tournament that I will be firing on until the NFL season, so you know it's gonna be popping. And Thomas Cassalle, we brought him on the last couple of years, very good. He's at CBS Sports Line as one of their gamblers. He is I don't want to give away all his picks, but he is on Arkansas today in an SEC tournament game. You gotta get that one. I got that on the books. I on Arkansas. But a good breakdown of some teams, some comparisons for like the Alabama Crimson Tide, who are dangerous. Listen SEC. He makes a case that the SEC is gonna have like a dozen teams in the tournament. I know they's stacked. I didn't realize it was that many. But a lot of actionable stuff here. Devour it. It's Thomas Cassalle from CBS sports Line.
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live. Jason likes to think he knows everything when it comes to sports.
I know what sports fans want.
But for everything he doesn't. He knows a guy who does.
Let's just say I know a guy who knows the guy who knows another guy.
All right, let's welcome back to Straight Fire. One of our best college basketball guests every year. He is I'm savant, maybe strong, I don't know. Listen, the guy knows college hoops. He's got a new job at CBS Sports line Picks. He's all over the NCAA tournament, which starts next week. Thomas Cassale, Thomas, how you doing, I'm.
Man, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me again.
Yeah, it's uh, you know, it's that time of the college basketball season where everybody who didn't pay attention when you were gambling and crushing in November, December, January. Now everybody's like late to the party, trying to play catch up. Oh, Duke is good.
So I don't know.
We're at that stage Championship week.
I don't let me.
Let me just hear your overall thoughts so far on the season. Is it a two team race with Duke and Auburners, We're gonna see some party crashers.
Yeah, it's it's an interesting season. My thought for the last couple of months is when we get to the sweet sixteen, I don't know how many upsets we're gonna see. A few years ago, we kind of saw Baylor and Gonzaga on a collision course. They were supposed to play in the regular season. The game got canceled. Duke and Auburn did play. It was a close game. But to me, top to bottom, it's those two. Then maybe Houston and everybody else. They're just deep. They got it. And the thing about Auburn is this for this week coming up. They were tired at the end of the year. You could see it. They were mentally tired. They were beating up a little bit. My guess is, if you want your best bet at the conference tournament, bet Auburn in their first game. They're gonna annihilate somebody. They're fresh, they're gonna be back to normal. And I just those are the two best teams. Obviously the tournament, anything can happen, but I think once we get to that elite eight area, it's gonna be favorites.
Yeah, everybody loves a good sleeper. What are the characteristics you look for? Everybody knows Ken Palm, Bart, Torvik, these great sites that can help with the handicapping, But what do you look at a lot of people are like, oh, you got to be top twenty defense. You have to be a top ten offense. You got to have experience. Are there any things that jump out at you as like, hey man, that's what I circle. Offensive rebounding, three point shooting. What are some of your top characteristics?
Yeah, there's three metrics I look at for the tournament. I look at offensive rebounding because you're gonna have games where you don't shoot well. Can you get second chance opportunities? I look at turnovers? Do you turn the ball over a lot? Michigan was doomed even when they were playing well. They've ranked towards the towards the end of they turn the ball over at tom they don't have a true ball handler. Can't win in the NCAA tournament cause sooner or later one of these SEC team is going to ball pressure. You get to death and you're gonna lose. The other one that isn't sexy, but it's free throw shooting. Can you get to the line? Do you make foul shots? For example, Utah Tonight gets to the line a lot. They shoot sixty three percent in conference's rate that they get to the line, but they're not converting. So but again you're looking at close games, follow shots often, you know, decide. So those are three metrics I look at. And you also, you've got to be able to make shots. I like Saint John's. I do they they I like the way they play. I think they're gonna give some teams trouble. But my guess is sooner or later they're not going to make enough shots to advance.
Yeah, I'm looking at the offensive rebounding rate. Texas A and M leads the country, and they're really good at free throw percentage rate. So are the Aggies a bit of a sleep where they've played in the SEC where you know, listen, man, the s If you guys haven't been paying attention, the SEC has been arguably the toughest conference I can remember in many, many years.
Yeah, and my guess is a couple of these teams when they when they get out of the SEC. I don't know who they are yet. We'll have to see the brackets and how they play early. But your old missus, your your Texas A and M's, your teams that don't have to play Auburn, Florida and Alabama every night are gonna be tough off, you know, Missouri doesn't have a great defense, but they play a style that can bother teams in the first couple rounds. You know, I'm talking to the Sweet sixteen. Missouri is not gonna win at all, but I think that's a good angle is instead of laying the points like with Auburn and Alabama early on in the tournament, look for some of these second tier SEC teams that would have been competing for a conference championship in a lot of other places.
Oh, that's interesting, but you drill down on a team like Texas A and M and my gosh, Buzz Williams's team cannot shoot at all three hundred twenty seven to threes, two hundred and seventy first in free throws. Like they're an they're an offensively challenge team. That being said, their d will keep them in games. And if you look at their resume again, I'm not picking on Buzz Williams, but like, here are their last few losses Florida, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Mississippi State. Those are all top forty five teams in Kenpom, Texas, Kentucky, Alabama. Like they're gonna smash some of these middling teams who people are like, look at the record, I'm not that good. But but Texas A and M. They're gonna be able to the surprise of people, right.
Yeah, And one of the things you got to look at. Metrics are great, but you have to you know, you have to look at the entire picture. One of the things Texas A and M struggles with is those SEC teams that really pressure the ball and bother them defensively. There's not like a lot of teams in the Big Ten who do that, so you gotta look at what them every You know, the thing that's hard about the NCAA tournament is you got to start over. Like things that happen in the regular season don't always transfer over, so you gotta be weary to like look at Texas A and M and how they played against Florida or things like that. It's whoever they're playing that day. Are they going to kill that team on the boards, Because if they are, then they're three point shooting probably doesn't matter. But that's a perfect example of a team is you got to wait for the bracket and see who they're gonna go up against. There might be some favorable matchups where they can make.
A run now you said the Big Ten doesn't pressure the ball much. Everybody all of a sudden loves tom Izzo's Michigan State squad. I again, if you look at the full body of the season, they have not been great, but they are streaking big time. Since I believe it's February first, they've got They're one of the better teams in the country. Where are you on Izzo and the Spartans.
Well, I'll give you the good and the bad. The good is, this is a type of tom Izzo team he usually makes a run with. They play good defense, they rebound well. I think he really likes this team. I think there's been a couple of teams recently they haven't been tom Izzo kind of teams. This isn't one of them, So I think that is the good. The bad is I think the Big Ten is really bad, and I think by the second weekend you're gonna see how bad it is. I don't know how many of those teams are going to be hanging around. I don't think Purdue's any good. You know, Maryland, I like their starting five. That's the one team I kind of like. Michigan State obviously the best team, but I just think a lot of those Big ten teams are going to have a short stay in the NCAA tournament.
Wow. So if you take the Big Tens in for a rough tournament, what does that mean for the ACC? Which is, if you remove Duke pretty rotten. I don't know where are you in. Like, I don't even know if North Carolina has enough in him to make a run to get in. But like, ACC's even worse than a Big Ten, right, Yeah, I.
Could see Clemson doing some damage. I think they're a pretty good basketball team, but overall, I mean, they're really down and it's hard. You know, Listen, Duke is good. I don't want to say Duke isn't good. They beat Auburn at home. They have some nice wins, but it's kind of they almost have Gonzaga syndrome in recent years where the conference is so bad and they've just been beating up on everybody. They had one tough road game against Clemson and lost. So I mean, it's not I'm gonna fade Duke in the NCAA tournament, but I think there's more of a question mark about Duke than Auburn.
What about john Shire? Any concerns about him. We know he's had some letdowns, shall we say, in the postseason. It seems like they struggle against kind of rugged, tough teams. I remember getting bounced by Tennessee and then NC State. Are they more physical this year? See with the best player in the country, I believe in Cooper Fly.
Yeah. And the thing about listen, unless it's football where it's fun to rag coaches all the time, I try to be open minded about these younger coaches. I mean, I always remind people there was a time when Villanova fans were saying, geez, I don't know if Jay Wright can win the big One. Well he did. He won the Big One a couple of times, so Shires, he's still brand new. I you know, listen, Jim Beyheim was at Syracuse for fifty years and won one title. Yeah, you know, like, let's give the guy at least a couple more years. I'll listen. If this team loses in round two, then yes, then now we have we have a narrative. Maybe that there's a problem. But I'm not ready to close the book on Shire yet.
You know, in the NBA, a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, the calves and the thunder are so dominant they might go to the finals. And I'm like, guys, we've seen this a billion times. Some teams are built for the regular season in the NBA, right, I mean, the Calves are motivating. The Celtics just won the title. They're less motivated. You look at ok See they got bounced in the second round. Look at them this year. Awesome, But we get to the playoffs. It's like a different sport, a lot more half court. The whistles probably is a bit of a different whistle. Do you think the same applies to college basketball? And if so, who does that impact the most.
There's one team And when I was on your show last year, I said Alabama is a team you should fade. Now here's what happened with Alabama. They drew Charleston in the first round. That was my biggest bet of the college basketball tournament because it was a perfect matchup. Then they got North Carolina and I was like, set up well for Alabama. Last year they played teams that want to run with them. And when you want to run with Alabama, good luck to me Alabama, And I don't want to you know, Listen, the Ravens are a great team, but the Ravens are a team that hammer inferior opponents in the regular season. Then they'll get one or two wins where you're like, this is the year, this is the year, and then they go to the post he's in and it's the same story. Alabama's a good team. I don't think there's a ton of teams that can beat them, but they are really set up for the regular season where they just beat up on inferior opponents. I think that is the most interesting team heading into the tournament.
Interesting. So Mark Sears, where are you on the little point guard? He hit an amazing shot, a nice runner to beat Auburn on the road. He is one of these Let's see, he's twenty three years old, he started out at Ohio. You know this is his fifth year in college basketball. Pretty much we know guard's kind of rule. Is Sears good enough to take over a game and help Alabama make a run back to the Final four?
I think he is, But he's so unselfish. I've seen multiple times this year where he has a drive to the hoop and he passes it and I think, you know, I think I've heard you mentioned too in the with NBA players, like, it's great to be unselfish sometimes, but sometimes you got to be the man, you know, like you know, like I don't want Lebron passing in the final seconds. I want Lebron taking the shot, right, So I think that might be like his unselfishness is great in an overall team environment, but what you're saying when you have to take over a game, I don't want him to be so unselfish. I want him to take the shots.
I want to go back to Saint John's for a second. They're one of the best stories in the sport. Obviously, you know the great coach Patino with the white suits. But we talked about this with Jeff Goodman last week. This team has some offensive struggles. They are one of the worst three point shooting teams in the country. We know the three is the great equalizer. We've seen teams like a Kentucky go three for twenty five and lose because they can't make threes. Saint John's, you seem to like them. I'm just curious, where are you with a team that can't shoot and oh, by the way, they play tenacious defense. If they get some early whistles, does it get in their head. They get frustrated because there were a team it feels like to me, could be out in the first round, could be in the four.
Yeah, listen, let's talk about two teams we just mentioned. I would rather see Saint John's play Alabama than Texas A and M because Texas A and M is gonna be one of those grinders right where Alabama. You're gonna get layups, you're gonna get open shots, you don't have to stand around the three point line and get stifled offensively. So I actually think that would be a better matchup for Saint John's because we saw one team kind of slow Alabama down, and it was Chris Beard and Old Miss that they were able to kind of frustrate them and suffocate them. Saint John's isn't gonna hold them to sixty, but if you hold Alabama to seventy five eighty, you got a chance to win. So I think those are the matchups you're looking for. I don't want to see Saint John's play a team that can take advantage of that poor three point shooting. And I'll say this, it's hard to say this with with transfer portal and everything, but my guess is, if I had to make it, Rick Patino is one year away, I wouldn't want to be anybody who has to play Saint John's next year because he knows where his weaknesses are and he's gonna go out and fix those. I think they're gonna be scary good next year.
Wow.
Interesting, so by Saint john Stock regardless of what happens in this tournament, I kind of like that, let's go to disappointments. Baylor has one of the best freshmen in the country, the kid Edgecombe. They've got what everybody believes to be a good coach, and Scott Drew. I don't get it. They've lost four of six. Do they have work to do to get into the dance?
Yeah. So here's the thing, Jason, we didn't know how the transfer portal and all this stuff was gonna work with different coaches until you know, we're finally starting to see it. I'll tell you two coaches who have struggled with it, Scott Drew and Bill Self. They don't have good teams. They have a couple of good players, but you know it's I watched Baylor and I'm like, man, when they won the National championship. Remember that defense, Remember how suffocating those guards were. Where's it been? They just I don't know. I don't think he has a good mix of players. I was kind of high on Bailor coming into the season. They are a lot worse than I thought they were gonna be. I just I don't see how this team makes a run to figet.
In interesting losing ljcry Did they have LJ Cryer?
Yes? Yeah?
That, and I thought Jeremy Roach would be very good. That the former Duke point guard who feels like he's been in college since like the nineties.
Yeah, he hasn't.
Really, he hasn't been great.
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to listen live.
Speaking of transfers, who hasn't been great? Dude, I need you to come clean with me. The Connecticut Huskies picked up who I thought was one of the best point guards on the West Coast, Aiden Mahoney, from Saint John. I'm sorry, Saint Mary's. Not only has Saint Mary's been incredible this season, they got better, but he's barely playing at Yukon, and then you hear Hurley come out this week and say, yeah, half my team's entering the portal. Do we know what happened with Aida Mahoney's or stuff behind the scenes. I'm not aware of.
The Only thing I can think of is he's got the Brady Hoak syndrome. You know. Listen that Brady Hope was a great coach at like Ball State in San Diego State. Then he got to Michigan and it was a disaster. That's a thing sometimes, right, like we don't know how these guys are going to perform. I mean, look at that schedule. Yukon plays right out of conference. It's a step up. Saint Mary's doesn't play that schedule. And listen the team they do play, Gonzaga, it's not good. Like Gonzaga is dripping with athletes, you know, like the kind of athletes he's going to see at Yukon. So that would be the only thing I would say is sometimes these transfers are going to be hit or miss because they're taking a step up in class.
Yeah, he was taking as many threes in like a game for Saint Mary's ten eleven, twelve, thirteen, as he's taking in like a month with the Huskies. Now I hear he didn't want to commit to playing a lot of defense, which is not great for a guy like Hurley. By the way, where are you on Hurley? He's he's got back to back titles. But I don't know Thomas this at this like anger, the yelling, and it's just a little unseemly.
No, Yeah, it's odd, you know, like it's one of like he's already proven himself. He's won back to back championships and the most dominant stretch I've ever seen. You know that games haven't even been close. You think that, like I get like having a chip on your shoulder, But I don't know. It's an odd some of the things he said this year to officials and like being the best coach. It's weird, like it's I don't know, he doesn't have to act that way.
Yeah, almost like he's just a jerk.
All right.
I need his sleepers outside of the Ken Palm top forty, so that rules out like Arkansas, Ohio State, Creighton, whatever, outside of the top forty. I'm just trying to target some teams that maybe I want to circle when the brackets come out. The problem is, I don't know if a ton of these teams are going to make the tournament. Indiana has some work to do right to get in.
Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you a team I like, and I bet them a couple of times here in the last week. I think they're going to be in as Xavier. They lost a ton of close games early in the early middle of the season, and they had injuries. I think they found themselves. Now that's a team who can score, they can shoot, so I think they're gonna be interesting. I'm just looking here down down the line, you know, trying to find a good one for it.
They got seven straight wins and they got a good coach in Miller. Tough draw in Marquette at the Garden on Thursday.
I don't know too.
I haven't paid that close attention to Xavier, but uh I will flag it certainly. I think uh South Carolina in the SEC now they would need a major run. They need to win the SEC tournament. But at times, man, this team has looked decent, right Yeah, I.
Hope they don't look decent tomorrow because I like Arkansas against.
You're at Arkansas talk all that's.
That that's a team that's just that's just it. They're in a transition year in a tough conference. They'll be better next year. You know. The other team, if you're looking outside the top forty, you know, I think they're probably in that have to win a couple of games in their tournament is New Mexico only because the guard play. They were a hot pick last year, remember, and Clemson smashed them.
They have masburgskid or something.
Yeah, and they still have a really good guard. They rebound the ball well, they might people might have been a year or two early on New Mexico.
New Mexico. Yeah, I would need to drill down on them a little bit. It looks like they're not a lock for the tournament.
No, oh, they still got a little work to do.
Yeah, I am just curious to you know. NCAA tournament obviously one of the I think it's the greatest event in sports every year, better than the Super Bowl because it's a month. The only thing the top said is the World Cup for me. But here's my thing. There's all this chatter about expanding the tournament, Thomas, here's my thing. I like expanding the college football playoff, but We're going from like four to eight to twelve. You know in that area, that's fine. Even sixteen, I don't think is the end of the world. Is there any way to do the NCAA Tournament expanded without it being really, really dumb?
I don't think so. Listen, this was the people can say they didn't like the expansion college football playoffs. This is the first time in my lifetime we crowned a real champion. Two and four teams isn't crowning a champion? Right? We have enough teams in the NC Double A tournament. This would obviously just be a money grab. But I'm sorry, I don't need to see Rutgers and Syracuse in the NC Double A Tournament. I just don't we have enough teams. You get that first four team every now and then who makes a little run. That's fun, But it's a perfect system. I don't think you have to mess with it.
Oh, speaking of Rutgers, I'm glad you brought them up. They have two of the best freshmen in the country. Everybody who's excited. Ron Harper's kid, Dylan Harper, and then Ace Bailey. Both of them are gonna be top five at worst, Top ten picks in the draft and Rutgers has been awful. I don't understand it now. I haven't watched enough Rutgers to know. I just monitored them early. I was like, these guys are losing to Kennesaw State Princeton, and at that point I knew, Okay, they're in trouble. I mean, what the hell's wrong with these guys. I mean, they got two of the best players flat out in the country and they can't win games. What happened there?
You want to know my theory on college basketball. Anybody whoever hears me analyze games, you never hear me talk about players. I just don't think they matter that much. You can't have like like listen Cooper, Flag is different obvious I'm talking about in general. Both these kids are good, but they don't have anybody to play defense, they don't have anybody to rebound, they don't have a three point shooter. So they didn't construct their team right. For college basketball. It's great to have two good players, but if you're giving up eighty five points a game, they're not going to score enough. And I just think college is different than the NBA. You have to construct it a certain way. And have for kinds of players, guys who are never gonna play at the next level, but do things in college that you need to be successful. And Rutgers has two good players and a bunch of guys who probably shouldn't be on the court.
Yeah.
No, that's a great point. All right, we can wrap up with this. So a couple years ago, who was it that San Diego State went to the Final four? There was another team in that tournament that got in. There was fa Fau. Okay, last year, NC State with an improbable run. Listen, Thomas, I know everybody's gonna lean chalk, but there's gotta be someone now. Obviously when the draw comes out. But even when the draw came out, nobody at NC State nobody had San Diego State. People didn't have them. I need some sort of look the hell out they're coming out of nowhere. Whether it's a Creighton, you see San Diego, I don't know. There's got to be someone out there who you like more than the market.
Yeah, I'll give you a couple I gave you. I think that's a team that if they get hot offensively in the right bracket and one of those SEC teams. I was talking about that could be dangerous outside of the conference. Is Georgia. I like Georgia all year. They got a couple of guards who can play, they defend, they rebound, so and my other one out of the SEC is Old Miss. When they play that their best game has shown they can go and beat the premier teams in the SEC. And I think that out of all the teams once they get out of that conference, if you're a one seed and Old Miss is in that eight nine game, I would be concerned because that's a team that can pull a big upset. Wow.
All right, listen, it's all about the SEC. I don't know if you're are you multiple bracket guy or just a one bracket guy.
I do one main one and then I do a couple others.
Right, Okay, So I like to spread my seed. I'm like ten bracket guy, enter as many contests as possible, and I think this is the year where you know, you could theoretically have like three SEC teams in the final four in multiple brackets and maybe you know it hit sixty six two out of three. There.
Yeah, it's again. I've gotten burnt in the past falling in love with the SEC because I'm an old UNLV guy. I love athletic teams who press and you know, and get out and transition. But this year, I think these teams are legit good, you know, the ones at the top. I mean, you could see a Kentucky get upset or something that, you know, if they don't play defense, if they end up playing Yale or somebody like that. Sure, but I think overall it's definitely the best conference. Yeah, all right.
Thomas Casale find his stuff CBS Sports Line, a lot of picks. He likes Arkansas today obviously, as we're recording this on Tuesday, he likes Arkansas playing on Wednesday. Thomas, thanks a lot man, great luck in the tournament.
Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
