The Jason Smith Show with Mike HarmonAaron Torres & Jason Martin (in for Jason Smith and Mike Harmon) open this 'Best Of' edition of the show with their immediate thoughts and reactions to Duke taking down UNC in the ACC tournament after the Tar Heels almost completed a massive comeback. That leads into a discussion on March Madness in general, as the guys peek ahead to who's in and who's out! College hoops bracketologist Rocco Miller joins the show to weigh in with his own thoughts and help the guys look ahead to the tournament. Plus, should Cooper Flagg's ankle injury affect his decision on whether to enter the NBA draft this year?
Thanks for listening to the best of the Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmon podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Welcome in, everybody, Fox Sports Radio. This is the Jason Smith Show. Jason Smith and Mike Harmon are out this evening errors Jason Martin taking the up till two am Eastern Time. We are broadcasting live from the tyreck dot Com studios tyrack dot com. We'll help you get there an unmatched election, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection, and over ten thousand recommended installers tirack dot com the way tire buying should be. Jason and will be back Monday. We are filling in all evening long. Jason Martin, what's going on, buddy? How are you doing well?
Man? I know it's your time of year, my time too.
It's been fun It's been a lot of good basketball today, some crazy comeback that we just watched, and even the nightcap, there's some good stuff here and sets up for what really should be a fun weekend. And then on top of that, well, I was going to say, there was a pretty enticing NBA matchup, but Luca's not playing and Lebron's not in it, so I guess we don't have to pay attention to that one quite as much. But at least the NFL was here with all sorts of weird moves as well.
All I know about the Lakers Nuggets game, it was obviously circled.
We knew you were coming in.
I walked into the beautiful Fox Sports Radio ty Rex studios here, and when I came into studio, I saw Bronnie James on the court, and that was when I was like, yeah, I don't think this is one we're gonna have to monitor all that closely. So, yeah, the Lakers are actually up twenty nine to twenty four on the Nuggets, and yeah, you know, if Bronni goes for fifty, maybe we'll talk about it. Other than that, I don't know that it's gonna be at the top of the priority list. Obviously, Lebron is out for a few weeks here with the strain groin. Luca is not playing. But we got Walla wall basketball, j Mart. Let's see here in the three TVs that I currently have on, we're efforting a fourth TV right now. I got Alabama Kentucky top top twenty matchup in the SEC SEC Tournament in Nashville. I got you kon Creighton, two time defending champ against a top twenty five team in Creighton at the Big East Tournament. I got Arizona, Texas Tech at the Big Twelve Tournament.
You're gonna have Clemson in Louisville here in a minute.
Any second now, we'll get Clemson Louisville, less Bronni more Clemson.
Please.
I never thought i'd say that about Clemson basketball, but here we are. I'm gonna say something a little controversial one like you said. Listen, it's a fun time a year for everybody. You know, Dan Byron and I were talking last night. It's just a fun time. Everybody fills out a bracket. Everybody's got takes, everybody's got their style of doing things.
Everybody, you know, some.
People pick the mascots and some people pick the I'd rather vacation here or there, But you know, I'll say this is that as great as next week is the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament four straight days. I truly believe we are currently in the midst of, in my opinion, the two best days on the sports calendar.
Let me explain why first two days are good.
And it's like picking between chocolate ice cream and vanillaiscam.
You can't make a wrong decision.
And whenever I say this, I never want to preface like, oh, once I get that bracket, I'm out, don't care. Don't love college No, I love college troops. Okay, but I just bring it up because daylight today you get all the best teams. So first of all, of course, opening rounds of the NCAA Tournament, you're not gonna get Duke, Houston, Auburn, Florida, Tennessee all in one day. But now you're talking about Thursday Friday. Really you can include Wednesday and Saturday as well. You get all the best teams. You get teams playing really good teams. Whereas look next Thursday Friday, a Duke's gonna get a one seat and a Duke's gonna get a sixteen seed, an Alver's gonna get a sixteen seed, and it's still fun, but it's not the same. You get all these teams back to back days, teams that know each other. I mean, I know that Duke is without Cooper Flag, but Duke playing a team that they just beat by twenty five on the road and it comes down to the final play tonight. It's just a really fun time of year. And I'm here to tell you I think the Thursday Friday a championship week, for my money, are the two best days on the sports calendar.
J Martin, am I crazy for saying that?
I mean, that's a bold, big statement. I understand your point, and I like the fact that you talk about all the big teams playing, but you're also having teams playing that are familiar with one another because they've seen each other, they understand the programs. There's rivalries, there's built in stuff, the chaos of March. Even though you know you're gonna have the one sixteen to two fifteen all that kind of stuff, you're also gonna have like sort of weird things that these teams haven't seen before. So sometimes it can be kind of ragged. But here you've got tradition, rivalry, fan bases that don't like each other, or fan bases that have some kind of mutual respect, but you have buildings that are full of similar kinds of people when it comes to those universities and those schools, and just the familiarity that breeds the contempt and.
Breeds the pride. I like it the only thing.
I guess because I grew up where I grew up, Morn, Virginia, but grew up in Winston Salem, and you know, went to the ACC Tournament ninety five final with my dad, probably one of my greatest sports memories, which was the overtime wake Forest North Carolina game with Tim Duncan and Randolph Childress against that great North Carolina team.
I think it was just because that ACC.
Tournament back when I was growing up in the late eighties into the nineties was so special and so huge that it just doesn't feel.
That big to me anymore.
Sure, and maybe that's why I don't have quite the same feeling. But I got a little bit of it today, Like today it felt a little bit more.
My dad never took off work. My dad took off.
Work for the AEC tournament every year, not to go necessarily, but to sit home and watch, and so we would watch the games together and things like that. I would still have to go to school most of the time, but you know that's all right. If he wanted to, if he loved me a little bit more, you would let me sit out. And no, I'm just kidding, absolutely not. But it was always fun. But I think the when you go sports calendar, that's just opening up a completely different argument. But I know what you're saying, and I understand what you're saying, and I do love the fact that you have wall to wall basketball with you know, good teams that know each other a little bit, and there's a little bit of pride and a little bit extra. I don't care as much about who wins these tournaments as much as just kind of the the like drive to compete that you see and some of these big schools that aren't used to being on the bubble that you know, have to find a way to do something in these tournaments to get in. I think that's special too.
Well, we're gonna talk about one of those schools that did have to here in just a minute, but let me. You know, we're gonna bring in the crew a little bit later in the show to kind of talk about best days on the sports calendar. But I'm just curious from your perspective. I mean, this is a fun show. By the way, people can always tweet in Aaron Underscore tours J Mart Radio at J Mart Radio as well. What are your favorite days on the sports calendar? But if you had to power rank them, J Mart outside of this college basketball, because there's so many good ones, you know, Sunday of the Masters, opening day of Major League Baseball, what are some of those that are on your sports calendar that you look forward to? And then also, you know there's nothing really at stake for most of these teams playing today, But where do you put today and yesterday and tomorrow as these conference tournaments ramp up as far as great days on the counter for you.
Yeah, I mean I'm not sure it would have been a lot higher. Like I said back in the day, Number one for me is going to be Master Sunday as a huge golf and but just generally the drama involved and what it means to win that tournament. I would even put the US Open Sunday as well love it as well. Divisional round of the NFL playoffs, not the wildcard, but the divisional where you still have a few more games, but you got the one seeds in the buy is over. You've kind of maybe separated the week from the chaff a little bit more. I feel like that's that's one that I just get completely and totally geeked up for. I'm much I'm much more keen on the Sweet sixteen. Th I am the Thursday and Friday even I love the Thursday and Friday. The NCAA tournament go ahead.
No, I'm curious, why do you say that.
I don't know.
There's just again, some of the schools that just didn't really you know, the sixteens and fifteens that weren't going to be the upset teams are kind of out of it. You've sifted through a little bit more, but you still have a lot more basketball. Like I'd love the Elite eight, I truly do, but Sweet sixteen, I'm still getting a few more games in that week on that Thursday and Friday, So I like that. I think that's part of it is just when I can go channel to channel and get all of that and I do think that's one of the advantages of this, and I think that's why this could be higher, and why you've made a good argument. It's because I've literally just not had anywhere to go today where there hasn't been basketball. Even when some of the tournaments here that I'd been watching throughout the course of the day had stepped aside.
To set up for the evening, I was able to go.
Watch Saint John's Marquette like and that was, you know, solid for a while. So I think there's I do think that it's it's high are up on the list, maybe than I would have thought. Open A day of baseball is fun. The only problem with I love I love baseball. The only problem with that is again, one hundred and sixty two games. It's just there's so much that you have to watch at that point. I would also say Christmas Day NBA would have been there. Sure, I don't know that it still has the same effect, but it's still it still probably deserves to be mentioned. And then there's a few that I wish were there the way that I used to feel about them, but I haven't felt about them that way in a while, And that would be something like the Wimbledon final, you know, Sunday morning at Wimbledon, the semi finals of the US Open, where you get a couple of matchups there to set up a final. So I mean there's I think there's a there's a number of different ones. It just depends on where you come from as to where you land. But the top of my list is I think always going to be master Sunday. And then you know, you know me, and you know my background, you know what I did for a living for a while, So wrestle Mania Saturday and Sunday.
Are going to be up there too.
It was WrestleMania in the NBA this year when Luca got traded on WrestleMania Night or was that a different royal rumble? Okay, I let's get those two confused. Yeah, fun, I'll say this is it. You know, wherever, wherever, you know, wherever, whatever ranks a top of your list. I do think today is in the short conversation. The other thing too about today, like all the leagues have all the best teams playing where it's like even yesterday was awesome. And I think I did say previously that the Thursday of conference shaption week's my favorite day. But like the SEC has had four really good teams didn't play yesterday the Big.
Ten as well, and yeah, we uh we got wall. How about this.
We're in the Fox Sports Radio studios, the Geico or excuse excuse me, the Tire Rack studios, and uh, I don't even have the Big Ten Tournament on. I don't even have uh, the Mountain West Tournament on because that is how many games are going on right now. Atlabama up six against Kentucky, now eight, Creighton up seven against Yukon as they head towards halftime, Arizona trailing Texas Tech by one. Clemson Louisville has just tipped off Clemson up by five.
Fox Sports Radio. This is the Jason Smith Show.
Jason and Mike are out Aeron Torres and Jason Martin are filling until two a m. Eastern time. So what we're gonna do. We're going to come back. When we do, we got to talk about you know, we talked about the greatness of today not so great the North Carolina tar Heels crazy finish, crazy ending, but was it also the ending to their season? We'll discuss that next. This is the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, Aeron Torres, and Jason martin In.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Welcome back, everybody, Fox Sports Radio.
Mark.
One thing you can't say about Alex Tyshert. This guy's got the memory of an elephant.
Man he knows, Man, he knows.
This is, by the way, The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon, Jason and microre out Erin Torris, Jason Martin are in. But this is Jason Martin's favorite song. It is and out of the first break, you didn't even wait till.
No, no, no, you said right off the top.
I need to let j Martin know how much he means to this show, in this network and to me personally.
You know, iron My family's from outside the country, and we treat y'all like family when you're a guest.
So you guys are first, Okay, Well, your good guy, Alex Tyshert.
We appreciate you. We like having you. Mary Mack on the weekends. Can't get hurt or doing no I'm kidding Mary, Mary. We love Mary.
We love Mary.
So this is though the Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmer. Jason and Mike are out erin Torris. Jason Martin are in taking you up till two am Eastern time, and there is so much college hoops, such a fun night, such a fun night, at least if you're literally anyone other than a North Carolina fan. Okay, so you know, listen, we won't do a ton of bracket breakdowns here, but North Carolina is obviously a blue blood program and they came into this afternoon, this evening in a very precarious situation. Okay, so North Carolina, everybody knows the history, you know, it's easy to forget now. They actually won the ACC regular season title last year, made the Sweet sixteen, but not a great year. They came into this evening twenty two and twelve, and for people don't follow bracketology on a day to day basis, they were basically right on that cut line of one of the first few teams in, one of the first few teams out last few teams in however you want to describe it.
Okay, don't have much.
Of a resume, played a lot of really tough teams don't have any great wins to speak of. One great win. They beat UCLA, that's it. But they played Alabama, they played Auburn, they played Michigan State, they played Duke twice, including this past Saturday, and they lost.
So if you ask most bracketologists, they.
Would sit there and tell you that Carolina probably needed a win to get in today. And it was I don't want to quite say it was a win and you're in losing, you're out. But you ask the people that do this stuff on a day to day basis, that's certainly the way that it seemed. Well, I bring it up because Carolina for most of this game was trailing by quite a wide margin, as much as twenty four points of one Jay. But before we even get to the ending, I'll be real, we mentioned how awesome this day is, how many things are going on, and I kind of this one got lost in the rotation. Like you said, I was watching Saint John's Marquette. I was watching Florida and the SEC Network, and all of a sudden, it's time for me to come in studio. It's about a six to seven point game. Well, I bring it up because fellas do we have. I just want to make sure I sneath thumbs up. Okay, perfect, So I bring it up because Carolina cuts.
The lead all the way down to one, seventy two to seventy one. They go to the.
Free throw line for two free throws. They missed the first free throw, then the second free throw with a chance to tie it. We have both calls. If we have the Duke call first, that would be great touch.
This second one is on the way.
It's a lane violation.
He made it, but where they's stepped in the lane, it's it's herdover hand. The Blue level lead stand seventy two to seventy one with four point one to go, where there's got an early start and the Blue Levels still lead by one.
So you heard it right there, Duke Radio Network again one point game one free throw to tie the game for Carolina trailing by one, a lane violation.
That was the Duke side. We might as well play the North Carolina side.
Moving to tie the game with four point one.
The second free throw is.
Good violation on whether it's we're moving early kidding me.
There is a lane violation on Jalen Withers.
He finked like he was going to go before the shot was taken, and you're not allowed to make any movements before.
The SHOT's taken, so you can hear quite literally the throw of victory the agony of defeat.
There.
Duke obviously gets the ball back, they make two free throws, they win, seventy four to seventy one. First of all, J mart again, I was driving in when this all happened, but I bring it up because I guess there was maybe a little controversy online. It looks like a clearest cut lane violation to me, you don't want that to happen in that moment. But did you have like a did you have a fundamental issue with the call itself at all?
Not necessarily.
I mean, there was the Duke player next to him moved his arm a little bit towards him, and I thought maybe that kind of caused him to jump, But that's just something you can't do. And it was so clear and obvious, like they didn't even have to show the replay as it happened live, even before the whistle blew.
I said, oh no, and then immediately you heard.
The whistle, so it was it was clear and obvious. I don't know if he was made it into it by the arm or not. But no, I really don't have a problem with it. It's it's a you hate that that call gets made in that moment, but it had to be like there was no other there was no other choice there.
I don't think you could. I don't think you can do anything but call that call.
That yeah moment.
It was funny you and producer Ian were texting me while I was driving in and just when you hear lane violation, I just defaulted to, you know, you guys said, hey, lane violation, crazy situation. Check out the highlight when you get in, and I defaulted to, well, this must be controversial.
And then, you know, like anybody else would.
In twenty twenty five, I pulled it up on my phone and my thought was like, yeah, that well that definitely sucks.
But that was a laane violation clear as day.
Let me ask you this, j mart So, so I you know, listen, there's a million bracketologies out there. I'm just using ESPN's for the sake of simplicity.
Uh.
North Carolina Come into Today was one of the last four teams in in other words, to playing games in dating on Tuesday and Wednesday, they would be in there. Not gonna ask you to be a bracketologist, whatever, but are you somebody like you? Look at Carolina, they had all they did to their credit. They schedule very tough. They played at Kansas, they played the Maui Invitational where they played the SEC and Big Ten champions in Michigan State in Auburn, they lost to them twice. They lost to each of them. They lost to Alabama, they lost to Florida. They did beat UCLA. But they are sitting here at twenty two and thirteen overall, basically one good win. They lose three to Duke, including one without obviously a first team All American in Cooper Flag, which we'll get into in a minute. Are you somebody that believes like they should get the benefit of the doubt because they're in a power conference? Are you somebody that would rather see a small school with a better record. Do you have any strong opinions on like if this team specifically should or should not be in Yeah.
Not really strong, but they certainly haven't distinguished themselves in a way throughout the course of the season that would make me weep for them or have any sympathy if they don't get in. You know, you have every opportunity and you have every advantage as well if you're North Carolina and you just didn't get it done. And in this moment, just the way that that played out there at the end is like that's almost a microcosm for what North Carolina has felt like over the last couple of seasons, certainly this year. It just it just something's not quite there, something's not quite right when you look at them. I think I saw Lenardi say he still has them in, but he would not want to be one of their fans right now, and I agree with that. I think they're going to be watching with bated breath what happens over the course of the weekend and hope that, you know, nothing happens that might elevate somebody above them, because this you hate this to be the lasting impression on the committee. Although look, you're down twenty something and you've fought back like at that when they were down twenty one. I just said, man, I can't believe how far North Carolina feels like it's fall as a program right now. And I was immediately starting to have a thought exercise of what would they compare to in football, Like if I was thinking to college football programs in North Carolina and their tradition and how much basketball means to them there, you know, to watch them kind of in this spot where they're just kind of an afterthought. They just don't it just doesn't matter right now to the rest of the country. The way that it once did is kind of stunning to me. But yeah, I don't know that.
Like I said, I.
Don't have a strong opinion as to whether or not I want to see them in or out. I just am not going to care if they don't make it in because that's going to be on them.
Yeah, I'll just really quickly for people who care about this stuff, I mean, I think the important thing is that one, you know, you have to not only factor in like what they did today and what they've done all season, but the teams around them and what they've done. And so just using the ESPN bracket, you know, the last four and according to Lonardi, San Diego State, which lost in the Mountain West Tournament already, Xavier, which lost in the Big East Tournament admittedly to a good Marquette team, and then Texas, which of course lost earlier in the Day to Tennessee first four out Boise and Colorado State, who will play each other, so one of them will lose Indiana which has already lost to their conference tournament, Dayton, which has already lost in their conference tournament.
So North Carolina if the.
Fans are hoping to get into the tournament, and I'll be real, like you kind of said, at a school like that, I don't know if they even want to be a part of the field of sixty eight. If it's a situation where they basically have to eke in and they haven't really bet in anybody of note, I don't know what the tenor of the fan base is, like, do we just want to get in or are we just ready to start over and start next year.
I don't know that.
But what I would say is, if you actually look at the teams around them, there's a lot of dead weight and a lot of teams that have already lost, and frankly, there's just not a lot of teams that are still playing that could pass them.
So that question, let me ask you this y time, does it change anything that they performed the way that they performed in a Cooper flagless game.
Well, I'll tell you what, why don't we come back and discuss that. We'll discuss that what this means for Carolina, their coaching staff, but also what it means for Duke.
We'll do that in a moment, but first up to Sega. What's Upboddy?
Hello, gentlemen, it's not Saturday? Right, No, we're good.
It's not Saturday.
It's not Sunday because Arizona basketball is playing well as we speak.
So no Harney Spanners nowhere to.
Go one either.
Once again, that's Arizona basketball there, Thank you, thank you very much.
Let's update the college hoops on Fox TV tonight. The Big East Tournament semifinals one seed Saint John's beat Marquette seventy nine sixty three, about to start the second half in a late game, creating ahead of Yukon forty six to thirty five. Yes, Number one Duke over North Carolina and the ACC Tournament semis seventy four seventy one. Duke had led early second half fifty two to twenty eight with four seconds left. Carolina was close, had the tie free throw waved off due to a lane violation. Clemson Loisville's a late game. Clemson up late first half twenty three to twenty one. And in the Big Twelve tournament semifinals, one seed Houston all over BYU seventy four to fifty four, Arizona leeds late first half thirty five thirty four over Texas Tech.
In the Big Ten, it's a quarter final night.
The late game has Michigan ahead early second half against Purdue fifty four to forty five, already wins for one seed.
Michigan's date two seed.
Maryland and Wisconsin absolutely threed Ucla to dead.
It was like, oh, Ucla, they're good.
And that was another one that was about twenty at the half, and Ucla did not make the Carolina runs.
So it was an eighty six to seventy final and it wasn't that close. It was one three pointer after another. They finished by making nineteen three pointers. Most of those were in the first half for the Badgers.
And in fact, our friends at stat saying point this out.
In the last twenty five years of college basketball, how many times have three teammates come fine to take at least a dozen three pointers? Again, Well, the answer is over a million times in these twenty five years. This was the only time that those three teammates made every three pointer.
Wow.
Those three were a combined twelve for twelve, including John Tangi and it was gol Wisconsin. It was an astounding display in the first half. UCLA, I repeat was buried.
Had no chance in the athletic departments be so pissed that they played Tate for flights and hotels just just for that effort.
I thought you could have just forfeited and just said, yeah, we're not gonna show up defense.
Nick Cronin's team stone for d oh, yeah, okay, maybe not today.
SEC Quarterfinals number one over and over Ole, miss sixty two fifty seven. Should i brew twenty three points fifteen rebounds to seed Florida winner tonight against Missouri ninety five eighty one. Alabama leeds Kentucky with about five minutes to go first half thirty three point thirty. Fourth seed Tennessee over Texas eighty three seventy two Today and the one seed in the America Conference, Memphis won its quarterfinal eighty three eighty over Wichita. Iowa fired coach Fran McCaffrey after fifteen years. A reminder selection Sunday to fill out the NCAA tournament field is this Sunday for the men and the women's bracket comes out Sunday night. As far as the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers entered tonight having won fifteen straight games. They won again tonight, winning at Memphis. Despite forty four points from John Morant, Cavs won thirty three one twenty four the final. Houston won its fifth in a row victories for Indiana and Charlotte and Boston is now forty eight and nineteen.
After winning at Miami one oh three to ninety one. The Heat have.
Lost six in a row. The Lakers are actually close at Denver late first half now gets sixty one fifty six the Kolejokich fifteen points.
So far.
The Lakers are missing four injured starters, including Luka, Doncic and Lebron James, who is not watching Bronnie play. He is injured and apparently as permission to leave town and go see his other son in Sacramento at the State High School.
Find oh back to you.
You know this has been a theme on our Saturday show. I'll just say this, I want to get back to do Carolina. This just feels like a Lebron James Nostalgia Tour season. Now his team just so happened to trade for one of the five best players on the planet. Coincidental there, but the Bronny thing. You know, remember Bronni wasn't with the team and then he flew out specifically to Cleveland to play in Cleveland.
Now in the middle of the season. I mean, listen, I understand you have kids.
I'm not trying to be all lebron has no right to be a great bother which by all accounts it.
Is supposed to be rehabit. He's kind of not with the team, he's kind of flying to see his.
On I don't know, it's just a little and Bronni is active tonight and has one basket because without him they would have nine healthy players on the roster team. By the way, one NFL note Seattle is citing wide receiver Cooper cumpact.
We will get to NFL Hour two to sag You're gonna need your help on a segment. I got a very special segment cooked up for the top of the hour. I'll just I'll give you some details in just a moment. This is though the Jason Spins Show with Mike Harmon Jason Smith and Mike Harmon are out. Aaron Torres and Jason Martin are in. We are broadcasting live from the Tireck dot Com studios. By the way, don't have the right team on your court. Express Employment Professionals can help from contract placements to full time hires.
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Visit expresspros dot Com today and let us handle your hiring so you can focus on growing your business. All right, So, jmart I think you wanted to switch gear. So we were talking about Duke Carolina for people who missed it. Duke number one team of the country coming into the week. Cooper Flag gets hurt in the quarterfinal on Thursday. He did not play carolinup essentially needed again. It feels unfair to say winning you're in losing your out, but when it certainly helps your resume lose you actually don't have much of a resume and you're basically hoping that your resume sucks just a little bit less and everybody else on the bubble. So there's a few different angles to go to, JMR, But which one specifically did you want to hit on?
I apologize, I just wanted.
To know how it affected, you know, Carolina still loses even though Cooper Flag doesn't play. Does that affect you if you're making a decision in that room that I mean, I think it changes something the effort that they came back and didn't just get beat by twenty some points. Even with the ridiculous way that the game ends for them self inflicted wounds and all that, I still think that that's a that's a positive in their book, that they didn't just go away like they fought back in that game with a lot of pride and showed something down the stretch. But truth of the matter, I mean, what was it seventy five percent? I think I saw the tickets started coming in on Carolina in terms of the spread the minute that Cooper Flag was ruled out of that game something like that. So I just I just wonder how that affects like losing to Duke by one, losing to Duke by three, whatever it is, that's not that's never going to be a bad loss generally. But this was not a full This was not the Duke team that was expected to come into the a SEC tournament either.
Yeah, listen, again, we're not bracketologists, and you know, maybe we should have tried harder, and that's on me, not on anybody else to get one on today's show. But the only reason I bring it up is because I did hear Lenardi say something interesting. And to be clear, there's a lot of great bracketologists not trying to sit there and say that, you know, he's the only one we should listen to. We have good ones at Fox Sports Radio as well, you know Mike de course, he does a great job for Fox Sports.
But I bring it up because all I know is I heard Leonardi say this during halftime. I thought it was.
Interesting, is everybody is focusing on or coming into the day, everybody was focusing on what does a win over Duke without Cooper flag mean, Like should it be held in the same regard as beating Duke because they're obviously without potentially the National Player of the year, certainly a first team All American. And I heard Leonardi say this, and I thought it was interesting. He said that he felt it was actually the opposite is that if you don't win that it would be looked upon somewhat poorly, because again, Duke is nowhere close to one hundred percent. And so for me with Carolina, you know, My only real thought is one, it certainly doesn't help without Cooper flag, it certainly doesn't help. And then two, it's just you just look at the resume. There's not much there and it's not anybody's fault, but it's just a reality. The ACC also stinks, and that doesn't help either, as far as you just didn't have very many good chances in the conference to get quality wins, and so you don't get quality wins in the out of conference. You don't get quality wins in conference, and then you have the chance to be duke and you can't capitalize. So you know, again, there's still games that are going to decide certain things. I mentioned Colorado State and Boise State are both deemed to be bubble teams and they are playing later this evening at the Mountain West Tournament. There's a couple other results that are yet to be in. And then if you're a Carolina fan, I guess the positive is most of the other teams on the bubble have already lost. All those teams in the SEC Texas Laws today, Oklahoma the other day, vander Built, Arkansas, et cetera. But I will say I do think it's you know, I think it would have been seen more as a pot. I think it's a bigger negative that they couldn't win than it would have been a positive even if they had one. If that makes any sense at all.
Yeah, it does, It definitely does. Yeah.
It was almost like, you can't lose here, but even if you win, you're going to kind of lose in a way because they're going to be able to They're gonna be able to put kind of the asterisk next to and say, well, you beat Duke, but did you really beat Duke? But the fact that you actually lose the game that was where it was just is that going to end up costing them in the end. But to your point earlier, a lot of the other teams that are sitting on the bubble as well did nothing to help their cause. And then Carolina with that comeback, maybe they're in a little bit better shape and there they are going to find a way to eat weekend. But it's just going to feel odd if we're watching North Carolina playing you know, Tuesday, yeah, or something like that, that's just not going to feel right at all.
I'll equally say this, it'll be interesting to think about what would happen if one, if they don't make the tournament.
Two would they a few years ago?
If you remember they did not make the tournament, they don't accept the NIT invite.
Now what do they do?
This is year four for Hubert Davis, So why don't we come back talk a little bit about the Hubert Davis side of things and also duke any concerns without Cooper Flag, we'll discuss that. Next to is The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon. Jason and Micro out air tours are in Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific.
Tell you what want to go straight to the phone lines is college hoops season brackets are going to be out, as Steve de Sager just told you coming on Sunday, and we got to get you caught up on everything that you need to know going into the weekend. Friday games are almost so to do. So we're gonna go to the hotline. Roco Miller, bracketologist for the Field of sixty eight, joins us.
Rocco. First of all, are you at a game right now? Are you at a game right now.
Always a great question. You know, I get out there all season long and go to see a lot of these leagues play. I have a vast interest in all thirty one leagues, So great question. I did get back late yesterday from Vegas. We'll slow start this morning, but got caught up quickly and we got a lot of important games still going on here late on Friday night. So I'm going to be locked in here in the home office until the bracket comes out. We'll be doing the show reacting to all the picks live me and Jeff Goodman on Sunday, so you know this season, the next two days will fly by. I can't be distracted in the arena anymore, unfortunately.
All right, fantastic, So I'll just let's put aside. How Carolina and Duken, Jason and I have talked about it for the last half hour. Was it like, give us the context? Was this winning you're in losing your out for Carolina? Is it more complicated than that? How do you view what happened in Charlotte with North Carolina today?
Yeah, that's an interesting question because we have to be mindful of the fact that in the selection committee room, these are humans that ultimately vote on teams, and they might be coming from very different places. We know who the chairman of the committee is this year is the black director, Bubba Cunningham at North Carolina. So with just all of those dynamics, and again like Cunningham can't be in the room when they talk about North Carolina, we get all that. But these guys have been together since Tuesday. I was with Stu Jackson late Monday night in Vegas. He's on the committee and he had to be there Tuesday morning. He wasn't even at the Gonzaga Saint Mary's championship game. So that just goes to show they've had a long week together already. And when you do that. I served multiple mock committees this year myself just recently, and you just naturally human human in nature, you start to like the people around you.
You know who.
Represents who, and I think that can only help North Carolina. Now that's why they're going to be very interesting heading in the Sunday. That's where the complication comes from that you might have been hinting at. I think when you look at the resume itself, it's really difficult to put them in. They're one in twelve and their thirteen hardest games in the quad one. I understand that like eight of those twelve losses are against some of the very elite teams of the country. Three of them against Duke, They played Auburn, they played Michigan State, they played you know, they played Florida. So they have a lot of teams that they had to play. They scheduled the fifth hardest in the country. There's a place for them that the committee decides, so you know, all the other results that are perfect. Besides the home loss to Stanford, between Quads two and three, they won fifteen times. So they built a metric this year, or it's been out there for a while, but it's finally on the team chief for and c DOAA purposes. It's called wins above bubble. And part of the purpose of that is because all of those lower level wins for teams that don't have as many teams in their league where they get the constant opportunities at the top, they still have to matter and they have to mean something. They add up to something. And that number is has North Carolina forty second best in the country as of today, that would be within range of selection you want to be in the top forty five. So if some of the members are looking at that strongly to try to figure out what to do with them, you could see Carolina squeak in. But I think in terms of bringing wins to the table, like significant and multiple wins against the field, they're in deep trouble because they only have the one win over UCLA and nothing else against the team that's actually going to be in the field.
Texas didn't beat Tennessee, even though I mean it looked good for the first half and then the second half, it just kind of win awry. As I think maybe you expected when you saw as the kay Ziggler done nothing in the first half, you kind of assumed that wouldn't stay that way.
But did they have to win that game to get in.
I know you had that out in your bracket to your website there, but I wanted to double check and just see if some of the things that you've seen in some of these other tournaments have given them any life.
Yeah. So Texas's situation is very unique just due to the fact that there's been a little bit of a precedent set over the years. You know, we've only seen five brackets, something that got introduced in the quad system that got introduced, and so one of the things that's been a good trend and a good rule of thumb that I've learned from the committee is that if you just take away the Quad four record, what's their effective record? Because most of those Quad four games, especially for us coorect Texas, are just easy wins. And their record now after the loss today is twelve and fifteen. So it's really far out of bounds. And that's why I'm pretty far out on Texas. The other thing I'll mention for them real quick is, you know, a few years back we're calling Sexton played for Alabama, and there was a really impressive Vanderbilt team around that same time frame, I want to say twenty eighteen, maybe twenty nineteen. They both got in with fifteen losses. Because they have eat number one seeds, number two seeds. They had a ridiculous collection of wins at the top of their resume. This Texas team does not have that. They needed this Tennessee win just to have something in that area. Their best road win was Mississippi State, which is a good roadwin, but they're like an eight or nine seed that's it's not top of the board level went away from home. So if you're gonna lose that many times the committee had told us over and over again, you better have some extraordinary victories on your resume, Texas quite easily does not have that. So I don't think they're going to hear their name.
Called for Rocko Miller joining US bracketologists for Field of sixty eight as well as bracketeer dot com. Real quick, not real quick. We got plenty of time here, but Rocco back to Duke and Carolina. And this was a question j Martin and I were talking about earlier, and I don't know the answer, side be curious for.
You to answer it.
Carolina playing Duke without Cooper flag like like like if they had one. Do they get less credit because Cooper flag is not on the court? Do they get Are they dinged even more because Duke was less than one hundred percent?
Or are they are?
Is the committee truly looking at what is supposed to be a quote unquote blind resume and who's playing who doesn't?
Is it doesn't really matter to them? That makes sense?
It does? It does? And I'll just say this, It's discussed in the room that and it's well known in the room who's available and who's not available, and that goes back to any game that happened throughout the season. It's not just today. I think today it impossible not to know that. Right if you're watching any channel, it's being talked about, so you know. And the way the community approaches that is it gets discussed, it gets introduced, and then it's up to each individual member on what it means. I think the one thing I caution about taking it too deep is just because Cooper flagged and Brown were not available, that doesn't mean and I'm just kind of playing it out for you, if North Carolina would have won one, it doesn't mean that Duke would have wanted to add them. You can't prove that. So the result is still the most important thing. But you can take, you know, any of that information to your consideration process for whatever that's worth. So for me being not inside the room, but also having a lot of good context over what these committees do each year, I just basically have to treat at par and square because so much of that is sub subjectivity and it's the results typically speak for themselves. And I also would say you know we saw Duke. I know they played Georgia Tech, but when when Cooper flag went down, they were down by I think nine points and ended up kind of starting to slowly take control of that game and end up being plus seventeen without flag yesterday. So I think what they taught the committee and they taught me and Brown went down a little bit later, I believe is that this is a darn deep team, and even if you're beating Duke without those two, it's a really impressive win. So I would I would just answer the question by simply saying they would have gotten enough credit to get in.
What do you think about the SEC writ large right now? I mean, obviously they've been.
Stellar throughout the season.
The only thing that I have wondered is, because we've seen so much of them playing against each other, is there an over Is there any risk of overvaluing them? Do you think anybody in that conference is going to get overseated or are they as good as advertised?
That's an excellent question because I get a little concerned about that too. Ken Ken Pom put out a pretty good article I thought a couple of weeks ago about overvaluing the league. Now again, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna discredit anything that the teams at the top are absolutely elite. Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, even Kentucky's got a really dangerous side. Texas a and M brings a football game to the basketball court, you know. So there's a there's a lot of great at the top. But then you see kind of how teams from Mississippi State on down their resumes, and it really kind of starts to irk you because they basically have a nice set of wins against each other, and they did a really strategic job of getting those wins when they were not at home, so they picked up o the best road winds again kind of against each other from Mississippi State down and that's been really interesting to study and examine. And I think everybody's in a little bit of a different spot. I'd say Georgia and Arkansas are in the safest spot of the bubble mix, assuming Mississippi State's pretty safe as well. And then from there it gets interesting because Vanderbilt is a team you know that I actually like on the core. I like the way that Byington built the roster and all that stuff. But that's not what this is about. This is about evaluating the results and how they scheduled well. Out of anybody near the bubble, Vanderbilt by far had the worst schedule three hundred and thirty first in the country by the net non conference schedule measurement. And you may be taught us forever. If you're anywhere near the cut line, you're out with a non conference schedule like that. So just because of that, Vanderbilt, could you know, if we see a couple of bidstill and they could still happen in like the Big West. If Irvine wins, it could happen in the Mount West, if Boise or Colorado State win it. There's a couple others with Memphis, you know, Looming if they don't win it. If some of those spots start to go, Vanderbilt could be in a real jeopardy. I think as it stands now, with no bid steals officially out there yet, they're they're going to be safe and probably up on the ten seed line. But the closer they start to drift into the eleven area, I'd be careful I find the commodores. Then you get into Oklahoma, you could pick Oklahoma apart, inside out and sideways and find ways to keep them out. They only won two road games all year. I know they got a good chunk of resume wins, especially non conference, that make them probably survive this and get in. But there's a lot of reasons you could pull them out too. And then you know, Texas we covered, and I think that's where it stands. So I think, you know, I think they'll get the core in and then Texas will be out and then we're down to Oklahoma or Andy.
Last one for you, Rocko Rocko Miller from Field sixty eight bracketology expert joining us. You know, three number one seeds feel pretty set in Stone Auburn Duke in Houston. My question is a little bit complicated. It's not just who gets it, but there's been this perception, fair or not. And I'm not saying that you would agree with this, but there's been a perception that the games on Sunday don't matter. That basically, you know, Tennessee a few years ago felt like they should have been a seed line higher.
They win the SEC, they don't get credit for it, blah blah blah blah blah.
I bring it up because basically everybody that could get that fourth number one seed, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Michigan State are all playing on Sunday.
I don't even know if there's a question there.
I just feel like, if, like say, Michigan State loses on Sunday and gets the last number one seed and Florida or Alabama wins or something, I just feel like there's gonna be a lot of people pissed. I mean, do you have any thoughts on like, does it actually matter on Sunday or there? You know, I don't want to put like the Committee's not, you know, not even doing anything on Sunday, But there is this perception that the bracket basically gets set on Saturday night and that Sunday results don't matter. And when you have four teams battling for a number one seed that could all be playing Sunday, I just feel like it could get a little bit complicated.
Yeah, it can't get complicated. So you get a couple of answers to that. So one the committee will be pretty much wrapped up with the process. The sixty eight teams will be selected at that time, and then they'll have to build contingency brackets. Some years they have to build as many as twenty brackets. They could actually have to build more than that. They might build only, you know, eight brackets, just depends on how it shakes out. With these potential automatic bids being stolen, they won't know that till late. You got to wait for the Big West, Mountain West, et cetera. Of those leagues I listed already. So there's that part of it, But that's more bubble related concerns for the committee. I would say with the teams this year, I think our four are set regardless of what happens from Saturday on, mainly because Florida and Houston have done plenty enough to lock those spots up. You looked at Florida, they have the two best road wins money can buy. I mean neither Platinum Gold the lead level road winds, both in the state of Alabama. They go to the Jungle and win by nine, shock the world in that win. Then they go to Touscaloosa, one of these teams they theoretically would be competing with for the final one spot, and they won there. So if Florida and Alabama could actually meet on the same side of the bracket, and maybe they are now. That might be done now. But even if Alabama beats them in Nashville, to me, and I think to the committee would agree, it's more impressive either way that Florida won in Tuscaloosa than anything that can happen in Nashville. And then you go a step further and you see that Alabama's lost seven games, Florida's only lost four. I mean, the same vision is pretty much done in my books. And then you look at Houston, a team that's ten and oh true road wins dominated the Big Twelve. They've made it to the final, they have nothing left to prove. They could move to Arizona in the championship game, and I think they're safely in the one spot. And I think Florida and Houston are like three A and three B in the order in the tecond order that could go either way. I've been leaning towards Florida just because, like I said, those two Platinum Gold road winds they got in Alabama and Auburn really make them just kind of show that they can do it at the highest level. Houston's best road wins are really good as well. They've wanted Arizona Texas, Tech, Cansas, etc. But that's not the same as going to Alberta, Alabama. So I'm giving the tiebreaker to Florida, but would not be surprised if it gets slipped by the committee.
That's really interesting.
I haven't heard anybody make the definitive case that Florida, independent of what happens the next day or two, has the spot locked up. Roco Miller Bracketologists four Field of sixty eight. You can follow them on Twitter at Rocko Miller eight. Roco no pressure, But Jay Martin and I are hosting tomorrow and night too, and we'll probably gonna be talking about the exact same things and the exact same teams. So you know, if you're available eight to eleven Pacific, we'd love to have you on again. But we appreciate the time, and you know, stay hydrated, get as much rest as you can these next few days.
Okay, No, I appreciate it. Yees, send me a text tomorrow. We'll see if we can do it again. As we talk to you guys, all right.
That is Roco Miller Field to sixty eight. Make sure to follow him on Twitter at Roco Miller eight. Lot of Bracketology and a lot of results from throughout the day in college basketball. Disaga is gonna come back and get you all of the details on one of the craziest days on the college hoops calendar. Sega's up next. Fox Sports Radio, Welcome Back everybody. Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmen. Jason and Mic are out this evening. Aaron Torres and Jason Martin are in. We are taking you till two am Eastern. We will get to all of the college hoops here throughout the show. By the way, Alabama has extended its lead to eleven against Kentucky heading in the halftime. Craighton pulling away from the Yukon Huskies in the second half.
Ouch, yeah, it's okay.
Listen back to back.
New Man, you can't win every year.
Can't win every year.
I don't know if you saw the Dan Hurley sixty minutes this week, but he basically said that was like after that Maui trip, he was pretty down, and Geno Orima was basically like, if you can only get satisfaction out of hoisting the trophy at the end of every season. Uh yeah, that's literally exactly what Geeno Oriama told him. So I think Dan Hurley even knows this probably isn't his year. They played Saint John's a few weeks ago. By the way, Saint John's advanced to the Biggies Final, first time since.
Two thousand, I believe.
But I watched the press conference after the second Saint John's game when Saint John's just boat raced him, and you could tell Dan Hurley was like, yeah, that's just a much better team than I have right now. And so so yeah, so we're talking college hoops. So well, we'll get to the NFL by the way, top of next hour. We had a fun little segment that you guys will guys and girls will enjoy across the country really quick, you know, putting a bow on some of this college hoops conversation. J Mark, let me ask you, so Duke. For first of all, with Duke, you know, they survive today. It isn't pretty, but I think you could look at it the other way too, which was they did have a twenty four point lead against North Carolina in you know throughout this game. One Like, first of all, do you have any just big picture thoughts on the Cooper flag injury timeline? You know, John Shire said after the game yesterday, Like you know, basically, he made sure to let it be known that hey, it's like like basically long story short is he had to kind of make it seem like Cooper Flag could play so that the committee knew, hey, this guy's not out for the year, but we all knew he wasn't gonna play, you know, really quickly. Duke will very likely be in the Raleigh Regional next next week, which means that they wouldn't play again until Friday.
They'll be playing a sixteen.
I kind of get the sense that I would be kind of shocked to see him before the second round, maybe the first round, if he's like pretty close to one hundred percent. I mean, what, I assume you don't expect to see him tomorrow. To any concerns about Duke that they did struggle to put away Carolina today.
Not necessarily Again, I mean, if CAROLINEA is going to get up for anything, they're going to get up any ACC tournament to play against that team, especially how they got beat the last time they played. I'm not really worried about Duke in the first round. I feel like, if you can't beat whoever you're matched up with in the first round without Cooper Flag, it probably wasn't gonna happen for you anyway. If there's any risk at all to him, he obviously can't play.
He shouldn't play.
His future is too important, whether it's a duke or whether or not he's going straight to the NBA, which is another conversation that we've had in the past, and I'm sure we will have again before that decision's official or anything to that degree. But I feel like you can get the job done in that first round game. The question is in the second round you probably do have to bring him back unless he's just not healthy for that. But there's no reason at all to risk him in the ACC tournament. I don't think that you're gonna get dinged by the committee if your duke at this point from the seed line that you were already going to be on. Considering that if you make the play for the big tournament as opposed to this one, like this one, it'd be nice to win this, and I know that everybody plays hard in these conference tournaments and really wants it for the pride factor and all that, but it's ultimately not anywhere close to as important, is what takes place next week, and then even that is not as important as the future for Cooper flag.
Well, this is a dumb question, but I'll ask it anyway.
When an injury like that happens, the default is that somebody did something wrong.
There's no way to avoid that, right because you heard though, like why is he even playing? Or are they already?
And it's like, I don't know, it's a game, like they're players, players play and I don't know. I'll give credit to uh, to the internet, because I don't think it became like a big thing yesterday, but there were people like well, I mean they're already clinched number one seed.
Why is he It's like I don't know. I mean I don't know.
There was no like there was no like John Shire made a mistake for having him on the floor, right, Like that's not a thing, right.
I don't think so, I mean that that seems a little bit much to me, Like if you're if it's that way, then why play these games at all?
Like as long as these.
Games are being played, some of these some of these things are going to happen, and especially in college and these moments and things like that. The idea that you're just gonna sit them out because you were going to win anyway in that case, unless that's something that he decides from a business perspective and you agree with him, I don't think that you can fault him for playing. And I certainly don't think that like John Shire mandated you have to play or you're off the team or something like that.
Like I just think it's it's very low hanging fruit, and it's really easy when something.
Like this happens to immediately point to it and try to come up with someone to be the scapegoat.
In this case, it's just people get hurt. People are playing at a high level.
Athletes get injured because they're playing at such a high level, and it sometimes sometimes it's fluky, and sometimes it happens at the worst possible time. Remember Matt corral And when he got hurt for Ole Miss a few years ago in that Bowl game. It's it's just the way it goes.
Sometimes.
It is just the way it goes sometimes. Yeah, And I'll give credit.
I don't think it really became that big of a thing, but whenever something happens, people are always gonna talk. And I guess it is what it is really quickly again. Everybody caught up. Arizona up by nine by eight at the half against Texas Tech in a Big twelve quarterfinal. Louisville up five on Clemson at the half in the ACC semis Alabama up seven at the half in the SEC quarters, Yukon Is on a twelve oer run to cut the lead to five with twelve minutes to go. A lot of college hoops, We're gonna go come back talk NFL Cooper fat Cooper cup signed.
But what is the least.
Interesting story of the week?
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