Fox Sports analyst Doug Gottlieb shares which college basketball teams he's looking out for in the 2023-24 season with former Gonzaga All-American Dan Dickau
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Gonzaga Nation, as we continue to preview
00:12 the upcoming college basketball season,
00:13 checking in with a number of analysts,
00:15 many of the premier analysts across the country.
00:18 Today's guest would definitely fit that bill.
00:22 He calls a number of games on Fox Sports,
00:24 occasionally on Westwood One Radio,
00:26 as well as hosts his own radio show every day on Fox Sports
00:30 radio, none other than the esteemed,
00:33 hopefully he likes that intro, Doug Gottlieb.
00:35 Doug, how's it going?
00:37 - Good, Dan, how are you?
00:39 - Not too bad.
00:40 I see the backdrop, we were chatting a little bit
00:42 before we hit record.
00:44 You're back at Oklahoma State,
00:45 just watching practice for a few days,
00:47 but you've got the view of the football stadium.
00:50 Please tell me you were not running all those stadium stairs
00:54 before our conversation.
00:55 - I was not, I was not.
00:57 The basketball weight room is in the basement of Gallagher Eye
01:02 but it used to be the football,
01:04 no, it used to be a track and when I was here,
01:07 it was like hitting stations for baseball in the winter.
01:09 And then it became the football weight room
01:11 and now the football weight room's in the West End zone
01:13 of the stadium.
01:15 And so I was getting a little pump on,
01:18 getting me fired up for your show, that's what happened.
01:21 - Awesome, good news.
01:22 You know, I've been to Oklahoma State one time,
01:24 this is the first time we crossed paths.
01:26 I think you were a senior,
01:28 I was a freshman at the University of Washington.
01:30 What year was it for you?
01:32 - I was a sophomore.
01:33 I was a transfer sophomore.
01:34 - Yeah, okay.
01:35 So I knew you were older than me,
01:37 I didn't realize it was only one year.
01:38 So I was a freshman.
01:39 - No, I'm a lot older than you 'cause I was a holdback
01:41 and then I transferred and sat out.
01:43 So I was like geriatric.
01:45 - You were like a 22 year old sophomore?
01:48 - I was 21, yeah, yeah.
01:50 No, I turned, did I turn 22 that year?
01:53 I did, I did turn 22 that year, yeah.
01:56 - So you can fit into college basketball these days.
01:58 - Totally, right?
01:59 We were both transfers, only we had to sit out.
02:02 Right, I sat out at junior college,
02:04 you sat out at Gonzaga.
02:05 But yeah, I mean, you were split in time,
02:08 I still don't know why.
02:09 And you had Mount McCullough.
02:12 And Dion, you guys came back here very young.
02:14 - Shooting Luton from Dell City, Oklahoma,
02:16 right down the road, right?
02:17 - Yeah, he was one of 13, that was our focus.
02:19 It's like every time, any time a kid from Oklahoma
02:21 comes back to Oklahoma State,
02:22 you know they're gonna wanna like put on a show.
02:25 And that was your Elite Eight team, right?
02:28 - That was, yeah, we lost to UConn
02:31 on the Rip Hamilton put back at the buzzer.
02:34 So we were a good team, but you know, that was--
02:37 - We kicked the shit out of you, that's what we did.
02:38 - You guys, yeah, you guys absolutely put it on us.
02:42 That was probably my first kind of experience
02:45 of being in an unbelievable college basketball environment.
02:48 Gallagher-Iba, that was before,
02:50 I think it was right after the initial renovation.
02:53 Crowd was right on top, it was as loud, it was before.
02:56 - It was before, 6,400 seats.
02:59 And yeah, it was, and then we came back and played U-Dub
03:04 after when you were at Gonzaga my senior year,
03:06 but we played them in Key Arena instead of,
03:08 I wanted to play at Heck Ed.
03:10 'Cause Heck Ed's kind of the same thing, you know?
03:14 - Yeah, it's that old historic building,
03:16 they've re-renovated it a couple times, but it's unique.
03:19 I mean, you don't find a lot of college arenas
03:20 like Gallagher-Iba or Heck Ed.
03:22 - Yeah, unfortunately, and they made,
03:25 the new one's too big, it's awesome,
03:26 but it's just, it's too big for a small town like this.
03:28 And it was built before they had an NBA team
03:31 in Oklahoma City, you know?
03:33 So, I mean, these are all excuses,
03:34 but I think, I mean, the new Kennel's a perfect example,
03:37 right, like, could you sell 10,000 seats?
03:39 You could, but if you have 5,000 seats,
03:42 it's gonna be filled every night.
03:44 - It's a hard ticket, and you know,
03:46 you grew up on the West Coast, I know Pac-12,
03:49 you know, has been kind of a love-hate relationship
03:53 for you for a long time, 'cause if I remember correctly,
03:55 you were hoping to go to UCLA, just didn't quite work out.
03:58 You've been to Notre Dame, you were at Oklahoma State.
04:01 How disappointed are you in the Pac-12
04:04 basically disappearing beginning next year?
04:07 - Oh, it sucks, and I would only, like,
04:11 characterize, it'd be different,
04:14 there was no love-hate with it,
04:15 but what happened was, they offered me out of high school,
04:18 and I didn't take, instead I turned down,
04:19 went to Notre Dame, and then when I transferred out,
04:22 I sat and waited, and they were honest with me,
04:25 they were like, look, if we get Barrett-Davis,
04:27 and I was like, yeah, if you get Barrett-Davis,
04:28 you don't need me.
04:29 But my sister was the cheerleader there,
04:32 my brother graduated from there,
04:34 we had season tickets there,
04:35 and I mean, the thought that UCLA's not gonna play Arizona
04:39 every year is, it's terrible.
04:43 And I think for basketball, it's a weird,
04:48 Cal and Stanford being so bad
04:51 is what's really kind of changed that league for the worst,
04:54 because Stanford used to be,
04:57 in many ways what the Kennel is,
04:59 that's what Stanford used to be,
05:00 used to be in a competition.
05:02 - They used to be jumping, the floor would shake,
05:03 it would bounce, the rims,
05:05 when you're at the free throw line, it would be moving.
05:07 - And Cal was hit or miss in terms of crowds,
05:09 but they always had dudes,
05:10 they always had pros, they always had dudes,
05:12 and so you take those two off.
05:13 So it's different for basketball,
05:16 but the idea that Washington and Oregon
05:18 are gonna be playing Penn State and Ohio State,
05:22 it's just, it's weird, it's really weird.
05:26 But it does provide an opportunity, right?
05:28 What happens with Gonzaga now,
05:31 what happens with Wazoo now,
05:32 what happens with Oregon State now,
05:34 and some sort of likely combination
05:37 of the Pac-2 and the Mountain West,
05:39 but how am I, with the Pac-12 breaking up, sucks.
05:42 - Yeah.
05:43 - Especially 'cause UCLA, Arizona was always awesome,
05:47 and frankly, the Northern California schools were great.
05:53 And then, like, look, some of it is just the Pac-12,
05:55 just, they were so arrogant.
05:57 You know, obviously turning, you know,
05:58 asking for 50 million when that wasn't a realistic number,
06:01 but then when they've had opportunities to add schools,
06:04 just thumbing their noses at schools,
06:05 even thumbing their nose at UNLV
06:07 and San Diego State for years,
06:09 I think is coming back to bite 'em.
06:12 And, you know, I think financially,
06:14 the Washingtons, the Oregons,
06:16 obviously UCLA and Arizona,
06:19 UCLA and USC are gonna be fine,
06:21 but it just, I don't know,
06:23 college sports to me has changed so dramatically,
06:25 and we are in a world in which the media
06:30 where we both work in, like, is kind of accepting,
06:33 hey, it's like minor league sports.
06:34 Well, here's the thing, minor league sports
06:36 and the G League has been better
06:38 than college basketball for years,
06:40 but nobody watches because-
06:42 - The average fan doesn't realize
06:44 how good that basketball is.
06:45 - Oh, I mean, those guys,
06:47 they would kick the crap out of college kids,
06:49 but nobody cares 'cause they don't have, you know,
06:51 the school in the front of their chest.
06:52 They don't have the inherent rivalries
06:54 that have been built over 50 to 100 years.
06:56 Well, you eliminate those rivalries
06:58 and you diminish the value of the school.
07:01 It's just a very curious place to think where we are.
07:04 So I do, it's one of the reasons that I like, you know,
07:07 GU so much because I think so much of it,
07:10 kids still play for the school,
07:11 still play for the program and play for each other.
07:14 But I do feel like some of those great programs
07:17 are a little bit of a dying breed
07:19 when the overall sports landscape
07:21 is just about what can I get now
07:23 and what can the school get now
07:25 and then onto the next year and a completely new team.
07:28 - You've covered college basketball
07:30 for a number of years now
07:31 and you've seen the passing of the guard.
07:33 Coach K is retired, Roy Williams, Jay Wright.
07:38 You've still got a number of great coaches,
07:40 Tom Izzo, Bill Self, Coach Few.
07:43 How would you stack Coach Few
07:46 with the current coaches in the country right now?
07:49 - What's the stat where they've never not reached
07:55 the WCC championship game?
07:58 Is that right?
07:59 Is that the correct stat?
08:00 - Yeah, every year, I think it's the last 24, 25 years.
08:03 Ever since that initial run,
08:05 they've made the conference tournament championship game
08:07 every year.
08:08 - I mean, that's insane.
08:11 It's insane.
08:12 It's insane.
08:13 And look, I get it.
08:15 They're playing for greater prizes, right?
08:20 He's literally one win away
08:22 from being in anybody's discussion of the all-time greats
08:25 and they were what, one possession away against Carolina.
08:28 And I think they ran into a bad matchup,
08:31 one that I completely misthought
08:35 and misperceived against Baylor.
08:37 But I mean, the idea of consistency,
08:44 you know, especially when you lose players, great players,
08:50 the landscape has become more challenging to get players
08:53 where you are to not, you know,
08:54 they've lost some bidding wars for some of these kids,
08:57 but the consistency and the evolution
08:59 of what he does offensively is not what he used to do.
09:02 So he's gotten better as a coach.
09:04 They've gotten better as a program.
09:06 They've improved, I think, night and day between,
09:11 even some of your teams back before he's head coach,
09:13 there was always, you know,
09:15 there was a time there where you were like,
09:16 hmm, defensively, they're just not gonna be able to play
09:19 at the elite level for the most part.
09:21 That's changed.
09:22 And I think, you know,
09:24 there's always been questions about him.
09:26 Like, Mark is such a nice human being.
09:29 Does, is he as competitive as the rest?
09:31 And if you know, if you, you know,
09:33 like he's actually probably more competitive
09:34 than the rest of these dudes.
09:35 He just has some balance in his life.
09:37 So, I mean, he's in any conversation, you know?
09:40 I mean, the consistency in doing it in the regular season
09:43 is what I value.
09:45 Granted, you gotta win tournament games, and they have,
09:48 you gotta get to final fours, and they have,
09:49 and eventually you gotta win national championship.
09:51 I think they will.
09:52 But, you know, it's a lot like Bill Self.
09:57 Like, I get that they won one,
09:59 came from behind two years ago, it's against Carolina.
10:01 But when you win a dozen big 12 regular season titles
10:06 in a row, like, do people,
10:09 and when you go to the conference tournament
10:11 championship game, and granted, you know,
10:13 now it's a little bit easier,
10:14 'cause now they have like the triple bye or whatever.
10:17 But, I mean, keep in mind, they know everything you do.
10:21 They can't stand you.
10:23 They think you get all the benefits of everything,
10:25 and yet you still beat 'em just about every year.
10:28 And the league has gotten,
10:29 that rising tide has lifted all ships.
10:32 Like, the league is good.
10:33 The last couple years, the league has been legit.
10:36 Like, BYU's a tremendous program.
10:40 What, they finished in fifth last year?
10:42 - Yeah. - And they have
10:43 great funding, they got good NIL, they're well coached,
10:45 and yet that league is so tough
10:47 that they finished in fifth place in the league.
10:49 So, I cannot have enough respect and think
10:53 that Mark Few is one of the deans of the coaches.
10:55 Like, he's gone from the young guy
10:57 who was the assistant coach to being, you know,
10:59 one of the kind of godfathers in college basketball.
11:02 And then you look at, the other element to it is,
11:05 hey, his style has been replicated
11:08 and has been successful now at several other programs,
11:11 most notably Arizona and Boise.
11:13 And I think that's the other part of the college game,
11:17 which is similar to other sports and similar to other levels,
11:20 but when you start to breed other guys
11:22 that are long-time, well-regarded head coaches
11:26 that are doing things with the same class
11:28 and the same style with which you do it,
11:29 and they're able to be successful,
11:31 I think it only elevates your profile.
11:36 And, oh yeah, by the way, when you lose those guys,
11:38 when you lose Tommy,
11:39 and you're still recruiting at a high level,
11:41 you know, when you lose assistants,
11:43 when you lose head coaches,
11:44 and your program doesn't take a step back,
11:49 instead continues to progress forward,
11:51 I think that signifies you being,
11:53 it's the one thing that's really missing from Bill Self.
11:56 You know, his assistants have it so good,
11:58 those guys haven't left, they've been there forever.
12:00 - Yeah, they don't wanna leave.
12:01 - They don't, why would you leave?
12:02 You're making like half a million dollars,
12:04 you're coaching the best coach
12:06 in the best program in America, right?
12:08 You're in the best league, all that stuff is great.
12:11 Hughes had different challenges and he succeeded.
12:14 So I put him in the top five of any sort of category.
12:17 - You've got your pulse on the college game
12:20 as well as any analyst out there.
12:22 And you come from a family
12:24 that is a background of coaching as well.
12:27 You and I have had conversations in the past about coaching,
12:30 but do you still occasionally
12:33 kind of dip your toes in that water
12:35 and wanna get into coaching,
12:37 or are you fully immersed in continuing in this media world?
12:42 - You know, I was actually like a finalist
12:46 for the UW Green Bay job, and I wasn't,
12:49 I mean, I think I wanted it,
12:51 but I definitely would love to be a head coach.
12:55 But it's a really changing and challenging landscape.
12:58 And one of the things I've done as my daughters
13:01 or seniors in high school, I have a son who's in eighth grade
13:04 is I've tried to definitely this year
13:06 kind of take a step back and really,
13:08 you know, be around, be the best dad I can.
13:11 Just 'cause, you know, once they go off to college,
13:15 like they're gone, you know,
13:17 they'll come back eventually, but you wanna,
13:19 so I think timing wise, I'm getting closer to like the,
13:24 hey, I gotta, you know what,
13:26 I get off the pot if I wanna do it.
13:28 But I just, I love being around the game.
13:29 I love being around the kids.
13:30 I love being around the sport.
13:32 I don't know if I love the transactional element
13:36 to the highest level, like some of these programs
13:40 have to have to succeed.
13:41 Like, do I wanna coach kids for just a year?
13:43 Whereas I thought one of the special things,
13:46 and I don't know if you can speak to this
13:47 with your experience was, you know,
13:49 you were at GU for three years, right?
13:50 Sitting out one year playing two years.
13:53 I was at Oklahoma State for three years playing all three.
13:57 And I think those relationships,
13:59 because they were fostered by a legendary head coach,
14:04 but also the time that we spent together,
14:06 the years we spent together,
14:07 are much more lasting and impactful.
14:09 So I don't know 100% if that's what I wanna do
14:14 with the rest of my life,
14:17 'cause I like doing the media stuff.
14:18 And frankly, it's way easier than being an assistant coach.
14:23 But yeah, I've kicked around the possibility.
14:26 I've really thought it through.
14:28 And the right time, the right place,
14:30 working for the right person,
14:31 whether that's as a head coach with the AD,
14:34 or being an assistant coach with the right head coach.
14:36 I mean, I think that's everything.
14:37 And the crazy part is, like,
14:40 my main source of income is my radio show.
14:43 And the problem is I really like who I work for.
14:46 And so I know that's not replicable in that industry.
14:50 And so I'm very hesitant to just, like, give that away.
14:53 But I also know that, like, I'm creeping up,
14:56 getting closer to 50.
14:57 And I don't wanna die going like,
15:00 "Man, I should have been a head coach."
15:02 (laughing)
15:04 You know?
15:05 I wanna die going, "Well, I did this, I did that,
15:07 "I did this, I saw this place."
15:09 And so, yeah, there's still,
15:11 and I coach AAU, and that's cool, and it's fun.
15:15 And it's a little bit like speed dating, right?
15:18 'Cause you go game to game to game,
15:19 and team to team to team.
15:21 And every team's different,
15:22 so your adjustments are different.
15:24 But yeah, there is part of me that wants to
15:27 try and nurture young men to have
15:29 somewhere near the experience that you and I had,
15:32 which is life-changing.
15:33 I mean, obviously, you were a first-round pick,
15:35 and you were an NBA player,
15:37 and you were the best college basketball player
15:39 on the planet for a year or two.
15:42 I didn't have that.
15:43 But what I did have was relationships
15:47 that continue to help me to this day
15:49 that were established at Oklahoma State.
15:52 And so I would just love,
15:54 I would love for, if it's one kid to five kids
15:57 as part of 13 scholarships,
15:58 to experience what you and I experienced
16:01 in terms of the rest of your,
16:03 setting yourself up for the rest of your life
16:05 while having championship-caliber experiences in college.
16:07 So that's really kind of what drives me to it.
16:10 - Yeah, I think a lot of that relationship piece
16:14 of college athletics is being lost with this,
16:18 as you called it, a transactional
16:20 kind of relationship these days.
16:22 I 100% agree with that.
16:23 When you're in the midst of your day-to-day right now,
16:27 you mentioned being a Sports Talk radio host,
16:30 three hours a day, your first passion is basketball.
16:33 But in that role nationally, you gotta talk football,
16:36 you gotta talk both college and NFL,
16:39 you gotta talk basketball.
16:40 - Yeah, definitely. - It's football.
16:42 So how difficult or easy is it for you to do that prep
16:46 and to come up with a clear, concise opinion
16:50 on something that maybe it's harder for you
16:53 to form an opinion than something
16:54 that has to do with basketball?
16:56 - Honestly, I'll give you a little secret.
16:57 Okay, so, well, you probably remember this
17:00 from your days at UW,
17:01 but all football dudes wish they played basketball.
17:05 - That is true.
17:06 - Right, like you go to the rec center--
17:07 - They would all show up trying to sneak in
17:09 the last opening of the room. - You go to the rec center,
17:10 and all those football dudes, right?
17:12 So, and I always knew this,
17:15 and when I was at ESPN, I remembered it,
17:16 because I became really close friends with Tim Hasselbeck,
17:21 and he used to come in my studios,
17:24 and the experience with him,
17:27 and he basically taught me,
17:28 he'd hang around on Monday Night Football.
17:29 My show was over at 7, Monday Night Football kickoff,
17:32 and I just watched the game with him,
17:33 and he'd teach me all the things that I missed,
17:35 just like you and I can teach people
17:37 all the things that you miss in basketball.
17:39 You don't realize how it's like a chessboard
17:40 and all these kind of pieces work together.
17:44 But when you go to a college game,
17:47 when you go to a pro game, and you're around the coaches,
17:51 all the coaches, one, know you from your time
17:55 at ESPN, at Fox, at CBS,
17:56 and two, they wanna talk hoop with you,
17:59 and so if you'll talk hoop with them,
18:01 they'll talk football with you.
18:03 So, I never forget, I got to do sideline
18:07 for a Fox NFL game, and it was the Dolphins,
18:11 yeah, it was the Dolphins versus the Bears,
18:13 and this was the year the Bears were actually really good.
18:15 And I, on Friday, you go and you watch practice,
18:20 and Adam Gase was the coach, head coach of the Dolphins.
18:25 But at the time, I think Wes Welker
18:31 was hanging around the Dolphins,
18:33 and we have Oklahoma connections,
18:35 and then Amendola was there with the Dolphins,
18:40 and all he, like, I sat down with him,
18:42 and he's like asking me college hoops information,
18:45 and then he started telling me all these Patriots stories,
18:47 and then, you know, you go around,
18:49 Dave Ragone was the quarterback coach for the Bears.
18:53 He played at Louisville before playing the NFL.
18:55 He wants to talk Louisville hoops.
18:57 So what you find is, like, you have equity with these people
19:00 that if you just pick up the phone and call
19:03 and start talking to them and say, hey, what's up,
19:05 they'll give you all the info,
19:07 and so you can kind of use that
19:09 to sound like you're a genius.
19:12 And to know what's really going on.
19:14 I mean, you know, there's no secret,
19:16 Josh Henson's the offensive coordinator at USC.
19:19 We were in, half of my classes,
19:20 we were in together at Oklahoma State,
19:22 and we've stayed very, really good friends.
19:24 When he moved out to take the job leaving Texas A&M,
19:27 like, I helped him find a realtor or whatever.
19:30 We had beers.
19:30 So, you know, to know what's really going on,
19:33 you have to get people that are on boots on the ground.
19:35 So I feel really well-prepared
19:38 in knowing what I want to talk about,
19:40 call my boys up, text them up, like,
19:42 does this, and really it's,
19:43 and Calhoun does this on a different level.
19:45 Colin will call me on like on a Saturday,
19:47 and basically he's trying out a rant on me
19:49 to make sure I didn't sound like an idiot.
19:52 I do that with people in sports
19:53 that I don't know a crazy amount about,
19:56 and it kind of helps you.
19:58 But more than anything, like,
19:58 I'm just an educated sports fan,
20:00 and I've been doing it long enough
20:02 and know enough people to know that I don't,
20:04 I don't say things for shock value.
20:06 They may have some shock value,
20:08 but it's really 'cause I feel like it's a real thing,
20:10 coming from a real place.
20:11 And I love it.
20:13 I would say my first, I love being in a gym,
20:16 and I love being in a film room with basketball,
20:18 but I just like sports in general.
20:19 I like competition, and I like,
20:22 I like figuring out, I like the math problem
20:24 or the problem and finding the solution to it, you know?
20:27 I love the coaches that go in at halftime
20:29 and they figure it out.
20:30 Basketball, football, otherwise.
20:32 Find a way to win each game.
20:34 So that's what drives me every day.
20:35 - So I'm gonna put this last question to you,
20:38 figure it out.
20:39 Who are the four best teams
20:42 leading into this college basketball season?
20:44 'Cause I think there's parody last year.
20:46 I think there's gonna be parody again this year.
20:48 - Yeah.
20:49 I, well, I mean, because now,
20:51 if you have any level of investment,
20:53 you can buy a couple of kids.
20:54 I honestly, like I'm gonna tell you, I have no idea.
20:57 - Yeah.
20:58 - I'm not gonna, yeah, I mean,
20:59 like do I think Michigan State should be awesome?
21:01 I do.
21:01 You have this great wave of freshmen.
21:03 You have guys that hung around and stuck around
21:05 and he got a great coach in Tom Izzo.
21:07 But what I don't know is,
21:08 I don't know on a day to day how that all is gonna work.
21:11 Do I think Izzo eventually will figure it out?
21:13 Like, yeah, but you only know,
21:15 like the most talented teams don't always win
21:18 'cause they can't always get along, right?
21:20 So, you know, as Jeremy Pierce, their point guard,
21:24 I coached against him in like this Pango's All-American.
21:26 Like the kid is ridiculous.
21:28 He's so good.
21:30 But I don't know how that works with the relationships
21:32 with all the older guys
21:33 or with the other freshmen who wanna play,
21:35 but they got too many guys, right?
21:38 I would guess that Michigan State and Kansas
21:41 should be in any discussion.
21:42 Kansas has got a great college true point guard
21:46 and they have, you know, who I think is,
21:49 he was the best guy in the portal.
21:50 I think he's a really good player.
21:52 I mean, those would be the top two
21:55 that just jump off the page at me.
21:58 There's a lot of other, like,
22:00 I think Duke should be right there
22:01 because the younger guys that came back
22:05 really fit college basketball.
22:07 I think Filipowski is gonna be incredibly dynamic
22:10 because he can shoot the ball, he can score down low.
22:13 They have enough guys around them where there'll be space
22:15 and Proctor's a point guard.
22:16 Like he was good last year
22:18 and your second year, you're so much better.
22:20 But again, I don't know how sometimes when guys come back,
22:23 they come back thinking,
22:26 okay, I'm gonna be a superstar this year.
22:27 When you're like, we got more guys and it's still really hard
22:30 so I don't know how that works.
22:31 And, you know, then kind of you look around,
22:34 you're searching around the country for the team.
22:36 I mean, what does Gonzaga look like this year?
22:39 Right, like you lose a historic player.
22:43 - Wow.
22:44 - Drew is, as you know, his career,
22:47 you put it up there with anybody.
22:49 But are they a better overall team this year?
22:51 'Cause they're not so widely dependent upon him to score.
22:54 Right, and can they kind of get back to how Gonzaga was?
22:58 You go back maybe 10, 15 years ago
23:01 where it's an ensemble cast of really, really good players.
23:05 I don't know, I don't know the answer to that.
23:07 You'd probably know it better than I would.
23:08 But I think anybody who walks in and says like,
23:11 this team, this team, this team.
23:13 I mean, I'll give you an example.
23:14 Like I watch Oklahoma State
23:15 and they're not super well regarded.
23:17 They were the last team out last year.
23:18 They have nine new guys.
23:20 They have a point guard, Javon Small,
23:21 who comes in from East Carolina.
23:23 You're like, well, how good could it be at East Carolina?
23:25 Well, you realize that his senior year
23:27 in high school was COVID.
23:29 So he was just out there.
23:30 - A little bit taller.
23:31 - A lot of people didn't know he existed.
23:33 Like he wasn't on a high level AAU team.
23:36 And there's lots of those players out there.
23:38 And like, I like what Creighton has coming back.
23:42 Really like what they have coming back.
23:44 But they're gonna be back to scoring 95 a game.
23:47 The problem is I don't know if the other team
23:48 doesn't score 96 or 97 a game, right?
23:52 So I would love to sit here, Dan,
23:55 and give you four teams and tell you,
23:57 and then two of them end up in the final four.
23:59 You're like, dude, you're a genius.
24:01 I don't know.
24:02 Because it feels like everybody
24:04 has a completely new roster.
24:06 And with those rosters, this is not fantasy football.
24:10 You can't just go and it's not even the NBA
24:13 where you just go and go,
24:13 hey, well, that guy averaged 12 a game here
24:15 and he's a 48% three-point shooter.
24:17 And so you put him here and it doesn't work that way.
24:19 Because oftentimes you have guys stepping up
24:21 or stepping down a level.
24:22 And then just the inner workings of college basketball,
24:25 remembering their 18 to 24-year-old kids,
24:30 you have no idea how that chemistry
24:33 kind of all comes in and works together.
24:35 At least I don't.
24:36 And I would love to be confident enough to say,
24:39 I've seen everybody, I know how.
24:41 Look, a couple years ago, I thought Gonzaga,
24:44 when they lost in the finals,
24:45 I thought they were the best team.
24:46 And I was almost right.
24:49 But it was so obvious with that team.
24:51 When you watch, you're like, Suggs is gonna get better.
24:55 They got buckets inside.
24:57 They can defend.
24:58 They can pressure.
24:59 They're always been a good zone,
25:01 kind of pack line man-to-man team.
25:03 You can just feel it that everybody's playing catch up to GU.
25:07 And I had a lot of coaches that were like,
25:09 dude, remember they didn't play the Baylor
25:11 early in the season 'cause of COVID.
25:13 I had a lot of coaches telling me,
25:15 Baylor's the one team that can beat 'em.
25:16 And they were right.
25:17 But I don't feel like we have that this year.
25:20 I could be wrong and it feels like you feel the same way.
25:22 We don't have a Gonzaga and Baylor
25:24 that are just better than everybody else.
25:26 - Yeah, and I think that's what's gonna make this season
25:29 absolutely fun to be a part of calling games
25:31 is the fact that I think there is 10, 11, 12 teams
25:34 that on paper, November 1st,
25:37 you could say they got a shot at the final four.
25:39 And one or two of those might fall out by mid-December
25:42 through bad play, bad chemistry, injuries.
25:44 And a couple might pop in based on the emergence of players
25:49 like you talked about, the point guard at Oklahoma State
25:51 that kind of is an unknown.
25:53 So I think it's gonna be a fascinating year
25:55 at college basketball.
25:56 - Yeah, it's weird.
25:57 You have the Big 12 expanding.
25:59 What does Houston look like now
26:01 when they play in the big boy league?
26:02 It doesn't take away from how good they've been
26:04 reaching the final four,
26:06 but it's just different when you don't have,
26:10 there's no East Carolina, there's no Tulane.
26:14 There's just, everybody's got dudes.
26:17 And then you have programs like a K-State who with NIL,
26:21 I mean, remember Jerome Tang takes over program.
26:23 He keeps two guys, brings in 11 new ones
26:26 and nearly gets to a final four, right?
26:29 But now you try and do that again.
26:30 What does that look like?
26:31 I have no idea, no idea.
26:33 And how you create culture and chemistry
26:35 in such a short period of time is a real challenge.
26:37 And some of the older coaches have to change
26:40 the way they've been.
26:41 Even some of the younger coaches
26:42 have to change the way they've been.
26:43 But I mean, look, I think Marquette is a team
26:47 to keep an eye on.
26:48 - I really like their point guard, Kolic.
26:50 I think he controls the game
26:52 as well as anybody in recent years.
26:54 - Yeah, and they also,
26:55 I mean, now they lost their energy.
26:57 They lost a dynamic four man to the NBA.
27:00 And though it's not a point guard, like hybrid,
27:03 I think, this is me, college basketball,
27:07 the most important positions actually are your point
27:10 and then your four man.
27:11 One, can you switch one through four?
27:15 Can you play small with them?
27:16 Can that guy shoot to open up the floor?
27:18 Like I think the college four, even the NBA four
27:22 is maybe the second most important position.
27:24 But you gotta be able to shoot to open up the floor.
27:26 On the other hand, you gotta defend.
27:27 You gotta defend the point of attack
27:28 and you gotta defend the rim.
27:30 And what I like about Marquette is,
27:32 Shaka's gotten back to his VCU days
27:34 where they're changing the tempo on you.
27:35 They're forcing you to play how they wanna play.
27:38 That's always, by the way, been my issue with Gonzaga,
27:41 with Marcus, and I think a lot of it's been personnel based
27:44 is there was a long time there where they couldn't change
27:48 the way you played based upon their defense.
27:50 And obviously really effective,
27:51 but there does come a point where,
27:53 and I thought Duke tried to do it
27:56 when they didn't have the right personnel
27:57 where they'd take you out of everything you wanna do,
27:58 pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure.
28:00 But there is something to the ability to change
28:03 and make you play the way that they want you to play.
28:08 And I think it's one of the things that Marquette does
28:10 that challenges you.
28:11 And I think it's one of the things,
28:15 along with having Tyler Krolich,
28:16 that allows them to be really effective.
28:19 - Great stuff, Doug.
28:20 I appreciate you joining.
28:21 So we'll have to do it again sometime
28:23 and last thing is best of luck,
28:26 'cause I do expect you to run all those stadium stairs
28:29 at Oklahoma City or Oklahoma State's football stadium
28:31 by the end of the day.
28:34 - Here's my favorite stadium stairs story.
28:38 Do they have wrestling at Gonzaga?
28:41 - No.
28:42 - Okay, so the wrestling program at Oklahoma State
28:44 is an incredible one.
28:45 Half the guys are in UFC or former OSU wrestlers.
28:48 You know, the wrestling hall of fame
28:49 is right next to Gallagher-Iba
28:51 and John Smith's the head coach
28:52 and he's a three-time gold medalist.
28:54 So it's a different level.
28:55 It's not just college wrestling.
28:56 Like it's Iowa, Penn State, Oklahoma State,
28:58 those are the big three.
29:00 So we used to have to run stadium steps.
29:03 It wasn't a huge part of our conditioning,
29:05 but we'd have to do it once a week.
29:07 And I'll never forget, like we're getting water one day,
29:08 it's like probably now September, it's still hot.
29:11 And the wrestlers, they were doing bear crawls
29:14 and everything on the football field.
29:15 And it's hot as hell.
29:17 And I remember John Smith, our coach, like,
29:19 fellas, listen, I understand you guys like to go out,
29:22 have a good time, tie one on, you know, go to a bar.
29:25 He's like, and fights happen,
29:27 but dammit, we can't have you kicking the hell
29:29 out of security guards and police officers.
29:31 That's just unacceptable.
29:33 And all of us are like, dude, stay away from those guys.
29:36 So the rule that we established at Oklahoma State
29:39 was one, make friends with the wrestlers
29:40 and two, this is really important, okay?
29:43 There are three things
29:44 that will survive the nuclear Holocaust, okay?
29:47 Cockroaches, Twinkies, and wrestlers.
29:50 So always, always make friends with the wrestlers.
29:53 - That's awesome.
29:55 That's a great story.
29:56 I'll have to remember that one.
29:57 So appreciate you joining for Gonzaga Nation.
30:00 That was terrific analyst, Doug Gottlieb.
30:03 (upbeat music)
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