CBS Sports college basketball insider Garry Parrish breaks down Graham Ike's importance to the Gonzaga Bulldogs and why people will regret the latest conference realignment wave.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Dan DeCowell here for Gonzaga Nation.
00:11 As we continue to get prepared
00:13 for the start of college basketball season,
00:16 practices are upon us.
00:18 Like to check in with some of the best analysts
00:21 across the country.
00:23 Today's one of my favorite insiders.
00:26 He hails from Memphis, Tennessee.
00:28 He does a ton of work for CBS Sports Network
00:31 as well as CBS Sports Online.
00:33 Nothing more, nothing gets by this guy
00:37 in the world of college basketball.
00:38 A conversation is to be had with Gary Parish.
00:42 Gary, appreciate the time.
00:43 Thanks for joining.
00:45 - Brother, it's always my pleasure.
00:46 I appreciate you asking.
00:47 How you been?
00:48 - I can't complain too much.
00:50 We got some new digs in the studio here
00:52 trying to up our game.
00:55 'Cause I look at your backdrop,
00:56 looks like your home office.
00:58 You got some bobbleheads behind you.
01:01 Share us a little bit with those bobbleheads
01:02 and some of your equipment behind you is.
01:06 - Yeah, my kids helped me decorate.
01:08 During the pandemic in the early stages of that,
01:10 it was pretty clear for CBS Sports,
01:13 we were gonna be working at home for a little while.
01:15 And it ended up being pretty much an entire year
01:18 between the time I last went to New York
01:20 and first went back to New York.
01:22 So we decided to build a little podcasting studio
01:26 in our home.
01:27 This is an old attic space that we just had redone.
01:30 And then my kids, of course, helped me decorate it.
01:33 So here we have a Better Call Saul up here.
01:37 And then of course that's Roman Reigns, your tribal chief,
01:40 your WWE champion.
01:42 And then Diego Maradona and Ronaldo there.
01:44 That's Zach Randolph, Z-Bo from the Hillbillies over here.
01:48 Some Met stuff, John Franco, Dwight Gooden, Pete Alonzo.
01:52 Here, Grizzly stuff, John Morant.
01:54 Kanye West used to be featured back here
01:56 somewhere with a bobblehead.
01:58 We had to remove him for obvious reasons.
02:00 Perhaps he'll redeem himself in the bobblehead world someday.
02:03 But for now, he's out.
02:05 So you just throw some books up, some bobbleheads,
02:08 some awards to make it look like you've accomplished something.
02:10 And that's how you do a backdrop, I guess.
02:13 So a quick story I'll share with you.
02:17 During the pandemic when I was calling game for CBS Sports
02:20 from home, and they'd send us all these big kits
02:21 similar to what you're working on right now to call games.
02:25 I was sitting in my home office.
02:26 Rich Waltz was the play-by-play guy
02:28 sitting in his home office outside of Seattle.
02:32 And I would always close my door to my office.
02:37 And I would typically put a chair against the door
02:41 'cause I don't have a lock on that door, unfortunately.
02:43 Well, one day I forgot to put a door against,
02:46 (laughs)
02:48 a chair against the door.
02:50 And our five-year-old Josie, who was about probably 17,
02:55 18 months or so at the time,
02:58 she came barging into my studio
03:00 right in the middle of a game,
03:02 right in the middle of the action, calling the action.
03:05 And my wife, I look back,
03:07 thankfully we weren't on screen at the time
03:08 'cause it was in the middle of the game action.
03:10 My wife was behind thinking we were on air.
03:14 She army crawled into my office
03:16 and drug our little one out of the office
03:19 as quietly as could be.
03:22 No, I think a lot of people had similar experiences
03:25 when we were all working from home.
03:26 Like my little guys now are nine and six.
03:28 So at the time they would have been six and three
03:31 and they would wander in here.
03:33 This is like, there's nothing in here for them.
03:34 They know that, but yet sometimes they still wanna open
03:37 the door and peek in and they hear my voice.
03:39 And I can remember, you know,
03:41 like my little guy being three years old
03:42 and he's like, the door is right,
03:45 he is five feet from me right there.
03:46 This is a small space.
03:48 And he would open the door and he's just standing there.
03:49 I'm live on CBS Sports HQ.
03:52 They're shooting me from here.
03:54 So he's out of set, out of the shot.
03:56 But like, if he says a word, the mic's gonna pick it up.
03:59 It's also sort of distracting.
04:00 So you're like holding your hand up in his face right here,
04:03 like be quiet, don't say a word.
04:05 And you're still trying to talk
04:06 as intelligently as you can about,
04:09 you know, Kentucky brings back Oscar Sheeway
04:11 and blah, blah, blah.
04:12 It's just, those were weird times
04:14 trying to work in that manner.
04:15 But so, what happened to you?
04:17 Don't feel, what I was told early on is like,
04:20 if something happens, have fun with it
04:22 and just, you know, make a laugh out of it
04:24 because it's happening, you know,
04:25 it's happened on the Today Show.
04:27 So if it happens on CBS Sports Network, it'll be fine.
04:30 Just have a good time with it.
04:31 But yes, those were wild times.
04:34 - Well, both of us are kind of like kids on Christmas Eve.
04:39 We're right about to our favorite time of the year
04:41 with college basketball, the game's about to start.
04:43 It's been a topsy-turvy off season.
04:47 Coaching moves haven't been necessarily as sporadic
04:51 or kind of excitable as they have been in years past
04:54 with no Coach K movement or anything like that.
04:57 But in regards to transfers for players in the portal
05:02 and then just the NIL burst
05:06 of just things that are out there,
05:09 what have been the biggest storylines
05:11 for you in the off season?
05:12 - It's all NIL stuff.
05:14 That is the thing.
05:15 No matter what coach you talk to
05:17 and no matter what the conversation was initially about,
05:19 eventually you're gonna turn to
05:21 name, image, and likeness rights
05:22 and the one-time transfer waiver
05:24 and how the combination of those things
05:27 have really turned the sport upside down.
05:29 Used to, and I promise you, Mark would tell you this,
05:33 in any coach, as recently as a few years ago,
05:37 certainly forever before now,
05:41 you'd go on an in-home visit.
05:43 I bet you when you hosted coaches into your home,
05:47 when you were a prospect,
05:50 that they'd come in and they'd sit down
05:52 and they'd talk about style of play
05:53 and they'd talk about their roster makeup
05:55 and how we're losing our point guard
05:57 and we're gonna need a point guard.
05:59 They're talking about their facilities
06:02 and their graduation rates and all of this stuff.
06:05 And now coaches tell me that, yes, you still touch on that,
06:08 but the truth is,
06:11 everybody's waiting to have the conversation about money.
06:14 And you're better off walking in,
06:16 instead of talking about,
06:18 I've been to the NCAA tournament every year,
06:19 I've ever coached, which is something Mark Few can say,
06:22 you're better off just walking in and saying,
06:24 we got 225 that we can get you
06:28 if you will enroll with us
06:30 in name, image, and likeness rights.
06:31 And by 225, I mean $225,000.
06:36 We at CBS Sports in the off season,
06:39 every year, do what we call the Candid Coaches Series,
06:42 where we ask roughly a hundred coaches
06:44 a series of questions,
06:45 we grant them anonymity in exchange for honesty.
06:48 And one of the things we wanted to do this off season
06:50 is ask coaches, like, listen, we all hear stories,
06:52 like what's Drew Timmy getting
06:54 and what's Hunter Dickinson getting and whatever.
06:56 But like, you guys are in it, you're like living it.
06:59 You're like having to negotiate this stuff
07:01 and talk about it and be involved in it.
07:03 What's real, what's not real?
07:07 If you're in the market for a guy who will be,
07:10 say a starter, but maybe your third leading score
07:14 at a high major program.
07:16 And I would obviously consider Gonzaga a high major program,
07:20 even though it plays in the West Coast Conference.
07:22 So if you're like, you're looking for, let's just say,
07:25 a Graham E.K. or a Steele Venthers,
07:29 you know, what is that costing in the market?
07:31 What are those players looking for
07:32 when they enter the transfer portal?
07:33 And what are they actually getting?
07:36 And of the roughly 100 coaches we surveyed,
07:38 the most prominent, the most consistent answer we got
07:44 was that that level guy,
07:46 a guy who's in the transfer portal
07:48 and he's gonna be your third leading,
07:49 he's gonna average 11 and seven.
07:52 That, he's not gonna be your best player,
07:53 but he's gonna be an important player.
07:55 That guy's looking for 300
07:56 and probably getting somewhere between two and three.
07:59 That's the going rate. - Wow.
08:00 - That's what, and if the SEC gets involved,
08:03 I'm just telling you what coaches told us,
08:04 and if the SEC gets involved, the numbers go up.
08:07 'Cause they will, they'll spit, there wasn't a spin.
08:10 - SEC is clearly the most active in all sports.
08:13 I mean, you even look at, - SEC is, yes, SEC is.
08:15 - I think the gymnast at LSU is making a ridiculous amount.
08:19 - SEC is the most active, broadly speaking,
08:22 from a conference perspective,
08:23 but then you'll also hear, and Kansas, and Texas.
08:27 So it's like SEC, Kansas, Texas,
08:30 you would hear Memphis more so in years past than now,
08:33 but certainly Memphis would get thrown
08:35 into that conversation.
08:36 So when you hear that Gonzaga went out
08:41 and added a former Mountain West Conference
08:45 preseason player of the year,
08:47 Graeme A.K. is probably operating under the impression
08:50 that over the next year of playing basketball,
08:53 he's gonna make six figures and probably
08:56 in the neighborhood of, if not more than $200,000.
09:00 And so some coaches are still frustrated by this,
09:02 others understand it's just the way of the world now,
09:06 and there's no way to change it.
09:07 We're not going back,
09:08 you're not putting toothpaste back in the tube.
09:10 But it is interesting that most of these men
09:14 entered this profession and they were literally told,
09:18 if you even give a dollar to somebody,
09:21 it might cost you your career.
09:23 And now they are actually out there
09:27 raising money for collectives and then brokering deals
09:30 to build their rosters.
09:32 What's fascinating is Kansas is still waiting
09:36 on punishment from the NCAA for a violations case
09:39 tied to Kansas, basically using Adidas to funnel money.
09:44 - Of what they're doing now.
09:46 - It's literally what they're doing now legally.
09:48 They still have to be punished for what they did
09:52 when the rules were different.
09:54 It was like, Bill Self, you can't be on the phone
09:57 with the Adidas head, the head of Adidas every day.
10:00 That's against the rules.
10:02 You can't do that.
10:03 And now you know what?
10:04 If Bill Self's not on the phone
10:05 with the head of Adidas every day, he's not doing his job.
10:08 That's how dramatically the rules have shifted.
10:11 What used to get people on post-season bands
10:16 and coaches their jobs is now like,
10:20 it's just the way you have to do it
10:21 or you can't get players.
10:23 - So how do you kind of make it regulated
10:28 across the country and across the board?
10:30 Because I think that would really help.
10:32 The transparency and contracts
10:35 of what players are actually making.
10:37 Would there be a way for the NCAA
10:40 or maybe particular leagues to set a quote unquote
10:43 salary cap like professional sports have?
10:46 - This is what I hear from coaches all the time.
10:48 It's like, listen, just tell us what the deal is
10:50 and we'll do it.
10:51 But we would like to know definitively what we're up against,
10:54 what's real and what's not.
10:56 And transparency, like, you know,
10:58 I've had multiple college coaches tell me
11:00 every one of my fans know how much I make,
11:05 but they don't know how much my point guard's making.
11:08 And I don't know how much this guy's point guard's making.
11:11 I wish, if all the numbers are gonna be out there,
11:13 let's put all the numbers out there, including.
11:14 The problem is, of course,
11:16 coaches' salaries are often done
11:19 through public universities,
11:20 at which point they are publicly available.
11:23 Whereas these student athletes are securing deals
11:28 with entities outside of the university, private entities.
11:32 So we have access to their W-2s in no more way
11:37 than they have access to mine or yours, right?
11:39 It's not publicly known what you make for doing this show
11:43 or what I make for doing what I do.
11:45 And student athletes at this point
11:48 are under the same umbrella.
11:50 Where I think this will eventually go,
11:53 like, it's one of those things
11:54 where we know what the destination is.
11:57 We just don't know how long it's gonna take to get there
11:59 and how we're gonna get there,
12:00 but we know where we're going.
12:01 And where we're going is eventually,
12:03 yes, the student athletes will be unionized.
12:09 I think football certainly will be separated
12:12 from other college sports, probably men's basketball,
12:16 women's basketball, and maybe baseball.
12:18 Anything that could be considered a revenue sport
12:21 for the big leagues, like the Big Ten and the SEC,
12:24 I think they'll break away.
12:26 Within those sports,
12:27 the athletes will unionize and be allowed to.
12:33 They will collectively bargain.
12:35 And at least those sports,
12:38 or at least some combination of those sports
12:41 will look very much like professional sports.
12:44 Now, once you do that,
12:47 if you wanna collectively bargain a salary cap,
12:50 any of these things, you can,
12:54 but it has to be collectively bargained.
12:56 It can't be artificially put in place
13:00 because that's how you end up in court
13:02 and you end up losing again,
13:03 trying to limit what student athletes can earn.
13:06 But if it is collectively bargained,
13:08 then you can limit what they are allowed to earn
13:11 the same way the NBA can limit
13:13 what LeBron James is allowed to earn
13:15 or Damian Lillard is allowed to earn.
13:16 So that's where we're going.
13:19 And I do think that will be a,
13:20 I'm hesitant to say better 'cause I'd have to see it,
13:24 'cause I think what that actually introduces
13:26 is more cheating.
13:27 It's like, okay, here's the salary cap
13:28 and then people will just work around it.
13:30 Now it's interesting, like in major league baseball,
13:32 NFL, the NBA, certainly the NBA where the salary cap
13:36 is the more, I guess, traditional,
13:39 it's just the one that's very difficult to get around.
13:43 It's like, hey, we don't have the space, we can't do it.
13:45 It seems like in the NFL,
13:46 they can manipulate it all the time.
13:48 In the NBA, it's a little more difficult.
13:49 My point is this,
13:50 they don't have problems in those leagues
13:52 with people trying to circumvent the salary cap.
13:55 You'll hear a story pop up every once in a while.
13:57 There was some thought that maybe,
13:59 there was an international player a few years ago
14:05 who signed a deal with a team,
14:07 it was like, yo, are you getting something on the side?
14:09 'Cause that doesn't,
14:10 but these stories pop up infrequently.
14:13 And so maybe it wouldn't be a problem
14:14 at the collegiate level if we instituted a salary cap,
14:17 but to answer your initial question,
14:19 that's gotta be collectively bargained.
14:21 It will be someday.
14:23 It'll just probably like all other things
14:25 in college athletics,
14:26 take us longer than necessary to actually get there.
14:28 Remember, we just got here
14:30 and people had been talking about getting here
14:32 for 20 years.
14:33 - Yeah, those are some really great insights
14:38 and points about the NIL
14:40 and the collective bargaining agreement
14:43 possibilities down the road.
14:45 The other thing that's been very prevalent
14:47 is conference realignment.
14:49 I live on the West Coast.
14:51 You've seen conference realignment
14:53 because Memphis has been in a number of different leagues
14:56 over the course of the last 20 years.
14:59 It's now hitting the West Coast
15:01 in what has traditionally been the best basketball league,
15:03 the Pac-12, like nobody could have ever imagined
15:07 18 months ago.
15:08 There's two schools left.
15:11 What is your take on conference realignment
15:15 on the West Coast?
15:16 And then is the WCC truly the best basketball conference now
15:20 West of the Mississippi?
15:22 - Well, I mean, like everything's West of the Mississippi
15:27 now, at least in some regard.
15:29 - Yeah, 'cause I guess it's nationally.
15:32 When you, I guess, time zone based.
15:34 - Yeah, I understand.
15:35 Maybe, certainly we gotta see what this,
15:38 barring a surprise, like Oregon State and Washington State
15:42 are just gonna need a home
15:44 and they'll probably find it with,
15:47 either they will join the Mountain West
15:49 or they will try to lure the best Mountain West schools
15:52 to join them and maybe keep the Pac-12 name.
15:56 There's a lot of moving parts here.
15:58 It could be one of those deals where Oregon State
16:00 and Washington State say,
16:01 "Well, rather than we join the Mountain West
16:05 as currently constructed,
16:07 why don't we knock off these bottom feeder
16:10 Mountain West teams, leave them alone,
16:12 and then we'll have the best of the Mountain West
16:14 plus Washington State, plus Oregon State."
16:16 As always, we'll see.
16:18 But it's sad.
16:20 But the idea that the Pac-12,
16:22 forever labeled the conference of champions,
16:23 this proud sports league is just not going to exist
16:27 in the way that it's existed our entire lives.
16:31 It stinks.
16:32 It's not a good thing for college athletics.
16:34 It's a bad thing.
16:36 On a personal level,
16:37 like I know people who work in that league
16:39 and I know that it was badly run at the top
16:43 and they had back-to-back,
16:45 I don't want to say incompetent commissioners,
16:47 but like commissioners who quite clearly didn't do the job
16:49 the way the job needed to be done.
16:51 Otherwise you don't end up in this situation.
16:54 But that doesn't mean that...
16:55 So I hear people sometimes say the Pac-12 did this
16:57 to itself and perhaps there's some truth to that,
16:59 but it doesn't mean that there's some good people
17:01 who worked in that office,
17:02 that got families who didn't have anything to do
17:04 with what happened and they're now paying
17:05 an enormous price for it.
17:07 I feel sick for those people.
17:08 - I tell you, Dan, I genuinely believe this.
17:12 When we do the 30 for 30 or the Netflix documentary
17:15 on conference realignment in 20 years or 30 years
17:17 or 40 years or whatever,
17:18 even the people, the men and women who are involved
17:22 in making these decisions,
17:23 in other words, they got the power to do it
17:25 and they're doing it,
17:26 they'll look back on this with regret.
17:28 All of this will be regrettable.
17:29 And the main reason is because
17:33 every decision that's been made,
17:36 I don't want to say every,
17:38 but the overwhelming majority of them
17:39 have been made with money in mind.
17:41 Now it's somewhat just like,
17:43 we need to get on that side of the rope.
17:45 So like, SMU agrees to take no media rights money
17:50 for X amount of years to join a power conference.
17:53 They just want to get on the right side of the rope.
17:55 But largely the reason being on the right side of the rope
17:57 is so important is because the money gap
18:00 between the haves and have nots is just massive.
18:04 Everybody's chasing money,
18:05 but you know what makes fans happiest,
18:09 coaches happiest, universities the best.
18:14 It's not having the most money.
18:16 It's not having the wildest practice facility.
18:21 It's winning.
18:23 People like to win.
18:24 The reason the Kennel looks the way it looks every night
18:27 is because they win nearly every time they play there.
18:31 And the Zags have been one of the most consistently
18:34 dominant programs in basketball
18:37 for a not insignificant amount of time now.
18:39 By definition, when USC and UCLA at the very least
18:46 go to the Big 10, and now you see Oregon, Washington,
18:53 like these are all top 25 football programs right now.
18:56 All right.
18:56 By definition, when they all go to the Big 10,
18:58 you know what happens?
18:59 Everything gets harder for them
19:02 and everything gets harder for Ohio State,
19:05 Michigan, Penn State.
19:07 All right.
19:08 These teams got to play each other.
19:10 Two teams can't win the same game.
19:11 For every win, there's a loss.
19:13 Somebody's got to take that now.
19:15 Instead of finishing first in the pack 12,
19:18 like USC would do in many years,
19:20 now that might equate to third in the Big 10.
19:24 They don't feel the same.
19:26 Same thing with the SEC.
19:27 Texas and Oklahoma go to the SEC.
19:30 Everything just got harder for both of them.
19:32 You know who else it gets hard for?
19:33 Alabama and LSU.
19:34 All right.
19:35 That's not fun.
19:36 We will look back on all of this.
19:38 I bet everything I have.
19:40 We'll look back on all this and go,
19:41 I understand why they did it when they did it.
19:44 The money was massive and everybody was trying to get it.
19:46 But boy, what did you get for that money?
19:49 Are you having more fun?
19:51 I got to be even wilder prediction for you.
19:53 You ready for this?
19:54 Washington is on its way to the Big 10.
19:57 Washington State is left behind.
19:59 Over the next 10 years,
20:01 you know who will have more fun?
20:02 Washington State fans will have more fun
20:04 than Washington fans.
20:05 'Cause Washington's gonna go in basketball and football
20:07 and get their brains beat in more often than not.
20:10 And Washington State might end up being the class
20:13 of whatever this new Pac-12 Mountain West is,
20:16 and they're winning football championships
20:18 and going to playoffs.
20:19 Now all you got to do is be better
20:22 than the people you're in the league with.
20:24 For Washington, that gets very hard.
20:27 For Washington State, it's not as hard.
20:30 I won't be surprised if Washington celebrates
20:34 changing leagues, but Washington State actually has more fun
20:37 after changing leagues,
20:38 'cause they're gonna win more than they would
20:39 if they were in the league they would prefer to be in.
20:42 All of this is gonna lead to people going,
20:44 we blew up rivalries.
20:46 We made things more difficult for our athletic programs.
20:50 We sent student athletes all over the country
20:53 to play volleyball and soccer, why?
20:55 When we look back on this,
20:57 everybody will be able to acknowledge
20:59 it was, if we could snap our fingers and undo it all,
21:02 we would.
21:03 - Yeah, there's a lot of interesting points
21:06 that you made there, and I agree with a lot of it.
21:08 I think it's been driven by money,
21:11 and unfortunately, years down the road,
21:13 hopefully sooner rather than later,
21:15 people realize just do something that makes sense
21:18 for football and leave the other sports alone.
21:21 But let's get back to what both of our passion is,
21:23 and that's college basketball.
21:25 Practices are now underway.
21:27 Games are right around the corner.
21:29 You got to be just immersed in season prep right now.
21:34 What does that look like for you
21:36 before you start heading to New York
21:37 for your studio gigs with CBS Sports?
21:40 Are you getting to practices?
21:42 Are you traveling out to see different programs?
21:44 What does your preseason prep look like?
21:46 - Haven't started that yet, will very soon.
21:50 We do a series in the off season,
21:52 just in the spirit of creating podcast content
21:55 for the Ion College Basketball Podcast with CBS Sports,
21:58 where we basically run through 20 teams.
22:00 We dedicate 20 different episodes
22:02 to not necessarily the 20 best teams on paper,
22:05 but just 20 teams we think, yeah, we'll be good,
22:07 but also have something interesting to talk about.
22:10 So we did an episode on St. John's,
22:12 not necessarily because St. John's
22:14 is gonna be one of the 20 best teams in the country,
22:15 although it might,
22:16 but because St. John's hired Rick Pitino,
22:18 and that's a big story,
22:19 and it felt like we could get 20 minutes out of that.
22:22 So in terms of prep, yes, I'm creating content,
22:28 but it's like a homework assignment.
22:30 It's like a summer reading almost,
22:33 if you were in high school,
22:35 because you have to really dive into Gonzaga,
22:38 and then you gotta really dive into Duke,
22:40 and you gotta really dive into Kentucky.
22:42 And I don't care how closely you follow this stuff
22:44 on a national level,
22:46 there's just so many teams and so much going on,
22:49 you'll miss things, or you won't quite pick up on things,
22:51 or you won't properly have a grasp
22:53 for who's gone and who's back.
22:54 So those are terrific prep sessions for the upcoming season,
22:59 'cause you're forced,
23:00 those school-specific episodes,
23:04 largely the people who are gonna listen to them
23:05 are fans of that school,
23:07 and you can't fake it with them.
23:08 They're gonna know more about it than you do,
23:10 so you gotta make sure you know about it.
23:12 And so those are incredible homework assignments
23:14 that help me get ready,
23:15 and also help generate enthusiasm.
23:18 Like I'm ready to go.
23:19 I tell you, and I don't know that this is unique to me,
23:23 I also don't know that it's common,
23:26 but it's just the truth.
23:27 I say this every year.
23:29 By the time February 1st hits,
23:31 I'm ready for it to be over.
23:32 Middle February, I'm just ready for it to be over.
23:34 People are like, "Are you excited for the Final Four?"
23:37 I'm excited for the Tuesday after the Final Four.
23:39 I'm exhausted.
23:40 Like you noted, once January hits,
23:42 I'm back and forth to New York every week.
23:44 I'm flying on Mondays, in-studio Tuesday, Wednesday,
23:46 flying on Thursdays.
23:47 I am so lucky to be able to do that,
23:49 but I would be lying if I told you it doesn't take a toll.
23:51 It's exhausting.
23:52 I have a wife and three kids,
23:54 and I'm not here as much as I would otherwise be.
23:59 You miss things, right?
24:00 And it's just like, you get worn down,
24:02 you feel like you're not present enough,
24:04 and I'm just like, "God, I can't wait for this to be over."
24:06 And then I really enjoy the off-season,
24:08 but by about now, I'm like, "All right,
24:11 "I'm ready to go again.
24:12 "Let's get going."
24:14 I'm tired of wondering if Zack Eaddy's
24:18 gonna be a statistical monster again,
24:20 how Hunter Dickinson's gonna adjust to Kansas,
24:23 how Graham E.K.'s gonna bounce back from injury.
24:25 Tired of wondering about it.
24:27 Let's see it, and then let's start talking about
24:29 the things that are gonna emerge
24:31 as the biggest stories in the sport.
24:33 And this is another thing that I always love
24:34 about college basketball.
24:37 In the NBA, you can reasonably assume
24:41 what the big stories are gonna be in the sport.
24:44 There ain't somebody who has never been an all-star
24:47 who emerges as an MVP candidate in the NBA,
24:50 just out of nowhere.
24:51 That doesn't happen.
24:52 Nikola Jokic is gonna be an MVP candidate,
24:56 and Joe Ellenbead.
24:57 It's not gonna be somebody that glows you,
25:01 like, "Oh my God, I would have never imagined this."
25:04 In Major League Baseball, you'll get some of that as well.
25:07 In the NFL, some of that as well.
25:09 Like who had Tua Tunga-Villoa and the Dolphins
25:11 scoring more points and gaining more yards
25:14 than any team in the first three weeks of the season
25:16 since the 40th.
25:17 You'll get some of it, but for the most part,
25:21 you kinda know who's gonna be good
25:23 and who's not gonna be good.
25:24 I still have to say this.
25:25 Last preseason, I don't think we said five words
25:28 about Zach Yee.
25:29 He was just one of many good big men
25:32 returning to college basketball,
25:34 but not considered the best.
25:36 That would have probably been Oscar Chibwe, right?
25:38 Or Drew Timmy.
25:39 And then Zach Yee becomes the National Player of the Year
25:41 and produce a one seed.
25:42 Nobody saw that coming.
25:44 I love that about this sport.
25:46 There are things that happen every year
25:49 that just you couldn't have possibly imagined
25:51 are gonna be the things that dominate the sport.
25:55 Even in the Zion Williamson year,
25:56 where he was the biggest figure in the sport by far,
25:59 he was the third best recruit
26:00 according to the recruiting rankings in Duke's class.
26:03 RJ Barrett was ranked higher.
26:04 Cam Reddish was ranked higher.
26:06 And then Zion Williamson is a phenomenon
26:09 within two weeks of the start of the season.
26:11 That's not something many people saw coming,
26:14 but it is something that happened.
26:16 We'll have that again this season.
26:17 And I'm ready to get to it so that we can start.
26:20 'Cause in the preseason,
26:23 obviously you end up talking about the same things a lot.
26:25 Like, do you think Purdue is gonna be able to bounce back
26:28 after losing to a 16 or whatever?
26:31 The season starts, it gives us new things to discuss
26:34 'cause there are things that happen that, again,
26:35 we didn't necessarily see coming.
26:38 - Awesome.
26:38 Well, obviously I love having you as a guest.
26:41 We could go on for hours about college basketball,
26:45 but we're both limited on time.
26:47 So I got one last question for you
26:49 because I know the listeners of this
26:52 are going to be curious about your take on Gonzaga.
26:55 You've always been extremely positive towards Gonzaga.
27:00 You felt that they were undervalued,
27:02 underrated for a number of years.
27:03 You've done a lot of deep dives on the program,
27:07 but this is a different year.
27:08 I think nationally,
27:10 people don't know a lot about Graham E.K.
27:11 because he played at Wyoming.
27:13 People don't know a lot about Steele Venters coming in
27:15 'cause he played at Eastern Washington.
27:17 The one transfer they probably know nationally
27:19 a decent bit about is Ryan Nembhardt
27:21 'cause he played at Creighton.
27:22 But from your perspective,
27:25 give us the national viewpoint of Gonzaga
27:27 this upcoming season.
27:28 - Listen, the safest thing you can do every preseason
27:32 for a long time now is just assume Gonzaga's gonna be good.
27:35 You know, they've been number one
27:38 three of the past seven years.
27:40 They finished in the top 10 at Ken Palm seven straight years.
27:43 They haven't finished outside of the top 25 at Ken Palm
27:47 since 2011.
27:48 Roster turnover,
27:51 you can lose a West Coast Conference Player of the Year.
27:54 It has never mattered.
27:56 They've always been good.
27:58 So if you were assuming they're not gonna be good,
28:01 then you're really betting against all of the data.
28:05 The question's how good?
28:06 Are we talking final four good?
28:07 Are we talking top 20 good?
28:10 Or what are we talking?
28:12 And I think it's,
28:13 I believe I have them 19th in my top 25
28:16 and one at cbssports.com.
28:18 They did lose four of their five starters.
28:21 They did lose, you know,
28:23 one of the greatest basketball players in the country
28:28 at the collegiate level
28:29 and one of the greatest college basketball players
28:31 we've had over the past decade in Drew Timmy.
28:34 That's a lot to overcome,
28:36 but they recovered incredibly nicely
28:40 in the transfer portal.
28:41 I think everybody knows Ryan Nimmard,
28:44 brother played there.
28:46 He has, you know,
28:49 started 64 games the past two years at Creighton,
28:53 you know, NCAA tournament teams,
28:55 teams that were good enough to go to the final four,
28:57 even though they didn't.
28:58 He averaged 12 points, five assists last season.
29:01 He's a rock solid lead guard at this level of basketball.
29:07 Still Venters is a fourth year player
29:11 who's an accomplished three point shooter.
29:14 He shot above 40% for his career so far.
29:19 That's a reliable number.
29:23 He'll be great,
29:25 or at least a guy that creates space
29:27 just by his ability to shoot.
29:29 And then the one that I'm most excited about is Graeme E.K.
29:33 Because I agree with you.
29:35 A lot of people haven't seen him
29:36 because he played at Wyoming,
29:38 but like buddy, I'm in studio on Tuesday and Wednesday nights
29:41 CBS Sports Network.
29:42 I watched a lot of those Wyoming games
29:44 and he was like awesome the last year that he played.
29:49 He averaged 19 and a half points and 9.6 rebounds
29:53 for a team that made the NCAA tournament.
29:57 So these weren't empty stats for a whatever team.
30:00 These were real numbers for an accomplished basketball team,
30:03 like a good team.
30:05 And he was the Mountain West Conference
30:08 preseason player of the year heading into last season.
30:10 And then he just never played.
30:12 I guess it was a foot injury.
30:14 And granted I haven't seen him
30:18 since the last time he played at Wyoming.
30:20 And I don't know what the recovery process has been like,
30:24 but if he just comes back
30:25 and he's the same player he was at Wyoming,
30:28 he, I don't wanna say that,
30:30 the Zags won't miss anything because they will.
30:33 Drew Timmy was an amazing college basketball player.
30:36 But Grammy King's a really high level
30:38 college basketball player too, who has already proven it.
30:41 I tell you this, you remember last year
30:44 at Kansas State, Keontae Johnson,
30:47 ended up being an all conference player,
30:49 all American candidate,
30:50 helped him get to the elite end of the NCAA tournament.
30:53 This time last year, nobody was talking about him.
30:55 Why?
30:55 He was the preseason SEC player the year, two years earlier,
30:58 but then he had the heart condition.
31:00 He was just sort of out of sight, out of mind.
31:02 Like we just like, man,
31:03 I guess Kansas State got Keontae Johnson,
31:05 but he hadn't played in two years.
31:07 Like, what's that gonna look like?
31:08 And as soon as he got on the court, you know what it was?
31:10 It's like, oh wow, he's not only as good as he was
31:14 when he was voted preseason SEC player of the year,
31:16 but he's even better than he's ever been.
31:19 Just keep that in mind about Grammy King.
31:21 I don't need him to be anything other than what he was,
31:24 'cause what he was was a Mountain West Conference
31:26 preseason player of the year who averaged roughly 20 and 10
31:30 for an NCAA tournament team.
31:31 He could be the guy that nobody's talking about
31:33 in the preseason.
31:34 You look up in December and you're like, man,
31:37 the Zags got another front court statistical monster
31:40 who looks like he could compete for, you know,
31:43 a West Coast Conference player of the year.
31:45 I'm not predicting it.
31:46 I'm just saying, I don't think the Grammy King edition
31:49 got enough attention nationally
31:52 because he's been sort of out of sight, out of mind.
31:55 But he's, the last time we saw him play,
31:57 he was a terrific college basketball player.
31:59 - Love it, Gary.
32:00 Always appreciate your insight as do our listeners.
32:03 So thanks again for joining Gonzaga Nation.
32:06 And at some point, I'm sure we'll have you back on
32:09 during the season.
32:09 So enjoy this great time of year
32:12 where we're all getting ready for the season.
32:14 - I can't wait, buddy.
32:16 I appreciate you having me.
32:16 Always good to talk to you.
32:18 Hope to see you in person real soon.
32:20 - Sounds good.
32:21 For Gonzaga Nation, he is Gary Parish.
32:24 I am Dan Dickow.
32:25 Thanks again for watching.
32:27 (upbeat music)
32:29 (upbeat music)