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00:00As always, it is great to have Mike DiCorsi from The Sporting News with us every week
00:10here on Coast to Coast.
00:12Mike, good to see you as always, my man.
00:14And listen, it's that time in the summer, right?
00:16We've got our big soccer tournaments going on.
00:20It's a lot of fun.
00:21You've got the Euros.
00:22We've got the Copa.
00:23Every two years, we get big ones.
00:25We'll get the World Cup in the United States a few years from that.
00:28So let's do with the USA here.
00:30They started the other night against Bolivia.
00:33Two-nothing win.
00:34Pulisic scores three minutes into the game.
00:35A rousing start.
00:36They're going to play Panama on Thursday night.
00:39What did you think of the first game for Burrhalter and the crew to start the Copa?
00:43Well, I thought there was a lot of great things in that game, and a game that goes 90 minutes
00:48is not going to be all perfect.
00:50And Chris Richards giving the ball away on multiple occasions in dangerous positions
00:56is certainly something.
00:58It's one of those things where you say, well, if they were playing a better team, that would
01:02be really problematic.
01:04But does Chris Richards give it away like that against a better team?
01:08Well, he wasn't one of the ones that was responsible for the gaffes against Colombia, and he didn't
01:13do it regularly against Brazil.
01:15So maybe it was just a question of attention to detail.
01:19Once you were up to nothing, maybe cruising a little bit.
01:22He's got to play better than that, certainly.
01:24But I'm not sure I'm ready to panic on that.
01:27They still are trying to find out what their best defensive pairing is, but I don't think
01:33I'd base it on how many giveaways he had against Bolivia.
01:37In attack, they were terrific, except when it got to the finish line.
01:41They did not score at the level that they could have.
01:45Not that they needed to.
01:46I mean, they won 2-0, but that they could have.
01:49In tournaments like this, you see teams continue to attack and continue to try to score because
01:56there are opportunities that might be available to you later in the tournament.
02:02You may get the group win based on goal differential or goal scored, and that's where they could
02:08have really created an advantage for themselves against Bolivia and did not.
02:12Mike, great column the other day about Pulisic.
02:16In fact, I think the headline for everyone will say it the best.
02:20Isn't just the United States men's team's most accomplished player, he's the best there's
02:24ever been for the United States.
02:27How about that, Mike?
02:28Tell me about it.
02:29Yeah, I mean, the accomplished thing is easy.
02:31I mean, he won the Champions League with Chelsea, and he wasn't just a guy on the bench or just
02:37a guy out there filling a position.
02:40He scored probably the biggest goal in the entire tournament for Chelsea, the opener
02:45against Real Madrid on the road.
02:48That set that tone for that particular series as well as he created.
02:53It was Mason Mount that finished the goal, but there's no third goal without him creating
03:00it to clinch everything in the second game of that series.
03:04So he was an essential player in Chelsea winning Champions League.
03:08He then goes and makes basically what we would call all league in Serie A this year with
03:13AC Milan.
03:14So we haven't had an American player do that before.
03:18So accomplished is easy.
03:20But in terms of best or greatest, that's where I think that you start to look at the
03:25fact that he has scored 30 goals in 69 games, I believe is the number.
03:32It took Landon Donovan, I believe, 87 games to hit that figure.
03:37If it hadn't been for the pandemic and the U.S. had played a full schedule in 2020 instead
03:41of just three games, maybe he's already on 40 or 45.
03:48He really missed a lot of opportunities there in 2020, as well as the opportunities he missed
03:53in 2018 when they didn't qualify for the World Cup.
03:56No fault to him when he was their best player in the latter stages of that qualifying campaign.
04:02Yeah, I think that people like Landon Donovan comes to their mind, Mike, right?
04:08Because there's so many national stage moments, right?
04:11There's so many things you can point to with Landon Donovan throughout his career that
04:15he did with the national team.
04:17I got news for everybody, and I know you're going to agree with me.
04:20Pulisic's got more to come, more big ones, like the one you saw against Iran.
04:24There's going to be moments for him, maybe even two years from now when it's here in
04:29the United States.
04:30He's going to get more national moments, and those will blow past Donovan at some point.
04:34Yeah, I think that you're looking at these next couple of weeks are an opportunity in
04:39Copa America.
04:40And then, of course, I think more so than that is 2026, when the tournament will be
04:46here in the United States.
04:47They will be based primarily on the West Coast for the early stages of the tournament.
04:51They'll play a couple of games in L.A. and one in Seattle in the group stage.
04:55And I think it's a real opportunity for Americans to see what Christian is capable of.
05:00Early in his career, the one problem he had that Landon never had a great problem with
05:06was staying healthy.
05:07And that's probably the biggest item in Landon's advantage, is that health factor.
05:14Christian was almost always there.
05:16And for a while, Christian had trouble being there.
05:19Lately, that's not been the case.
05:21He's really stayed together.
05:23He played the full year for Milan.
05:24He's played just about every U.S. M&T game in the last year or so.
05:28So that's good to see.
05:30Mike, let's get into the NBA draft, of course, round one tomorrow night.
05:35They've actually split it now.
05:36So you have round one on Wednesday night, round two on Thursday.
05:39We needed to do that.
05:40I get like the NFL split the draft up into a couple of days.
05:44This is a heavy European player draft, especially at the top.
05:49There's going to be a lot of guys taken early that none of us have ever seen before.
05:53But Mike, we have seen the talent that is coming out of the college ranks.
05:57I saw your rankings of your top 15 college players that are going to be in the draft.
06:01Why don't you let everybody know.
06:02Number one for Mike DiCorsi of the college players.
06:05Well, first of all, Mike, I must say that I'm really impressed that you called it talent.
06:11That was very generous of you to call it talent.
06:14I'm being a little facetious here, but this is not a great draft for the NBA.
06:19And it's a bit daunting, damning for American men's basketball.
06:25Maybe it's a one-off.
06:26Maybe it's just this is how it's going to go.
06:28And there will probably be some good players that are taken tomorrow night that maybe people
06:34aren't excited about now that eventually work themselves into great players.
06:38I mean, heck, nobody really thought Nikola Jokic was going to be a good player, let alone
06:42the best player in the league.
06:44So it can happen.
06:45But my number one out of the colleges, I only rated the colleges.
06:49I was only asked to rate the colleges.
06:52So I didn't watch the tape on the internationals that I have in past drafts.
06:56But the colleges, Steph Castle was my number one player.
06:59I really like Steph.
07:00I think he's terrific.
07:01I think he's got a chance to be a really good player.
07:04And I don't have any problem seeing him being a high rotation player for a good NBA team
07:10fairly soon.
07:11Donovan Klingin, there's a reason UConn won the national championship back to back.
07:16Donovan Klingin was my number two.
07:18And then my number three is a guy that I don't think enough people are talking about, Devin
07:22Carter from Providence.
07:24I'm starting to see him pop up into top tens, which excites me because he's a player that
07:29I thought was underrated as a collegian.
07:31And now I'm seeing him, I had seen him being totally underrated as a draft prospect, but
07:37maybe when they actually make the selections, he won't be.
07:42One guy that I've seen getting higher and higher, I've looked at a few mocks this morning
07:46that now have, first of all, I've seen some that have Klingin going first, which I think
07:50would be a very big surprise if he was able to jump both of the French guys.
07:54But Reed Shepard, I've seen as high as two or three now as well, Mike, what do you think
07:59of him?
08:01Well, I have, I have concerns about Reed Shepard, size, ability to maneuver.
08:07If he's going to be a point guard, he's got to be a better ball handler than he is.
08:11If he's going to be a wing, doesn't he have to be a little bit bigger than about six,
08:15two and a half, six, three?
08:17He's a phenomenal shooter.
08:18I mean, he's as good a shooter as he's coming out of college basketball and into the NBA
08:24in a long time.
08:27He is a great open shooter, but I'm not sure that I spend a top five pick on that.
08:32Defensively, he was really a problem.
08:35He was very disruptive.
08:36I mean, he could take the ball off you with anybody that there is, at least in college.
08:42He was phenomenal at that, but he was often on a position, made a lot of mental mistakes.
08:47So I have my concerns about him as a top five pick, as a top 12 pick where you know you're
08:53going to get his 50% shooting.
08:55I could see that.
08:56Mike, really fast, 10 seconds, two yes or no's.
09:00Does Eadie go in the top 10?
09:01Does Bronny go in the first round?
09:04No and no, but I think Eadie will come soon after that.