JP and BMitch discuss the landscape of the NCAA Tournament with David Aldridge. David is looking forward to watching his American Eagles play in the first Four.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00It's time to get on the rude guest hotline. Talk to our friend, Mr. David Aldridge, DA.
00:05How are you, man? What's up, gentlemen? We are great. I got I got to confess something.
00:13I did. I did break the I don't know what wall that would be the seventh wall, perhaps. And
00:18I told B. Mitch what you put in the the commander's text thread that you're already breaking down
00:24Mount St. Mary's tape. How many correct? How many Mount St. Mary's games have you
00:30now watched to probably watch another one tonight? What's the favorite thing they like
00:36to do, Dave? They they use a lot of pin downs to get to their big a lot of different looks
00:49to kind of get to their two big guys. They do high lows to them. They get them posted
00:57up off of some action on the weak side. Sometimes the two bigs are pretty athletic. It's going
01:05to be a problem for us. But we've been very good at ball pressure the last month. We don't
01:11let people get to what they want to do. We don't let people post this up because we really
01:15trap the ball pretty, pretty well. So if we keep that up, we'll we'll be in decent
01:22shape, I think. So I'm optimistic. We've been looking for that love for your mother, baby.
01:31We had Coach Simpkins on the show yesterday talking with our friend David Aldridge from
01:35the athletic D.C. D.A. A very proud American University alum. A.U. takes on Mount St. Mary's
01:40tomorrow night. This time of year, you're obviously an NBA guy. You've covered professional
01:49basketball for so long. What do you enjoy most? It's got to be different when you're
01:54A.U. Eagles are in it. But what do you enjoy most over these next three weeks of college
01:58hoops?
01:59You know, I just think the especially obviously the first week, first weekend is all about
02:07upsets, right? Everybody's looking for those big upsets for those 15 twos or there's those
02:1313 fours that come up every year. So you want to see that. You want to find out. You want
02:19to learn about people like the kid at Oakland last year that just came out of nowhere and
02:23started just started draining, raining threes on Kentucky. You know, you know, I mean, like
02:28that those are great stories, you know, and there's there's great coaches like Oakland's
02:34coach that's been around forever, you know, and people that really follow college basketball
02:39know him. But most people who don't follow him don't know much about him. You know, so
02:44those are those great stories come out about players and kids that that have been doing
02:50it just haven't been getting noticed, but they do it on a big stage and all of a sudden
02:54they get noticed, you know, and then, you know, you think about St. Peter's a couple
02:58of years ago and got to the sweet 16. I mean, you just say you love stories like that, right?
03:04And everybody wants that. That's what makes March Madness beautiful, right? You know,
03:09once you get to the sweet 16, you know, it's all about the blue bloods. And then it's about
03:14watching Duke play Kansas and things like that. And that's fine. You know, that's good
03:18too. I mean, that that certainly matters because you want to find out who the best team is
03:21in a given year. But I think the real tournament that most people are excited about is that
03:28first weekend, you know, when anything is possible, if you just, if your team plays
03:33at its best on a given day and gets a little luck, you can be UMBC, you know what I mean?
03:38Like that's just, and that's forever. That's forever, you know? And so that, that to me
03:43is what I love about it. You know, I've covered a few tournaments over the years and there's
03:48just nothing like the bands being there and the cheerleaders being there and the student
03:52bodies from the various schools that are able to come to sites. And I'm glad that, you know,
03:57a few years ago, for the most part, I mean, they kind of job, your Turks, man, send them
04:01up to Seattle. That's terrible. That's awful. You know, I got, it's really bad. Like, like
04:07if a, you got sent up to Seattle, I probably wouldn't be able to go, you know, like, you
04:11just, you just can't fly to Seattle, you know, that's asking a lot of people, you know, like
04:17especially when Arizona got the four seat in the East. Like, that doesn't make any sense.
04:25No, it doesn't. I don't know, Maryland travel. So they'll have people out there, but still,
04:29you know, like they, they say they make every accommodation and make it easier for people
04:34to send their fans out, you know, we're going to be in Dayton. And if we win, we'll go to
04:39Raleigh. I mean, those are doable things for us. You know what I mean? Like, like I can
04:43get to Dayton today. It would be hard for me to get to Seattle today. If I had to, you
04:48know, like Chris Russell usually takes the bus, but I mean, seriously, if you look at
04:56the four seeds, Purdue is the four seat in the Midwest. You can argue where these should
05:01have been slotted. And I think perhaps Maryland should have been ahead there, but whatever
05:05Purdue in the Midwest makes sense. Texas and Texas A and M is the four seat in the South.
05:11That makes sense. Somehow Maryland is in the West and Arizona's in the East. That doesn't
05:16make any sense. It doesn't make any sense to a great fan base that would, that would
05:24easily would happily go to North Carolina or to Florida or to wherever, you know what
05:28I mean? Whatever it was, right. Well, you can get there in less than a half a day, you
05:33know? Right. It's a reasonable trip. Seattle is not, that's not reasonable for you with
05:42how much AU means to you. How do you feel about the play in game? Because we had coach
05:48Simpkins on and he said, listen, man, for us, it's great. We're, we are the game nationally,
05:53but I feel like I'd rather, I don't want any of my 16 seeds to not get their chance at
05:59being UMBC.
06:00Right, right. No, I mean, that's the gamble, but you know, at first, you know, you're reflexively,
06:06you know, when it, and this is, you know, we've kind of known for the last really month
06:10or so that if we, if we win the tournament, ruin the Patriot league, the Patriot league
06:14champion, no matter who it is, it's probably going to be a 16. It's just Patriot leagues
06:17having a down year. It's not the, you know, it's not one of the, it's one of the lower
06:21V1 leagues this year. So you kind of just knew. And at first I was like, Oh, you know,
06:26I don't want to be in a play and that's terrible. But then you think about it, you're like,
06:30not only like coach said, you're, you're the only game in town on Wednesday night, but
06:35if you win, that's a tournament win. And you get a tournament win and you get a tournament
06:41unit, you know, you know what that is, you know, like you get paid, you know, and for
06:47us, we're a small program. That's a big payday for us if we win a tournament game. And so
06:52the opportunity to win an NCAA game, get paid, get some national attention on your program
06:58is well worth it to me. Um, I would much, if I have to play Duke and you know, if we
07:06win, we play Duke. We, I'm not under no illusions about what's going to happen on Friday. We
07:11play Duke. So we have to play Duke. Let's at least get a payday out of it before we
07:14play Duke. You know, that's what I'm looking forward to. Hopefully Duke will probably be
07:20on nationally too. I mean, if it's about, you know, exposure and getting more kids to
07:26see the brand. Yeah. You're going down with Duke out there. Um, yeah. How excited are
07:32you about Dwayne Simpkins just as your coach? Oh man. Yeah, no, it's been great. He's been
07:37great. Um, I'm so glad that, you know, we had, we had, you know, a lot of people apply
07:43for the job, which is, you know, that's every day one job doesn't mean we're special or
07:47anything like that. Like I gave her, you know, every school has dozens of people applying
07:51for their job when they become open. But I I've said this many times to people because
07:56it's the truth. Like, you know, over the course of many years of covering the NBA, you talk
08:01to college coaches all the time about players and guys that they like and guys that they
08:06think can be good pros. And so I would always, you know, I I've known Dwayne for 20 years,
08:12you know? So, um, you, you know, I've called him a lot of times to ask him about guys in
08:18the CAA, you know, that, that had a chance to be pros that, that he saw at Mason and
08:22in other places he's been. And Dwayne always was, while being very respectful to the existing
08:28coaches that were at AU at the time, he always said this to me, if that AU job ever comes
08:34open, I'd be very interested in that job. Always, you know, whether, you know, and,
08:39and we're not a big time program, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, that's not a
08:44job that you automatically think, God, I can't wait for that job to open. I'm going to be
08:48all over. So for a guy to say that to me consistently over the years, for him to get the job meant
08:56that he wanted the job and he's wanted the job for a minute and he wants, and he's thinking
09:01locally and the, the crowds that have come out this year are just different from crowds
09:08that we have seen at Bender for a long time. There's more people obviously, but, but even
09:14more than that, it's much more reflective of there's people that you see that you ain't
09:19seen in Bender in 10 years, you know, local guys, coaches, some AU guys, but not, not
09:25a ton because Dwayne doesn't, you know, he doesn't, he hasn't kind of affiliated himself
09:30with an AU program, local guys, local high school coaches, people that have known Dwayne
09:35since he was at DeMasa, you know that just because he's a good dude, everybody knows
09:41he knows him. He's a good dude and people are rooting for him. And it's just been great
09:46to see a local school, have a real local flavor in terms of not just the kids that they are
09:53recruiting and bringing in. Cause we got, you know, we've got a bunch of kids from Maryland.
09:57We've got a couple of kids from, from Virginia, from right around the way. We've got a kid
10:02coming in from DeMasa next year, you know, but just the guy that's been rooted in DC
10:08for a long time. It's been, it's just been, it's been a fun year, man. It's been a really
10:12fun year.
10:13Yeah. And ultimately that's what this is about. There's, there's, what are there now? 68 teams,
10:1967 of them are going to lose their final game. It's about being fun. And I think especially
10:26when you're a school, a smaller school, it's about building that sense of community, developing
10:30a program. And you know, like I just, it seems like Simpkins is doing it the completely right
10:36way.
10:38Absolutely. Absolutely.
10:40I'm curious if you have looked past some, you know, tomorrow night for your boys, if
10:45you've got final four, if you've got a champion predictions, all that kind of stuff.
10:50Um, you know, I would say this, um, I think, I think Houston's really good. It's really,
11:01really good. Um, so I kind of like, I kind of look at them as, I think they might be,
11:07they might have it this year. You know, like I just have, I have a feeling that that's,
11:12that team is just that they are so good defensively, you know, like they are so good. Um, and I've
11:19watched, obviously I've watched Duke a lot this year, cause he got a, cause the local
11:23pro team might, might have an interest in one of their players.
11:27Sure.
11:28It comes out. Um, so I've watched them a bunch this year and they're really good. Like Cooper's
11:32really good. Like he's going to be a really good pro. Um, um, and they've got some other
11:38guys that are really good, but I just, to me, a great defensive team in one game can
11:44be so disruptive that they really, really make it hard for a good offensive team. You
11:49know, like, like they just, good offensive teams aren't used to like not scoring. You
11:53know what I mean? Like they're used to, they have, they have more talent than you and that
11:57over the course of 40 minutes, they just wear you down. But if you're a really good
12:01defensive team, like Houston is like, they can really put sand in the gears and frustrate
12:06you, you know? And so I just have a feeling that whether it's Duke or somebody else, like,
12:11I don't know, I'm not an expert on college basketball. I'm not pretending to be, but
12:15having watched Houston a couple of times this year, you just come away going, boy, they're
12:19really good. They're really good. They're really good defensively.
12:24Yeah. And he's a really good coach. And so, and they've been in final elite eights and
12:30final four. So if they get there again, they're not going to be phased by it. You know what
12:33I mean? Like as a program, they kind of know how to do it now. So that's my, that doesn't
12:39mean I'm right. That's just my, you asked me a question. That's, that's the answer that
12:42came to mind.
12:43Um, I love your humility DA to suggest you're not a college basketball expert, but you know,
12:51that's funny. We know you watch more film than most people. There is nobody in the country
12:57that isn't on the AU staff. That is why that is grinded more Mount St. Mary's tape than
13:02you. I know that was true. Weird for us to not talk football, but we'll circle back to
13:07that after the madness. All right. Anytime guys, anytime. My pleasure. Give DA a follow
13:15at David Aldridge, DC. I, I, I really hope a U wins. I know that that would mean so much
13:22to him and the folks in Tenley town.