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Download Thumbtack and start a project today. So that you can overthink what you'll wear on that third date. Download the Instacart app to get free delivery on your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order, additional terms apply. Let's welcome in from CBS Sports also with DraftKings, the great John Rothstein, college basketball's hungriest insider. He's kind enough to join us once again on the Zach Gelb show. John, always a pleasure.
Thanks so much for doing this. How you been, my man? Great, Zach, but whoever gave you that reader, I got to correct them. It is FanDuel, not DraftKings.
Sorry, my apologies. John Rothstein on behalf of FanDuel here with us. Let me start you off because I follow you on Twitter and I know that you are against NCAA expansion for the tournament. And I'm 100% with you in college football.
I can't stand that they went from 4 to 12 as well. We know in the NCAA tournament they're at 68. It seems like though it's inevitable this is going to go to 72 or 76.
I mean, it might be inevitable by what, you know, is really kind of going through social media. But I think if you look right now at the NCAA tournament, the NCAA tournament is far and away the best postseason event that there is in all of sports. So tinkering with that does not make, in my opinion, any sense at all.
And I think if you look at one of the things that I've been very, very opinionated about. If there was one thing that I would like to see altered with the NCAA tournament in its current form, which features 68 teams. I think it would be better for the tournament if the first four in Dayton featured the last eight at-large teams. And any team that earned an automatic qualifier was then granted an opportunity to start the NCAA tournament in the round of 64 if you win your conference tournament. But you think about expanding the NCAA tournament or even the people who have that discussion, you are then saying that you are going to minimize what goes on during the regular season.
And Zach, you know this as well as anybody else. One of the things that really brings people into college basketball from the periphery, and even general sports fans for that matter, is early as the early days of January is the bubble. Who is the first four teams out? Who is the last four teams in? It's really part of the vernacular of our country from really the end of the Super Bowl until Selection Sunday.
And if you expand that, you are going to take that away. Now I know that there's a lot of people who were extremely frustrated that their team or program didn't get into the NCAA tournament last year. The Big East had three teams that you could have made a case for to get to the NCAA tournament. Seton Hall, St. Johns, and Providence were all left out of the field. Pitt was also playing great basketball at the end of the year out of the ACC. But part of the greatness of March Madness is the fact that the postseason truly begins during championship week because every single team that's a part of its conference tournament can play its way into the NCAA tournament. And a perfect example of that is NC State. NC State was down three points to Virginia in the ACC tournament semifinals.
The Wolfpack were nowhere near an at-large bid. Isaac McNeely, an excellent free throw shooter for Virginia, is at the free throw line to ice the game. He misses the free throw. Michael O'Connell gets the ball for NC State. Tony Bennett opts not to foul a three.
Michael O'Connell does a double clutch, banks in a three. NC State beats Virginia, gets the automatic qualifier the next night against North Carolina, and then goes on one of the most improbable runs to the Final Four that we've seen. So the person who may make a case for expansion would say, well, that just reiterates why we should expand the field because NC State was good enough to get to the Final Four. I say nonsense because part of the greatness of March Madness is the fact that that entire chain of events and that one play for Michael O'Connell changed an entire season. The NCAA tournament does not need to expand today, tomorrow, or ever. The only change that I would make would be to make the First Four the final eight at-large teams in the bracket and then obviously have any automatic qualifier in the round of 64. This is not a participation trophy getting to the NCAA tournament.
It's an exclusive club, and we need to stop the talk for expanding the field. Jon Rothstein here with us on behalf of FanDuel. Also does a great job, CBS Sports, college basketball insider. Let me briefly get your thoughts on Danny Hurley before we talk about the draft. I thought the Lakers could have offered him a lot more money. It was a six-year deal, reportedly $70 million. Did you ever think they were very close to seeing Hurley leaving Connecticut, UConn, and going out to Los Angeles?
If it would have been extravagant money, like you were referencing right there, and it was in a Godfather-type offer, I could have seen- Like $90 to $100 million, right? Yes, if Danny Hurley was going to be offered $15 million a year to coach the Los Angeles Lakers, I think it could obviously have been a little bit different. But I also think that if we would have seen the Boston Celtics or the New York Knicks offer Danny Hurley the job, if that was the job that he was being courted for, we might have a different result because that job was in the Northeast. But Danny Hurley is somebody who has now carved out space as the best coach in college basketball.
He is on a two-year run that is really unprecedented in the modern era when you think about his NCAA tournament dominance. You know, Zach, when I think back to the teams that have won back-to-back national championships, really since I've been covering college basketball and really been alive, it's been Duke in 91 and 92. It's been Florida in 06 and 07. And I think back to those teams, Florida played a very, very good Ohio State team in the 2007 national championship game. It was a competitive game, Greg Oden, Mike Conley, all those guys.
Florida won by nine points. Duke, obviously, in its trip to get to back-to-back national titles in 91 and 92, needed the buzzer beater from Christian Laitner to beat Kentucky in the regional final, and then was actually losing by five points to Indiana in the final four and came back to beat Indiana by three points, I believe it was 81-78 in the 1992 final four. UConn, under Dan Hurley, has won 12 NCAA tournament games in the last two years by an average of 21.7 points per game. I mean, this is really unfathomable when you think about UConn's dominance in the postseason. And I think when you look next year, you know, in the college basketball season that's going to be filled with interesting storylines, UConn's quest to win a third national championship will be at the top. And I think if you look at UConn's roster on paper, you might say that, you know, the ranking is based more on what this program has accomplished the last two years versus maybe what people think this team can be. But then you remember who's cooking the meal in the kitchen.
And if it's Dan Hurley cooking that meal, the sauce is probably going to taste just right when it's done to eat. John Rothstein here with us. I kind of feel like Bronny James is going to get drafted by the Lakers in the second round. But how do you view him as a prospect? About a year ago, I was at a USC practice and I was watching their team work out and I watched Bronny James very closely. And I said, this guy's got a chance to be a really good multi-year college player. He's got a chance, I think, to be an exceptional perimeter defender.
He's an underrated passer. But unfortunately, delayed gratification was never in the cards for Bronny James. You know, he wouldn't be even in the discussion to be drafted if he wasn't the son of LeBron James. Where do you think, like, obviously you think then he should have stayed in college.
Yes. How much of a consideration was that actually? Because there was a little talk that maybe you go transfer to Duquesne and play for Drew Joyce, who obviously played high school ball with LeBron. You know, everything that I read from obviously people who cover the NBA every day, you know, made it pretty clear that one of the goals and the dreams for LeBron James before he retires is to play for his son.
And I think that's the way this narrative right now and the storyline is going to unfold. Obviously, you know, his agent Rich Paul came out last week and said that Bronny James only worked out for two teams, the Suns and the Lakers. The Lakers, as you mentioned and referenced, are on the board of 55. I think that's where we expect Bronny James to land, you know, if he's going to be drafted coming up tomorrow or the following day in the 2024 NBA draft. I saw it was talked about today by Landry Fields that the Hawks got rejected by SAR with the workout. They have the number one overall pick. So I'll ask you a two part question. Who do you think is going to go number one overall tomorrow evening?
And then also because it could be a different answer. Who do you think is the best player in this draft? I would trade the number one pick if I had the number one pick and I was an NBA executive because the narrative surrounding this NBA draft is obviously that it's a very weak draft. It's weak at the top in the sense that I don't see a ton of franchise caliber players at the professional level in the NBA draft. But I do think as you get further on down the line, there's a number of good players who could have productive careers in a certain role in the NBA for a long time. But I think if you're an executive right now with one of the top draft picks, you want to be thinking really heavily about trying to move down. Because this is the type of NBA draft where you can get the same player down the line at nine or ten that you could get a three or four. Who do you think though is the best player in the draft? There's so many different foreign prospects, Zach. You know, I don't want to obviously act like, you know, I have, you know, seen these foreign prospects as much as I've seen, you know, obviously the college prospects. And another thing too, we saw in college basketball last year a number of programs take chances on foreign prospects who were projected to be first round picks or lottery picks.
And that didn't come to fruition. Two programs that took a number of foreign prospects on were UCLA and Xavier. I think now considering the way he's developing and considering how much he can change the game defensively, I think you would have to think long and hard about Donovan Klingen being such a game changer and being able to do so many different things defensively in the NBA is something that you would take number one, you know, in the 2024 NBA draft. The face-up game is improving. We saw elements of that offensively later in the season. And the one thing that I've always liked about Donovan Klingen, especially when you're talking about his defense, it's not so much the shots that he blocks, it's the shots that he alters. And I think you saw that in that dominant run that UConn had 30 to 0 against Illinois in the elite eight.
I only got 30 seconds left. Imagine if you get one bin yama and clinging on the same team in San Antonio with them picking four. That would sell some tickets for sure. I don't know if it's Duncan and Robinson, but they could really could run it back for sure. John Rothstein does a tremendous job.
College basketball is Hungary's insider for CBS. Start your summer road trip at Midas and get up to $30 off your next repair service. Plus get a free Closer Look vehicle check to make sure your road trip ready. So if you need to break service in alignment, check or tune up, hit up Midas for up to $30 off. For more details, request your appointment at Midas.com.
Or download the TuneIn app to start listening. You can search for what you need done and find tons of highly rated pros right in your neighborhood. Check prices, reviews and book a pro right on the spot. Plus, you'll know what to tackle next because Thumbtack is the app that shows you what to do, who to hire and when. Pull out your phone and in just a few taps, say goodbye to all those unfinished home projects and say hello to caring for your home the easier way.
Download Thumbtack and start a project today. Sports and also does a great job contributing to FanDuel. Kind enough to join us right now on the Zach Gelb show. John, appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks, Zach.
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