College Hoops Insights: Wednesday Previews w/ Mike DeCourcy

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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid. Great to catch up with Michael DeCourcy and

00:05talking some college hoops with us here on the show. Mike, great to have you back. And now that

00:09the college football season has come to an end in the NFL season as well, you and I can dive into

00:15some hardcore college hoops. And I know that makes you happy here. We got March Madness just a couple

00:19of months away. Although I would say, Mike, and I know you're following this, in my opinion,

00:24doesn't the college football playoff feel a lot like the NCAA tournament? It's like expect the

00:28unexpected with these games, right? Yeah, I think to an extent, I think we're still not to the level

00:34of evolution where you can expect James Madison to go out to Oregon and win. But maybe that has

00:39something to do with college football. And I believe this is the right approach, putting

00:43their early round games on campus and not on neutral fields where things might be evened out

00:49at least a little. But in terms of once you get into the heart of it, as we got into it with the

00:54quarterfinals, we saw what would be considered upsets. We saw Ole Miss take out Georgia,

00:59unexpected Miami take out Ohio State. I know that the teams that have had buys have not done well,

01:05but I think it's more complicated than that. Last year, a lot of the buy records were because they

01:10were seeding teams from lesser conferences. This time, they seeded it straight. They still had the

01:17same issue. But again, I don't think the teams that were seeded were super accomplished. They might

01:21have been very successful. Ohio State, for example, not a super accomplished team, beat

01:26Michigan, beat Texas, not a whole lot else. So I think that had something to do with it. It's just

01:31it's getting more balanced. And that's the whole idea behind expanding the playoff is to make it

01:37a sport that doesn't just belong to Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State and Clemson and Georgia.

01:43It belongs to everyone now. Mission accomplished, I would say in that realm, without a doubt. All right.

01:49But college basketball has belonged to the Michigan Wolverines this season, Mike. I mean,

01:55another win, this one over Penn State, 74 to 72. They're 14 and 0 on the season and huge favorites

02:03now to win the Big Ten championship. Now, I know a lot of folks did like Michigan going into the season.

02:09They did. But this is an unprecedented start for a program that's certainly rising right now.

02:14Yeah. In terms of the volume of their victories, their efficiency margin at KenPalm.com and KenPalm is

02:23kind of the gold standard of basketball statistics, college basketball statistics. Their efficiency

02:29margin is unbelievable. It's five points greater than any other team in college basketball. And that's

02:37a massive advantage. They have been phenomenal in that sense. But what we saw them last night struggle

02:43down the stretch against Penn State, a really well-coached team that isn't super talented

02:49or it's talented in certain places and very young. But Penn State came back, made it a game.

02:56And we saw from Michigan things that, one of the reasons why I wasn't ready to hand the trophy to

03:01Michigan, I still think they have a great chance to win it. But I'm willing to see the season play out.

03:06One is past history. Kentucky, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, sent eight or nine pros onto the floor

03:14at one time and still wound up not winning it. So it's possible from that sense. But also,

03:20their execution, point guard play late. LJ Kaysen came in and bailed them out a little bit.

03:26Elliott Cadeau was not elite against Penn State. And so he's got to prove that he is a championship

03:34point guard, even though they were able to win a bunch of games against terrific opposition by

03:40massive margins. What happens when it gets tight? Because it's going to get tight. The top of this

03:45sport is phenomenal. My first three seed lines on the brackets I do for foxsports.com, they're so

03:53rich. The 12 teams that are in that grouping all have the ability to win the national championship.

03:59Yeah. Mike, you see that graphic right there that we just showed? Do you find it interesting that

04:03the Wolverines are minus money to get to the final four? It seems a little premature on that one to

04:11me. I don't see that that often. I understand four to one to win the championship. Minus 130 in the

04:15final four? I mean, we're not even in February yet. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. And again,

04:21they're an impressive team. I mean, their front court is phenomenal, and they've got great depth on the

04:26wings. But that's a lot. Like I said, I just listed, I mean, I didn't list the names, but 12 teams that

04:32are on my first three seed lines. You saw Houston last night. They were tremendous. BYU, if you haven't

04:37seen them, you haven't seen A.J. DeBansa yet. DeBansa, excuse me. He's phenomenal. There are so

04:43many good teams in that first 12. Iowa State went into Purdue and won by 30. Purdue's beaten a bunch

04:49of teams. Even beyond that grouping, Alabama and a few others are threats. So yeah, those odds are a

04:55little rich, but I do love this Wolverines team. Duke takes care of Louisville yesterday, 84 to 73.

05:03Another monster game for Cam Boozer. 27 points. He is one of the favorites to win the Wooden Award.

05:09Still been about plus 150, 140 right now, plus 165. So Duke picks up another win. They went,

05:16you know, certainly leaned on Boozer again. They've been doing this most of the season. And as time goes

05:21by, I think this number will come down. Certainly at this point, you have to figure that Duke will

05:26probably win the ACC. Mike, they're minus 280 to win the conference. Yeah, I think that Duke's

05:32issue and their high class problems, but they have to show that they can build an offense that goes

05:40beyond giving the ball to Cam Boozer and letting him do his thing. They had nine assists on 29 field

05:47goals against Louisville. They were a little bit lucky in the sense that Louisville didn't have

05:51Mikel Brown, their tremendous freshman point guard. He's still bothered by a back injury.

05:56And so they had that going for them. But on their end, they have to find a way to make their offense

06:02function. Caden Boozer, Cam's twin brother, was not effective last night. And they were trying to

06:07work him in as a starting point guard and move Caleb Foster more to the two so that he can be the

06:14terrific player. He is. He was great last night, scored 20 points. But offensively, in terms of

06:19moving the basketball, sharing it and making sure that everybody gets great possessions.

06:25If you don't have a great point guard, eventually it's going to get you. And right now, Duke's not

06:30in that position. Iowa State Baylor is probably the primary game on the slate tonight. Number three

06:36team in the country. One of the biggest tests they'll have all season. They're four and a half

06:40point favorites on the road. Total 155. How do you feel about their chances tonight?

06:45Oh, I like their chances. They're going to have a difficult game because Baylor at home is a

06:50challenge. And most anybody on the road in the Big 12, it's a terrific conference, is going to

06:55give you a challenge. But I think that the interesting element of this is James Najee gets a big test.

07:02This will be a second game. He's the player who caused so much controversy being signed to play at

07:08Baylor, even though he'd already been drafted by an NBA team. A lot of college coaches were not happy

07:13with that. But James was signed because Scott Drew needed front cart depth. He only had seven

07:21healthy players and almost no big guys. So now he's got Najee. We'll see how it goes.

07:26Mike, good luck with your Steelers Monday night. We'll talk next week.

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