Replay of Conference Call

RACHEL MARGOLIS SIEGAL:  Good afternoon and welcome to today’s call. We are very excited about the start of this year in college basketball.  Scheduled on ESPN Network, we have approximately 1,500 games involving 246 teams from 31 Division I conferences, one of our most extensive schedules ever.

We kick-off coverage Friday, highlighted by the Armed Forces Classic in South Korea.  Jay Bilas will be flying over to call that game.  We have him on today.

I’d like to start the call. Jay, would you like to just give us some quick opening remarks, and let us know about the start of the season, and then we’ll go to questions.

JAY BILAS:  Thanks, Rachel. I couldn’t be more excited about the start of the year.  We’ve had some challenges in college basketball the last few, and I think this year we’ve got one of the more talented freshmen classes that we’ve seen in a long time.  And it seems that college basketball has, in large measure, been determined by ‑‑ the quality of the play has been determined by the quality of the freshman class.  And if that holds true again this year, then we’re in for what I think could be a phenomenal season, given the level of play in the freshmen.

RACHEL MARGOLIS SIEGAL:   Great, thanks, Jay.

Q. I wanted to get your opinion on this Big‑12 race, particularly how is Oklahoma faring in the competition?
JAY BILAS:  Well, I think Kansas has to be considered the best team, again.  You win nine in a row, that’s some pretty strong evidence you’re going to have a chance to win it again.  And I do think that Bill Self’s freshman class comes in.  He’s got an NBA size front line and really talented, and his freshman class is within shouting distance of Kentucky’s, for talent, not quite as deep in talent, but overall, really terrific.

Andrew Wiggins, I think everybody has heard is the top prospect.  I’m not sure he’s ready to be the top player, but give him a little bit of time and he’s just going to continue to get better and better, and I was really impressed with Wayne Selden when I was there.  He’s probably the hardest worker.  And Joel Embiid, he’s the No. 1 overall pick.  We just don’t see guys that size with that agility and the feet and hands and touch.  So he’s going to continue to get better and better.  I like their team a lot and I like ‑‑ and Oklahoma State is very good.  They don’t have the front line that Kansas has, I think that’s the difference.  With Marcus Smart and Markel Brown, I think Markel Brown is one of the most underrated players in the country.  And Smart is probably the most complete player, in the country.  But having to go up against the front line of Kansas is going to be the real challenge, having to keep them off the glass, keep them out of the paint, and defend them in the post is going to be really, really difficult.

Q. What about the Sooners, how do you see them faring?
JAY BILAS:  I like Oklahoma, they’ve got really good guards.  Keep everybody healthy, I think they’re going to continue to get better.  But if your question was about winning the league I would put Kansas and Oklahoma State above the Sooners right now.  I think they’re taking another step forward, but I think ‑‑ you’ve got to have a complete crew to knock Kansas out of the top spot.

Q. Down here in Kentucky there are a lot of expectations about the team with all the freshman.  But what is your general impression of all this talent and in your opinion is Cal kind of out done itself?
JAY BILAS:  Well, outdone himself, he keeps doing it.  From a rating standpoint, having so many players that are No. 1 in their position is really unusual.  So I think it would be ‑‑ it would be folly a little bit to say this is the best recruiting class ever.  It’s the highest rated.  But you’re only going to determine what the best recruiting class was by looking backward on what they accomplished.  And we’re not going to have recruiting classes anymore that come in and win three championships, because they’re not going to stick around that long.

So comparing them to UCLA’s ’66 class, Lew Alcindor in it, stuff like that, Ewing’s class, or things like that.  That stuff is not going to happen anymore.  It’s a different stand arrested.  But from just a pure talent standpoint it’s off the charts.  This class is really, really good.  (Julius) Randle, (James) Young, the (Aaron & Andrew) Harrisons, it’s ‑‑ I saw them this summer when I was there.  And I was blown away by ‑‑ I’ve seen them all before, but when you see them altogether there, and the level of what ‑‑ kind of the level that John (Calipari) has gotten this program to with that kind of youth, I frankly when he first got the job didn’t think that was possible.  That you could take essentially a new team every year and have it competing for a National Championship.  And what has been the anomaly was last year, which traditionally you would expect to be the norm.  And that was the anomaly.  He’s done a phenomenal job, and I think he’s shown ‑‑ for those who doubted whether he could coach, which I was not among that group, he cannot only recruit, he’s a great coach.

Q. I’m just hoping you could tell me a little bit about how you feel about the new hand check rule.  It’s got a lot of coaches ‑‑ don’t seem to be pleased about the rule and how it’s going to impact the game.  From afar as an analyst, how do you think it will change the style of play, what we will be seeing as fans?
JAY BILAS:  I was in favor of it and have been advocating it from years.  I think our game has gotten away from us.  We are in the same position now we were in the same in the year 2000 or so, where their game had turned into organized wrestling matches, and that’s what our game has been.

It’s been a long time coming.  And no disrespect to the supervisors or commissioners, but we have nobody in charge of this.  And finally we’ve had some movement where we can get ‑‑ we can stop the organized fouling, and that’s what it is.  Coaches ‑‑ many coaches have been admitting this.  They’ve been teaching fouling as strategy simply because the referees will not call it.  And now it’s all these things have been in the rule book, but now they’re codified as rules.  They were in the back of the rule book in the interpretation section.  Now they’re actually in the rules.  So the referees have no excuse.  They have to call these fouls.  They’ve been fouls forever, and they need to call them.

If you look back, and I have, at tapes of games from the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, up into today, it is stunning, it is stunning how our game has become in organized fouling, wrestling match football game, hockey game.  It’s ridiculous how bad it’s gotten.  And I think what this will do is it will bring back freedom of movement into the game.  But it’s something we have to stick with.  And if coaches and players are going to be stubborn about it, they’re going to get whistled for fouls.  And if the commissioners and supervisors aren’t strong about it, then the referees are going to be allowed to back slide and slip back into the old way of just letting things go.

And last thing I’ll say on this, if you look over ‑‑ and all the data that the game has produced over the years, and it’s produced a lot, shooting percentages, scoring has gone up and down with the different developments in the game, the 3‑point shot, the shot clock, shot clock going to 35 to 45, things like that, the one thing that has remained constant over the last 50 years is the number of fouls called during a game.  It’s stayed steady around 18 per team per game.  That doesn’t make any sense when you really think about it.  How could fouls not fluctuate at all?

What it really tells me is that officials self-regulate.  And they’re only going to call a certain amount of fouls.  Well, the coaches know that.  And so they’ve been teaching their players to foul because the referees won’t call them.  And the NFL has changed their game with regard to chucking receivers and putting your hands all over receivers.  The NBA fixed their game.  The NHL fixed their game.  And we’re way behind.  And now we’re fixing ours.  And it is going to make the game so much better.  But the next move we have, and I don’t think this is over, we’ve got to get contact off the ball, taken away, where you can’t hold cutters and chuck cutters.

And then we’ve got to reduce the shot clock.  Because college basketball right now has the longest shot clock in the world.  Men, women, you name it.  And the truth is that’s an embarrassment.  There’s no reason for it.  There’s no data that suggests that 35 seconds is the magic number to get off a really good shot against good defense.  And there’s no excuse for it.  There’s no excuse that women’s college basketball is at 30.  The international game is at 24.  So all of the basketball literati out there who are saying the Europeans know how to play better than us, they’re more skilled, and look at the way they do it.  They play at 24.  So if the Europeans can figure it out, the entire international basketball community could squeeze a shot off in 24 seconds, but we need 35, we should be embarrassed by that.

Q. I was just curious what your thoughts are on Duke at this point in the season?
JAY BILAS:  Well, I think Duke ‑‑ I saw them play, I was there for their Bowie State exhibition, and I was really impressed with them.  I think by mid‑season they’re going to be really good.  They’re really good now, but they’re the type of team that’s going to keep getting better, I think.  And they can score from so many different spots.

And Jabari Parker is one of the special players, not only in the country this year, but I think he’s one of the special players and Mike Krzyzewski has ever had.  And he can bring the ball up court, he can see over the defenses, he’s a willing passer, he can post, he can fade, he can shoot threes.  He’s good defensively, can block shots.  He got a steal in the Bowie State game which I thought was phenomenal over on the right wing in the second half.  And he’s the real thing.  And he’s only scratching the surface of how good he’s going to be.  He reminds me ‑‑ Coach K is going to use him like a queen on a chess board.

And Rodney Hood the lefty is a really good shooter.  They’ve got good guards and pretty good depth.  The only question mark with Duke is are they going to be able to rebound with the bigger teams they’re going to play.  They weren’t a rebounding team last year, they did lose Ryan Kelly for a good portion of the year.  And I think that’s a very real question mark.  Are they going to be able to rebound at the highest level?  I think that’s the only thing that holds them back from being a very legit championship contender.

Q. I was wondering, a lot of buzz about TJ McConnell here and the kind of impact he can have.  Not only himself, on both sides of the ball, but maybe changing, having that true point guard that he brings.  I didn’t know if you’d seen him much at Duquesne or had any thoughts on that?  Do you expect that big of an impact or how do you think things might change with him?
JAY BILAS:  That’s a good question.  I think he’s the first kind of true point guard that Sean (Miller) has had at Arizona.  And like Mark Lyons was terrific for him.  But (T.J.) McConnell is better.  He’s a past first player that can bring the ball up, initiate offense.  He’s not the scorer that Lyons was nor is he the guy at the end of the clock that is going to necessarily take on all comers and go get you a shot or a foul.  But he’s going to get you into something and get the ball moving.  And he’s going to bark out instructions as to where everybody is supposed to be.

So I think his leadership is going to be really important.  He’s a really good passer.  He can score now, he scored pretty efficiently at Duquesne.  And he’s a pretty good guard rebounder, so they’ll stick his nose in there and get some rebounds and start the break himself.  I like him.  I think he’s the difference between Arizona being really good and being kind of top ten good.  I think they’re Top Ten good with him.

Q. I was going to ask you overall your thoughts on them, too.  Again, they are getting a lot of top five, top ten votes right now.  What’s your thoughts overall on Arizona?
JAY BILAS:  I think they’re really capable.  They’ve got size across the front.  (Kaleb) Tarczewski is big.  Ashley’s has got size.  They’ve got good, young athletes.

Aaron Gordon is really good.  He can run.  He can play full court basketball, he’s bouncy.  He’s not as skilled as some of the other ‑‑ like Parker before.  Gordon is not as skilled, but he’s really rangy.  And he’s going to add a different dimension to that group.  And Rodney Jefferson is good, he’s going to need maybe a little bit more time to get prepared to contribute at the highest level, consistently.  Just an issue of whether they’re going to be able to shoot the ball consistently from the perimeter.  They’ve got a good crew.  I really like that team a lot.

Q. Obviously the Final Four is coming here.  When you look at the preseason rankings, Michigan State, Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, Louisville are all up there.  Do you think that’s good for the game?  Isn’t that what kind of makes this season ‑‑ I guess makes it a pretty good season coming up?
JAY BILAS:  Yeah, I mean I really don’t see a big difference in this year over the ‑‑ most years.  Whether it’s college football or college basketball there’s a lot of the usual suspects in the top 25 preseason during the season.  Basketball is unique in that it has a tournament at the end that allows some of the quote, unquote, lesser unknowns, to pull upsets and gain headlines.

But whether it’s a Final Four that has VCU in it, people get excited over it, and I don’t recall anybody complaining in 2008 when all four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four and you had that great final between Kansas and Memphis.  If you remember that year Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and North Carolina, all the teams at the start of the year were the best teams at the end and all made it to San Antonio for the Final Four.  And nobody boycotted the games because the little guy didn’t win.  It’s great every year, and that’s good news in a lot of ways for the game because the NCAA tournament is idiot proof.

But I think it’s been a little bit, for the administration of the game, it hasn’t been great because there have been times when we have not paid attention to what we should in making sure that the game is properly maintained.  I think I mentioned it before with regard to some of these new rules that it’s no secret that the quality of play has deteriorated in college basketball the last several years.  It has not been its best.

And we came to ‑‑ I think we hit near rock bottom last year with one of the lowest scoring years we’ve ever had and that prompted some people to start paying attention to how bad it had gotten.  And we had a lot of canaries dying in the coal mines saying it, and very few people were listening.  And they’re listening now.  This game has to be properly maintained.  And I think there are a lot of people trying their best now to properly maintain it.  If we do that I think college basketball will get better and better, because it is a great game.

The things that are around college basketball, the atmosphere ‑‑ the atmosphere is second to none.  But the game has slipped a little bit.  And the quality of play, the way it’s been officiated, to the point where we’ve taken it down a peg.  If we fix this I think it will really take off and go to a level we’ve never seen before.

Q. If I could follow‑up, no Texas schools last year made the NCAA tournament.  How much talent is just in the state?  Does that surprise you that Baylor or Texas ‑‑ obviously some of the other schools couldn’t make the tournament last year or was that just an anomaly, do you think?
JAY BILAS:  I think it was the latter.  I think it was more of an anomaly.  I think Baylor is going to make it this year.  Texas really struggled last year, which has not been the case.  Rick Barnes went to 14 straight NCAA tournaments, but the Longhorns were a fixture in there.  Texas Tech went under Bob Knight.  I think it was an anomaly.  I think SMU is ready to breakthrough, too, because Larry Brown has got a really good team.  They’re maybe a year away from being as good as they’re going to be.  But they’re going to surprise a lot of people.  Houston is better this year, Jay Dickey has got a good crew.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see that jump up.  Obviously it will jump up from zero, but jump up.

Q. I know you were in Lexington earlier this summer, when you talked about the freshmen being special.  What makes them stand out for being special to you?
JAY BILAS:  Well, you can tell at every spot, Julius Randle is the best player.  And at 6‑9 he’s the most physically imposing, left‑handed kid.  He limits it to two dribbles, nobody can stop him.  Nobody.  If he dribbles more than that he gives them a chance to stop them.  One or two dribbles, he’s dominated.  And I was really impressed with James Young.  I’d seen him before, but in that environment ‑‑ he’s going to get better and better, I think he could wind up being the best defender in the group.  And I think Andrew Harrison, I think they held him out of the last exhibition, he didn’t play very well in the first one.  He’s back in the mold of the big, dominating point guard that John‘s (Calipari) had, whether it be a Wall or Rose, I’m not projecting first pick in the draft status for him.  But he’s not going to be much further down.  He’s going to be within shouting distance of that.  And he’s big, strong, quick, and gets in the lane, finish plays, and then his brother can really shoot it.  Aaron (Harrison) is a really good shooter.

And the kid, Dakari Johnson, really good feet and good hands and can score in the post.  He doesn’t run that well.  He’s not a guy that’s going to be a speed merchant changing ends, but he’s not slow.  But that’s not his strength.  But he’s got a chance to be very, very good.  And he’s going to contribute right away.

I haven’t gone through the whole class.  It’s hard to imagine a class in today’s day and age that’s more talented than that.  But after watching John (Calipari) recruit since he got there, I wouldn’t put it past him to duplicate it.

Q. When you look at Kentucky this year, does that make John (Calipari) have to change how he plays or anything?
JAY BILAS:  Well, they changed the way they played last year maybe a little bit.  A little bit the year before, where they didn’t do as much of that dribble drive motion stuff.  And I think they’ll go back to it this year.  And mix‑up ball screens with it.  The problem last year they didn’t have a point guard.  And then they couldn’t shoot it.  So defense has packed it in on them and they couldn’t bring them out.  People say, hey, spread the court.  You can spread the court all you want to, you have to stretch the defense.  And you can stand anywhere you want, if the defense doesn’t go with you, it doesn’t matter.

I think this year they’ll be able to spread the defense a little bit and stretch it.  And that’s going to open up driving lanes.  And that team can really drive it.  If they can make a perimeter shot they’re going to open up drives and that’s going to open up lobs.  They’re going to have a lot to do.  That team is going to shoot a lot of free throws and get a lot of easy baskets.  I’m really impressed with them.

Q. If you look at Duke in the one and done area, with Kyrie Irving, never came to fruition, and Austin Rivers didn’t exactly work out.  What in particular do you think about Parker’s game that might let him get acclimated with this new team a little more quickly?
JAY BILAS:  I’m not sure that I accept that Austin Rivers didn’t really work out.  That kid was really good.  He was one of the top picks of the draft.  They had an awfully good year with him there.  I think Jabari Parker has got one of those ‑‑ he’s got a skill level that you just don’t see that often.  And I would put him on the ‑‑ kind of on the Grant Hill level of being able to do multiple things.  Watching him play the other day I really enjoyed watching him, just because of the different things he can do on the court, posting up.  He can play with his back to the basket, he can play facing it.  He’s really, really impressive.  I’m going to be interested to see how Coach K uses him throughout the course of the year, because he can put ‑‑ he can play him anywhere from in the back‑court, which I don’t think he’ll have to do that much, but he can play him all the way to the five.  And that’s not a question of where he’s going to play offensively.  But Coach K is going to be able to put four guards with him and he can operate anywhere on the floor.  With that kind of versatility comes a tremendous amount of flexibility.  Whether the guy is a one and done or he’s a four‑year player, he provides a lot of flexibility for them.

Q. Is it interesting to see an Oregon team usually that would probably be unranked against a Georgetown team that is young playing a top 25 every year, and what do you expect to see there as a whole?
JAY BILAS:  Well, I think it will be another great event.  Obviously it’s a basketball game for the team’s first and foremost, but it’s also a wonderful experience for them to spend some time around our military, which is ‑‑ you’ve got two teams that are trying to compete to be the best in their conferences and hopefully a chance to be the best in the country in time.  I don’t know whether that’s realistic for either one of those teams yet.  But they’re going to be around a team that has proven over the course of time to be the very best in the world and that’s the U.S. military.  So that’s going to be great for them and great for us.  And that’s why I’m so honored to be a part of it, again.

Oregon has a lot of new pieces.  Their issue is going to be can they rebound and will they be prepared to deal with what Georgetown throws at them.  Because Georgetown runs a different type of offense than you see every day.  And Georgetown has had two scrimmages.  There’s no film from those scrimmages, and Oregon has had two exhibition games.  Not that this matters all that much, but it’s kind of funny that Georgetown has two game tapes from Oregon and Oregon has nothing on Georgetown.  So they’re going to have to go off of what they saw this last year.

But both these teams pretty straight forward.  Oregon runs a spread offense, they switch defenses.  And Georgetown runs kind of a Princeton‑style offense, and they’re going to be a little different this year, because they have Josh Smith who played at UCLA and transferred in, and was declared eligible right away.  And whenever he’s in the game you can bet that Oregon is going to run nothing but ball screens, and involve him in that, because that’s what they did when he was at UCLA, they involved him in every ball screen they could, and tried to move him all over the floor.

Q. Dana Altman recently said that there’s 8 teams in the Pac‑12 that can really make noise in the tournament.  First off, do you agree with that statement?  And where do you think Oregon is going to fit into that mold?
JAY BILAS:  I think Oregon is an NCAA tournament team.  I think by the time they get to conference play, which has usually been the pattern under Dana Altman, whether he’s been at Oregon or Creighton or Kansas State, his teams get better throughout the course of the year, and usually play their best in the last part of the year.  Five out of the six times that he went to the NCAA tournament at Creighton he did it by winning the conference tournament, when they weren’t the top ranked team.  And then he did it last year at Oregon.  He gets his teams to play their best when it counts the most, and that’s at the end of the season.

I do think that he’s right that the Pac‑12 is far better than it has been over the past couple of years.  So whether it’s 7, 8 teams, whatever it is, it’s going to be in the mix for that.  Now, who knows at the start of this year whether how many ACC is going to get versus the Big Ten versus the Pac‑12, we’ve got a long way to go to determine that.  But I do think it’s right that the league has improved a great deal.  And I think we’ll see it ‑‑ it’s going to have to show in the non‑conference, though, because the teams that are going to separate themselves have to do it in the non‑conference.

Q. Do you think this whole transfer culture that Altman has brought is sustainable in the long‑term?
JAY BILAS:  Yes, I do, because he has ‑‑ they had to upgrade the talent and then it’s proven successful for him.  And then also that he’s built up a lot of trust with players that are looking for transfer because they’ve seen other guys go in there and have a tremendous amount of success, both virtually and collectively as a team.  Dana Altman spent time coaching junior college players.  He’s a junior college coach.  He understands how to mesh things together with older players that know how to practice and know how to play.  And what’s the difference in bringing in a guy for one year, one or two years out of high school, and bringing a guy for one or two years that has transferred.  Oftentimes those transfers are going to be older.  They have been through it.  And they’ve, for one reason or another, had more doubt for them, they’re going to be in with both feet, they have to make it work out.  That can be a better way of doing things than just going with a high school kid that may only be there for two years.  It just depends.  It’s worked out really well for Dana, he’s one of the great coaches in the country that doesn’t get credit for it, in my opinion.

Q. Can you talk about Michigan’s outlook and how they fit in the scheme of things in the Big Ten?
JAY BILAS:  I think they’re going to be really good.  Now, is it going to be as good as last year?  I doubt it.  But they’ve created an expectation of winning there.  And some of it’s going to have to do with health, whether Mitch McGary gets back, and get back healthy, and then the other part is going to have to do with the point guard.  Derrick Walton is coming in there and wind up taking over from Trey Burke.  Those are big shoes to fill.  Burke got people shots, not only got himself shots, but he got other people shots.  So a lot of the shots that, just for example that Laskowski got last year were created by Trey Burke.  And this summer I had a chance to spend time at the Nike Skills Academy with McGary and Robinson.  And McGary was really good.  Those guys are outstanding players, they’re NBA first round draft picks.  You’ve got two of those and younger players that have been around them.  They’ve got some size there.  John (Beilein) has got another good team.  Are they going to be as good as Michigan State?  I don’t know.  I think Michigan State is the best team.  But that doesn’t mean Ohio State isn’t going to be right in the mix.  But I think Michigan is going to be very good.

Q. Two questions back on the defensive rules.  There’s already coaches saying there’s no way to defend the dribble drive.  And you were obviously a post player.  You can’t use the arm bar anymore in the post.  So I guess the question is I’m sure you think that you can play defense in the post without the arm bar.  And I was at a game that was 2 hours and 25 minutes, obviously ESPN blocks their games in two hour blocks, I can’t see any games getting over in two hours.  Do you have any idea how that might uphold?
JAY BILAS:  Yeah, stop fouling.  I mean, these are fouls.  And they’ve always been fouls, they haven’t been called.  I’m telling you, liking back and look at tape from the ’80s.  And it won’t be hard to find.  Look at tape that ‑‑ everybody harkens back to the ’80s as the hay day of college basketball.  Everything that is now being done that coaches are complaining that you can’t do was a foul in the ’80s.  All of this were fouls.  And everybody says, well, Georgetown, those big bullies in the ’80s.  They played three feet off you in the ball handler, you couldn’t touch anybody back then relative to today.  It’s ridiculous.

And if we sit there and say, well, you know, the players are so much more skilled, when Jerry West played, you couldn’t touch anybody when Jerry West played.  And boy, in the ’80s.  And when Magic and Bird played, look at that game.  You couldn’t go near anybody without a foul being called.  You had to block a shot, get a steal, you couldn’t wrap somebody up and grab cutters and all this, and we talked about the guys being so skilled and so cerebral and all that stuff, like the players of today are better than they’ve ever been.  Listen to people whine about this is laughable.

When you sit and listen to this, it almost would be like saying, boy, if we let these sprinters run in a straight line with no obstacles in front of them then the fastest guy would win the race.  We can’t guard a dribble drive.  That’s laughable.  Move your feet and get in front.  Move your feet and get in front.  You tell me Aaron Craft isn’t going to be able to guard anybody now, that’s laughable.  What it means is we can’t grab them anymore.  We can’t push them anymore.  And those have always been fouls and they just haven’t been called.  Now, it’s not the coaches part and the players’ fault, it’s the official’s fault.  They should have been calling this all along.  Go back and look at the tapes.  I’m telling you, it’s the truth.  We have a lot of fouling that would be considered good defense by fans that don’t know what they’re looking at.  And we have screwed this game up.

Q. It was a different game.  I totally agree.  I see those games on ESPN Classic.  There’s no contact.  You guys have six games in the day, two hours at a time.  Early in the season I cannot see two hour games happening?
JAY BILAS:  So what?  Stop fouling.  We don’t throw the games off the air when there’s long ‑‑ in football when there’s long over times; nobody is crying.  Quit fouling.  This may be a little bit of pain early on, but the players are going to stop doing it, the coaches are going to have to stop teaching it.  Bus if you keep fouling you’re going to sit down.  If you keep teaching fouling you’re going to lose.  And nobody wants to sit and nobody wants to lose.

The real test of this, is I don’t know what is going to happen, the real test of this is going to be with the officials, the supervisors and the commissioners.  If they don’t stick with this, one, near making a huge mistake, because our game is in trouble.  It is in trouble.  This game has become unwatchable, not because of the length of time that we’re worried about now, but because we have allowed this game to become a hockey game.  And that’s what made it unwatchable.

And, look, I love college basketball, but I love it enough to tell the truth about it.  And if you prefer college basketball right now to the NBA for quality ‑‑ it’s not because of the basketball.  It’s because of something else.  It’s because the quality of play has taken a huge nose dive because we have not been vigilant in policing our game.  And this was necessary.  This is not a knee jerk reaction.  This has taken years to do.  And we’ve got to stick with it.

Now, if some coaches want to complain, I’m willing to listen, but these complaints are unreasonable.  We haven’t even started yet.  And now we can’t hold a grab, you can’t play?  If you can’t move your feet, you can’t play.  And if you can’t guard without grabbing somebody, then what you’re saying is you can’t guard.  So give a guy some space.  Everybody is saying nobody can shoot.  Okay, well, give a guy some space, then.

Q. I was wondering, looking forward to this Michigan State, Kentucky game, does it remind you of any kind of, I guess, kind of show down game that maybe you’ve seen or heard about or read about before just from a historical standpoint?  It seems like maybe this one is unique in the difference between one team being a veteran team the other having kind of all this maybe one and done talent.  And I was curious, just looking back, if you can remember anything like this?
JAY BILAS:  That’s a good question.  I don’t know.  Kind of like if you played ‑‑ when North Carolina and Kentucky have gotten together or Kentucky Louisville or games like that, it’s not been a traditional basketball rivalry, where those two have played each other a number of times.  Last time I remember them playing in a barn burner game, didn’t they play at Texas in the NCAA tournament when ‑‑ was that the one when Patrick Sparks made some shot ‑‑ that was Kentucky, Michigan State, wasn’t it?

Q. In terms of the one, two ‑‑ the idea of the one, two matchup, it’s early in the season, college basketball hasn’t been known for its incredible kickoff events.  It seems like it comes at a different stage, rather than being a Final Four matchup, you have the early game between the two teams, people still have questions about what they’re going to see?
JAY BILAS:  Yeah, we’ve got questions about everything, the game has got so young.  That’s why the champions classic is so good, because this year we’ve had the same teams in it every year with Duke, Kansas, Michigan State and Kentucky.  But this year you’ve got ‑‑ you’re looking at maybe the top four teams.  And we’d be hard pressed to have a Final Four that good.  Maybe we’ll get it.  But that early in the season ‑‑ this is the kind of thing that college basketball needs, because too many people have bought into this narrative about football, in football every game counts.  Well, it does in basketball, too.  In fact, more teams have a chance to win a championship in basketball than in football.  By that definition hardly any of the games in football count, and they’re still great games.

I think this is the kind of thing we need more of, where top teams play earlier in the season, because they’re games that you can learn from and recover from, and it’s good for the game overall.  So I think having the contrast of the tremendous talent, young talent, that Kentucky has got, with the ‑‑ sort of the older are more experienced players, it would be fun to watch.

Q. UConn, there are a couple of directions.  First, what do you think of their team, obviously the fact that they’re basically the same team as last year.  What are your thoughts on that?  And also just on the new league, and how you think that’s going to play out.
JAY BILAS:  Well, I think UConn is going to be good, because they’ve got a really good back‑court.  And I think ‑‑ I put Shabazz Napier among the top, not only point guards in the country, but top players in the country.  If you’ve got a last shot to be taken, he’s one of the guys I want to take it.  A big fan of his.  He and (Ryan) Boatright are both very, very good.  Quick, small, difficult to guard.  I know Napier didn’t play all that great in that scrimmage they had the other night.  Boatright played the pretty well.  Both of them have five or six assists.  The big thing is are they going to be able to rebound.

Before all this stuff happened with the transition with Calhoun leaving and Kevin Ollie being hired and all the APR nonsense.  They were known as ‑‑ not they were known, they were, they were a shot blocking, rebounding, interior‑dominant team.  And has not been the case.  That has not the case last year.  So protecting the rim and rebounding, blocking shots, that’s not a strength of this team.  And really DeAndre Daniels has been the most potent front court player.  He’s thin, he’s not a long arm shot blocker.  He can block shots, but he’s not what they’ve had in the past, so whether it’s (Phillip) Nolan or now that Kentan Facey is now eligible.  Guys are going to have to step in there.  That’s not Tyler Olander’s things, that’s not what he does.  Guys are going to have to step forward and rebound.  If they don’t rebound, it is going to be a difficult year.  They’re still going to be good, still NCAA tournament teams, without rebounding they’re not going to be so good.  Rebounding, especially the guards, everybody is going to have to rebound, it’s going to have to be a “we” thing instead of a “me” thing.

Q. How about the league, how do you see it shaking out?
JAY BILAS:  That’s a good question.  I don’t really ‑‑ I think it’s a guard‑dominated league.  I think Louisville is the best team.  But they have ‑‑ SMU is coming up and I think it will be good.  Memphis will be good.  But I think it’s guard, rather than big guy dominant.  But I do think Louisville, I put Louisville as the best team in the league.  I was told the other day they want us to call it the American.  Is that what you’ve heard?

Q. We were talking a little bit about the fouls earlier and how they’re going to be focusing on letting them play a little cleaner this year.  With Louisville losing Gorgui Dieng, and obviously their best shot blocker by far, they’re probably going to have to create more turnovers with the guards they have coming back.  How tough do you see that being for them with the amount of calls that are starting to be called here in college basketball this year?
JAY BILAS:  I think they’ll adjust just fine.  I don’t think this is an issue for them.  In fact, one of the ways you can tell it won’t be an issue is one of the biggest proponents of the changes is Rick Pitino.  People say it’s really going to affect Louisville.  Louisville plays according to how the game is going to be officiated.  And, look, there is not a coach out there that didn’t employ fouling as a tactic, not one.  If you didn’t do it you were at a competitive disadvantage.  Everybody did it.  And the reason they did it was because the referees allowed it.

It’s funny how we’re sitting here worried about this ‑‑ I’m not saying you ‑‑ but so many people are sitting here worried about this, nobody in football goes, oh, my God, look at the amount of penalties they’re calling.  They look at the players, they would quit holding.  It’s a dispassionate throw of a flag for an infraction.  They bring back some of those exciting plays in the game because somebody on the opposite side of the field that had nothing to do with the play held somebody.  And in basketball we’re talking about on the ball.  So I don’t think this is that big of a deal.  Louisville is able to turn people over because they can speed you up.  They get the ball.  They’ll trap, get the ball out of the hands of the handling guard and get it to somebody that doesn’t handle it as much, speed them up and then make the decisions at a higher speed and then turn the ball over.

In the half court, they play a lot of zone, and they’re very good defensively, very creative.  But they’re quick, they’re fast, they’re athletic, they can block shots, they can get steals.  Not all of that requires man handling the ball.  And so I don’t have any doubt that Louisville is going to be among the top teams that compete successfully for the title whatever the rules are.  They’re going to be just fine.  I really believe that.

Q. A lot of the stuff that has been put out by people going through their preseason previews has been as long as Chane Behanan is not on that roster, that really limits their ceiling.  Do you buy that, necessarily?  Or is that really truly the key to them getting anywhere this year?
JAY BILAS:  It’s not the key, but they’re better with him than without him.  Heck, you could make an argument they don’t win the championship without him last year.  But they’ve got other good players.  They’re not going to be lost without him.  But they’re better with them.  They’re still a contender without him.  But with him they’re one of the top four teams, without question.

Q. The last thing, then, is along those same lines, then, when you have a guy like Theriot, what have you seen out of him and the events last year, that gives people the break out star this year?
JAY BILAS:  Long arms that he affects everything when he’s out there.  He had some terrific games last year as a reserve, where he could come into the game and he just played his tail off, run, rebound, block shots, throw himself all over the place.  And this year I think his skill level is going to improve.  He’s going to become more of a low post scorer.  He’s got a tremendous potential.  And I think they’ll realize it this year.

Q. Just looking at the mid‑majors a little bit.  The ranked ten last year he won seven games in the NCAA tournament.  Three of the schools that won games, VCU, St. Louis and La Salle, are the top three picks in the league this year.  How do you see the strength at the top of that league, and how do you see them matched up on a national scale?
JAY BILAS:  I think VCU is a top 20 team, maybe top 15.  And I think they’ve got a chance to be just as good if not better than they were last year.  And that’s saying a lot.  St. Louis is ‑‑ has got some people back that’s going to make them very competitive.  Are they as good as VCU?  I think they play so differently that I give VCU the edge, because VCU can play so much faster.  The kid Evans is back, really quick.  And kind of played so well in the tournament last year.  So they’ve lost a couple of guys, losing Kwamain Mitchell is a big deal, because he was such a strong minded leader.  And that’s going to hurt.  But I think they’ll be good.

And then La Salle lost a guard, but they’ve got good players back.  They’ll be good, too.  I think one of the better mid majors, actually, is going to be Harvard.  Obviously they’re an Ivy League school.  But Harvard has got the vast majority of their players back from last year, and they’ve got two additional guys back, Kyle Casey is coming back and Brandyn Curry is coming back as well.  So they’ve got a chance to be really special.

Q. If there was a team who could sort of come off the radar like Florida Gulf Coast did last year, who do you feel that could be, if you feel there are a couple that you see?
JAY BILAS:  Well, if it was ‑‑ if you were going to be somebody like Florida Gulf Coast, they were a creature of the tournament.  Last year they beat Mercer in their championship game.  They lost like six or seven games going into that and beat Mercer, who was the No. 1 team in their league.  And I think Mercer is going to be the best team in that league this year.  So I would start off with them.  Mercer could be very good.  Harvard could be one, I don’t know coming out of nowhere, if you beat New Mexico last year, is something you would say.

North Dakota State is going to be really good.  Taylor Braun is a really good player.  So I wouldn’t be surprised to see them come in the tournament and beat somebody.  Boise State has got almost everybody back.  And then Michael White did a really nice job at Louisiana Tech last year.  They didn’t score really efficiently, they were really good defensively.  In the tournament they could win a game.

Q. What are your thoughts on (Jahii) Carson at Arizona State?  They’re obviously one of the fastest teams in the country?
JAY BILAS:  I like Carson a lot.  He was at the Nike Skills Academy this summer.  And I was really impressed with how quick he was.  I’ve seen him play at Arizona State and was really impressed with him.  But when you saw him in that setting, where he’s being guarded by all different kind of players, it was really impressive that nobody could stay in front of him.  So he’s got that level of quickness that you just don’t see very often.  So I would think ‑‑ my guess is that they’re going to play a lot faster this year, because he can really motor.  I think the more possessions you give him the better he’s going to be.

And then the kid Jordan Bachynski is a really good shot blocker, so that’s going to be helpful.  When you’ve got a guy inside, especially with the emphasis this year on guarding the ball, to have somebody there that can block and change shots is going to be really important.

Q. Where do you see them in the Pac‑12 this year, do you think they’ve got a permanent shot?
JAY BILAS:  Oh, yeah.  You don’t have a guard like that if you don’t have a shot at the tournament.  I think they’re kind of an upward division, kind of middle to upward division.  So that’s going to put you, in a league that size, it’s going to provide you with a very real chance to get to the tournament.  So I think they’re going to be right in that mix to make the field in that large.

Q. Where do you Carson in the draft next year?  Do you think he has lottery pick potential?
JAY BILAS:  I think he’s an NBA player, but where he goes ‑‑ this is a really good year in the draft.  And the one downside with him is he’s 5‑11, and at that size, that’s a challenge in the league.  You’d better be disruptive defensively to be able to make it, long‑term, in the NBA in that size.  Can he do that?  He absolutely can.  But would you be mindful of that, that if you got a chance to take a guy like Andrew Harrison, who is 6‑5, you would think about that.

Q. Last season we saw La Salle make a run to the Sweet 16, Temple won its first matchup.  And they competed with Indiana.  And Villanova not only lost to UNC in the first round.  What are you seeing this year out of basketball in Philadelphia?
JAY BILAS:  In Philly?  I think it will be similar to what has been.  I think Villanova is going to be a lot better.  The kid Dylan Ennis is out for a little while with an injury.  And I know he played really well in one of their scrimmages, I think he got 27 in one of the closing scrimmages they had.  They’ve got some real talent coming back with Ryan Arcidiacono, and JayVaughn Pinkston and James Bell.  I think they’re going to take a lead from last year.  So I think Jay Rice is going to have a really good team.

And I don’t think that La Salle is going to take a dip so much.  But asking them to win a couple of games in the tournament, will they duplicate that?  I don’t know.  I tend to think that that’s a tall order.  But they’re certainly capable ‑‑ they’ve done it, and certainly capable of doing it.  I think the big challenge is going to be for Temple, you lose a player like Wyatt, who had been your Mr. Everything, that’s going to take some doing to replace that.  But I think Fran Dunphy has proven over the years that he’s a great coach.  They’ll be in good shape.  Will they be as good as last year?  I don’t know that you would say that out of the gate.

Q. With the newest off‑season conference shake ups, how do you see those conferences shaping up this year?
JAY BILAS:  Which conferences?
Q. Namely the new Big East, as well as the Atlantic 10 together?
JAY BILAS:  Well, I think the Big East ‑‑ when you say new Big East, do you mean the American or the ‑‑ actually what is called the Big East?
Q. Yeah, what is called the Big East right now.
JAY BILAS:  I think the Big East is solid.  Georgetown is going to be good.  Marquette is going to be good.  Villanova is going to be good.  I think Creighton is going to be good.  After that, like Providence, Kris Dunn, they’re still waiting on his shoulder.  He had a little shoulder injury.  St. John’s I think should be improved.  Those teams like in the middle there, St. John’s has a lot of talent.  And if they get D’Angelo Harrison back playing like he did before.  They took a trip oversees, and got closer this summer.  They could make a jump.  But it’s solid.  Do you have anybody in there that could go, well, they could cut the nets down?  I don’t know.  That might be a little bit of a stretch.

But you’ve got teams that are going to be really competitive and difficult to beat for anybody they play.  Yeah, that is a good league.  It is not the league that it was last year when it had everybody in it.  That was a power house league.  Now it’s a very good, very good league.

Q. The NCAA has been kind of decimated over the last couple of years by conference realignment, where do you see them in the grand scheme of the nation, and also where do you see Drexel falling in the NCAA?
JAY BILAS:  Well, where do you see them?  I think they’re good.  But the quality of that league is going to be determined by how the top team does.  And whether it’s Drexel or to you send.  I think Jerrelle Benimon is one of the really good players in the country.  And he started at Georgetown and has been really good under Pat McGary.  And I think he’s the best player in that year.  But Drexel has got good players.  And they didn’t have the kind of year I expected them to have.  And I know that Bruiser expected them to have last year.  But I think they’re going to be very good this year.  And play with a little bit more of a ‑‑ what do people call it ‑‑ like a chip on their shoulder type of deal.  And I’m a believer.  Frantz Massenat is back, and Damion Lee is back.  They’ve got some good players.  And I think they can shoot it.  They’re experienced, they’re capable.  And they’re coming off a tough year.  And that provides a little extra spark for them at the start.

It’s probably, at most, like if they win some non‑conference games, could they sneak another team into the tournament?  Maybe.  But without VCU in there, it makes it hard to go beyond one bid, it really does.

Q. GameDay comes to the Palestra in mid‑January.  Where do you see the Palestra ranking in venues across the country?
JAY BILAS:  It’s one of the really cool places to play.  I was fortunate I played there my freshman year, and senior year when I was in college.  It was one of the experiences of my college career.  And I like to think of myself as sort of a student of the game.  And having studied it.  I know a lot about the ‑‑ I’m not a Philly guy.  But I know a lot about the history of the Big 5.  To have said you’ve played there is pretty neat.  For us to be able to go there and put a little bit of a spotlight on the Palestra.  I’d love to see them throw the toilet paper again, that would be fun.  Digger will clean it up or his assistant will clean it up.  That’s one of the great venues, and it will be fun to show it off.

RACHEL MARGOLIS SIEGAL:  Thanks everyone for joining the conference call today.  There will be a transcript later.  Thanks again, everyone.
JAY BILAS:  Thank you.

FastScripts by ASAP Sports.

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