This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. All right. It is our pleasure to welcome in Mr. Rocco Miller once again to soak on fast break. Rocco, we've talked about it before that right now. A lot of discussion goes on about the NFL being talked about 365. But what about college basketball? I think we're starting to get to that point with everything going on in the world of college basketball. We've got a lot to discuss. Can't thank you enough for joining us here again, talking some mid major basketball specifically for the Southern Conference. Yeah, my pleasure fellas. Good to be back on with both you Richmond, Darren, great to see your faces as well. Yeah, I think the portal opening April 7th says it all is literally the within hours of Michigan cutting down the nets for better or worse. I mean, you look at the last two seasons before this, we had Florida cutting down the nets last year and they were, you know, the portal was already open during the majority of their run. We saw it open even earlier the year before. So it's evolving and maybe it gets pushed back an extra week next year. We've heard a lot from Dusty May and Kyle Church and guys from the Michigan staff on what a pain it's been to not truly be able to celebrate. I don't know how much I agree with that because so much of this transfer portal work starts in January now. You start to get a feel as a staff, whether you're the SoCon level, the Big Ten level or the bottom of D1 level, which guys are likely to hit the portal, which ones are not. You saw so many schools in that week of April 7th just get gutted immediately with guys throwing their name in. And honestly, you know, some of those guys come back. We saw TJ Johnson at VMI come back as a great example. There's no harm from the player end of things of just throwing your name and see what the interest level is, see what your value might be. And then, you know, in certain cases, you might scoot right back to where you were. In other cases, it's like a huge discovery and you're suddenly a millionaire. So it's a few it's a whole different ballgame right now, guys. Oh, yeah, definitely is. And Rocco, it seems to be at least that was a decision as far as pushing the portal back to after the NCAA tournament was completely finished. That made really good sense. But I do think there is an avenue where you can push it back another week just to have a little bit of breathing room for some of these coaches. And I get it to your point. They're recruiting 365 days a year 24 seven now it's completely different. So there's no doubt they're keeping their eyes on some people, but you have to allow a little bit of decompression period, I feel just in terms of everything about the tournament and then how impactful the portal is. Because as you talked about, I mean, some of these teams being gutted look right here in the Southern Conference. I mean, there's teams that completely lost their roster. And it's like year two in a row, you know, last year, the three of us were talking about how the entire, you know, first team, second team, third team all gone basically besides Ricky Bradley is pretty much the same thing all over again, plus entire teams in certain cases. So yeah. And I think to your point, you know, Michigan, I think is so well prepared. They were ready to, you know, you saw JP Estrila from Tennessee sign there like pretty quickly or committed there. Them directly, they were prepared. And I think maybe even more than just the coaches, it's for the fans, the PR, all of it. They, I think everybody involved needs that week at least a week off, like let Michigan get their moment in the sun, let everybody enjoy that. If you're a fan of anybody but Michigan, all you cared about was the portal opening. And so exactly, it was really no moment for. It was really no moment for like a Kentucky fan or a, even a Furman fan to give, to really care about Michigan's parade or anything. Yeah. There was an aspect of, Hey, are we losing how many players and when is it going to happen? That was the biggest thing. Exactly. So yeah, why would you care about anything else? And you can still chew on that for seven, seven days and, and let things kind of build up and maybe some things will get leaked during that seven days. But just to give them their moment and let the sports have some sort of transition into off season, because it doesn't exist right now. No, it doesn't. And I, I, I think that's probably as we figure out what works best here. And as you mentioned earlier, Rocco, like we've, we've, we've evolved over the last handful of years to see what works. I love giving it another week, just like we talked about, let the championship soak in, let just fans of college basketball. Yes, certainly. If you're not a fan of Michigan, your biggest concern is what is my roster going to look like the day the portal opens. But I do think there's just something to be said about as a fan, just soaking in that season, soaking in what the tournament has, has been the amazing moments that it's probably provided. You know, whether your team was in it, whether you weren't, whether you made a deep run or not. I just put myself kind of in, back in, in, in my coaching shoes and I hear these stories of like, you know, coach Boynton walking back to the hotel and, you know, people asking like, are you, are you heading back to celebrate? He's like, no, I got a one 45 AM zoom or a 12 45 AM zoom. And it's just like, you just, you just want a national championship. Like let's go, let's go crack open a beer or have some champagne or hell. Let's just go smile at each other and just say, man, what an accomplishment of what we just done. And so I would really like to see it move back a week. And as you mentioned, look, stuff's going to leak regardless. If it leaks, it leaks and we don't have to model everything like the NBA, but there's certainly, I think some things that is we are moving more towards a, you know, moving more towards a pro model. We have a much more pro model. Oh, it's pro. But I, you know, there is a break between the NBA finals and the start of free agency. And so I think we can maybe start to mirror some of those things, but certainly given these guys an opportunity to go enjoy their championship and honestly too, for the sanity of some of these other coaches, I know it probably won't happen because they're still going to be recruiting, but even just an opportunity for them to take a deep breath after their season ends, because as we all know, this springtime kind of used to be a little bit slower of a time prior to the portal. Now there was still recruiting going on and there were still things that you had to take care of, but you got a little bit of a reprieve. I've talked to several coaches as I'm sure you guys have, they're busier now than they were during the season, because at least they had a rhythm and a routine in the season. Exactly. Yeah. Structure to their day, understanding what practices, when game film is, you know, all the other nuances to the season. You're right. Yeah. And I think a lot of these guys too, since I help with scheduling, you know, they're even scheduling has started later than I can ever remember for the majority of the teams. Obviously there was stuff trickling through, you know, in March and in the beginning of April, but really for me personally, just being more focused on that end of things, really didn't pick up with like lots of calls and texts till last week. And I think so much of that is due to the portal. And I don't think it's reached the peak. I think scheduling peak will now be probably middle of next month. So bracing myself for that. But I think, yeah, that just goes to show you like if it takes them even longer to get the schedule done, it's already been historically taking forever to get schedules done in previous cycles this year. It could, could be a lot of teams still stuck in August and September. Hey, I just think some of these coaches wanted to get some sleep more than anything. Exactly. You've been running a hundred miles per hour. All right. Speaking of evolving and how things are changing, the news coming out, Rocco, how appropriate. We get you on here as we heard yesterday, the news dropping that the NCAA is on the precipice of expanding the tournament to 76 teams. And more importantly, we saw last week, the Southern Conference commissioner, Michael Cross actually put out a statement supporting March Madness expansion. And I think there was some controversy with this statement. I think there's a lot of Southern Conference fans and some men major basketball fans. We weren't too happy with the statement because it seemed almost like from the overview that I got was a defeatist type of attitude in terms of, well, let's go ahead and expand. We know we're not going to have an opportunity to be a two-bid league. We support expansion. So at least we'll have an opportunity in this play and tournament, maybe have more games and then there's more revenue opportunities. And so it just seemed to fall flat. And I'm really not certain, Rocco, why the commissioner and the Southern Conference really needed to put out a statement. I mean, you can have that just from a standpoint of how you feel internally. And of course, they've got a great connection right there with Martin Newton, who's going to be the chair of the selection committee, the Samford AD. So you can communicate directly how you feel from that standpoint. Yeah. It's interesting. It still persists even for me on why it was necessary. Now I think that would be a good place to start with the selection chairman next year being Martin Newton and also being the first year of 76 teams. This is something I personally have been preparing for since October of 2025 when Ross Dellinger of Yahoo put it out. Then there was really nothing I heard or saw or any conversations I had in the last eight months that suggested it would be any other way. And I felt like they had the ability to make the announcement during March madness or at least do some of the votes or put something out like this before the tournament. I think it was a PR decision to wait till April to start this process. And then of course, I think it will get formalized in the middle of next month, like the press release told us. And I think the biggest thing with the SoCon is the fact that they have essentially accepted their place in the world of being a one bid league. I think that's very clear. That's right. And I think when you go to 76, you're going to have people in the SoCon, both coaches, fans and even other people associated with the league that remember UNC Greensboro from not too long ago that easily could have been in and certainly would have been in with 76 teams. We've had great Furman teams that would have been part of the 76 if they needed to be in that large. And I'm sure other examples as well, obviously the Wofford one was well inside the bubble back when they were a seven seed. So that's where it's kind of weird because so much has changed business wise just in the last two years. I think you look at Florida Atlantic who went to the 2023 final four, they got a group of three star players who obviously a few of those were much better than three star players later in life and in the NBA now. But like they were able to pull off a little bit of a retention coup, if you will, by keeping them for one extra year. Nobody really realized how good they were when they come off of a 18 and 16 year, but certainly lightning in a bottle winning 34 games or whatever it was and going to the final four. This Dusty May guy turned out to be pretty good as well. Yeah. He can coach a little bit. And so yeah, I just think like that right there is basically impossible now. Now, Wichita State brings back 10 guys next year. But you know, so maybe there's some hope. But you have to spend a lot of money now to do that. Florida Atlantic did not have that kind of money in 2023. So, you know, the business side of things have drastically changed. You have G League players, for example, that are now able to, they're desiring to come to NCAA basketball. So that's, I think the most important part about the G League thing is like it's them that want to come back to NCAA basketball because they're only making 50 to 100K in the G League. And if you get it onto a Power Five roster, your starting point is much higher than that. So their quality of life goes up by playing college basketball. And I think that's just something that all of us, fans, media, all of us included, like have a hard time wrapping our brains around. And that trickles all the way up to how the tournament is put together, who should have access, who should not have access, how money should be distributed. And so I think the SOCON at the end of the day, you know, I think the statement is coming from a financial point of view. And I think it's, you know, it's an assumption that the NCAA forever would, or at least in the interim, keep their units equal units. And I do think that's part of the vote. So I think they do have a guarantee of that, at least initially. And obviously what I'm saying here is you get a tournament share for every tournament game you participate in. And it's worth each round that you advance is worth the same amount of money, whether it's the opening round or a final four win. And I think that's important for the public to understand if they don't already. And apparently, you know, the model going forward with the amount of new money gets thrown into the pile, those slices of pie actually become a greater number than they are today, even though you're adding more games to the mix. So that's the, that's the math behind it all. But I think, I think there's so much more to pick apart here, but I'll turn it back to you. Those are my initial thoughts. Yeah. Well, the statement basically I had three principles to it and you got to significantly increase access, competitive integrity and transparency is what Dr. Cross was really wanting to emphasize in the first one, significantly increasing access. And I know you can look at, we've got 360 plus teams in division one and we consistently over the past 10 years have added teams. And that's where we're getting to that point where, okay, well, if we're looking at a percentage, how many teams can get in based on how many total teams we have? Yes, maybe you're falling a little bit short what you have been historically. But my point is that, yeah, this access and increasing it, I mean, how many teams are we actually going to be adding to division one that legitimately have a shot for a national championship or legitimately have a shot to make a final four run? Don't we already have, I mean, a cluster of teams that, hey, for the most part, these are your 60 teams that we think or even far less than that, Rocco, I just don't know if we're really increasing access to teams that are automatically going to be in that type of position where they can compete for a national championship. Yeah, 100% agree with that side of it. And I think it's maybe poorly worded in the statement because of that. Now I do think there is an angle where the at large pool, which is the only thing really being expanded here, the at large pool will go. That's true. Up point. It'll go up by eight spots and leagues like the Mountain West last year, who only got one team in, they certainly would have probably had two. And I would argue three with New Mexico and San Diego State. You look at the Atlantic 10, who in some years they're stuck with one team or one team inside the bubble. That's a league that certainly should be supporting expansion because you can see them get up to three or four in any given year. The American conference has been stuck with one bid a couple of times now. They would have a much better chance to get a second team, if not three. And then the new pack 12, the new pack 12 is going to be a tremendous basketball league. You figure it. Gonzaga, San Diego State gives them two bulls eyes, but you got Utah State, who's gone to like six of the last seven Colorado States broken through a bunch of times. Boys, he's good. They could get up to five in any given year if it all breaks right. So those leagues I just listed are the ones that are going to benefit. Now everybody else, so-called included. And like to your point, the West Florida Argonauts who are coming to the A-Sun, like those are not the teams that are going to benefit from this. So if they could twist some of those words around, I would support it. And what you're really doing, and the other thing about the statement, I'll just jump in now while we're on it, that I was a little perplexed by is the notion that the 24 lowest net teams should play the opening round games. Now I get it financially, but that would almost lock the SoCon champion into, I'm looking at my bracketology boards. I did this earlier today and you can see every one big league would be almost automatically into that every year. So everybody, just to give you a quick example in 2026 here, everybody from South Florida down to Perview, which includes 23 teams at the 11 seed line and below outside of the 12, who went to Dayton would have been in opening round games and you probably would have added either SMU or Miami, Ohio to that list. And so that would have been all your opening round games. So I don't get that at all. I mean, I get it from a money point of view and guarantees all these leagues get a 50-50 shot at the units. But I don't think the ratings might not be what you would want them to be or what the TV would want them to be. So they've decided to go last 12 at large, last 12, 8, Q. But obviously you're looking at a situation here, guys, like top down where all these leagues, the 22 or so leagues that are clarified and defined as one big leagues today, they're hanging on a cliff to maybe be booted out or maybe from football to power two secedes. And I think that's where the conversation is heading. Yeah. And I think you bring up a really interesting point, Rocco, in that I think the general public, their initial inclination, and part of it just because it's the easiest narrative, is that with expansion at its core, oh, that's only going to help the power four leagues. So that's just going to be now you're going to get your 18 and 16 teams that we're on the bubble in. And yeah, in some circumstances, that may be true. But what I really like about what you said, and honestly, maybe it's the eternal optimist in me. But I love the fact to be able to see some of these mid-major plus or however you want to phrase them, these leagues, they're now going to have an increased opportunity to be able to play in the tournament. And I think it's a really good thing for the, for the health of the game to see a league like the A 10 be a consistently a two bid league, maybe every now and then you get a third and a fourth team into your point of the mountain West getting some more teams and there are quality basketball teams in those leagues that are winning 20 plus games, but are not getting opportunities to compete in the NCAA tournament. And then the other piece of it is I look at maybe a prime example this year, and I know there's probably some more data that goes into it. So I know it's not necessarily completely black and white, but an opportunity for a program like Liberty who goes out and wins, I think they won close to 30 games, but they, you know, they lose in the conference tournament. And so these, those elite mid-major teams, allowing them an opportunity to compete and somehow can you, you know, you mix that pod up and you hopefully raise the mid-major plus boat. Maybe you, you allow an opportunity to a program like a Liberty or somebody in that situation. And then yeah, of course, there's probably going to be a couple of teams that are at the high major level that finish in the middle of the pack of a really good league that are going to get in. But I really, it's hard to look at this and you, you made this point. It's hard to look at this as you just, you look at, you compartmentalize it with high majors and everybody else. Well, there's that, there's that group that we talked about that I really think this benefits. And the reality is, is whether we like it or not, these mid-major programs, this is harsh, but like there's not an opportunity to compete at a level high enough where you're going to be able to retain and be able to compete at the levels that you used to. I mean, I was looking at the mock draft board today and there was usually a handful of mid-major guys that were maybe on the back end of late second round picks or guys that you keep an eye on. It's, you look at the mock draft now. I mean, it's like filled with 24 schools and everybody's one of those 24 schools. I mean, that's because of the portal though. 100%. Yeah. 100%. But I'm ultimately kind of getting is I think this separation, like we just can't look at these mid-majors and say, well, they're going to get screwed. It's just, it's the business of it and in whether we like it or not, I just think that's kind of where we're at. But we are still going to see with this increase, I think an opportunity for some non-powerful, non-high major programs getting opportunities to compete and frankly, probably good enough to go win a game or two in certain situations. I just wonder how valid that might be, Rocco. Or is it going to be more of the Power Four programs or, you know, the power programs that are going to be getting more opportunities? I mean, we've already seen some speculation. I know Bart Torevik, he posted some information out there and trying to use predictive models and, you know, of course, I know you're a big fan of the Wab and so am I. He wins above bubble. But it looked like, I mean, it was basically, you know, the power programs, the power conferences, I should say that we're going to get more opportunities as far as, you know, like the last 12 in however it might be phrased. So as much as we're viewing this from a mid-major perspective, I just wonder how much it is about the power conferences. And I know they've come out and said, well, it's not about the financial type of situation as far as that's the driver. It's more about access. Well, my point is that, yeah, it's about access to the money. That's where it is. There you go. You know. Yeah, you're hitting it on the head now. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you guys are nailing it. I think it's also, you know, you mentioned the mock draft example. You could just look at, you know, Ken Palmer or, you know, easy to use tools like the net. And you notice that it's very rare now to see a team in the top 50 if it's not Gonzaga or St. Mary's or, you know, San Diego State's barely in there this year, 49th, right? And that's a team that made the national title game like less than three years or three years ago. So it's changing quickly. And obviously all the money goes to the top. The players follow the money. The evaluations, I would say are sharper than ever. You know, the staff at Michigan, the staff at Florida, those are two staffs I know very, very well and really close with. But also, you know, you know, the bluebloods, you know, the Yukon's, you know, the UCLA's, like they're not missing on guys very often either. And so if every team at the top is sharp, like, luckily North Carolina for the time being has been a little loose, but they're still pretty darn good. I mean, they were, they were, they were number 32. Not many Don Power five teams could beat them. VCU had a miracle comeback, but, but I think you look at all of that and it's just like the chances of a team that, you know, like a firm in this year or a Sam Fruit a couple years ago, which again, a lot's changed since them. Yeah. Wofford. Wofford the year before, the chances of them advancing against that level of competition is dwindling. So it is a little defeatist though. You're right. You just have to say, Hey, this is what the sport is. What's best for the future of our conference? What's best for our league champion? Maybe it is to play an opening round game, but at the same time, like, where is all this going is my larger question. Yeah. And, you know, I'm even curious, just as you were talking about the pack 12, how are we going to view the pack 12? Or what are we going to call them? High mid major? Or are we going to so they want to be a high major? They want to be a power league. Yeah. I mean, to me, they're the sixth power league. If you put the big East fifth, that's the way I'm thinking about them because I think metrics wise, they should be in the top six each year. Gonzaga is clearly still around a top 10 or top 15 program in every measurable, whether it's money, performance, you know, overall ability to advance, all that stuff. San Diego state should stay pretty strong in terms of behind the scenes budget and all that. Like I mentioned, Utah state, Boise, Colorado state, all really good teams and Oregon states stepped up. They had a really great hire, I thought, with joiner coming from the national champions and crushing the portal early on. So a lot of excitement in the pack, but I just think, you know, at the end of the day, like you said, with the Wab and other tools, and I mean, the Wabs a great way to try to balance out teams that play very different schedules like Liberty's a perfect example. They play a very different schedule than Indiana. And that would be an example of those two teams getting compared. And so you have to look at some of the deeper metrics sometimes to break those ties. And if you, you know, my rule of thumb would probably always be if you don't have overwhelming evidence to surpass the bigger brand, lately the bigger brands run out. That's why we saw Texas and North Carolina, the year before this, probably didn't belong. Texas certainly didn't belong in my opinion, and, but those brands are pretty hard to beat. So you better have, you better have overwhelming evidence to get in. And so it's even harder now for the, for the A10s and the, and the packed walls and even maybe some shaky big East teams because they're looking at television ratings. If they, if they don't admit it, they definitely, the evidence suggests that they are. Yeah, no doubt. And the other principle there from the statement from Southern conference and Dr. Michael Cross, the commissioner talking about transparency and how these teams are evaluated. So from your perspective, what does that exactly mean? Rocco in terms of transparency and looking at other metrics and not just solely the net. Yeah, I think what he's saying in a bigger, and again, I don't want to speak for, for Dr. Cross, but I think what he's saying in a larger way is that there are clearly big gaps between the tiers and how much teams are spending, right? Like you mentioned, Darren earlier, the top 24 teams or so have majority of the two rounds of the NBA draft covered from what we can tell at this stage. And then you also have, you know, so you might have a group of teams, I think last year somewhere around 10 to 20 teams were rumored to spend above $10 million. Maybe, maybe that number was closer to 25. I'm not sure. Then you've got a group of teams that's maybe a larger group of teams that spend between five and $10 million. Then you've got another larger group that are somewhere between $500,000 and $5 million. Then you've got like a lot of the SoCon and everybody below that spending less than, you know, $500,000. So there's a lot of different tiers of players and access to players and that's creating huge gaps in the depth of these teams and the performances of these teams and the consistency of these teams. So what I think what he's saying based on all of that is, you know, let's, let's, you know, the teams that are invested, let's take care of them because they're investing in this sport for the larger good. Now, do I agree with that fully? Absolutely not. I think one of the magical things of the sport is the opportunity that, hey, there's only one basketball. You've got five guys on the court. I've got five guys on the court. We've got 40 minutes. We've got five TV timeouts per half. We're going to put together our greatest strategy possible like Sienna against Duke, not using one sub. Like how awesome was that? And so, you know, we have tons of those stories, whether it's St. Peter's or Oral Roberts or Florida Gulf Coast or, you know, you go down the line and I just think so much of that gets so much harder. If you destroy the access part, like, you know, you look at Furman this year, they gave Yukon a war, but would they have played that well if they had to win a game earlier that week in a different city? Like you could debate that, right? Probably not. At least I would say probably not, to be honest with you. They got a week to watch film on Yukon and come with a great game plan and it almost paid off, you know? Yeah, no doubt. And so to that point, now we're here. So Commissioner Cross, it looks like he got his wish because so we're expanding. I know it's not 100% written in stone that it's official, but for all intents and purposes, we know it's happening. This thing is going to get on the train, so to speak, and leave the station and we're going to have 76 teams that are going to be sitting there in the NCAA tournament. And, you know, so when you're looking at it just from the totality of the expansion, do we actually need expansion and what are we trying to solve in terms of expanding? Yeah, my personal knee-jerk reaction is, first of all, I'm gutted for the automatic qualifiers and it's been a big focus of our conversation. Now, again, it's a basketball-based perspective, not a business-based perspective. So from a business side of things, it totally makes sense to me. And, you know, for the longest time when they went from 64 to 68, I even had a hard time with that because I wanted, I wanted, you know, even those NEC-swacked, you know, Patriot League type champions to still be in the main bracket. I felt like they had earned their right. Make the teams that you weren't sure about getting in or not play the extra game. If you have to do an extra game and they ended up doing both eventually. But I think, you know, so for the large side of things, I'm totally comfortable with it. Like I said earlier, you know, I think that's a opportunity to play. If you were torn on some teams in any given year, they might get get wrong. A couple of teams like they did in 2025 with North Carolina and Texas, in my opinion, I think they missed on both of those. Well, at least in this scenario, they can play that out on the court. Like, you know, let that play itself out. That's right. The team that quote unquote got screwed over, they would have a chance to play. Now on the automatic qualifier side, like, like I said earlier, if you got to go play an extra game in a different city, it's going to be Dayton and somewhere in the West. Probably we'll just say Vegas to be safe. Yeah. If you got to go to Vegas and then you got to go back to like Oklahoma City or something with one day of prep. Yeah. The percentage exactly. It's already like a very low percentage that these teams are going to win anyway. Now you're taking it to a new level. And I think here's the part that drives me even more crazy. If you look at two of the 14 seeds each year in the old four in the 68 team format, they now become 15 seed playing teams. And so instead of, I don't know, we'll just say who did Michigan State play this year? I think it was North Dakota State, right? So we'll use them as an example. North Dakota State got to go play Michigan State and they had four days of prep. They were a 14 play into three. Well, now that same exact North Dakota State team, because the way the math works, it pushes those 12 teams to the bottom of the bracket. You have all 16, all four 16 slots are playing games now. That's eight total teams as 16s instead of six. And now in the 15 line, you've got to shove four more teams into two slots. And let's just include North Dakota State in that mix. So now North Dakota State, who got to play Michigan State, the three seed, you know, they didn't play well, they got beat. That's fine. But they would have rather played Michigan State than Yukon, I would imagine. And now they might have to go play. They would probably play a playing game and they would certainly have to play a two instead of a three. Yeah. So they're playing a harder team and having to win a game and do it in a shorter prep. So this is a massive basketball disadvantage on like three layers. Yes. And, and so there's a lot of that. Like UNC Wilming, the year before, cause I did a full exercise on the year before UNC Wilmington took Texas Tech to the horn in the 20, 25 first round. And that was a heck of a team. And they had a double digit lead in the second half. That same example applied to Wilmington, where they would be playing a plan to be a 15 and then play a two instead of a three. So, and that's, that's like right in the so con sweet spot. It is exactly. That's what we've seen some of the information that's out there, that Furman, who's a 15 seed this year. And again, as you talked about, they gave you con all they could handle. Right. Obviously a big part of that was Alex Wilkins was a star out there for Furman, but they would be down being hurt. Oh, yes. Yeah. But yeah, I should have left that part out, but that's okay. Yes, exactly. But Furman would drop down to a 16 seed and would have to be in the play in game. Yes. And so now you're playing like, what, what are we doing here? Yes. What are we doing? And that's why I've been saying the same thing, Rocco, for a long time, the automatic qualifiers, they're the ones getting hurt in this. And there's no reason why automatic qualifier, you should automatically be in that field of 68. And, Hey, and I feel bad for Rob and Jeff and even you, Rocco, field of 68. Okay. Are we changing names here now? I don't know. If the 12 is not changing, we're not changing. So yeah, there you go. I like it. Should be the pack. Stay strong. Should be the pack nine right now. Rock Rocco, do you see, do you see the, the AQ process changing at all? Maybe not right now, but maybe in a handful of years as we, as we see how this plays out, do we now start to see every conference trying to make it as advantageous as possible for your one and maybe your two C's. But also, do you think that the committee at some point says, okay, hey, we need to adjust the automatic qualifier piece here. You know, and I don't have a great example of what that might be, but maybe it's any point, do they eliminate the automatic qualifier? Yeah. Well, the way I understand it is they can't, the committee doesn't have the power to do something like that. It would have to be approved by membership. And of course the vast majority of the membership is in the one bid league category. So, right. Unless that ain't happening. Yeah. So that's not happening. Yeah. But one of the reasons expansion got support from the one bid leagues is this financial component that shares are going to get larger. Again, they're, they're banking it on a lot of their models, which is based on, you know, increased television dollars, even though, you know, adding eight more teams in theory should make the share smaller. The tournament revenue goes up every year. So exponentially, it's supposed to be a larger share, which means you're playing for more money and then you're also giving yourself a better chance to win. That's the only way this thing gets supported. Now, if they go and try to reform again, they have to go back through that same, you know, process of getting approvals. The selection committee is actually the final line of defense to approve it. By the time it makes it there, it's a lot like, you know, stuff in Washington, DC, it would be a formality to get it signed off. But, but I think in terms of how conferences structure their own conference tournament, you know, I think that doesn't change a whole lot because I think in, in any format, they should want to put their league in the best situation to win. And in each league, that could be a different, it could be a different formula. Right. So like the WCC for years with Gonzaga and St. Mary's and even BYU for a long time, it was obvious that that crazy looking ladder bracket, they were the first to do it. Yeah. But it made perfect sense. Like why make Gonzaga play more than two games if you don't have to. And it, and it paid off. Gonzaga has been to 30 straight WCC title games and they will, they will end with that because they're, they're going to the Pac 12. And so, but if you're a league like the Sunbelt, that's where I'm like me and Keith Gill, but heads on this is, is like, you've got like seven teams at the top that are basically a tide. Why are you making the team that loses all the time, because we'll play four extra days. This is out of control. Yes, it's amazing for clicks, but this is nuts, man. Like let's figure this out. So I think every, every league's got to do what's best for their league. So Con format seems to be fine to me. You might have a year where you have a dominant team and maybe you wish they had to buy to the semis, but like the last two years, you've had the six seed win the whole thing. So it just depends. And I think, you know, the cool thing is at the conference level, they have the ability year in and year out. And this is what I try to advise them to change their format based on what they should expect in the given year. So if you can tell like McNeese in the Southland, if you can tell McNeese, loaded up in the portal and they're clearly the best team, switch your bracket to a, to a semi-final buy format and protect that team. If you don't have a team like that, make the tournament more exciting and get yourself an eight versus one matchup. You know what I mean? So, so I think that's, that should still be done in with the similar thinking, like let's put our best foot forward to send our representative. Yeah. That seems like it might be too much extra work for some of these conference rocko that they might have to change every year. They have to care. They have to care. They do. Yeah. That's got to be said. Hey, God forbid. Yeah. If you want the health of your league, you're going to have to do some extra work. You're going to have to reevaluate things. And it might mean pivoting, you know, every two years or something, you know, from that standpoint. And you know, I think the other side to this too is especially I, I'm seeing it on more on the college football side, but even on the college basketball side, as you talked about, Hey, each conference has to do what's best for their conference. And that is so true. I totally get that in so many different ways. But as much as we have this umbrella that all of these teams are under as far as college basketball, and of course we can say the NCAA, it's really so siloed out with the SEC, the big 10, the big 12, each conference and how it is all about, we want to do what's best for our conference to earn as much money as possible. And to hell with all of these other conferences. And I get it. You have to take care of your own house. But that's where I think we miss out when you look at with the NFL and the NBA and the other professional sports leagues is that the commissioner and the organization is looking out for the totality of the league itself and the trickle down effect is that that'll benefit all of the other teams. So we just don't have the ability to do that the way college athletics is structured. Rocco. Yeah, it's a big concern. Well, I think it's for me because the thing I love about college basketball the most is just being able to, you know, ideally cover each of the leagues equally. And sure, I have the option to continue doing that. But the problem is there's a clear divide in and a lot of it is due to football, especially at that big 10 SEC level to where to where there is a legitimate threat now. And I don't know how soon it hits the surface or not, but I'm kind of just bracing myself for whenever it comes to where the big 10, the SEC might just decide to just do their own thing. And then all of a sudden in college basketball, we were down to 30 leagues. You know, do we go back to a 64 team tournament? All of a sudden, you know, the SoKon's interesting again to like the masses. And so not that it's not interesting. You know what I mean? Like just having a team that could get to a 316 and all that good stuff that we love. And yeah, that's a real threat because, you know, the big 12 commissioner, Yormak, he's extremely sharp and he's been able to stay in the fight. And in basketball, the big 12 is at the same level as those top two, but certainly not in football. And then the ACCC is trying to figure out their footing. Meanwhile, in basketball, they have two absolute blue blood powerhouses. And then you also have Louisville who's spending a ton of money. That's right. So like, what do you do with those teams as well? So it's just like, man, if it really just becomes who has all the money and then it also impacts the structure of the sport, it already impacts the player movement and a lot of other factors. But if it actually impacts our structure and what tournaments you have access to, and I think that's part of why you see the crown tournament is actually like an experiment to see if it could actually make their own tournament work and make it popular. And that's where that came from. So I'm just staying leery of all that because I know as shocking and appalling as some of the so-con statement, and then of course, just the simple move to 76 and all the stuff I'm upset about about the AQs. And I think you guys share that with me. It could just be the tip of the iceberg in reality. And so no doubt, Rocco, I think the reality is, is the NCAA lost billions of dollars in settlements and they have and they still have nine years to pay all that back. So that is like an under talked about thing. And like, they're going to be operating that way for the majority of the next decade. And so the leagues really do the conferences, especially at the top, have all the leverage. And it's a redistribution of of that money and how it gets shaken out. That determines our next system. And all of that is in flux as we speak. No, I think you make some excellent points. And Richmond and I have talked about it before is that we are probably trending towards this scenario where however that break off is, there's probably going to be some sort of football and men's basketball, maybe women's basketball breaking away. And again, maybe there's still some involvement in NCAA championship. Maybe it is something completely on their own. But I think that that's something that we've we've all talked about is being a potential and maybe even likely reality as it relates to the top programs in the country. I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Do you do you see us probably trending towards that way? And again, part of that's because then maybe we can make those guys employees, if that's the route that we need to go to put some guardrails on this with collective bargaining, et cetera, different conversation, different day. But yeah, do you see us kind of trending towards this scenario where we are likely seeing the two biggest conferences break away and maybe they got to figure out how to do Carolina, Kansas, get kind of Yukon, et cetera, get put into that blunder as well. Yeah, the basketball part is more of a guess to me. But I definitely think due to football, you can see it heading that way pretty clearly. And I just don't know what the Carolina Duke, Kansas equation is. And obviously in the big 12, you have teams spending at a very six teams spending at a very high level, whether it's BYU or Arizona, Iowa states, very competitive, Houston's, maybe not spending as much, but they're clearly at that level. And so how do you shake that out basketball wise? But I but I definitely think it's heading that direction to answer your question. It's just hard for a lot of us to wrap our minds around because it would basically, you know, if you look back at the history of the NCAA, you know, there was a period of time back before we were alive where the NIT was actually the better tournament. And I think they're kind of going way back in the in the archive to maybe create something like that if if some folks motivated by this, get their way. But again, the NCAA tournament, you can't discredit it too much because what they've been able to build through the excitement, through the kind of everybody has a chance. Every league has a chance thing captured all of us at some point in our lives. And it certainly captures like the everyday person in America. You know, I worked in the corporate world for a long time. And you know, one thing I always look forward to is that Monday after the bracket came out, just to see, even though I was I was always dialed in, I wanted to see the reaction of like, you know, and in accounting, like at the at the facts machine, like suddenly caring about this sport for a couple of weeks. And that's and I think that's the part that maybe isn't enough in the calculus because yeah, first of all, first of all, you're going to have six playing games on Tuesday, six playing games on Wednesday. Sure. Maybe there's a way to navigate that, especially since everybody has smartphones and you can digitally make that fun. But I also think there's something magical about just having that bracket in front of you. And then yes, getting everybody involved. And, you know, maybe after 12 games on Tuesday and Wednesday, they're already over it by Thursday. I don't know. I'm not saying that's going to happen to everybody. I still think a lot of people are going to love it, but it definitely makes it a little different waters down some things to me. But we, we guess we just have to see how it goes. Yeah. Hey, we get more basketball. So that's not a bad thing. So not for us. Yeah. Yeah. But hey, I like it because the bracket fits on one page. Rocco, that's it. That's all I have to worry about. It's still, it's still well. It's just going to have a lot of slashes in it. It's going to have a lot of slashes. And the other side, I'm going to have to get my readers out every time because I really do the fine print as far as some of these teams. All right, Rocco, a couple of other things. I am curious just in terms of the scheduling part of this and again, how we're going to be able to actually evaluate some of these teams that can be put into the 76 team bracket. And of course, I mean, I know you're dialed into a lot of the scheduling and are well versed in that, but could we see any type of qualifiers in terms of a record requirement that you have to be above 500 in quad one, two games, something of that nature, or you have to play X number of mid major teams in non-conference, you know, for the power conference programs. So I'm just curious, you know, could we see any type of thing evolving to that regard? Yeah. I don't think they want to put any of that in writing now. That's a great question for Martin Newton, who I will meet with at some point this summer. And if I don't, certainly I'll get back down there to Greenville and hang out with him again, like last year. Come on down media day. Yeah, we're ready for you, Rocco. I had a great time. That was a treat. So I'd love to do that again. Hopefully it works out. And I think, but just, you know, I got to spend a couple of quality days with him at that last year. And I think, you know, they like to keep the precedents if possible. So right now the precedent is no team under two games over 500 has ever gotten selected. And there's certainly enough options to keep that going, even by adding eight. But obviously it would mean like Auburn last year wouldn't have got in. You know, you saw on the first four out, I think they were either the first team out or the second team out. So, you know, I think just because of the power dynamics, like we've been talking about the majority of this episode together, I think they would probably still take an SEC or a Big 10 team. That's one game over sadly, or two games over. And I don't think they have any interest in putting it in the rules because they at least want the option to do that. And that's right. They don't want to be bogged in. Yeah, it's unfortunate. Now I do think if there's that, you know, a mediocre ACC or a mediocre Big 12, that could be a little different because the power dynamics aren't quite the same as those top two leagues. But I hate to think that that is just the nature of the beast right now. Like I said earlier, those Texas and North Carolina inclusions in 2025 to me really put the changing of the guard on full display. For somebody that studies it behind the scenes, you know, I definitely thought UC Irvine and I might be unpopular for this, but I thought UC Irvine was more deserving than any of those options. Breaking the record for most road wins in a season, really going toe to toe with a really good UC San Diego team, you know, having a win against them on the road as well. So yeah, I mean, you could have taken up Boise that year. Obviously West Virginia feels very slighted. Yeah, there was a lot of other options there. Yeah. And so that was, that was when I added a column to my spreadsheet that said best television readings and I'm looking at it right now. And that became, that became field T in my spreadsheet after that year. So, so yeah, it's a real thing. And unfortunately it's not something they want to put in writing. Wow. You're already out to field T. My goodness. Yeah. You got a lot of columns there. Yes, sir. That's how we break it down. And that's why I think I love it. That's why I give the committee such a hard time. I know they work hard and I thought they did a heck of a job this year. I really did. But I think to just take a WAB number or just take a net number or just take a, you know, your favorite metric, I think it's the laziest possible approach. There's so much information when it comes to road record, neutral record, who you actually played, how you actually did your, your overall, you know, I actually type in the teams in the field that they beat so I can look at it every time I talk about them. That's baseline stuff to me. And I think anybody who's taking the time to be on the actual committee should at least be able to match that. And so I get, I get pretty fired up about it. Yeah. Well, we need you on the committee, Rocco. That's dream mantra. That'd be a dream. Yes. That's what we're going to push for. And I do think there is something to be said. Hey, we need more of the people that are living and breathing college basketball to be part of the committee. And I think that could do wonders. But Rocco, we can't thank you enough. My friend greatly appreciate you jumping on with this year. So con fast break again, heading into the summer. It's going to be moving a hundred miles per hour because there's a lot of changes, but we look forward to having you back on my friend anytime guys really appreciate the conversation. I thought it was great. Thank you. Thank you, Rocco. Okay, Darren, it looks like it's happening, man. NCAA tournament expansion. Get ready for it. And as you heard Rocco talk about, he's already been preparing for it for the past couple of years. And so I think we all need to get to that point. Grab your blanket, grab your pass. See whatever it is as much as we're upset. This is happening, brother. We are having NCAA tournament expansion. We are. And it is, and it's look is fans, you know, we talked about it. It is uncomfortable, but from a business perspective, I think it's one of those things that it's just the way that the game is evolving. And so like you said, you just got to figure out a way to, to get comfortable with it. It's here, but that was an awesome opportunity to speak with Rocco. He's an incredible wealth of knowledge and just really understands where this thing is at and the evaluation process. And I'm excited for our listeners to be able to, to get that experience. Is this a great conversation? No question about it. Yeah, we're going to have Rocco on quite a bit. I mean, he lives in Breeze basketball and even more so mid major and understanding the nuances, all of that. So by all means, we will have Rocco back on for certain. And for all of you out there, just hit that subscribe button. It's easy to do on YouTube and then you won't miss any of the coverage we have for the so con fast break of obviously talking Southern conference basketball. And so make sure you also follow on Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, including the I heart radio app. Until next time, may all your jumpers hit nothing but the bottom of the net.
