Patrick Stevens previews the March Madness tournament with the bracket now set

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Ready for the season.

That's the NBA theme, Max.

It is.

It was a little bit too late for me to grab the March Madness one, that's my bad.

Yeah, that's all right.

All of our college hoops talk on the team 980.

This week and throughout the tournament is presented by Bud Light, easy to drink, easy

to enjoy.

Joining me right now is Patrick Stevens.

Patrick has been just flat out one of the best at not only covering kind of college

sports in the DMV and beyond.

To this time of year, he's always been one of the best.

Did it for so long as a part of the Washington Post Sports section doing brackets?

So let me start there.

How did you do this year?

The final numbers were, I think it was 48 teams seated exactly right, 67 out of 68 within

one line and all 68 teams inside the field.

I didn't think it was a particularly tough year to do this, and I think probably could

have done a bit better, but I will point out, I think the one team that was off a bit

was Vanderbilt.

I had them as a three, and the committee had them as a five, and frankly, I don't know if

the committee really factored in that victory over Florida on the Saturday afternoon.

So that's a little disconcerting, but beyond that, those are kind of what the number

is looked like.

Is getting all 68, I mean, I'm sure you've done it before, but there have been years

where you've missed out on a couple, right?

Yeah, but I would tell you that when you're doing it over and over and over again, that

the seating is actually the more interesting and challenging part of it than it is.

I mean, let's face it, you get 31 of them for free, and I think most people in most years

are going to be able to get 63, 64, 65 without too much trouble.

And who had the best argument for being left out?

Nobody had a good argument for being left out.

I mean, like, let's run through, like, if you're Oklahoma, don't lose nine games in a row

at one point.

Yeah.

If you're Auburn, don't lose 16 games.

Yeah.

Okay?

If you're Texas and SMU who did get in, but if you've been left out, don't lose five

of your last six.

Yeah.

I mean, all of these themes were flawed, and there was a bit of good fortune here that there

was really only one team that got nudged out of the field.

That was because of Miami Ohio's loss in the Mac tournament.

So, you know, this is a tournament that with no bid snatchers, you're looking at Oklahoma

being in the field, too.

Um, I think, I think I read, I think I found your story on this, I might be wrong.

But if you don't know the answer to this, this means you didn't write the story.

But I've been saying that if Howard didn't win the Miyak, that it would have been the,

I think just the third time in 44 years that a team from the true DMV wasn't in the big

dance.

Did you read about that a few years ago?

I did.

I did that.

I believe it was 2018, was the year where nobody got in, nobody, nobody from, and I was counting

in that grouping, American GW, Howard, Georgetown, Maryland and George Mason.

Right.

And so that was the group of teams that I was looking at.

And then that year, at least UMBC got in, so there was somebody, sort of readin' all

it was in there.

Right.

And in 2022, pretty much everybody was bad.

So that was, that was a year where nobody was around.

So it was 18 and I believe it was 2022.

That was the year with the coaching change in season at Maryland.

That was the year that George Town went over the big east and nobody else kind of carried

the banner either.

And then Howard made it, and Maryland bounced back too, but Howard made it the next year

as well.

Since I haven't had you on all season long, do you think?

Next year are two maker break seasons for Ed Cooley and Buzz Williams?

Well, I think that, Buzz Williams would be owed $20 million if, after next year.

So I think that kind of ends the conversation for Maryland.

I do think that there is something to be said for, everybody gets a honeymoon period, right?

You know, I don't think that honeymoon period lasted through the first full season.

So.

You know it didn't, right?

Okay.

I don't think it lasts like I do.

It's not the most patient.

And so, you know, I do have to ask the question, like if you're middling next year, if you're

just around 500 or so or worse, which is obviously on the table based on what we saw this season,

I guess that's what happens, then you're going to have a lot of people that just check

out on you.

By the way, that's a massive problem for Maryland, because you basically run the risk of

having the exact same thing happen to you as what happened in football starting about 15

years ago.

Yep.

And that becomes the risk of, you know, your football analog to Randy Ed Salis, Buzz

Williams.

Yeah.

Now, we both know that basketball is more important to the matches.

Yeah.

So there would be more willingness to spend and to buy out and to do all those things

for basketball than for football.

But you've already seen, look, Patrick, I've said this many times just about our city in

particular where, you know, even with the pro teams that aren't the football team, every

other team in this town has become bandwagon.

If they're good, there's a massive and very enthusiastic following for it.

And if they're not, they get ignored for the most part.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think you saw that at Maryland throughout the second half of the season.

You've grown in and there's a lot of games where, you know, the announced crowd for a

conference game, you announce crowds around 12,000.

And if you're in the building, you're looking around and you're saying, are there really

more than 8,000 people here, 9,000 people in the building?

Yeah.

And so, and, you know, you bring up Georgetown, that's a problem that has been very difficult

to solve.

And there's different reasons there, there, you know, for Maryland, it's you went from

having, you know, a really fun memorable season to the bottom falling out.

And extremely fair comparisons to the Bob Wade era.

Like those were the worst, that was the worst Maryland team since the bookend years of

the Bob Wade era.

And there's really, there's really no conversation on that.

Just for Georgetown, you've had, it's not just that Ed Cooley's first three seasons have

it been an immediate turnaround.

And I would tell you that, you know, I would throw out year one for him because that was

a complete mess that you're walking into.

But regardless, people want to include that, that's fair.

But things had not been good for most of the last decade now.

And so, to have to try to climb out of that and you're playing off campus in an

arena that's candidly too big, that's an unsolvable problem for Georgetown, regardless.

But it's part of the problem.

And so, you know, is it a make or break year for Ed Cooley?

I mean, Georgetown has a lot of money invested in him too.

Yeah.

So, I don't know that next year is completely make or break, but I do know that this

was not the season Georgetown thought it was going to have and while there are some mitigating

reasons for that, namely, you know, Vinci Wuchuklu's medical issue there that cost him about

a month and a half, at the same time, there were some things with that team that didn't

work the way that they were supposed to work, whether it was closing out games, whether

it was some misses coming out of the portal, you know, I think that there's going to be

a great deal of incentivizing, incentivizing going on over there to try to, you know, fix

some of those things and not make the same mistakes twice.

Talking to Patrick Stevens.

All right.

So, I want to go back to the field that was unveiled last evening and talk about Miami

of Ohio first.

Did you think that they'd end up in a first-four spot?

Is that what they deserved?

So, whenever anybody's asked me about Miami of Ohio over the last few weeks, I've given

the same answer I'm going to give you.

The idea of trying to figure out and forecast what the committee is going to do is based

on, well, how has the committee treated teams like this in the past?

And you tell me, how many 31-in-1 teams have there been with a second worst non-conference

strength schedule in the country?

Never?

If it happened, it's been a long, long while, right?

So, there was a wide range of possibilities that I thought the committee could take with

them.

I thought they could be a nine-seed.

I thought they could be the last team in the field.

I also thought that there was probably a little bit of a human element there where you're

like, are you really going to leave out a team that went 31-in-1 and deal with the blowback

that would come from it?

So, you know, I was not, I expected to see them in the field somewhere.

There has never been a tournament team, there's never been a team that had more than 28 wins

that's been left out.

There's never been an eligible team with less than three losses that's been left out.

So, I thought Miami was going to be good to go once they got through a perfect regular

season.

So, for them to be in a play-in game, an hour from home, frankly, a better chance to win

against a very underwhelming SMU team that has a good back court but has some health

issues there.

You know, that's not a bad situation compared to being like a 10-seed play-in-a-7 right

now.

So, if I'm Miami of Ohio, you know, I certainly think I belong in the field but I also think

overall that there was a wide range of things that could have happened to them and I wasn't

going to profess being surprised by any of those things that would have ultimately happened.

So, this, not a shock to me and I'm okay with it, I also would have been okay with them

being like on the tan line and being sent off to a 7-10 game someplace.

I'm done carrying around bulky drinks and I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out

of my pockets.

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This is attorney Amida Zari from Zari Law.

If you've been injured in an accident and feel like no one is fighting for you, it's

time to fight back.

Paul Zari Law at 888-838-Hurt, just with one call you can put a proven legal team on

your side.

Zari Law has been serving the DMV for over 15 years, proudly fighting for our local community.

I was born and raised right here in the DMV, and my team is made up of experienced,

reputable local attorneys dedicated to fighting for injury victims just like you.

Follow us on all social platforms at azari.law, that's a-z-a-r-i-dot-l-a-w.

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How good is Virginia?

That's a great question that we're still kind of trying to figure out.

It's an interesting thing.

That was a hell of a game Saturday night.

They played a great-quality basketball game.

They played a great game against a Duke team that was down two starters.

They played a lot better against them the second time around, and the first time around,

which I think is a credit to that coaching staff that they sized some things up, and

obviously the absences matter too.

Virginia, the worst thing that they did all year, they did back before Thanksgiving when

they lost on a neutral floor to Butler, but I think one of the things that's hurt them

is because of how bloated the ACC is now in terms of a number of teams.

They only saw Duke once in the regular season.

They only saw Louisville once in the regular season.

They only saw North Carolina once in the regular season.

They only saw Miami.

They did see Miami the second time in the conference tournament.

They did not even play Clemson this season.

There's a whole lot of those types of things that you're looking at.

I think it was Clemson that they missed.

In any case, I kind of sized them up as a team that has checked a lot of boxes.

It's very worthy of a number three seed that they earned, and it should be really

fun seeing what they do up in Philadelphia, particularly if they get a match up with Tennessee

in the second round.

Man, they didn't even play Clemson this year.

I'm looking at it.

You're right.

They didn't play Clemson.

Yeah, every team has an ACC had one lead team that they could play.

That's...

Yeah.

You can't avoid it when you have 39 teams in your league.

That's why I'm actually becoming...

I love the big east round, Robin, and then you get a third match up in Madison Square

Garden.

It just feels like olden times.

All right.

So, let's talk about before we get to the teams that you like in terms of teams that

can win it all.

Give me a team right now outside the top four seeds that you think can be playing on

the second weekend.

Second weekend team outside the top four.

Well, I mean, St. John's would be the sort of team you might say.

There are five, yep.

There are five.

They're playing well.

Vanderbilt.

Remember, they're in a four or five situation with Nebraska, which has never won an N.F.A.

tournament game.

Right.

So, can they get out of that, McNeese, Nebraska, Troy, Rooping, and Oklahoma City?

I think that's certainly possible.

How much do you trust North Carolina?

How much do you trust Illinois is a great question for those two down in Greenville?

So, those are a handful of teams that certainly stand out that could pull that off.

I'm not overly trusting of most of the teams on the six line this year.

I will offer up, you know, Purdue just played four games in four days.

Are they a little weary?

And how do they deal with that Miami Missouri winner?

Because I do think that that team could be a little bit feisty Missouri because they'll

have basically have all the hands behind them there.

Yeah.

How do they guys at 10C get to plain St. Louis?

So, one of the things that I don't know if you've heard about this, but because of some

other things going on in the world domestically, there are a limited number of charter planes

that are available to the N.F.A.

Okay.

So, ultimately, you've seen, it is actually not as much of it as I thought there was going

to be, but teams that are basically being put in a situation where they can bus rather

than fly to destinations.

And so, Missouri, getting to be a 10-feet in St. Louis, is a money saving and a resource

saving item there.

Give me a first round-up set or two.

I don't need nines over eights, but 10 seed or lower.

All right.

You know, I happen to think that Central Florida is pretty good, and that UCLA has had problems

coming east consistently here over the last couple years.

So I think that's a game that-

Do you think McGrorn's happy about playing in Philly?

I'm sure he's ecstatic, and I'm sure whatever thought he has, he'll keep to himself.

The kid that got hurt for them against Michigan State, going to play or not, because I actually

thought they were playing really good basketball at the end of the year.

They were, and that's a perfectly fair question, don't know the answer to it.

On the injury front, Texas Tech kind of muggled home, well, I think they split their last

six without J.P. top, and they get accurate in a 5-12 game.

And that's a real opportunity, I think, for a surprise.

So Santa Clara, knockoff Kentucky in a 10-7.

I mean, I think that's kind of an interesting game.

You look elsewhere.

High point in Wisconsin should be at least a fun game.

I don't know if Wisconsin's going to lose that, but it should at least be a somewhat fun

game out in Portland.

Isn't Greg Gard, like, I think he's so underrated.

I used to say this about Matt Painner all the time, and then he's had this great success

here over the last half dozen years.

But I think Greg Gard does a phenomenal job at Wisconsin.

Does the industry feel that way about him?

So I think the interesting thing about what Greg Gard has done at Wisconsin is, you know,

they reinvented themselves the last couple of years.

They always do.

But to a remarkable pace, I mean, he was, yeah, I mean, you know, roster-wise, they reinvent

themselves all the time.

But they are now, you know, they went, they have gone back to being a super slick, efficient

offensive team, but they also play at a pretty decent pace.

I think I heard it wasn't on the selection show last night, that it's the highest scoring

was Wisconsin teams in the 1971.

Yeah.

I mean, again, and there was a time where it was more deliberate.

It was more intentional half court fewer possessions, the whole thing.

But do coaches think that he does a good job?

I know that they loved Painner all along, but I don't know what they think about Gard.

I mean, I certainly think when you look at the results for the most part, you have to,

you have to be respectful of a team that, or a coach that keeps winning 20 games every

year.

And the only, the only year since 2019 that he hasn't done that was the 2021 season where,

you know, do you really trust anything with Pandemic Ball and place a bunch of value in

that?

All right.

I've got 30 seconds, so give me how many teams can win this thing and give me the

that list, the teams that you think can.

I mean, I don't know if it's a particularly deep list this year.

I mean, Duke Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Houston, Connecticut.

And if you want to argue for like Iowa State, maybe, like, I mean, I don't know how much

deeper it goes than that.

I mean, are you Purdue or not?

Man, you know, if they're right, like they were this weekend, yeah.

I mean, they've got, they've got everything you want, but they had that like one and a

half month bottle there where you just didn't, you didn't know what you were getting.

Can they be consistent enough over the next six games, just like they were over the last

four?

Thank you for doing this.

Hope you're well.

By the way, at D1S course, at discourse on X, I hope you're well.

Thanks.

Talk soon.

Take care.

Patrick Stevens.

Everybody.

Ben standing next.

Done carrying around bulky drinks.

And I'm definitely done cleaning melted candy out of my pockets.

So yeah, I traded them both in for fruity rainbow five hour energy shots.

These little guys are as pocket sized as any candy.

But instead of a sugar crash, you get a zero sugar caffeine boost.

Candy can't even compare at this point.

fruity rainbow five hour energy shots treat your taste buds to an explosion of fruity flavor.

The tasty caffeine kick.

That's right.

Caffeine just got a flavor upgrade.

And it's not just one flavor.

Five hour energy shots bring you tasty caffeine and 17 flavors, 17.

So if you're craving that candy flavored chaos, but actually want energy that works,

grab fruity rainbow five hour energy shots, pocket sized zero sugar, big flavor, available

now at fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon.

This is attorney Amida Zari from Zari Law.

If you've been injured in an accident and feel like no one is fighting for you, it's

time to fight back.

Paul Zari Law at 888-828-Hurt, that's what one call you can put a proven legal team on

your side.

Zari Law has been serving the DMV for over 15 years, proudly fighting for our local community.

I was born and raised right here in the DMV and my team is made up of experienced,

reputable local attorneys dedicated to fighting for injury victims just like you.

Follow us on all social platforms at Zari.law.

That's a-z-a-r-i dot L-A-W.

Don't wait.

Don't settle.

Fight back with Zari Law.

With offices in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia, my team and I are ready to stand up for you.

Paul, 888-828-Hurt, that's 888-828-H-U-R-T.

And let us fight back for you.

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