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He was the sixth overall pick by the Minnesota Timberwolves back in nineteen ninety nine. He's while he's ERBIAX CBS Sports college basketball studio analyst, also works for the New York Knicks. Good to talk to you again, Wally. Do you have your Miami of Ohio sweatshirt on? Is that okay?

All right?

You're repping.

I like that.

Reppin' Ohio baby. Yeah, I know you went to Dayton. I went to Miami. We were rivals back in the day. Dayton's gone a good path. They just missed the tournament in Miami, lost by two in their conference championships. So Travis Steele's doing a great job. I'm excited about where the program is.

If you didn't go to Miami, where were you going?

Well?

I wanted to go to Saint John's, but they didn't recruit me. They had Felipe Lopez going there, so they didn't really give me an opportunity.

That was a little under recruited.

Other schools I was looking at was Harvard, North Carolina State, Iowa Siena. That was another one I really wanted to go to Duke, but again didn't recruit me. Really wanted to play for Rick Patino, didn't recruit me. I really wanted to play in the Big East. So I ended up at Miami. Played for great coaches. Sean Miller was an assistant, Bad Moda was an assistant. Herb Senec who's still coaching at Santa Clara doing a great job.

He was the head coach.

So I went to kind of the cradle of coaches, which Miami is known for in football and also in college basketball. All those guys are thriving. So I got some great coaching for four years.

But would you have stayed there in the transfer portal, nil era, No, I just.

I loved it. It's an amazing school.

I got my degree, I have great friends. It's just an awesome campus, awesome place. But in today's landscape, the way players from mid majors are getting kind of taken away from small teams and going to the big schools. You look at a team like Florida, you know, Walter Clayton junior from my own, Elijah Martin from fau Will Richard transferred from a mid major.

A lot of those top tier teams and we heard Bruce Curle even said it.

He said he loves to get transfers that come from mid majors that haven't had the glorious meals, pregame meals that have been driving the games back and forth on buses, which we used to do in Miami of Ohio and the Mid American Conference. They really appreciate coming to those big schools from mid majors.

They work hard, they grinders.

A lot of the top players in this tournament left are transfers from mid major schools.

John cali Perry said yesterday in Pat McAfee show, at least I think it was yesterday, but he was talking about how you got to wait for the transfer portal before you can get a high school player. But I'm guessing these coaches have contact with these high school players and you kind of have a sense of who on your team is going to be transferring or put their name in the portal. So is it that big of a deal that we have the transfer portal window open right now?

I think it could wait a little bit longer. I think it puts a lot on a coach that are still coaching's plate because they need to focus on trying to win a national championship and win games, and you can't be recruiting guys watching film on guys in the transfer portal on the side, because you don't know whether those guys are going to pull the trigger and go to school and take a sure thing as far as the scholarship and opportunity and an nil opportunity, it's got to be crazy.

Listen, the coaches have been doing it for years.

Like for example, Herb Syndic, God bless them, we had a great freshman year.

He ended up going on to NC State.

You know, we hired Charlie Goles and my career kind of exploded, so it worked out great for me.

But coaches leave when they have good.

Seasons to take better opportunities. Now players have the opportunity to do the exact same thing. I think it's better for the game of basketball. I think if it's elevated the play of the players and of the teams, because iron sharpens iron, and now the best players they can go to the best teams and play for the best coaches. And I think that's why we see eight teams left from the SEC and the Sweet sixteen.

Okay, but what kind of tweaks are you going to make If I said you're going to run college basketball, what's the one thing you want to change.

The one thing is to make sure there's a lot of promises out there as far as transfers and nil money and stuff like that that don't get delivered. If there's any way that it can be a lot more. It's kind of a wild wide West, and it's like a promise that might never come to fruition.

If there can be a.

Way to just guarantee stuff and happening, you know, maybe a contract something like that, a two year deal where coaches know who's going to be playing for them for at least two years and not just one, and they can just transfer after one. Something like that. Maybe giving a guy one transfer in their four years without sitting out, then if they want to transfer again, they have to

Is very good.

I love seeing high level basketball, and I like watching the best basketball players in college in the amateur level. And this year we've gotten to that point where the best players are playing on the best teams for the best coaches.

Talking to while the Zerbiak, CBS Sports College Basketball Analyst. So you faced Michael Jordan at the end of his career with the Wizards. You had Lebron early in Lebron's career, in Kobe kind of middle of his career.

I had Kobe the whole entire time picking my butt out. They're not just out of the playoffs. He felt like every year with Kobe and Shack. When I was with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Kevin Garnett's Frett Well and Cassel, that team was just dominant.

So Kobe was outstanding.

Okay, most frustrating out of that three to cover.

H Well, I didn't play against Jordan in his prime. The hardest guy for me to cover. I've always said this was Paul Pierce. I played against him for years. He was such a smart basketball player. For me, being six seven sixty eight, Paul Pierce had had had the height that could match up with me, and I just had a lot of problems guarding him. You know, he changed speeds, He's so smart. He was one of the

So fast. But the thing I could kind of I could. I could post up Kobe a little bit, and you know, because.

I had a little bit of a size and strength advantage, so I could get some buckets on him.

I couldn't stop him though, that's for sure.

On the other end, was Jordan still talking trash back then at the end of his career.

Jordan talked the most trash to me on the golf course.

I've played with golf with Michael a couple of times, and he's a lot of fun to play golf with. He's a lot of fun to play against in basketball too, But he talks a.

Lot of trash on the golf course.

He's he's a big time competitor, and he talked a little bit of trash. But when he was with the Wizards and I was with the Timberwolves. In the three years that I played against him, we won. We were six and zero against the Wizards, back and forth, home and away. We beat him every single time. So I caught him at the end of his career. But nothing but respect for him. He's my goat.

With all due respect to Lebron, my teammate.

I got Lebron number two on the greatest of all time lists Michael Jordan. What he accomplished when he needed to win a game, he won it. When he needed to make the big shot, he made it. And the way he dominated basketball on both ends of the floor for his career. He's my greatest of all time.

Okay, but is there something Lebron could accomplish that would change that list?

You know what he's doing. The longevity, it's incredible, it really is.

It's just the tightness of Jordan's career, making it to six finals and winning all six. Obviously had great teammates and a great coach, but he dominated his era of basketball like nobody else. Did you know the longevity of Lebron If you want to enter a different argument, the fact that he's still doing it at forty years old is absolutely incredible. I think They're a legitimate title contender

Looking at the games tonight BYU Alabama, Maryland, Florida, Arizona, Duke, Arkansas, Texas Tech, where's the surprise slash upset in that group.

BYU Alabama is must be TV. That's the game to watch.

This BYU team coached under Kevin Young, an NBA mind that came from the Phoenix Suns. Spreads the floor, out shoots a lot of threes. They get up and down the floor. They have outstanding big rebounders down low. So Alabama's going to have to bring their hard hat and they're going to have to rebound. This game is going to be first one to one hundred. I'm really for this game. I think it's being played in Newark out there in New Jersey. This is gonna be a great one.

If you were Cooper Flag, give me a reason why you would go back to Duke.

Because it's a lot of fun to play in college basketball on campus.

There's nothing like it.

The thing is, there's a lot of risk if he does go back. You know he's the surefire number one. He's ready for the NBA. What you get when you go to the NBA the coaching, the professionalism off the court, the physical therapists, the trainers, the strength coaches. It is an all inclusive program to maximize your basketball abilities. Not saying that Duke is not the same, because Duke is at one of the highest levels in college. BYU is

Yeah, but the Wizards could be there. I mean it's hard to say, Hey, you know, they won the lottery and I'm the prize I get to go to Washington. If you were going to go to Washington right now, or you had a chance to stay at Duke for one more year, what would you do.

I'll tell you that's a great point, you know, but there but what if the flip side is what if something happens it is, you know, at Duke and he hurts himself.

You know, just something funky happens.

That's a huge risk to take, you know, and you never know with with how the draft is going to pan out. You know, we've seen teams jump up in the draft and you have to trust that. You know, most organizations in the NBA, they're figuring out once they get talent, they're figuring out how to maximize that talent and how to be pretty relevant. Washington's has been pretty

Good to catch up with you again, Walie, thanks for joining us.

Always fun. Enjoyed the Sweet sixteen. It's going to be a lot of fun the rest of the way. All the to San Antonio.

Crining a champ.

That's Wally zurbiank CBS sports college basketball analyst, former store at Miami of Ohio.

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He's the SEC Commissioner. He's Greg sank Back on the show, commissioner, thanks for joining us. When did the SEC first start to focus its resources maybe on making the Conference of basketball powerhouse? Was there, you know a moment where you said, why don't we just take the headlines in other months? Well?

Yeah, I can speak to when it became really raw for me, and it was March of twenty sixteen.

That was the end of my first basketball season as the.

SEC's commissioner, and we had three teams selected to the NCAA Tournament on the men's side. Now, Dan, that was the fourth time that had happened in the prior to ten years, so it's not like we had a great trend going. But when you're in the commissioner's share, that moment was pretty raw and we had to do some things differently from our end in the conference office.

Okay, but what was the plan that you put in place?

Yeah, a couple of things.

One, we had had some consulting relationships where we really weren't talking about the right things. You remember the old RPI which is now the net. We would spend an ordinate amount of time trying to figure out how to game the RPI and scheduling. We weren't talking about hiring the right people. We weren't talking about facilities, we weren't talking about recruiting. The day after that selection, Sunday, I transitioned away from one advisor and I brought Mike Trangheesi in.

The next day.

And what Mike did is help us talk about the right things. The other bonus with Trengeese and I grew up outside Syracuse, New York, so watched the Big East Form was like when Mike said you're good at basketball to the media, you were automatically.

Good at basketball. But one of the things he did was he.

Talked to our ads as they were going through the hiring of coaches, and not tell them to to who to hire, but talk to them about perhaps who not the hire, who may not be ready for the stage that we have. Those kind of conversations became much more relevant. We had some other tweaks we needed to make, but that was a big part of the conversation.

Did you take the same approach to football at any point where you guys have been successful winning titles, but now with more teams in the playoffs, and is there any a different shift in philosophy?

You know the reality of this job and a long time ago, I was Southland Conference commissioner. I was like way off Broadway. You never called me for an interview, so I never had the opportunity. I made a decision that every day in that role, you had to think about football one way or another. And I think the reality of the Southeastern Conference is football is dominant on

Are you in favor of more teams qualifying for marech Maendness.

Yeah, I'm in favor of fully exploring that. I think there's advantages to doing so, given there's more Division one members right now, there's one less conference. But what we're doing is excluding from participation some of the top fifty teams. And I think when you look last year at North Carolina State on eleven seed makes it to the final four, you've had two or three teams playing Dayton that have made it to the Final four or made it into

Now. I wouldn't just run to.

Expand for the sake of expansion. I've never put a number on it, I think, and I've been clear that it needs to be fully explored. I'm pleased at the NCAA leadership and the committees involved are doing so.

I'm talking to Greg Sanki, SEC Commissioner. I'm more concerned about transfer portal and nil with college football or college basketball.

I think both are are relevant.

You know, I watched the rhetoric right now, Dan, and I mean, we forget that we've just seen coaches transfer, right We've seen head coaches leave a program last week to go to another program. I've had in my league. I've had it in my league a year ago, where a coach leaves Program A and the SEC to go to Program B. That's reality. The commentary about young people doing the same thing needs to be.

In the context that the adults have that advantage.

Now. There needs to be an orderly process so when you watch coaches move, it's a pretty tight timeframe. There are anomalies to that, and I think we need to tighten up the time frame. Don't forget, like three or four years ago, the transfer portal was opened three hundred and sixty five days a year. It's been narrowed, it's been moved back a week. Plenty of opining that we shouldn't have the transfer portal open during the NCAA tournament.

What if we cap the number of transfer portal players that you can bring in, or like, I'm just trying to everybody you know says we have a problem. I just haven't heard solutions here. How can we make this better for all involved?

Yeah, we've talked about solutions. So I think some of you have to go back. There used to be an NCAA limit on the number of entering team members in a year or over two years. The basketball community really ended up railing against that. Miles Brand was the president, but that came in. We go right back to that and create some continuity. I do think you have to remember that we have had attorneys general in states file

Compared to where we are.

Now, twelve teams in the college football playoffs. When do we go to fourteen, we'll see not this season. It's a topic of conversation.

My view is it took us a heck of a long time to just get to twelve. I think twelve was a success. By all accounts. You saw continuing interest through the playoff. We actually took a deeper dive as a CFT management committee. So that's like gobblygook for the commissioners and the Notre Dame ad Looking at an analysis of viewership throughout the playoff, a lot of positive stories. You would hear this like year over year comparison of a particular game being down. That didn't tell the full story.

I think that's immediate.

I do think there's some relevance to thinking about expanding the number, whether it stays at twelve or fourteen. I think even sixteen's a relevant conversation in advance of the twenty sixth season. That doesn't mean we just go there, but like that NCAA tournament expansion, we should be looking at what are the impacts and what are the opportunities.

Give me an alternative to these selection committees.

Well, we had the.

Old BCS computer r anchorings, remember those days, and everybody said, you know, how can we have computers making these decisions?

We need people?

And what we have now is how can we let people make these decisions?

We need computers. So it's the full on pendulum swing.

Yeah, Dabor, there's something in the over the combination of a committee and better informed data help support decisions. What I do think is really important from a Southeastern Conference perspective is the number on the left hand side of wins and losses the most important or the right hand side. And what happened last year and maybe the last couple of years causes, at least among my athletics directors, the

I don't think that's good for the game.

I don't think Nebraska canceling the Tennessee series is good for college football, and the citation was that members of the CFP selection committee said, well, it won't hurt you that much for dropping the game. I think that's problematic. I tend to think we should play nine conference games, but to get there, we have to have more clarity on the CFP selection process. So in answer to your direct question, there's likely a balance that can be struck

Like humanity as much as we thought we did. So Where's the middle ground? Is another one of those works.

Would you be in favor of a college football schedulings are.

Some of these outside ideas have said that I'd welcome a conference commissioner having more authority over just deciding conference and non conference schedules. I don't think the culture of college football lends itself to csurs. I probably said to you, like the Russian czar thing didn't work out very well over time, and remember, like the eighties, drugs are and we still have problems. So I don't think just identifying

Zoom with you.

One other item, and this is off topic with football and basketball, but it does relate to it. Can we can you see where we separate college football college basketball, and then you have these other sports that we don't want to lose. They're not revenue producing but softball and lacrosse and soccer, and we make them regional so they're not flying. You know, Cal and Stanford aren't flying cross

Maybe I don't know what kind of awards you give for g decision making, but I think you just gave me a gold start because we are a regional conference and for example last.

Week, well you guys are, yeah, but college college sports is not.

Well, that's because others made different decisions and they have to to live with those decisions.

I'm running college sports to me, so it's why I'm asking you know that that that's I'm making you the college football notts are you're you're running college sports. Why don't we let these other sports, smaller sports, non revenue producing, stay regional while football and basketball, if you want them going cross country, great.

Again, I'm gonna I'm gonna hold the Southeastern Conference up. Was the bright shining example of decision making. And here's a why I actually think I'm not gonna speak to everybody else. They made their decisions for different reasons, but I've made those decisions. I think you can look at what we've done and say, no, they wouldn't have done.

The same thing.

We had a pack stadium for l Issue at Texas last week in baseball packed, we had a pack stadium for Auburn or Texas and softball. I think those build on each other. I think those build on each other. So your question kind of the foundation was take football and basketball. I think if you're going to do something in basketball, you're doing it for men's and women's basketball.

I think there are.

Distinctions that can be made, but I think some of that has to play out decision making. So for the Southeastern Conference, I think what we do in football has great meaning and what we do in basketball, and you saw it with our environments in basketball this past year. I think what we do when football and basketball plays out in baseball and softball and meaningful ways. I think

That's my recruiting pitch.

Others may have to make different decisions because I think you've seen with these coast to coast conferences people opining about, Hey, maybe we need a central hub for competition, so we're not flying all over the place. I think they're probably all learning from this first year as they go. But I really like the way we've configured ourselves because it meets the exact question that you've asked me on a sport by sport basis.

He's the former Great commissioner from the Southland Conference. He's Greg SANKI great to talk to you again, enjoy the rest of the tournament. Good to visit with you again.

I certainly hope I do.

Thank you, Greg.

Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six ams on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Jim Kirchin of the Mothership and a Hall of Famer, he joins US opening day double dip with the Mothership Brewers Yankees at three Eastern Tigers and the Dodgers seven Eastern. Joe Buck will be on the call for the game in New York, and you can catch Timmy on Baseball tonight following the Brewers and the Yankees. Let me hit you with a poll question. Are the Dodgers good for baseball? Yeah?

I think they are, Dan now, the way they do business as we know is completely legal, and if everyone else had the same advantages of them, they would do the same thing. I think they're great for baseball because wherever they go, they're gonna draw a lot of people. I think every great drama needs a hero and a villain, and to some people, the Dodgers are the villain.

There's also a chance they will be so good this year.

That they potentially could make history in some kind and of course be the first team since the potentially Yankees ninety eight through two thousand to win.

Back to back World Series.

So look, I understand this isn't fair to smaller market teams that they can defer all of this money, and I think it needs to be changed, and it will be changed, I believe. But to say that they're terrible for baseball, I'm sorry. I'm just not buying it. Dan, those two games in Japan were really cool, and the Japanese players are so good, and the rookie Sazaki's going to pitch in the big leagues this year.

I think it's good for baseball.

I do.

Was it good for baseball to have Opening Day in Japan? And the reason why I bring this up is, couldn't you play two spring training games over there and accomplish the same thing. Did it have to matter to the Japanese baseball fan.

Look, Dan, I'm older.

Than you, Okay, I'm sixty eight, and I enjoyed a parade in Cincinnati and that was the first game to lead to the season.

Still do a p in Cincinnati.

But I believe they should all start on the same day we should start in this country.

However, I'm also a realist. This is all about money, Dan.

We're growing the game. Those games in Japan were tremendous, and the more and more growth that baseball can get, the better it is. If you're asking me what would I like, I would like every team to open the same time on April the first in this country. But am I going to argue with what we saw and the Otani show and the Suzaki Show.

No, I'm not arguing how many teams can win the World Series.

Dan, I'm again in the big minority here. The beauty of this sport is its unpredictable nature. I think the Dodgers are the best team, and I think there are six other teams in the NASH five other teams in the Nation League, maybe six that have a chance to win the World Series is if, of course, every thing goes right. I'm not so sure about the American League. I don't see a great team in the American League, although the Rangers can just mash when everybody is healthy.

But the beauty of the sport.

Dan, is that there's so many teams in the American League that are pretty good and not great.

It's gonna be a free for all.

And there are so many really good teams in the National League that's going to be an equal free for all to see who maybe gets to play, Say the Dodgers in the NLCS.

Okay, let's run down the teams. You got the Phillies and the Braves. Are you in the Mets in there?

Yes?

Now the Mets have to get there starting pitching healthy Sean and I has got to be as good as he was down the stretch. So those are three teams I think could win it. From the East.

Who else?

All Right?

The Brewers are pain the neck to play, Dan.

They catch it, they're hungry, they're young, they're aggressive, they steal more bases than almost anyone. They are a dangerous team. So I'm gonna put them in there. And then in the National League. Of course, you have the Dodgers, you have the Diamondbacks, who are vastly underrated, especially with the

How much does Otani pitch this season?

I thought he would be ready sooner than this. I was told in spring training he might be ready on May the first. We don't need him until then because of all the off days in April. They could go to a six man rotation. I'm not sure when he's going to pitch, but I promise you when he does pitch, he's going to be really good. Let's say it's let's say it's mid Let's say it's the All Star break.

But because of that, I don't know how he does in factor into the MVP every year. If he's still able to pitch and hit. He's like Travis Hunter at Colorado. He's a two way player that nobody is like that, so he has a decided advantage. It feels like every single season going in, you know, for the MVP, he.

Does dan And I'm sorry, I don't like it that way. When I first started voting for these things in nineteen eighty, it depended on whether your team won or not. Chipper Jones won in nineteen ninety nine because he carried his team the last two months into the playoffs.

I refuse to believe that we're just going.

To give it to Otani before this season starts, even though he's the best player in the game period. But let's say Juan Soto hits three seventy and hits forty homers and carries the Mets into the playoffs. You're telling me that's not an MVP season and is gonna get aced out just because the most remarkable player we've ever seen is really good. Again, I'm sorry, I can't look at it that way. I want to watch the season play out.

Give me the next player to make six hundred, seven hundred million dollars.

I'm not sure anyone's going there anytime soon. But I think Gunnar Henderson of the Orioles has a chance to get somewhere near there because he's so young, he's so good. He plays a premium defensive position, shorts up exceptionally well. Louis Gonzales remember him from the Diamondbacks. He met Gunner Henderson. I was standing right next to him last year and he shook Gunner Henderson's hand at the at the batting cage,

That's what we're dealing with here.

And Dan great high school basketball player, tremendous athlete, He's going to figure everything out, and an absolute dirt dog when it comes to playing the game and playing it properly.

He would be next on my list.

Can we do anything about those elbow things that these guys wear when they go to the plate.

I think it's a little too late for that, Dan.

We what we really care about is protecting our players and making sure they don't get hurt.

Dan, we have healthy scratches.

Now, I got three hits last night, but he ran an awful lot last night. So one of the people are saying he might be a little tired. We're going to give him the day off. So as long as we're trying to keep our players healthy, I think what they're going to allow dear and arm arm, armor and stuff like that.

And yet the.

Irony is, or the paradoxes, the more we've protected, the more it seems they get hurt.

It's a little confusing to me.

And I rail on this and I have for a while, and then nothing can be done about it.

I don't think.

But the White Sox had six pitchers go down in spring training and they all need Tommy John surgery. And you know, this is it's concerning that. You know, maybe maybe it's analytics that God is to this point here, but if you're the commissioner of Baseball and you're watching, I mean, it's it's not a question of if, it's when this happens, and it's a health issue for Major League Baseball, So what do you do about it?

Well, Dan, you have to go all the way back to Little League. And I know this sounds corny. You got to stop the ten twelve year old from throwing off a mound twelve months.

Out of the year. That's how guys are getting hurt.

Dan, you know when you played baseball as a kid, November fifteenth came around and whatever you were doing at that time, you picked up a basketball. And that's what we should be doing more often. When you play this game, which is so diabolically difficult to play, and you're throwing off a mound twelve months out of the year, no

What would Pete Rose's stats be, Tony Gwynn stats, Rod Caruz stats, Wade Bong stats if they played in today's game.

Well, with the shifting a little bit different. I think, first off, they would be great players today because great players transend all ears.

If you're going to play.

Rod Grew the way that they play certain guys, he's going to get two bunt hits a game.

And I'm not making that up.

George Brett, who's a very humble man, told me a couple of years ago when everyone was shifting all over the place.

He said, if.

I played today at for fifty.

He would see where to hit it. Tony Gwynn was a magician.

But would they be power hitters because of the analytics though? Tim when they're coming up in the minor leagues, they you know, the emphasiss is on power.

Yes, I'm well aware, and it really bothers me that we would take a player like Wade Bogs who's hit three twenty eight lifetime walks well over one hundred times because he can a hard line drive single to left field better than any left handed hitter I've ever seen, and they would tell him wait, you're unbelievably strong. You need to hit forty homers. That's that's what they would do with him today, And he wouldn't hit three twenty eight.

When was your first Opening Day?

My first was in nineteen eighty two. I count that dan as my first one, even though I did eighty one. But eighty two, I was the full time beat writer covering the Texas Rangers and the first three games of the season got snowed out in New York, so we had to open in Cleveland. Seventy four thousand people in Cleveland for Opening Day. The next day they had like three thousand people. So it was memorable for a lot of reasons.

And this is so.

George Wright was the rookie lead guy for the Rangers. He got three hits on opening Day. I went to George, rookie from Oklahoma City. I said, George, did you have a good time today? He goes, yeah, I've never been to a major League game before. So the first game he had ever attended in his life.

He got three hits.

And I just found out like six months ago that Mickey Rivers, the mischievous center fielder, maked an injury in spring training in order for George Wright to make the team. And that's how George Wright ended up on the roster on opening day because Mickey loved George right, he said, I'll fake an injury and you could play center field out opening Day, and then he got three hits in the only game he'd ever attended in his life.

That is the beauty of baseball.

Have fun today, Tim, great to catch up with you as always.

Well, good to see you, Dan. Take care.

That's Tim Kirkchin, ESPN baseball analyst and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame.