The world of college basketball crown and national champ. Last night, Florida Gators their third title in the two thousands, which puts them second behind the Yukon Huskies. Our next guest is our college basketball north Star and our life north Star for honest, Ken Pomeroy on a Tuesday Kenpalm dot com.
How are we doing, Buddy, doing great?
Fans? Just kind of reflecting on the season that was. In my position, it always goes by pretty quickly. I know for other people in the game they think it takes forever, but for me, it just flies by.
So when we last spoke, you had escaped the chili cold weather of Salt Lake in exchange for I believe Calgary.
Is that where you were when we last spoke?
That's correct?
And where do we find you now? Ken? Where's your location?
Still in Calgary?
Still in Calgary? Who spends that much time? Do you want to tell us what you're doing? Or no?
It's not that exciting. I mean I can, I can. I can work you through the back, working through the thought process if you want.
Yes, I want all of it.
Ken, We've got four hours of radio to do, so build the space, sir.
Well, I so here's the deal. I'm as you know, I'm kind of self employed, you know, work on my own, can work remotely in cases where I'm not self employed, and it's just really productive for me to like get away from you know, distractions and stuff at home. And you know, my life situation allows me to do that. So so that's mostly the uh that supposedly logic look.
Good for you. I'm not judging. I wish I had that type of freedom.
I'm very jealous of my friends that are in the same position you are, where they can be like I'm just going to Bali for ten days because I can work from there. So hey, look, Calgary's beautiful. I have a brother in law from Calgary. He and my sister were married up there. So I'm not judging. I just for me, Ken, if I had the opportunity to get away, I think I would choose a beach.
That's that's just me.
Yeah, And I mean I'm not I'm not judging you either. Spots like I get how people why people would want to go to a beach, and I can appreciate that, but the beach is not my my lifestyle, So okay, there you go.
Hey, Tomato, Tomato. Ken, let's move on.
Are we judging the Houston Cougars for that collapse. Let's start in a vacuum, then we'll pan back. And I was actually thinking about you when Houston went up twelve, because I believe with your metrics, this is the best defensive basketball team in college basketball. And not to be redundant there, but I watched them snatch souls from Big twelve teams this year, and when they went up twelve, Ken, I thought, that's curtains.
So what do you make.
Let's start with a Houston side of how they collapse down the stretch.
Yeah, I thought so too. I thought the walls were closing in on Florida, and you know, Florida had dodged a few bullets to get to the championship game. And then I thought this was it for them. Like you say, it seemed like Houston was, you know, it was on a mission after closing out that dude game. The way they did, they're pretty much fire and also under especially defensively. The way they kind of figured out how to, you know,
eventually take Walter Clayton out of the game. I mean, that was that was the one thing that you didn't really think was possible, and they had done it up to that point. So at that point, yeah, I thought
that the game was over. And there were a couple of things that went against some One was that both they're big man ended up getting four fouls, you know, shortly after taking that lead, and so they had to play small for a little bit, and some of that you know, length that has propelled them to having the number one rated defense was on the bench, and Florida was able to get me a little bit of flow offensively. That was the main thing. But the other thing was,
like Houston's offense was pretty brutal all night. I mean, you got to give obviously credit to Florida's defense, but really, you know, you go back to even the Duke game, and Houston's offense was not great. Now, they did make threes, and that kind of you know, covered up what was an awful two point shooting night for them against too. They only made thirty three percent of their twos against Duke. They only made forty one percent against Florida, and it's
just hard to overcome that. And that's been the that was the story for Houston all season long. You can look at their profile. Almost everything is good or acceptable except the two point shooting, which was just absolutely dreadful, and it was, you know, kind of a minor miracle they were able to go as far as they did. They ultimately finished the season ranked two ninety six and
two point percent. So in some way, it's an incredible coaching job Makelvin Sampson to get to the last game of the season with that kind of number.
So a lot of attention today on poor Emmanuel Sharp, who is a really really good player and is a junior, and we'll get to what Houston has coming back next year.
I want to talk some Big twelve in a moment.
I mean the way too early top twenty five stuff that Borsello wrote for ESPN dot com today. He has Houston has won as a result to who they could potentially return, and then a grip of transfers.
So we'll get to that in a moment.
And look, my sincere hope for Emmanuel Sharp is that he comes back as a senior and has an opportunity to kind of redeem himself because they're not there without him. He was the main point of attack defenseman on Walter
Clayton junior. He was the guy that was tasked with guarding potentially the best league guard in the tournament and the final foremost outstanding player, and Clayton Junior did not get his first point until about fourteen thirty seven left in the game and didn't hit his first three until
there was three minutes left. I mean, I thought Sharp did a really good job on him, and he had a good solid tournament, but down the stretch, back to back turnovers, and I don't know what exactly the deal was when I went back and watched the replay Canada, the final play where Sharp rose up and then it was a really good contest by Walter Clayton Junior that caused him to simply have to drop the ball or
else it would have been a travel. When you watch the action on the strong side, it was a misdirect and a ball screen for LJ.
Cryer.
But Emmanuel Sharp just either ran out of time or wasn't patient enough. And I'm not saying it's all on him, but what do you make of four straight possessions to finish the game for Houston where they didn't even get a shot, Like that's wild to me.
Yeah, that is unbelievable. Yeah, for a team that you know, generally, like the one thing you could say about Houston was that, you know, they they wouldn't panic. You know, they they're a very experienced team and they're going to at least execute properly. They have their limitations offensively, and we you know, alluded to that, but certainly, yeah, you watch that final play.
I mean it's a little it's a little reminiscent of like the I mean, this is for the real olds out there, but you know, the eighty three title game. There are people making all these comparisons to that game, and you know, Anti State's final possession in that game was similar in the sense that it was like just terribly executed. Ultimately it turned out to work in that situation.
But yeah, you already watched that last possession for Houston, and it's like people are sort of like trying to that screens but not really committed to it, and so obviously nobody's getting open and then yeah, Manuel Strips is kind of left with a choice there, and in the moment he made it. Really that choice. To me, I think you had the you know, in the moment, you just have to like let that thing fly, throw your
leg out do something draw some contact. Of course the official to make a call, but yeah, overall, the execution down the stretch by Houston was pretty dreadful.
Now to your earlier point, you know, you can't talk about these things without acknowledging both sides of the coin. What did Florid to do can to turn it on in the second half defensively after going down by twelve, because even going into locker room, I just had this sense like Houston's a better team, this is this is their time. Were there specific adjustments that Todd Golden made in the locker room at halftime or in the second half that caused so much chaos for Houston?
Yeah, I don't know they were necessarily specific adjustment. I mean the first half they actually were fine defensively, like they you know, Houston wasn't scoring at will on them, they were getting a few offensive rebounds, and I think that's where Porta clean some things up in the second half, really preventing more offensive rebounds and also taking care of the ball offensively to prevent Houston from you know, operating against you know, not a set defense when they did
get the ball. But I think that's the one thing that you know, I was really kind of impressed with with Florida in the end. You look at the box score and I think you will see Houston at fifteen offensive rebounds and they're like, wow, that's you know, that's a great game for Houston. But actually there were so many missshots that in the end it was a Poppinsove rebounding crecent of thirty two percent, which is below Houston season average. So so you know, preventing those second chance
points certainly helped. Houston had a you know, miserable day shooting, and you could put together I mean, I hate to say it, but you know, just among us a private company here, I mean my little us, and you could put together a highlight reel for him in that game with just some incredibly misshots, I mean just missing everything multiple times. You know, that was an issue as well.
And I don't like Florida, you know, maybe sped up Houston a little bit, but man, a lot of it is just like Houston, you know, not coming to play when it came to the three point shot. And you know, as we mentioned, they they're really deficient on two and where they've been able to overcome that is by having guys like Sharp and ljre Cryer and who's in him? You know, make some threes and that just didn't happen last night.
Todd Golden, at the age of thirty nine, becomes the youngest head coach to win a national championship since Jim Valvano in eighty three when he was thirty seven years old. And if you didn't know any better, and you were watching the postgame celebration, you would have said, why are they interviewing the team manager? I mean, he looks like a kid, and he's got his hat on backwards and
he's enjoying the moment. How has he been able to do this after a brief stop I think it was San Francisco and just in a few short years, how have they been able to build Florida into a national champ.
Well, it's they've just done a brilliant job of creating a roster. You know, they've been able to get some useful transfers, and you know, he ended up building a team like we saw but Houston, like we saw with Auburn, that's a very experienced team and you know it had like champion should experience some extent, you know, Elijah Martin really playing a key role for this team coming over
from Florida Atlantic. In addition, you know, they had you know, more front court depth probably than than you know, any Power Conference team, and they just hit on these guys like you know, some of these guys I think people became familiar with in the tournament. You know, Thomas Howe for one, I mean he comes off the bench for this team, and you know he'd be starting for probably most SEC teams, but for this team, he comes off
the bench. And that's just a you know, a statement on how much depth this team has upfront and how they were you know, able to kind of exploit that against Houston, and Houston you know, got into foul trouble up front, they didn't have guys they could go through and they had to go ahead and play small. Florida really didn't have to do that over the course of the season. So it was really a you know, a great job in building a roster and just a phenomenal run.
You know, I don't know, I don't know what else to say about it. It was you have to be impressed. I mean, I remember when Golden took the Floorida top and I mean I had heard through you know, second hand channels that he wasn't even like, yeah, he's a little hasn't it taken? He wasn't sure like if that was the jump that he wanted to make. And I mean, obviously I think he made the right decision. Aloy, he worked through the math and realized, yeah, you can actually
have a lot of stress in Florida. You proved it pretty quickly here.
I know you're not a scout, but you are a basketball guy that watches these games all year long. And it's you know, it's so interesting, Ken, because watching this tournament really my whole life. There are so many great individual tournament performances or even seasons by guards and players that turn out to just be excellent college players and they just don't have the size or the speed or the strength to get it done of the pros. And
we have local examples of that. The number one example might be Jimmer, who was an incredible college player and that ride was so fun. I don't care if you don't like byu. Jim Ormania was a real thing that was really cool, and he was incredible to watch in college. And I could name a grip of player. Randolph Schilders we could go on and on and on, and I don't know where I'm at with Walter Clayton Junior as
a pro. But after watching Just the Stones to take and make big shots I was reading today, I think it was Gaivoni that compared him to Ben Gordon, who turned out to be a combo scoring guard in the pros with a long career, including the sixth Man of the Year after a really really good career at Yukon. But what do you think Walter Clayton Junior did for his pro prospects? And do you think he's a long term NBA guy?
Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of what you were saying I would echo, like, I'm not totally sure either. He's obviously a very good college player. He has some some vertical athleticism, you know, the tricky He's a little on the older side, so you know, kind of the challenge I think of modern day you know, evaluation of these players in the draft is that so many of them are, you know, a little bit older than they than they were five to ten years ago. So I
don't know. I mean, I think I'm probably a little more negative on him than maybe the consensuses I think there's certainly the opportunity though, Like clearly, you know you couldn't help but watch him through this tournament, and it's not like Florida had an easy path, Like they had a very difficult path, and they were constantly in these very challenging games, and he would make play after play.
You know, he's a very good shooter. There's some questions I think on the on the defensive end that you know, if he could answer those, that would really enhance the stock. But you know, teams are going to obviously be focusing on that and put them through the ringer on that over the coming weeks.
Before we get some local storylines. Let's remove ourselves from the vacuum of the National Championship game and pan back a little bit because I have not been able to talk to you since we saw, Like if Houston's collapse was an eight out of ten, Duke's collapse was a ten out of ten against the Houston Cougars.
And Sion James is.
A really good player, and I'm not piling on any of these young men. I think if you're John Shier, you have to realize that your guy is paining down his leg every time he's trying to inbound the ball on the baseline and figure something else out. I mean, you know, nine to zero run over the course of what the final forty seconds. I've heard a lot of people pile on Cooper, which I think is unfair.
I thought that over the.
Back call was atrocious. He hit their only bucket of the final I think nine minutes. It's wild that they went nine minutes without a bucket. Proctor couldn't get it going. I like the Konk Nipple kid. I wondered if they should have kind of allowed him to inbound the basketball, but their inability to sim please handle pressure to the point of just getting the ball in bounds. Just like Houston and Emmanuel Sharp will remember the loss from last night.
Zion James and the Duke Blue Devils are gonna wear that one for a long long time.
That felt like it's stung. How did you digest that one?
Oh? No question? I mean yeah, I mean this Duke team was kind of poised to, uh, you know, etch themselves among some of the great team in college basketball history. And in order to complete that, you have to, you know, you have to win it all. And they were trying to do that. I mean, yeah, to blow, you know blow the kind of lead they had against a team that you know, wh I was that Houston's offensively challenged. Obviously they can make some three yasons. That was partly
what they did. They come from behind. But you know, it really seemed to me like Duke was there came a point there, I don't know, eight nine minutes ago where Duke got kind of tentative. You know, like if you watch like the Albam why You game, Like when Alabama got ahead, they just kept playing right, they just kept chucking up threes, and Duke when they got ahead,
really got tentative. They started passing on open threes. You know, Flag did that at least once, and you know Cnipple did it once, and I think Procter did it once. And you go back and watch those possessions and you know they look kind of they look kind of nice.
On one hand, like all these guys are being so unselfish, you know, they're making the extra pass, but then they keep making the extra pass, and then Cooper Flag would get it and have to like you know, throw up a turn around you know, shot from the elbow, which like if anybody can make it, he can, but those are difficult shots and they weren't falling, and to me,
that's where the avalanche kind of started. Obviously, not being able to get the ball in bounds is is an issue, and I don't know what I don't know what John Shires feeling. You know, remember that like football player, but he was running. It seemed like you know last year or two where everybody would line up on the baseline and you know, run down the court and then cut back like Duke was trying to, like, you know, have everybody come to the base line. And Houston was pretty
easily able to defend that. So that was the issue. And then you also bring up the Cooper flag fowl, which you know, we shouldn't we shouldn't forget. People just kind of like dismissed that. But that game was so physical over the last two minutes and they kind of call that foul on Cooper flag And if you actually be good back and watch the replay of that, Juwan Roberts is the one boxing him out when the whistle blows.
Like Juwan roberts instinct is that he thinks the fouls on him and he's kind of like it's kind of like throwing up his arms like why are you humming the whistle? And yeah, it was actually on couper flag, and so you know, if they don't call that bal he Houston still probably has the ball and has a chance to win. But that obviously made things a little
bit easier for for Houston to pull it out. So yeah, that was, you know, a wild game, and I think, yeah, one that's gonna it's gonna hurt for a long time to do seams.
The Auburn loss to Florida wasn't as epic of a collapse, but it kind of felt like in a way, Auburn also allowed Florida to steal that one from them. Like my takeaways from these games in the final four is credit the team certainly that stayed in the fight and found a way to win, but every team that won seemed to get a little bit of a gift from
their opponent. They went away from Johnny Broom, who had thirteen points with sixteen minutes left and had I think two points the rest of the way, and it felt like he was their one clear advantage, not just getting buckets but also creating space for his teammates and Florida again comes back they were down and they outscore Auburn forty one to twenty seven in the second half. What do you make of the way the Auburn Tigers went out.
Yeah, I just thought Broom was he was so banged up heading into that game, and I don't think people really realized how bad the elbow was. He was able to work through it and you know, be reasonably productive, but I mean, overall, one of his least productive games this season. And you know, ultimately, like Auburn's constructed a little bit different than Florida or Florida's you know, They've got Walter Clayton, but they got a lot of other like guys that can contribute, you know, and in high
volume if they need it. Auburn really doesn't have that, Like they they play through Jannipery, which the night room is not productive. Uh, they don't have anybody else that they can rely on to pick up the slag, any kind of all hands on deck to do that. And you know, guys like Denver Jones and Ted Baker, Baker Mazzara tried to do that in that game, but you know,
ultimately just wasn't quite enough. And really, like that's the thing when you look back to on this Florida run, like you know, people are gonna maybe forget about the fact that you know, in multiple games here Florida was was trailing really on the wrong side look like the win probability draft. There were times where they were significantly on the wrong side of fifty percent in their last three games, and they were able to pull each of them out.
All right.
A couple of local storylines ken and shout out to the Northeast Conference, shout out to the Central Connecticut Blue Devils. But my question is about a player who's now transferred to play at the University of Utah from Fairleigh Dickinson FDU, and it is the first transfer portal addition from the outside count of DAWs back to play for aj next year.
But Terrence Brown one of the top ten scores in college basketball twenty one points per game and was a leading scorer for FDU, and I believe the leading scorer in that conference. And according to on three on three Sports, he is a four star transfer with a Composite rating of ninety three point two out of one hundred. I'm not going to tell you I was grinding on FDU
tape this year. But your college basketball savants, any insight on this young man who's now going to be in Salt Lake City playing for Alex Jensen Raphael Chillis CHILEUS next year.
Well, I'll look find I haven't broken down the tape on him. I will tell you that, like somebody making that big of a jump, like some of the scoring will transfer. But you know, you see this a lot of times at that level where you know, the program gets a guy who's just like, you know, I was able to say it, like, you know, fairly taking it probably low major right, like they're below mid major. So you get a guy who maybe you know was a mid major type player at your school and he just
kind of dominates the ball. And so that's the story with Terrence Brown, Like he you know, obviously a big time scorer, but also just dominated possessions for them, you know, at the ball all the time. And I assume his role will change a little bit at the big twelve level, and typically you do see not typically, but almost all the time, the roles for these guys shrink. The question is how much will it shrink? Will it you know, will he still be a go to guy at Utah.
I would be a little skeptical that you know, he's probably just ends up. I don't think it'd be like A said, a true role player, but something in between. You know, he's gonna be a guy second, third, fourth option. I think on a average big twelve offense, like that's
kind of what you should be shooting for there. And so it's gonna be up to say ja to you know, fill in you know, around him with other guys that are gonna be able to score, because if you if you let him play the role that he played at a fairly ticket, that probably won't.
Go well well said if I asked you about this, forgive me, I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning, But Kiano Dawes has decided to return to the you to play for Alex and his staff as well.
What sort of news do you think that is for Utah fans?
I think good news. It's a it's a bonus really, you know, I mean we talked about it last time where you know, you you shouldn't be surprised if they completely turned over the roster, and they won't be turning over the roster. And you know Keanu is the again He was a role player last year, so I think is to be a role player this year. But you know, a guy that that can provide some offense for for
the team. And uh, you know, I don't know where he ranks in the offensive pecking order after the the roster is constructed, but uh, you know, he should be a guy who you know is in that like mix to be you know, second, third, fourth, leading scorer or something like that. If they can again find some talent to kind of build around, and if he ends up being the leading scorer, then you know, it's probably a situation where you know, Utahs in the in the bottom quarter of the league next year.
All right, before I say, you lose b Yu with some news over the past week and they need a point guard. Dallen Hall is in the transfer portal and Diego or Demon is going to the NBA. So give me your thoughts on on both those those storylines. What sort of NBA careers ahead for this this young man Diego Demon and what does Kevin Young do. Look, they're going to be fine based off of the reports about the nil perse they have down there, but they do have a hole on the roster.
Now, Ken, what think goes down here.
Yeah, I mean they should be fine. Like, yeah, so they have a hole in the roster, but I mean, welcome to college basketball. That's like, you know, three hundred other teams right now. I mean, the fact that they don't have five holes on the roster is uh, you know, puts them ahead of a lot of teams. And as long as they kind of maintained that core of Richie Saunders and Katakada primarily, you know, Dawson Baker coming back
will help out as well. Obviously, you know with de Bonsa, I don't know if you call him the centerpiece in this whole operation, but you know he's going to be a significant contributor as well. So I mean, just from that standpoint, like they'll be fine and they'll you know, they'll Kevin Young will find guys to fill the roster that I think we'll make this team, you know, at worse, let's say a borderline top twenty five team. I think
with you know, Kata Saunders and Devonsa. Just from that standpoint, the team should be really good. To me, it's like you don't want to like dig Or. I think we all knew was leaving, even though the year was disappointing. Like he came. He came to Provo for one reason, and that was to launch his NBA career, And so it's not surprising that he's leaving and dollen Hall leaving, you know, I think in a vacuum not too surprising either.
I mean BYU doesn't suffer from the transfer bug as much as other schools for for obvious reasons regarding the church, and so you thought maybe maybe dollen Hall would come back. But in a normal situation, with the year he had, not terribly surprising he's leaving either, and it kind of gives BYU an opportunity to, you know, go out and
possibly get something better. I mean, I think, you know, point guards out there to see what what they're coming into with the three guys I just mentioned as the core of the team, Like, you know, it's gonna be very attractive. So I don't think it's gonna be a problem here to to find a you know, an above average big twelve point cards.
All right, Ken, before I set you loose one more push on the website, how can people go get their work to support you so you can go work in Calgary exactly.
That's what it's all about and uh yeah, Ken Palm dot com. So it's one five bucks for twelve years or twelve years two months of yeah, well that's a special deal right now. Now twelve months of data, so we have besides the twelve months because it means GP buy now, you will of course get all the data through the entire season next year, which is what really matters.
All right, my friend, thank you so much for the time all year long, and we'll set you loose and we'll chat toon.
Okay, sounds great, Bence, thank you.
Kenpalm dot com is where you go. I'll remind you that the top eight teams in Ken Palm's rating all made the Elite eight, and the top four teams in Ken Palm's rating all made the Final four.
The man knows what he's talking about.