All right.
After a bunch of snow and cold weather this morning, it's trying to get warm downtown cloud coverage, but still chilly for April. There's no doubt about that. RSL is back in action. Coming up this weekend against the La Galaxy. We will do a little RSL with Pablo coming up in just a little bit. He apparently is the only good sport over there because he continues to join us even though there are not a lot of awesome things
to discuss right now. Good stuff earlier from Tom Habers Show and Tim McMahon, but even though it's April, the Madison Marsh continues. The Final Four is here. Our next guest, our college basketball north star Ken Pomeroy, of course, Kenpalm dot com.
Ken, Happy Tuesday, man. How are we doing?
We're doing great, spance. How are you?
I'm well?
So have you been able to take a few deep breaths? Are you currently joining us from a beach with your feet kicked up in a little drink with an umbrella?
Like where you at right now?
I'm in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
It's not warm there, Ken, What are you doing there?
I don't know, I don't know. It's hard to explain, but kind as far away from from home as I could as soon as as soon as the tournament started.
Look, I've got a brother in law from Calgary, Alberta. I went up there for the wedding. It's a beautiful place. But in April. I mean, if we're dealing with snow and cold in saw Lake, what are you dealing with up in Calgary right now?
It's the same thing. It's almost the exact same thing. But just like Salt Lake, I think next week it's supposed to thaw out and spring will be here and so I'll still be here. So that'll be awesome.
Ken.
I hate to break it to you, but I have a feather in my cap as far as my college basketball career that you do not.
Are you ready for it?
Okay?
Bring it?
Have you ever covered the college basketball crowd live in Las Vegas?
No?
I mean yeah, there's only been one chance to do that so far.
So congratulations, Ken Podmore like Spence Palm dot Com, I'm gonna start my own way side obviously, I kid. Do you have the context of the origin story for this postseason tournament that Utah basketball was in for one game before losing to Butler.
That the ordin story. I mean, I assume that's just like a TV cash grab for Fox.
Right, Yes, but I wondered if somebody like you knew, like ultimately, hey, why did this come about? We already have the n I T and the CBI, Like, maybe that's as simple as that. I thought, maybe there was another side to it. But if you don't know Ken, nobody knows.
No. I mean, the n I T is an ESPN property, and Fox wanted they wanted in on the you know, massive sub NCAA tournament demand you know that's out there, Spence, and so they started their their own tournament with It was expected to be all teams from you know, their power leagues that they have under contract, but that didn't quite work out. So they had to invite, you know a few of these interlopers like Butlers, but they had to invite boys eight and whether George Washington was there,
there's like three or four that seems. But yeah, that's the exciting that's the story. I mean, that's pretty much all there is to it.
Okay, Well, well let's just move on entirely then, and now that the season is in the books, we'll do some local stuff that we'll expand back.
Now that we'll expand back to.
Of course, the final four that's ahead, the tournament's taking place. In some of your takeaways, and I'm going to just kind of give you a little context. And this is just simply my opinion. It's not coming from a place of sourcing. It's not a situation that anybody has informed me that this will be the approach. But you know on the show, when I've talked to you about another guest.
Since the news came down, the Mark Carlin moved on from Craig Smith and Alex Jensen became the higher we're just doing our best to figure out what this new era is going to look like, how Alex is going to how Alex is going to approach it, and whether it's Josh Eiler, the interim head coach who took over after Craig was fired, with twenty years of experience in the Big twelve, is a play in college and a coach in college, or a guy like Jake Kallen or
Keanu Does who had his fifth double double in seven games after Josh kind of played him in a way that Craig just didn't. We're just trying to figure out who will be back, if anybody, And I'm starting to get the sense Ken did. I don't think anybody's coming back. I don't think he's going to make hires off this current assistant coach coaching staff that's left coaching the team, and I'm not sure he brings any of the players back either.
That's just my guest. Tell me what your thoughts are.
Yeah, I mean that would be my hunch as well. I don't have any less knowledge about this, and I didn't about the college basketball crown. But the way the way you do business these days, when you bring in a new coaching staff or ringing a new coach to start with, I mean, they rarely pulled over assistance. Occasionally, you might get one who's willing to stay over who might have some you know, special recruiting knowledge or something like that, or might be a guy who's survived through
multiple staffs and there is a local institution. But for the most part, the staff changes over, and I mean for the most part, the team changes over, you know, not not necessarily entirely. Chare Calhoun was able to convince you know, two or three key players to stay if Utah state and that was really important to him. But you know, Danny Sprinkle and he was there, he started over the whole new team and that that worked for
him too. And so yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't count on much of the roster as much of the eligible roster coming back. I mean, it does seem like you can certainly start over with the clean slate in this era of player movement. The flip side of that is like, I don't know how much of a honeymoon Alex is gonna get. I mean, he might get a little bit because he's Alex Jenson, but you know, if you come out and you know, end up at the bottom of the of the Big twelve next year, like, it's not
going to be a kind of patience for that. I wouldn't think just because you can go out and get players now there is there's no he's no longer a rebuilding situation. You don't need three gears to build a roster. You need, you know, one year to kind of show what you can do in the transfer portal.
Let me ask you whether you have the Ken palm metric in front of you or the Ken Palm eye test in front of you. Are any of these players, you know, because I keep reminding our audience and we forget this, and we even forget a little bit with Byu. We'll get to BYU in a moment. By us to pick to finish ninth in the Big Twelve, Utah was picked to finish last. So for a team that was picked to finish last, at least they didn't do that. I mean, I guess that's where we're at with the
basketball program around here in Salt Lake City. So they did overshoot expectations. But based off of the knowledge you have of this roster and the games that you watched, are there players eligible to come back that you think Alex should go after?
Well, I guess i'd frame it like that, like yeah, like as are all stars. He's a Big twelve quality player, I don't know, like a starter level, I don't know, but like he could be on a roster at other Big twelve schools like Troub Johns can can play a role. After that, you know, you're kind of struggling, like can new Dawes can play a role Like a lot of these guys can can play a role, but pretty easily replaceable.
Advantage of keeping them normally would be like, you do want continuity in your program, like you want guys that have been through the system before, and you don't have to, you know, teach a whole brand new group of ten guys you know how you want to play the game. But obviously that's not a factor here because you know, you have a new coach and so you know you're gonna have to teach everybody a new system anyway. So from that standpoint, there's not going to be a lot
of incentive to bring back role players. But you know, he somehow could to mental sorry to come back. I think that would be of some value, you know. But certainly this roster is going to just be heavily populated from transfers.
Yeah, for sure, for sure, don't Only time will tell.
I think Alex is indicated both publicly and privately that he's in no rush here.
He's going to take his time building this thing.
And he is still coaching alongside Jason Kidd and the Dallas Mavericks, who look like there actually will be in the play in because Phoenix is unserious, so Alex won't be on the ground. You know, he's obviously his working He's made two HighRes Wes Wilcox and Raphael Chilius. But you know the rest of the stuff is going to take time, and it makes it impossible to analyze who Utah will be next year because we don't know who's
going to play for them. But let me ask you a question about the Big Twelve, because you read about apparently Kansas has a stacked recruiting class, Houston's going to be awesome again, b YU brings in de Banza. I'm not going to tell you that I've got, Like I can't tell you who UCF is going after. I haven't done a deep dive on all this, but this was not a conference that was the best team in college
basketball this year that went to the the SEC. But year and in year out, the Big Twelve is going to be, if not at the top, close to the top. So what's a Ken Palm expectation conference wide?
How strong will this conference be next year?
When Alex is trying to make his way through year one.
It'll still be It'll be very difficult at the top. Like you mentioned the key players. You can throw Arizona in there, you can throw Baylor in there, and they picked up a pretty nice transfer from Oregon State this week. So all the all the teams you mentioned, except for
probably UCF will still be you know, outstanding teams. I think the one thing, you know, the one one of the reasons Utah sticked last in the league was partly because not much was expected from them, but also because there it wasn't obvious like who the worst team would be in the league, Like all the teams were were decent. You know, there wasn't a team that you look at and like, oh, yeah, that's that's going to be an easy win. And it'll probably be the case again next year.
I mean, I think I think this year was somewhat of an aberration with the SEC being as strong as it was, but certainly the top three leagues, you know,
the SEC, the Big twelve to Big ten. I mean, what we're seeing from those three leagues is that almost every team in all those leagues has some talent, and so there are so on the one hand, when you picked last in the league, yeah, you can overachieve, Like there's probably like seven or eight candidates heading into this last season that you know could have been picked last for the league and you thought it over achieved to some extent. The negative is that learned an easy wins
out there. So if somehow, I mean, it's great that the alex is taking its time, and I I guess in some respect I admire that he was able to work out this relationship where he could finish things out with the Mavericks and somehow still be the head coach at Utah. But you know, he's still on the trigger to fill out a roster and it doesn't take long before a lot of these you know, attractive transfers are gone. Yeah, I could. I would be a little bit concerned about how next year is going to go.
Yeah, you know, trying to talk realistically to you fans about year one. I think it's important because expectations knew need to be set appropriately. But to your point, Ken, because I used to say, I can remember when b YU when uh, when Bronco menahall left b YU for Virginia and most anybody that unders too what could come next? Landing on Coloni rather quickly, And I've talked about this with Larry Scoviak, Jim Boylan.
Coaches.
Typically the narrative is in college, like, all right, they need four years, give them four years because that way they get their recruiting cycle in over a four year period.
And sometimes here it's even more complicated because you have the mission stuff and sometimes you need more than that to let you know, recruits that you dialed in when they were seventeen or eighteen that serve a mission, you need an extra couple of years then to get back so you can see what sort of hand they've been dealt.
What is what is your take on how long a coach needs now in order to prove to a community that he was the right hire, because you don't to your point, you don't need three or four years anymore to develop a program and build a team.
Yes, I looked at this during the season in terms of, you know, what happens brillly in year one relative to like expectation? Are coaches that do not meet expectations? Can you write them off of you? And there was actually a amount of predictability there, like you can't completely write them off if they don't. And so I guess, like relative expectations, like you thought the expectation coming to this next season, I mean, you know it's gonna be bottom
quarter of the of the conference. But if they were to end up ranked say one hundred and sixtieth in my ratings. You know, they'll probably like preseason, let's say eightieth, they end up like one hundred and sixtieth. That would be that would be a pretty bad sign. Like not you know, not so much that you're gonna fire a guy after one year, but there are reasons for concern at that point. And again it's not true for everyone.
You can find rare one off for guys flip it in year two and overachieve after that, and it's not really clear like what the transfer portal era, how that changes the dynamic. But certainly, if you underachieve early, not a great sign. If you overachieve early, probably a really good sign. So you don't want to put the heat on a guy in year one. But at the same time, history would tell you that actually, like you can, you can learn a lot about a guy in their first.
Year, and you can learn a lot about coaching styles, right, Like I do think it's fair to say to youth fans curious to know what this will look like under Alex that, well, number one, you have to have horses.
There's no such thing as a great coach without great players.
Okay, So that's Alex's first task and the transfer portal is open. We've already seen big names sign and big names transfer and decide. But what do you anticipate based off of your knowledge of Alex in his time with the Jazz, in a couple of years with Dallas, and of course being a pedigree, you know, a proteges I should say of Rick majeris what schematically, conceptually do you think the type of coach Alex will be for youth fans to kind of expect next year.
I mean that's a great question, and it's somewhat of a mystery because I think until you are fully in charge of running a program or running a team, you never really know what a guy is gonna do. I would have I would imagine, yeah, it's really oddouse, Like I would imagine he's like heavily into the time of Jaris, Like that would that would standard reason. The Jarish style really like cuts against the grain of what you know,
most young coaches are are doing these days. Like the Jarrifs was very much about you know, controlling the tempo and preventing transition. I mean that was like probably his you know one hallmark was like he's not going to give up transition buckets, and so he didn't really attack the offensive class. Offensive possessions took a long time. Defensive
possessions took even longer. Hard to really hard to really have a super successful offense if you're not willing to take shots early in the shot clock, if you're not willing to take a lot of three pointers, and so you'd have to think, you know, the NBA experience of Alex Jensen would alter that somewhat, like obviously, you know, some of those Jazz teams he would on the bench floor took a ton of three pointers, and so he
should be comfortable with that. So I don't know exactly what he's gonna still hold over from, you know, playing for and coaching under Majeris, and you know what he's gonna bring with him from the NBA, But hopefully it is more of the latter outside than the former.
All Right, moving over now to b YU before we get to what could be next for them, because you know, if you'd fan and look, it's I'm always careful when I try to try to.
Draw these parallels.
But it only takes one big time commit and recruit to put your program on the retrojectory, because when a player like aj de Banta decides to play for you and announces that on first take, I ultimately immediately ups the visibility of your program and other players want to play for you and with aj and by using the mix with some other recruits. But before we get there, my question with the Alabama game is simple, because it was you who brought up the dynamic of Brigham Young's
lack of three point defense. You know, that was a metric you had that indicated they're They're not just bad, they're one of the worst teams in college basketball. So did Alabama make shots at a historic level or did by you fail guarding the three point line or somewhere in between.
Yeah, I mean, all those factors came into play. It was it was kind of stunning because obviously, how how you defend the three point line is is a choice that you can make game by game. You don't have to do the same thing every game. I mean, yeah, BYU had this long trend. They actually finished the season fourteenth in terms of fourteenth highest in terms of the amount of three points they allowed, and so obviously that came into play in this game. That said, like Alabama
also was just unrealistically hot for the entire game. I mean, there's nothing wrong with allowing a lot of three point of time. So like in general, it's kind of a sort of a sort of a stylistic choice. And we've seen really good coaches, Jim Beyhein perhaps the most notably, you know, play a style of defense that allows that. It's just a little bit different when you allow Alabama to do that because they're so willing to take shots
early in the shot clock. They're willing to take shots from three or four feet beyond the three point line. You know, they have four or five guys on the
court that are all willing to shoot it. So yeah, I mean it was it was certainly there's something a choice that what you made, and it could have worked out like they you know, I really actually thought even in the second half that like Alabama was eventually going to go on a run where they missed like ten in a row or something and by You would get back in the game. It just it just never happened.
It just seemed like this year's BYU team is a little more capable of instead of relying on kind of a gimmick and you know, forcing their opponent or allowing their opponents to take fifty three pointers. You know, they could play more straight up, more aggressive defense. You know, they have a little bit of rim protection in the middle, so that if you forced Mark seriars are driving the paint like you're not necessarily you know, just going to
give up an easy bucket to somebody. So yeah, overall, I thought it was just a little puzzling. There was never really an adjustment made there.
And on the other side, Alabama sold out to take away the three and BYU still continue to hunt for the three because they were getting their asses kick. You got to get back in the game. I get that six of thirty from three to twenty percent. And Foos played seven minutes and in the seven minutes he played, he went three of four.
He had nine points, four rebounds.
Like you and I discussed this, One of the things that I thought that made this BYU team different and a little bit more potent and dangerous than the one a year ago that went to the tournament also as a SUC seed, if I remember correctly, was their ability to beat in different ways. What do you make of what they did or did not do offensively to counter what Alabama took away from them, which was selling out the three.
Yeah, ultimately, you can't. I don't think you can fall By's offense too much. They finished up the night scoring one point one points per posession, which is a little above the national average, and you know, against the top level SEC team, is pretty impressive. I mean literally, you
don't have to overcomplicate too much. Like they put eighty eight points on the board, like, you should be in You should be in the game if you're scoring eighty eight points, I mean, you should be winning the game, really, but at least be in the game. And they weren't even close to that, which is just stunning. So I think you got just about everything you could get from
the offense. Obviously they could have stopped the three better, but we've talked about this too, Like the thing that made the YU offense so good this year was that they could survive without making three point shots. Like, when they made three point shots, they were explosive and they could beat this about anybody. But even when they weren't making threes, they were one of the best two point
shooting teams in the country. They're twenty seven to forty two on two point shots against Alabama, So I would guess that's the best performance on two point that Alabama allowed all season. So yeah, the offense was was fine. I do share. I share your bewilderment about you know, Foos not getting more minutes. I think that was it was always the story of his career. I mean it was whether it's Kevin Young or Mark Pope, it was like he would always put up pretty good numbers for
the minutes that he played. I realized he was kind of an unorthodox player, but I always felt like he was clearly, you know, a big twelve level type player. And yeah, it's kind of a shame you never really got to, I guess, play, you know, be the demand, be the starting center, and play twenty five thirty minutes a game. He never really got that opportunity in his career.
So it's clear that year one under Kevin Young, proof of concept is there, and it worked and they had a good year. But it's also clear that it's not just BYU. Because one of the other things that you talked about on the show as we were helping people fill out their brackets is hey, the top seeds and here we are with four and we'll get there. Four seeds in the final four now, So it wasn't just BYU.
But there are levels to this stuff. And when BYU ran up against you know, one of the top one or two seeds in this tournament, whether it was Houston in the regular season or Alabama in the tournament, it was clear that there was a gap. And there are there are levels to this and there are different types of styles and teams and bigger teams and faster teams and stronger teams. So with the Bans coming in and potentially getting the bulk of this roster back, Cannon Catchings
is hit the transfer portal. I think Iegor is leaving. I just I think he should. I thought he had a great NCAA tournament run. Most of the mock drafts I see indicate that he is a lottery pick. How does BYU close the gap to go from a really good team that made a Sweet sixteen run to a team that doesn't look like they are a JV team against the Houston or Alabama.
Yeah, I think I think they're closed. I mean, I really think it was a step forward this year, you know, just getting to the Sweet sixteen in the first place, with some of the wins they had in Dig twelve players. Also, I think we're pretty impressive and demonstrated that they they've taken a step forward. I mean, we've talked about the offense not just being a one trick pony in terms of three point shooting, but able to score in the paint as well. I mean, the offense was just, you know,
super fun to watch. And I mean one guy who I thought had a great tournament, I mean, Devin was fine, but like Richie Saunders, I mean, to me, he looked like he was the one guy in that Alabama game that really looked like he belonged, you know, on both sides of the court. So so yeah, I think there should be a lot of optimism, Like you're not gonna probably get this whole roster back, but if you get the main pieces back, yeah, it's I think there's reasons
reasons for optimism. You know, you're always gonna focus. Yeah, you can focus on those Houston games, you can focus on the Alabama game. I mean Houston they were like probably won't not be remembered this way, but I mean one loss and Dig twelve play, you know, really an historically good team. You know, in the modern era of guys going pro and as a player movement. I mean, this is a historically good team that unfortunately also have to play a historically good team against, you know, in
the final four. So again they might not be remembered for that, but I wouldn't take those losses too hard. Like, yeah, BA is not a top five team in the country, we get it, They're in that twenty to thirty range. But that's a tremendous stuff forward and I think again, you keep that right, you know, keep this roster bringing to bonsa, especially with a veteran roster, like yeah, I think I think next year could be pretty very promising.
Not a top five team, but you know, if they're in that ten to fifteen range, that's you know, it's gonna be one of the best teams I've ever had.
Final four gets rolling on Saturday, and you you called it, Yeah, I can remember you saying that, like there's a gap between the top teams and everybody else.
Was it two thousand and eight the last time this has happened.
We have all four number one seeds in the tournament, which for people like me that picked up sets because you know, I've watched the tournament before. It's not great for our brackets, but I think we've got two absolute dog fight basketball games. So what's the ken pob take for number one seeds? And how do you see the rest of the thing plan out with?
Who do you like?
Yeah, I mean, it's just it hasn't been an interesting tournament. We're being honest, like, not very few upsets. I mean, I think the biggest upset at the tournament was what Arkansas be meeting Saint John's, which you know, hard to paint. John Calipari is some sort of underdog or sympathetic Cinderella figure. So there's been that, and then most of the a
lot of the games just haven't been closed. It'd be one thing if you didn't have a lot of upsets, and there were a lot of close games, but I really haven't been that many close games, and that kind of speaks to the way the regular season unfolded. I especially for these really top four to eighteens. It's certainly the top four team so so we get a little more drama in the final four. It's interesting that the Duke Houston game is the second game in line up
on Saturday. I mean, that is going to be a difficult game to watch. I fear Houston first of all, just to you know, plays an exceptionally slow pace on both sides of the ball, and you got a taste of that really in their last two games, but certainly in the sweet sixteen game against Perdue, which ends up, you know, being one of those close games. It did come down to the wire, but also it was just a brutal, you know, fifty seven possession grind with a
final score of sixty two to sixty. That kind of takes you back to like pre shot clock era basketball, you know, not the way college basketball wants to be viewed at this point. I fear the Duke Houston game is going to be the same way. It's going to be very physical. Duke a little more modern offense. They will push the pace a little, but their defense has forced the longest possessions of any team in the country this year, and you saw a little taste of that
against Allabamba. Not that that was a slow paced game, but you did hear the shot clock buzzer go off a few times for the Crimson Tide, which was something that would have been you know, unthinkable in the YU game. So do geys a way to grind it out to Lee as well. So that's you know, I mean Clear has a clear advantage, you know, just more talent pretty
much one through seven. But it's gonna be extremely physical, and I fear a low scoring game and so it's gonna be hard to imagine due getting the kind of separation against Houston that they got against Alabama.
Is there like a World Curling tournament in Calgary? With the way my mind works, I have not moved off our opening topic, and I'm just wondering why you're there.
Is it curling related?
You're getting warmer You're getting warmer Son.
Okay, fair enough man an international man of mystery, Ken pomme roy, Hey, thanks for the time, Bud tell let's hit our listeners with the website.
How can they get your work?
Yeah, kenpon dot com. Sorry I forgot the name of my website. Er se can play. No, it's kenpon dot com. Uh, twenty five dollars for twelve months of of data. So if you sign up to day you'll get it for all next season in the entire tournament, well almost the entire tournament through the final four it right, So.
There you go. Well, you need to fill out the bracket.
Okay, when you're back in studio, I have a lot of off air questions about your trip, but for now I'll set you loose and say thanks for the
Time, all right, you bets bet thanks for hatting me on