Welcome to the latest edition of Talking Hoops With Ted Sarandis.
For this edition, we’re pleased to be joined by our good friend and colleague Jeff Goodman, a basketball insider at Stadium. With Jeff, we covered a lot of ground.
The first big subject was the state of the game of college basketball, something he recently explored (as did colleague Pete Thamel). We talk about why the season has not been a good one in terms of what brings casual fans out, as well as the quality of play and the reasons behind it. We get into things like NBA Draft early entrants and transfers (especially graduate transfers) among the key reasons for it, as well as more programs coming into Division I helping to water down the product.
From there, we look at Baylor this season and how Scott Drew has built something amazing there up through this season and their potential based on what they have done to this point.
One other reason Jeff gets into behind the parity this season: Duke and Kentucky are not what they have been from a pure talent standpoint. Additionally, the lack of that high-end talent there takes casual viewers away.
We come back to a further discussion of some of the issues in the game, including the pros and cons with allowing players to transfer without having to sit out a season.
From there, we move along to a few subjects: the Big Ten and some other conferences where there is noticeably little separation from top to bottom, the possibility of a big name coach coming back to college basketball in a very significant location, why North Carolina is struggling this year, a big rivalry game that may not be what it usually is, the down year in the ACC and how good the Big 12 has been, along with a good story about how Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard has a motor that doesn’t stop running.
After our segment with Jeff, we come back to talk about Vanderbilt breaking a 26-game SEC losing streak on Wednesday night, then look back at a bizarre incident on Saturday and go over a few other notes from the past week.
We then close by talking a little about the chances of San Diego State running the table from here and looking ahead to a weekend full of rivalry games, as well as first place being on the line in the Big Ten on Friday night.
We hope you enjoy the podcast and share it with your fellow college basketball fans. Be sure to tune in again next week as we continue to talk about the college basketball season.
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