Jerry Palm | CBS Sports Bracketologist & College Hoops Analyst

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Minimum monthly payment, down payment, tax and delivery may be required. See store for details. Jerry Palm of CBS Sports, CBSSports.com, CBS Sports HQ is here in studio, has been on the road for March Madness now for a couple of weeks. Jerry, the bracket is out. My gosh, it's our ticket to get you here in studio.

How would you describe it? Because it kind of feels different this year. Yeah, this year was different because, you know, the committee comes in a month before, so February 17, and they give us their top 16 at the time. And it's part of, they do a dry run for the committee.

And so they share the results. At that time, Purdue, Connecticut, Houston were one, two, three. Arizona was four. And within a week, Arizona had lost. And it had become apparent that Purdue and UConn and Houston could each lose twice more and still be the top three teams in the bracket at the end.

And they had three weeks to do it. Purdue and Houston did lose twice. The last loss came in their championship games, and then UConn lost once. So they're the overall number one. Those three teams dominated college basketball.

If I were betting it, I'm not a better. But I would take those three versus the field, give you the field. Iowa State's come on strong. North Carolina had a good year.

Tennessee's a good team. You know, and Iowa State was the fourth of the two, so number eight overall, which, you know, I couldn't understand that. But there were a lot of seeding things the committee did this year that felt random. They didn't like Iowa State's non-conference strength of schedule. Its overall schedule was like 16.

They're plenty good. The non-conference schedule was brutal, but the league was so good it didn't matter. But they apparently punished them for that, even though their high-end part of their resume was better, marginally better than Tennessee's, better than Carolina's, the other teams competing with it.

So now they're not only not four, they're not five, they're not six, they're eight. So even after Arizona, who's struggled since that time, relative struggles, you know, a loss here, a loss there, you know, they've picked up a few. And in their league, every loss hurts because there's a big gap between them and the rest of the Pac-12.

So the Mountain West, they didn't like it all. San Diego State was a five. The next highest seed was Utah State. The regular season champion was at eight. They had two 10s, no, three 10s, two in play-in games and one just on the line. And New Mexico, as it turns out, was a bid stealer. Adam Zucker asked the chairman of the committee, he was talking about four bid stealers, he said, well, we actually had five because New Mexico was a bid stealer.

We're like, wow, we hadn't expected that. They really did not like the Mountain West, which is... Though they got six teams in from the Mountain West, which is the most ever for the conference. It is, but they should have been seeded higher. Almost all of them should have been seeded higher. Colorado State, I could see them down in that 10 range, but everybody else should have been, like New Mexico, should have been roughly eight, nine. Everybody else should have been top half of the bracket. And they were way lower on them. And we talked to Bubba Cunningham, the assistant chairman or vice chairman.

He's going to take over next year as the chairman, the athletic director at North Carolina. He said that whenever they were looking at these Mountain West teams, all their good wins were against each other. And there weren't that many. There were, I looked it up later, the conference had six, those six teams had six non-conference wins that were quad one. But I guess they felt like they were just beating each other up.

That wasn't good enough. And they really punished them for it to the point where New Mexico almost didn't make the tournament. You mentioned bid thieves, and it certainly is a theme with a bunch of, for people who don't know, a bunch of schools who ended up earning the automatic bids because they ran the table in their tournaments. North Carolina State being one of those, wins five games in five days.

And so what happens is they knock potentially another at-large team out because NC State has to be in the field. So how much did that change your bracket or the bracket as a finished product in the last, say, four days? It changed it a lot. It changed it a lot because these were, you know, coming every day almost.

We had a couple on Saturday, one on Friday, or it became apparent on Friday we were going to have one. That tournament wasn't over yet, but it was the A-10, where Dayton is the one potential at-large team. If they win the tournament, there's no bid stealer. If anybody else won, they were already out. So, in fact, the A-10 lost all four of their top seeds in the quarterfinals.

All four of them lost. So it was, yeah, it was a weird conference tournament season. It turned things on its head. It's harder to try and predict who's going to get in or not because you're dealing with teams that are a little bit better at the cut line than you're used to dealing with.

So the hair-splitting is a little more pronounced. But even at that, they kind of did some weird things, like St. John's, which had a pretty good season. They beat Seton Hall in the conference tournament, had lost to them the other two times in the regular season. But Seton Hall ended up the second team out, and St. John's wasn't anywhere to be found.

And that was kind of surprising. I could see them both being in there, but I couldn't see Seton Hall and not St. John's. Oklahoma didn't make it. One of the first four out.

Yeah. And that's, I mean, it wasn't the biggest surprise in the world, but that's a team that would have made it comfortably. And they didn't. And so now we've got play-in games that are 10 seeds instead of 11s, which is usually what they are, sometimes even 12s. But now we've got play-in games that are 10s, and that'll be unique.

We don't see that very often. Probably not the whole time we've had play-in games. Jerry Palm is with us in studio. He's finished a run of, gosh, two-plus weeks building up to this selection show and the big reveal. Out here away from home two weeks. Right, right.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I always ask you this, how many of the teams did you get right? Not seeds, but teams. Yeah, I've missed two. One I was actually really concerned about.

I was thinking, as I'm even doing it, I'm like, I'm not so sure about this. And that was Colorado. I was trying to, I was debating between Colorado and St. John's, and I put St. John's in my bracket instead of Colorado. And Colorado was one of the last four in. Yeah, that was the one I missed. And then the other one was Virginia, and Virginia didn't really have much of a case to be there. So I consider that I missed one, they missed one. Okay, so then why did Virginia get in as opposed to, say, Indiana State?

You're asking the wrong person. Indiana State was going to have a tough time because their strength of schedule wasn't going to be good enough. Virginia beat Clemson at Clemson. They had two quad one wins. The other one was Florida. Those are both teams in the tournament. They didn't have a bad loss, but they had a lot of them. And probably half of them were not tournament teams, or maybe even more than half.

But none of them were the really bad ones like in quad three and quad four on your team sheet. So I guess that was enough, but it really shouldn't have been. There were better options. And we found out that UNC got the number one seed over Tennessee because of the SEC tournament. So that would have been changing late in this process too.

Sure. That happens sometimes. I mean, this year was pretty competitive. Sometimes it's not, but most of the years it is, especially four overall is going to be competitive. You know, Tennessee, they lost in their conference tournament. It wasn't a bad loss or anything, but it was a pretty competitive situation. But what was surprising is that Iowa State, who won the Big East tournament, the best conferences tournament, they finished second in the regular season in that conference. They had a great top end of their resume. They had a bunch of quad four wins, but their strength of schedule was still plenty good. It was, you know, their non-conference schedule was bad, but their overall strength of schedule was around, I want to say 20. So Iowa State really had the best case for that spot.

And they were barely on the two line. Jerry Palm is with us here in studio. And your Purdue alum, Zach Eady, is coming to the end of what's been just a legendary career.

And we hear so much about who he is as a person too. And remember where they were a year ago when they lost to a 16. Why is that group better, more prepared for this run? Everyone on that team is better. I mean, Zach has improved. Braden Smith has taken a tremendous leap this year. He's much more confident with the ball in his hand. He's much more confident running the offense. He's stronger. I mean, you can see the increase in strength in him. He looks completely different. He's playing All-American basketball. Not maybe first team All-American basketball, but he's really, really improved.

And Fletcher lawyers, stronger, better. So last year they hit a wall. They hit the freshman wall. And they hit it before the tournament. And they weren't playing with confidence. And they were probably in over their heads a little bit.

Nobody's in over their heads this year. But another probably really important change for Purdue is that they brought in Lance Jones, a transfer from Southern Illinois, who's a really good defensive guard, ball handler, can shoot. He's a streaky shooter. And he plays with a lot of energy and with a lot of – he's always got a smile on his face. I mean, he really enjoys playing basketball.

And that's the kind of thing that wears off on everybody else. You know, when everybody else is in a funk, Lance is still in a good mood. And they've got good depth. Cam Heide is a year older.

Miles Colvin, who doesn't play as much as he probably could, is a great player. So they're a deep team as well. So Zach Eadie can get in foul trouble.

They can survive that. Because they've got guys who can play that are coming off the bench. Drake Hoffman, Ren starts. He's a post player. So Purdue starts two posts and three guards. That's almost unheard of.

Yeah, I know. We talk about the top heavy and the one seed, some of the twos. Who are a couple of the double digit seeds? We always talk about five 12s and those fun matchups.

And they're so common. Who are a couple that you think are really good teams? Well, the 12s are going to be automatic qualifiers this year.

There's no 12s that are at largest. But I would watch out for McNeese State. That's Will Wade's team. You know, he left LSU under a cloud.

Got picked up by McNeese State. And they're great. You know, they've had a tremendous season. That's a team you probably don't want to see. But down in that part of the bracket, anybody from the Mountain West, they're going to have a real chip on their shoulder. You know, that league did not get, I mean, they got the teams in.

They didn't get any respect. Those are good teams. Utah State's a good team. Boise State's a good team.

New Mexico's a good team. You know, those are teams that are going to be playing with a chip on their shoulder. And they're all under seeded, pretty much, except for San Diego State. All of those teams are under seeded. You know, what's really weird is that for the first time in a long time, we're not talking about Gonzaga as a championship favorite, though they did end up with a five seed and they keep that streak going. Yeah.

You know, it's funny. Just like three weeks ago, they were on the bubble and in danger of missing it. And they didn't do enough to become a five seed. Now, they were actually a six. BYU was a five. But the committee couldn't find a place on the five line for BYU to be bracketed so they don't have to play on Sunday. Oh, I didn't realize that the committee respected that. Yeah, they do. And I think there's another school.

It might be Campbell or somebody. But they're never in the tournament. But BYU always is bracketed as to not play on Sunday.

So they couldn't do it. So they swapped them with Gonzaga. So Gonzaga moved up and BYU moved down so they could find a place to play on Thursday, Saturday.

Wow. But even as a six, that's too high for Gonzaga. I've seen them quite a bit this year. And they're not a borderline top 25 team. They're more of an eight, nine type of team. Jerry Palm is with us here in studio.

Just want to keep you for one more question. We talked about the bid thieves and how that has changed the tournament. But what about the transfer portal and the fact that athletes can move all over the place? How much has that changed things for college hoops and for March Madness?

Yeah, I don't know how much it changes the tournament, but it changes the makeup of the teams in the tournament, right? Utah State. Danny Sprinkle comes into Utah State this year, his first year with the team. And he inherits a roster that has not one person from last year that scored a point for Utah State.

Not one. And so that roster is probably, I don't know, two, three, right? And he has to go out and build a team. And then he went out and built a team that won the league in the regular season. And not just any Mountain West, but the best year the Mountain West has ever had. He went out and built a team that won that. That's one of the best stories in college basketball this year. Is Utah State going from no points returning from last year to conference champion in the regular season. Worst to first, baby. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So that's a great story. You know, I talk a lot about the Mountain West, but that's a good league this year. Still though, you're telling me that your best bets, quote unquote, I'm using my air quotations, are still those top three. If you're talking about win the whole thing, yes. For most of the year were head and shoulders above the rest of the field. Yeah, I mean there's other teams capable of winning it, certainly. The three most consistently good teams this year have been Connecticut, Purdue, and Houston.

I think the champion is coming from one of those three. At JPP Palm. Wait, did I add an extra P? At JPP Palm? Just gave me another middle name.

It's that time of the year when people get delirious. So it's always good to have you in studio. You'll be heading where for tournament games? Indianapolis, Detroit, Phoenix. Yeah, I'm excited to actually just go out and watch games. Not have to do a bracket. No more brackets, but you can find his stuff on CBSSports.com. Also CBS Sports HQ, and then of course here with us whenever we can snag him. So have fun, safe travels.

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Only at Ashley. Subject to credit approval. No minimum purchase required. Minimum monthly payment. Down payment. Tax and delivery may be required. See store for details.