JR SportBrief Interview with DeShaun Tate

Right now, we are being joined by college basketball expert Deshaun Tate. Deshaun, thank you for taking the time to hop on. I appreciate it. Man, per usual, thanks for having me, JR. Man, listen, it's down to the last four.

We started out with 68 at ease and down to the last four. Nobody's more excited about it than I am. Shocker, right?

No doubt about that. Are you able to head on down to Houston? Are you in Texas? Oh, I'm already in H-Town, man.

What'd it do? Now, I've had an amazing time in the past at the Final Fours in Houston and in the past I've probably spent maybe the Wednesday to Tuesday out there. What's the environment like down there so far? It's different. You know, I mean, when you start thinking about some of the best environments around the Final Four, Houston maybe not always one of the best ones.

That's more of your Indy or New Orleans or San Antonio personally. You get a little bit more personable experience, right? But it hasn't been bad. I mean, there's going to seem like it is a little watered down a little bit.

Let's just address the elephant in the room. That is because of some of the teams that have advanced, which I don't understand or overstand why people feel the way that they do, right? Because of the simple fact that who's supposed to be there is there.

Whoever won their four games or five in the event that you were, you know, in the play-in, first four, you know, you won those games to advance. And that's what it's about. It's about surviving in advance. So who are we as a people to say we want the unpredictability, what we all fall in love with being March Madness, all the upsets and buzzer beaters and overtime. We love those things, but we don't want that anymore when we get to this point. We want the recognizable teams and you don't have that.

Embrace what we actually have. Deshaun Tate, college basketball expert, is here with us CBS Sports Radio. And to your point, this is the first time since 1970 that three of the teams here in the Final Four have never been. UConn is the only squad that has been to multiple Final Fours and we know that they're going for their fifth. So let's start off with that matchup for tomorrow. When you take a look at the Hurricanes and head coach Jim Lara Nega, you look at UConn led by head coach Dan Hurley. What do you assume or presume that game to look like?

Yeah, you know, it's definitely going to be one that has a little bit more of a David versus Goliath feel to it. Obviously UConn being the team that is the most recognizable name, if you will, coming with all the size, you would think that they have the advantage and so forth, which seems like it's pretty obvious. But, you know, Miami likes to score a lot of points and Miami likes to be able to shoot from outside.

Now, I did talk to head coach Jim Lara Nega a couple days ago. We kind of adjusted the side situation a little bit and the high volume, high octane shooting and things of that nature. That's just the way that they play. It's going to be a little bit different this time around because in comparison to the games that they played leading up to this point, those were in arenas.

When you're shooting in those domes, things look a little bit different and that rim doesn't look as big. But if you can remember, he is the only head coach remaining in this tournament that has experience in the Final Four. He beat exactly that George Mason team, very similar to this Miami team in terms of this style, this system, running a lot of guards, small ball, and they beat UConn to get there. So all that size advantage and all that, he's probably not trying to hear a lot of it.

Sure. If we go ahead and take a look at the other matchup, San Diego State, you talk about Miami trying to score. San Diego State is trying to stop everybody from scoring and they do a damn good job at it. And then you have Florida Atlantic, who is probably the biggest underdog in this entire Final Four. What are your thoughts on that game?

I'll tell you what, JR. If it wasn't for Florida Atlantic making it to the Final Four, San Diego State would be the team that most people would probably consider to be the ones wearing the Cinderella snipper, probably. I think in this particular game, it's a game of matchups in the guard position, not only because that's the position that gets you to this point. If you don't have those experienced guards, then you don't get to this point. Both teams have those and they're really good guards at that. San Diego State has more of the experienced guards, but I think that Florida Atlantic goes a little bit deeper down on their bench in all positions on the floor. San Diego State has a little bit more balance between offense and defense, so that doesn't play as much to the benefit of Florida Atlantic.

But they don't want to hear anything about Cinderella. They expect to be here. They won over 35 games on the season already so far. And give credit to San Diego State. If you can remember, and I'm still wiping my tears from this JR with Kleenex, is we were supposed to have Final Four the year of COVID in Atlanta. The four best teams in the country at that time was Gonzaga, Baylor, Dayton, and San Diego State. A lot of those same pieces on the roster is still there for San Diego State. So it's nice to be able to see it come back around full circle a little bit for those guys. So you assume that San Diego State is going to walk away with a W and we'll see that championship versus them in UConn?

Not assume that is who I am taking to win the game. I love the idea of David versus Goliath with Florida Atlantic advancing and playing in the national championship against UConn. And I'll tell you this one quick thing about UConn, two quick things. The first one being, if you remember back, all of these national championships, the last three of them for UConn, have come in the state of Texas. 04 in San Antonio, 2011 in Dallas, 2014, I'm sorry, in Houston, and then 2014 in Dallas. So they have that going for themselves I guess a little bit, but they are not the golden state warriors of college basketball by any means. Really good, and they're beating teams by a significant margin in this tournament, so that's going to be really tough to overcome mentally if you're any of those other teams.

I like you to kind of cut down the nets, but not as much as everybody else likes. Okay, Deshaun Tate is here with us. When you think about Dusty May and what he's been able to do with Florida Atlantic, he's already committed to sticking around past this tournament.

He's not going to be poached, he's not going elsewhere. There's going to be significant money in dollars that are going into the program at FAU. How important is it to that program, and what does this mean potentially to other small schools in the future? Should they still have a fear of their coach going on to greener pastures, or is Dusty May kind of letting folks know that, hey, we got a little bit more parity into the future?

I do believe that. In some instances, I feel like some of the higher caliber jobs have been kind of taken already, maybe not all of them, but for someone that is doing the things that Dusty May is currently doing, I would imagine that there would be something available. That not being the case, it's not the biggest surprise in the world to see him not going on to take another job, but I think it does open eyes to the rest of the teams that are maybe in mid-major conferences, low-major, even some of the high-major programs as well. To see him stick around, I think, is great. He's got a lot of good returning players coming around next year that I would imagine wouldn't be necessarily entering the portal.

Dusty May is definitely going to be a really hot commodity around this time 365 days from now. Deshaun Tate joining us here as we start to wrap things up. You got UConn cutting the nets on Monday night, and you mentioned the transfer portal.

This is the last question I have for you, Deshaun. Tom Izzo had some comments about the portal. Not happy with all of the movement.

What are your thoughts on the portal? How it affects college basketball moving forward? What type of regulations or kind of, I don't want to say roadblocks, but how does this get policed in such a way where everyone isn't just saying, oh, you know, my feelings are hurt or I need a change of scenery? I'm not sure that there is a way to really put restrictions or limitations on some of this. I think it is good for the players who can have some flexibility to be able to move around, transfer, but not just transfer, but without sitting out a whole year that can be eligible immediately. But I do understand some of the concerns that the coaches do have regarding the fact that it doesn't really show the accountability or the competitiveness where you have somebody coming into a program. This guy is just like, oh, yeah, I don't want to compete for this spot. I'm out of here.

He can have a type of deal. So that doesn't really give it the best look, but it's just it's time to just kind of embrace a new way of doing things. Kind of like after we've come out of COVID.

I know it's a bad comparison or analogy, but things are just different now and we have to just kind of get used to, you know, what things look like. Player empowerment, I think is something not just in the NBA on the pro level, but even something that's kind of trickling down or a snowball domino effect onto the collegiate level as well. So just depending on what side of the fence that you're actually on based on how you feel about it. Hey, Deshaun Tate, college basketball expert, has been joining us here on CBS Sports Radio. Hey, Deshaun, after the national championship and the Nets come down and the ladders are away, if you got reception out in NRG, how about you call us after the game? There ain't no if about it. I would definitely be more than willing and looking forward to being able to join you guys on Monday after the title game and somebody standing on that ladder with the scissors in hand cutting down those nets.

Can't wait for it. Hey Deshaun, where can people follow you and all of your insights when it comes down to college basketball? No doubt at Tate's Take Hoops. T-A-P-E-S-T-A-K-E-H-O-O-P-S. We call it where basketball lives.

Find it anywhere you find your favorite podcast. The best, the most entertaining, the most informational, and of course the most educational basketball content on the planet in the form of a podcast, Tate's Take. Thanks, JR. No doubt about it. Thank you so much to college basketball expert Deshaun Tate for joining us. He ain't popping in and turning up in the tournament. He is always up to date all year long with everything related to college basketball. So I look forward to chatting with him when we have a conclusion to the game.