JR SportBrief Hour 3

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Offers end soon. Call 562-314-4603 for details. It is the JR Sportbree show here on CBS Sports Radio. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Super producer and host, Ryan Hickey.

He's holding it down for us on the boards of New York City. Thank you to everybody locked in and listening all over North America. On the free Odyssey app, your local CBS Sports Radio affiliate, Sirius XM158, a smart speaker. Ask it to play CBS Sports Radio. And anywhere else you might be listening to the show, cbssportsradio.com. Thank you for hanging out.

I get started every single weekday at 6 PM Eastern, 3 Pacific. Consider this halftime of the show. There's no entertainment. There's no ladies spinning plates.

I've seen a guy, you know, balance a ladder on his head. We don't have none of that. We're just going to keep on rolling with the show. We've already had a busy one. Taking a look at Kirk Cousins introductory press conference and Saquon introductory press conference. Looks like the Falcons and the Eagles are both being investigated by the NFL for tampering. They allegedly might have spoken with both of these players before the legal signing period.

And before the legal signing period, these these players are supposed to only have their representatives be in contact with the teams. We got a busy day. We got plenty of basketball going on in the college ranks. Conference tournaments going on all over the country. We'll give you an update at the half. And as the show continues on, you want to think about college football and their playoff.

It looks like they're going to go ahead and expand things in two seasons, even though they just agreed on an expansion. And then we've had a variety of other news here across the sports world. You know, before we went to break, we talked about Ben Simmons having yet another back surgery completed his second back surgery in three seasons for the Brooklyn Nets. And in about 20 minutes, we're going to have a chat with Dr. David Chow. This man was an NFL physician and an NFL doctor for 17 years, also as an injury expert. And I want to talk to him about some of the injuries to individuals like Ben Simmons, but then also really highlighting what's going on in Major League Baseball as there seems to be a little bit of a debate right now about pitchers and their usage. You know, Jacob DeGrom signs with the Texas Rangers last season, last off season, and his arm fails him.

New York Mets are like, oh, well, we saved ourselves $185 million. And now we have someone who's been a workhorse like Garrett Cole, who's out right now with with discomfort in his elbow. So Dr. David Chow, joining us in about 20 minutes, there's been other news. As of a few minutes ago, it appears that the Philadelphia Eagles are getting additional help on their defense. Devin White, former linebacker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It appears that he's going to be on his way up to Philadelphia. And we know that linebacker was a position of need for the Eagles last season. And now they have an opportunity to add Devin White. It was only a couple of days ago that they went ahead and added CJ Gardner Johnson back to the team. It seems that a lot of their cornerbacks got old real fast last offseason. And so the Eagles not not moving forward and standing pat.

I think with all of the talent that they've added, including Saquon Barkley, and Bryce Huff from the New York Jets on the defense. I know Fletcher Cox retired. Landon Dickerson got himself a long term deal.

Nick Sirianni. Yeah, people are going to be looking at him to, quote unquote, go out there and turn things around. Also, the Falcons quarterback, the position that Arthur Blank said was deficient last year. Now that they have Kirk Cousins, nobody has to think about Desmond Ritter. He's now going to be the backup quarterback to Kyler Murray, and they trade him away from Atlanta to Arizona in exchange for Ron Dale Moore. And so they bring in Ron Dale Moore, somebody who else or someone who also can be another pass catching option opposite of Drake London. And then there's another quarterback who's been moved. We know that the Washington commanders are going to grab a quarterback early in the draft. They told Sam Howell, we don't want you. They traded Sam Howell to the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle gets Howell a fourth round draft pick this year, a sixth round draft pick this year. And they keep things moving. Sam Howell already done out in Washington.

Too many turnovers. And Dan Quinn is looking to, you know, obviously turn things around with a new quarterback in Washington, D.C., D.C. Let's see who they go ahead and land. So some of the smaller deals here in the NFL as things continue on. And we know what the big ones are.

Hickey, no shock, right? These teams are already like, hey, see you later. It's only like a year ago.

Let's think about this. It was only a year ago. Now, people in Washington were like, hey, Sam, Sam Howell can be our guy.

And then here in Atlanta, I never understood it for the life of me. They're like, oh, my man, man, Desmond Ritter can can be our guy, too. And here they are. They've gotten the boot, both of them. And it shows you just how little patience there is now. And also, I'll say this.

I don't think it's wrong. Like I think now, especially in the Falcons case specifically, maybe Sam Howell's a little different story. But when you look at it like with the Falcons, they had the O-line, they had the running back, they had the receiver, they had the tight end.

Now you could argue Arthur Smith kind of screwed that up. Yes. But also you saw Desmond Ritter not very good. So while it's just like you said a year ago, we're talking about Ken Desmond Ritter be the guy one year later.

The answer is no. I don't think it's incorrect to go to judgment that fast in this specific case. Oh, not not at all. I mean, let's play the clip again. Not the beat up on a guy who just got traded. But the reality is, is there anything worse, anything worse than your owner?

Okay, fine. The general manager got to protect his behind and called. Is there anything worse than the owner saying you stunk? This is what Arthur Blank had to say a couple of weeks ago, a couple of months ago, about how bad their quarterback play was last year. But our quarterback play this year was clearly deficient.

But quarterback play includes, you know, scheme, play calling other players, you know, there's a lot of things that go into what makes a quarterback successful or not. Yeah, well, he ain't there no more. He might have cried himself to sleep. When Arthur Blank said that the writing was pretty much on the wall that he was not going to be back. I also don't think it's like a rocket scientist for him to go out there and figure that out. But all things considered, it's it's it's time to move on. And quarterbacks right now in the NFL, when you get drafted, you are already on the clock.

There is no more development period. Ironically, the most successful quarterback, the best quarterback in the league right now, Patrick Mahomes sat out a year behind Alex Smith. And then when he finally played, he burst onto the scene and said, here's 50 touchdowns. Give me the MVP.

It was it was quite ridiculous what we saw. And sure, everybody's not going to wake up and be Patrick Mahomes. But quarterbacks are just they almost got no chance.

If you don't have success, they're going to be prone to give you the boot. I mean, someone even like Trevor Lawrence. And we can think about who his coach was. Sorry, urban, and we can think about how things have moved forward, like people expecting Trevor Lawrence to turn things around, because there comes a point in time where we want to have success before we have to pay you before we have to any up and give you the forty five in the fifty million dollar contracts. I mean, the Miami Dolphins are going to have no choice but to pay to a Tonga Valoa. What are they going to do? Walk into the room and tell to a yeah, man, we know that you played good, but in the cold weather, you suck. So we're not going to pay you.

They got no choice. We had a caller who said Kirk Cousins was one playoff victory in his entire career. He said, oh, well, Kirk Cousins isn't isn't criticized. I'm like, oh, hell yeah. Yes.

Everybody gets criticized. And I guess Kirk Cousins, the fact that he's made more money than anybody. It's just been franchise tagged twice with Washington, came to an agreement with the Minnesota Vikings, is now getting one hundred and eighty million dollars from the Falcons. What do you want from Kirk Cousins? He's going to say no to the money. Do you know anybody saying no to the money? Yeah, let's let's play this as well, because Kirk Cousins was having a chat with Charles Barkley and Charles Barkley wasn't happy that Kirk Cousins has been criticized about the amount of money that he's made.

Listen to this. Do you get mad as the first thing people think about is how much money you made? I'm not going to apologize for the fact that it's been a great blessing financially for my family. But in my years in Atlanta, I certainly want it to be about one of Super Bowl and won a lot. And that that becomes the last piece of my football career. I really just took the next step all the way through my football career. It always led to great opportunities when it came to where to play in the contract.

And my agent handled all that. But it really wasn't the driving force of why I left Washington or how long I stayed in Minnesota or coming to Atlanta. Well, let me say that it pisses me off. Oh, thank you, Charles Barkley.

Always want to go ahead and express himself. And yeah, everything is always about the money. Maybe if some of these quarterbacks didn't make the money that they were making, people wouldn't necessarily have so much of a fit. But speaking of money, and this is this is going to roll into the conversation we're going to have in about 10 minutes with Dr. David Chow. Baseball players get a ridiculous amount of money, OK? A ridiculous amount of money. I don't know an NBA player walking around saying I got a 700 million dollar contract.

It's going to pay me 700 million dollars over the next 20 years. I don't know an NBA player that has that deal because there isn't one. OK, I could think about Patrick Mahomes and his 10 year contract that he's in the midst of right now, 45 per give or take.

They slide it up and down. He just restructured his contract to make less money this upcoming year. But bottom line, it's 10 years, 450 mil. And then you can throw in his bonuses and whatnot. That's a lot of money.

Sure, it is. It's a it's a hell of a lot of money. Kirk Cousins, a 180 million dollar contract coming out, coming off of a blown Achilles. You think about how much money athletes are making now and whether or not you get the productivity. It's like a scale.

It's like a graph. You know, are the athletes playing the same amount of games? Are they playing as hard? Is there a justification for their contracts given their performance?

You can certainly make a justification for the amount of money that they make from the revenue generated. But are they performing enough? We know sports comes at a premium. And so when I think about injuries to, let's say, a Garrett Cole for the New York Yankees right now, they talked about how, you know, oh, he doesn't have a torn ligament in his UCL. His UCL is not torn. And right now he doesn't need Tommy John.

But we want to figure out how things are. Man, this dude has been a workhorse. He hasn't missed a game as a pitcher since 2016. And here he is in spring training. The New York Yankees got to be pulling out their hair going, well, he's a pitcher.

It was inevitable. Listen to Aaron Boone. This is from yesterday. Aaron Boone was on the Yes Network. He was asked about an update on Garrett Cole, his return.

And of course, he didn't have one. There's still more to go. So I don't really have anything for you yet. You know, when we when we have it all and I'll let you guys know.

But as of now, it's still, you know, still going through the test phase and, you know, all the different people weighing in. Yeah, everybody's just weighing in. And how about another New York Yankee? Come on now.

I get it. Aaron Judge is six foot seven. What is he?

Two hundred and eighty five pounds. The man might as well be a defensive end playing for the New York Yankees, mashing home runs all over the place. The Yankees gave him after an MVP season, a nine year 360 million dollar deal. They will talk about how Aaron Judge needed to take some days off because he was he's feeling sore. He wasn't feeling good. They sent him to go get an MRI. And now there's conversations that, oh, yeah, he's going to be OK and fine to patrol center field for the New York Yankees at the start of the season. I'm like, what?

How? Like this is this is one of the these are both some of the best players in the game. And how about even in the National League? I told you about Shohei Ohtani. You're making seven hundred million dollars.

He's having a had a second Tommy John. The Dodgers did not care. They said here's seven hundred million dollars. Just hit the baseball for us this year and then next year come out and pitch and hit.

It's wild stuff. The man was out here throwing a hundred and three miles per hour and everybody's like, whoa, how is your arm going to hold up for that? And how about someone else? Great in the National League. Shohei Ohtani moving over from the American League and the Angels.

What about Acuna? Probably the biggest bargain and discount in baseball. An eight year deal. One hundred million dollars. They said, hey, you want this money now or you want it late? He said, give me the money now.

And he settled for this deal. Forty one home runs, seventy three stolen bases. Ronald Acuna, who blew out his knee towards ACL a couple of seasons ago, seems to be fully healed. Even he's been dealing with a knee injury and it's the beginning of spring training. Ronald Acuna from last week is just like, look, I feel OK. Good? Yeah, I feel great. You know, I feel like nothing happened. I feel great. That's what I'm good. When you went out there, was there any concern when you went to California or even after the MRI? Were you pretty? I see.

I go there to see the doctor. He got the confidence. I got confidence to go. I feel like nothing happened.

And he's supposed to play at the start of the season. And I'm just like, what's going on? The athletes are bigger, faster, stronger. They can throw harder. Are they doing too much? Are they overworking? In the case of pitchers, you know, there's an emphasis from baseball right now where they want to have pitchers, more emphasis on starting pitching. But for the money that the pitchers get, they don't want to screw things up and they want to limit their workload so they don't blow their arms out.

And I don't know. I know if you overwork any body part, you can overwork it to injury. If you don't work it enough, then you can still get hurt by overuse. And so where is the balance?

Where's the medium? What's going on that Ben Simmons can't stay on a court? What's going on that Kawhi Leonard, as big and strong as he is, is just always blowing out his knee. You know, yeah, muscles can grow. Ligaments don't get bigger.

Are the athletes too big, too strong? Have our bodies, the ligaments not caught up? These are questions that we're going to ask Dr. David Chow. He's going to join us in about five minutes. I want to hear from him on the baseball season, why we have so many of these injuries at the onset. What's going on with Simmons and pitchers and it all.

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It's the J.R. Sport Brief Show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. It's March Madness, right?

The beginning of it. We got conference championship games going on. We got free agency and the NFL underway. And then we have spring training in Major League Baseball.

We do have some big names. We're currently dealing with some injuries, been dealing with some bumps, bruises and some pain. Garrett Cole currently shut down with the New York Yankees. Ronald Acuna Jr., reigning MVP in the National League, is just saying, hey, my knee was busted up, but I feel great now. Even Aaron Judge, also a New York Yankee, is just like, hey, I'm feeling sore. I needed an MRI.

It's early on in the year. We got someone like Ben Simmons in the NBA who has another back surgery and Kawhi Leonard, always hurt, to talk about the rash of injuries in sports, particularly when it comes down to pitchers. We're being joined by Dr. David Chow, who was an NFL team physician, NFL team doctor for 17 years, including with the Chargers, also an injury expert. Doctor, thank you for taking the time to hop on. Oh, thanks. Thanks for having me.

I listen to you all the time in the car, so happy to hop on. I appreciate that. I guess the question, let's start on the pitchers first. I know it's a different day. It's a different time.

It's a different era. But when it comes to someone like Garrett Cole, who's been a workhorse, it's no shock that, you know, he's he's injured or hurt. But someone like Aaron Judge, I get it, he's a giant human. He's feeling soreness. They don't have full certainty that he's going to be ready to go. Are players not working out the ramp up in the off season? How did they just show up already in pain? Well, you know, in Aaron Judge's case, you know, that was a turf toe injury that lingered. And perhaps there's compensation involved in Garrett Cole's case.

Yeah, he's been a workhorse. And we're eventually seeing what's up for the elbow, but certainly some significant concern. But the bottom line is this. As players are bigger, faster, stronger, your bodies are built a certain way.

So it's like you're putting more horsepower, you're putting a Formula One engine on my car chassis, right? And that's where you get some of these breakdowns. And, you know, you mentioned Ben Simmons, you talk about NBA stuff quite better. The NBA gets a lot of grief for load management, right? And they're trying to manage that.

But let me tell you something. Load management has been around a long time in every sport. Talk baseball. I mean, I'm old enough, I don't know if you are, you may be, where it was four starters. Now it's five and maybe a six man rotation, right?

Everything changes. And load management, you know, you have guys that sit, they don't play, you know, all the time in baseball. It happens in basketball, but basketball gets the biggest grief for it. Because when, you know, Steph Curry goes and visits Philadelphia and he sits that one game, that's the one time. But when Ronald Acuna goes and plays the Phillies, it's multiple games.

So fans don't get to see him, so you don't get that grief. But load management is even part of football. You know, okay, alternating series for running backs or other situations. It's in every sport. And injuries are what people worry about. And especially, you know, the overuse injuries.

Dr. David Chai was here with us, the JR Sport Reshow on CBS Sports Radio. When you talk about pitchers specifically, there was an article that came out last week, it had a lot of quotes from Max Scherzer, about trying to put a larger emphasis on starting pitching. You know, nowadays, you don't want the starter to go past, you know, two appearances versus a batter. And we have to cobble games together with multiple relievers.

They're also making now almost 40 million dollars a year. Do you think that we can get back to a place where we have somebody with a rubber arm? Or are we way past the Nolan Ryan going out there and just throwing flames his whole life?

Yeah, well, Nolan Ryan was a little bit of a unicorn, right? And once again, I'm old enough when you get over levers, you know, pitch the eighth and ninth inning. And sometimes the seventh inning is ninth inning.

Right now, you'd never have that. You can start with routinely seven innings. Now five seems to be the target, right, as you talk about Max Scherzer. But to be fair, part of that is every major leaguer basically throws in the 90s or high 90s. It's commonplace to have a guy throw a hundred now. That didn't used to be the case.

And guess what? The only collateral ligament in your pitcher's elbow didn't get any thicker and stronger over the last decade or two. Yeah, that's without a shadow of a doubt. Now, now, having said that, what can be done, if anything, for younger players, youth players, P weeds, high school to college as they move forward? Is there any particular adjustments that can be made at the youth level? Yeah, you know, obviously, arm care and pitch counts, but you got to remember, you do pitch counts, but do you really count all the warm-up pitches? You do count all the practice pitching that happens.

So it's overall arm care and having good coaching. Yeah, what I tell youngsters, and my son's 11, he's, you know, a little leaguer, pony leaguer now, Bronco player now, and he pitches. He's, look, forget about throwing curve balls and all this stuff early. Just work on spotting your pitches because guess what? As you continue to grow, your release point will be different. Your curve ball or slider or whatever you're throwing is not going to be the same pitch as you get to high school and beyond. So why are you trying to refine that pitch now?

Just work on speed and spot location, and you should be good enough right now and worry about the fancy stuff down the road. Former NFL team doctor 17 years, Dr. David Chow is here with us on CBS Sports Radio. When you think about some of the advancements in healthcare, for instance, Aaron Rodgers returned and also Kirk Cousins. So we learned that Lucas Giolito of the Red Sox is not having another Tommy John, but they're putting like a hinge or brace internally on his arm. Could you see a scenario as technology advances that, you know, players come back even faster or maybe these injuries are kind of nipped in the bud sooner?

Well, we hope so, right? There's a lot of biologics going on from PRP to stem cells to exosomes and some of this bracing stuff maybe can help. Look, what Aaron Rodgers did wasn't that special.

The internal brace has been around 15 plus years. He just advanced his rehab technique. Look, the day that it happened, as soon as Robert Sala indicated indeed it looked like an Achilles, I tweeted out it wasn't impossible for Aaron Rodgers to return to play that season in the early playoffs. I wasn't saying December, I was saying early playoffs, but the Jets would have to get there, number one. And number two, if they got there without Aaron Rodgers, what are the chances that they would replace the starting quarterback for Aaron Rodgers?

It turns out he didn't get there. And part of that is because he's a quarterback and it was his front foot, not his push-off side. It wouldn't have happened if he was a running back or a DB or anything like that. So not all injuries are exactly the same.

Dr. David Chiles, we start to wrap things up here. We have players who seemingly get hurt at a higher rate, but they also, their careers are longer. We're talking about more and more quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins got a deal that will take him until he is 40 years old. Even at his age, going to be 36, Russell Wilson, a little bit of a reclamation project, is still going to be looked upon to lead the way.

And obviously we know about what Tom Brady just did and completed. What are your thoughts as to why? I mean, are these guys rested so much? Are they conditioned to fall apart quick but last longer?

What's the deal? Yeah, and you know, I just this week talked to Philip Rivers and he confirmed his potential return to the 49ers that didn't work out coming out of retirement. And Joe Flacco obviously did it with the Browns and now he's going on to Indy. I think part of it is what, at least in terms of quarterback, look running backs aren't lasting any longer.

They're very fungible and they're out of the league early. But in the cerebral position of quarterback, I think that's what people are realizing. It's not about how strong is your arm and can you fit it within a very tight window. It's how to read defenses and make the right throws. But if you have to, if you make 10 tight window throws and make it on your big arm, that means you're going to throw more picks because a tip ball, a little bit of wind, you name it, it's a bigger deal. But if you make the right throws on time, on scheme, I think that's where you can have more longevity but also not have to rely on a big powerful arm to get it in there. And that's where I think quarterbacks have more longevity nowadays. It's pretty wild.

The quarterbacks are out there playing. We got LeBron James. And what do you attribute his success? We always hear about his body maintenance. He has yet to have a major, major injury. Is he a unicorn as well?

Are we bound to see more players last into the almost 40s? Well, he's clearly a unicorn. He's been playing at a high level since high school, right? And he's played into the postseason basically every year. So whatever number of seasons he has, I think you have to add several more to that to basically playoff time that goes all the way into June for him most of the time.

And so, yeah, I do think that he's a unicorn. You know, just to wrap up here, I am very worried about Garrett Cole. We do things at Sports Injury Central based on video and information.

There's no video here. But here's the thing. When you get an MRI and you don't have an immediate announcement that everything is fine, the next thing you hear is a one or two month absence and he's flying out to meet the surgeon.

That's the neat thing. Your flight is delayed an hour. That's a check back with me time. That's not a realistic he's going to be ready to go time. And let's just say he gets a PRP or he recovers or he doesn't need surgery. And let's hope that's the case. If he starts ramping up a month from now, he's probably two, three months away from playing. And that's the best case scenario. So is he going to get 30 starts this year for the Yankees?

I think they're going to be lucky if they get 20 out of them. I mean, at this point in time, if I were a Yankee fan and you said you get Garrett Cole of 2023 back right after the All-Star break, I would take it. Yeah, it's a hard knock life right now for Yankees fans. Dr. David Shaw, where can people follow you in all of your work? Sports injury central, sicscore.com. We talk about Acuna. We talk about Judge. We talk, you know, football.

We're really big into, you know, I have some baseball and basketball experience. We have a panel of doctors. We try and provide year round injury information. And really, we're the only place that gives true injury analysis as opposed to injury reporting. Hey, doctor, we always appreciate your time.

Thank you for being a listener as well. We'll catch you down the line. Unfortunately, it seems like it's always bad news. Maybe it'll be something positive, a return to something, okay? Sounds good, Jared.

Thank you so much to Dr. David Shaw, 17 years of physician, NFL doctor, and now an injury expert all across the board at SIC. I like his analogy. He made it very clear. He says, well, you can take an F1 engine and dump it into the Honda. That ain't necessarily gonna work.

Eventually, it's gonna blow. And in essence, that's what it is. The muscles are bigger. Athletes are bigger, faster, stronger. Have our bones gotten bigger and stronger? Are the ligaments, is the cartilage holding everything together?

Is that in a set place? It's very tricky right now, albeit with technology, recovery, players play longer, they last longer, they make more money. I just don't know from a fan's perspective, are we staring at like a catch 22? I mean, Hickey, how many more years is Kawhi gonna play? Oh boy, I mean, I wanna say seven?

This is the crazy thing. Kawhi Leonard feels like he's been around forever. He should be ancient.

For all of his injuries, it just feels like a role, like a roll call of injuries. Kawhi is only 32 years old. Kawhi Leonard is going to be 33 in June. And it feels like he should be a little bit older than that. And so to tack, you said seven more years for Kawhi?

Yeah. That feels like... Doesn't sound great.

Yeah, it feels impossible. Like given his injury history, Kawhi Leonard is under contract for this season. He has a player option for next year. And it goes on until 2027 that he is now tacked on. He has an additional contract extension after this year. And it's just, I don't know.

It's wild. I don't know how the teams can continue to justify a lot of these contracts. The players don't play. I'll be real interested to see what happens with Ben Simmons after next year. Who's giving him money? Is he in the lead? I think you said he might be playing in, what, China, right? Or Australia?

Or Canada. They have some hoops there. Yeah, he might have to... What is it? CBL? Canadian basketball? Something like that, yeah.

Yeah, he may have to get things set up there. It's just sad the amount of injuries that we get. I really feel bad for the fans who pay their money and don't get the results. It's the JR Sport Reshow here with you on CBS Sports Radio, 855-212-4CBS.

It's 855-212-4CBS. Thank you to Dr. David Chow. We're gonna take a break and come back on the other side with more. What's the first thing you'd do if you'd had more time in the day? Take a nap? Read a book?

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He's like, I'm okay. It's just, it's crazy. And then you think about the NBA, we talked about Ben Simmons and his back injury.

Joel Embiid has been out. And the best description that he gave us, it's like putting an engine in an old car. Like we can think about the athletes being physically stronger, being more athletic. But body structure historically has, it has not changed. And so that's why we have these rash of injuries, unfortunately.

So thank you to Dr. David Chow. If you missed the conversation, you can go ahead and hit rewind on the free Odyssey app. At the top of the hour, I want to spend some time chatting it up with you about a lot of the goings on in the world of sports today. Specifically, a report that we got later on in the day that the college football playoff looks like it is already expanding. And we haven't even got to the first expansion later on this year.

I will explain. Also, while I stand here in the studio, we've had tons of games here in conference tournaments, like the Aztecs beat the rebels 74 to 71 in overtime in the Mountain West tournament quarterfinal. Right now in front of me, I'm looking at an ACC tournament game between North Carolina State and Duke. North Carolina State is trying to give Duke the boot.

The score is currently 6457, about four and a half minutes remaining in the game. And so this is almost the warm up for March Madness. This is almost the warm up before we get to the big dance and we get to selection Sunday this upcoming weekend. And we find out who's going to be participating in both the men and women's game. The men and women's tournament. 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 CBS is the number. That's 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 CBS.

Hickey, question for you, man. You ready for your bracket? You ready to fill that sucker out? Am I ready? Yes.

Do I have any hope? No. Whoa. Why?

Why no hope? I suck at these things. I will say I did win two years ago.

Thank you, Kansas. But most of the time, like, it's a lock. At least on that Thursday and Friday, one of my Final Four teams always goes down.

So what is the science? You're not somebody that just picks the same teams. There's not no Homerism here. What is your thought process in filling out a bracket? Part of it, well, I fluctuate. This year, I think I'm going to go no analysis. I'm just going to say really fast here.

Arizona, Texas. Just not even thinking about just picking it. Actually, you know what I was thinking about doing? Maybe I'll do it this year. Watch, I win the bracket easily. I might just do a coin flip.

Oh. Like, heads is Arizona, tails is Texas. And just pick my bracket that way. I feel like it's open this year in college basketball.

There's a lot of chaoticness. So I try not to pick, you know, I try to give some, you know, variants and not pick 4-1 seeds to make the Final Four. I do try to get, you know, a lower seed in there. I try to, you know, pick my spots in the 512 for some upsets. But this may be the year where I truly do not make one actual pick and let a coin or something like that figure it out for me and just see how we do. A true game of chance, huh? Yes.

And watch. It's going to, you know, be the best bracket you ever see. I'm not a fan of the other bracket stuff.

Really? No, I just want to watch the games. So, I mean, you get involved in a pool or you put money up, you got some money and a television potentially coming your way? Like, what are we doing? Well, you know, it's like 10 bucks, 20 bucks.

I'm not putting, you know, money where I'm sweating here begging to work another shift because I'm in the hole, you know? Right. I like it. It makes it fun.

Well, I shouldn't say that. It makes going into the tournament fun. And then after like the first two hours on Thursday when like half my bracket is done, then I'm like, why did I do this stupid thing? Why didn't I see UNC Asheville upsetting, you know, the second seed?

Why didn't I see that happening? Then I get frustrated myself. You know, in a lot of cases, I think we know this as a country primarily that and the productivity during the tournament hits the toilet.

It does. Like workplace productivity does not exist during March Madness. And we know that we've expanded things now for the first four. And now we've moved things up by a couple of days earlier in the week. And now we also know, and this is a complete disaster if you ask me, that there are conversations about expanding the men's tournament that we discussed this last week. Like, why are we why are we adding more? Is it is it necessary to add more teams?

And I certainly understand it. Like, let's let's be real. We got a crap ton of conference championship games right now where if you win the conference tournament, you get an automatic bid and we're going to blink and the champions will be crowned. We have selection Sunday. Like how many more basketball games do we really need? We're having games just because, just because, you know, this isn't like college football where the basketball teams are are kicking and screaming about, oh, man, well, we were close, so we should have been in. No, it doesn't doesn't exist in a 64 team field because it's big as hell already. And most of the teams know that they don't have a chance to go through and just win round after round after round and then go to the Sweet 16 and then go to the eight and then go to the final four. Like a lot of teams don't know that. So I could understand if squads were clamoring about being left out and what have you. But it just doesn't make sense to expand the tournament, especially the fact that we've already gone through the regular season and then we've already gone into the conference tournaments. And now we just need to open it up to more teams. I just I'm not with that. And we have so many other just additional ways to spice things up. Picky, did you hear about the the NIL tournament that would actually pay some of the athletes to go ahead and participate?

I did. And I like that. I'm into it. It's I mean, I guess a spinoff, if you will, of the in-season tournament. But unlike the NBA, these players are not getting millions of dollars and tens of millions of dollars a year. So this is one where I think you can actually get really competitive games early in the year and have them matter.

I like the idea a lot. Are we not moving towards I don't want to say emphasis. We know that that March Madness and the final for the entire tournament is a huge moneymaker. It's a huge revenue generator, whether it happens to be on air, on television with Warner and CBS and ultimately CBS. The home city has a gigantic economic boost by hosting the final four. Like it's a big, big deal. But if we expand the field, if we then add an NIL tournament, aren't we now kind of washing away some of the importance? It's like, yeah, the champion will be the champ. But sometimes there's too much of a good thing.

It's like eating ice cream all day long. It's not a good idea. I would agree with that sentiment. I think, though, what college basketball is realizing, at least in the men's game, is that outside of the tournament, no one cares. I think that's part of the reason or the motivation to expand it, because now if you expand it, now you get an extra day, maybe an extra two days. And that's, you know, is it you get either two days of extra tournament basketball or two days of nothing or two extra days of regular season basketball? No one cares. I think that's part of it.

Did you just say nobody cares about the regular season in college basketball? That is correct. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's like, hey, what's what's going on on Saturday and I watch a game.

But you're right. Like, let's be real. The majority of the country is starting to tune in like right now. It's it like we are literally, if you think about the calendar, the NBA gets started. We're in the midst of the NFL in the fall and then it moves into the winter. Then we go through the playoffs. And then now here we are with the Super Bowl. The NFL, even with the conference tournaments going on right now, they dominate coverage.

And what everybody's really going to wait for. Let's get to Sunday when we have just the the explosion. We have the conferences, not the conferences. We have the selection Sunday shows that will last for hours. And then we know what the brackets look like.

And then we can all be losers if you fill out a bracket. It's why sometimes you don't don't mess with a good thing. Leave it alone. It's the J.R. sport re-show here on CBS Sports Radio. On the other side, we're going to talk about the potential expansion of the college football playoff. And we're going to take a look at some of the largest stories that have populated the news today.

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