Root: Florida Is A Legit National Title Contender

Jim, thank you for taking the time to join us.

Yeah, thank you for having me. Excited to be talking hoops in one of the best weeks of the year with even better basketball ahead of us. Absolutely. A lot of low productivity workplaces all across America next week, but a good time for basketball. Let's think about today. Let's think about tonight. In about an hour or so, we're going to see Duke versus North Carolina with no Cooper flag. Of course, he's the biggest name in college basketball on the men's side this year. What does this mean for Duke, not just for today? Are you confident that we'll see him ready to go next week? My best guess is that he'll sit out that opening round game. They're locked into a one seed, so against a 16 seed, I think they'll maybe give him that extra two days, let him make sure that ankle is as right as it possibly can be, but I think they'll need him for the second round game against an 8-9 team. There's a pretty strong crop of those squads this year, whether it's somebody like two-time defending national champion UConn or a talented Baylor team that's got a future NBA lottery pick in VJ Edgecoma.

I think getting him back for that one will be really important, but tonight it's still going to be a really strong Blue Devil squad. They've got a ton of size. They're one of the biggest teams in the entire country, even without flag. Really strong defensive team, the way they can switch with their man-to-man and just the talent level. They're going to replace a lot of his minutes with a couple of freshmen, Darren Harris and Isaiah Evans, that were top 20 recruits themselves. They're not going to be one and done freshmen and go straight to the draft, but they're really immensely talented. They can shoot it and they'll keep Duke pretty sharp there. I think the ceiling comes down a little bit without a guy of his caliber, but Duke is still going to be an extremely tough out both tonight and going forward, especially if he does have to sit. If he comes back and he's healthy even after one round off, would you favor Duke to win at all? At this point, I think I'd give them a slight edge above Auburn.

Yeah. Auburn's just kind of, ever since they clinched the SEC regular season title, their last three games have left me a little bit concerned. The first one against Texas A&M, I didn't worry too much about it. Kind of a hangover game after that big championship clincher, but then Alabama game at home they lose and today, really slow game against Ole Miss.

They didn't seem to have the same kind of fire and just extra gear that they exhibited all season. So I'm going to give Duke a nudge ahead there, assuming flag is healthy, and I do think he will be. It's an ankle sprain, but the kind of thing that you ice it, you work on it constantly the way they're going to. I expect him to be fully healthy. So I would give Duke the narrow edge as the favorite. Jim Root is joining us courtesy of The Athletic. You talked about Auburn and we see where they stand third in the AP polls, the rankings. We see this explosion in the SEC. We had a caller last night who specifically asked about the Gators. Alabama, not too far behind them. We got Tennessee, we got Texas.

Talk about all these teams. SEC is just dominating, not just in football, but now basketball as well. Yeah, they've done a really good job over the past few seasons of their coaching hires. Todd Golden at Florida has been terrific. And then even further down the line, Dennis Gates at Missouri. He's got them back in contention.

Mark Byington at Vanderbilt, year one. He's got them as an NCAA tournament team after they've been on the outside looking in for a while. So just all the way down, they've really strengthened their coaches. I think they've got pretty strong NIL programs that have helped get the rosters up at a top level. And yeah, the depth of the league is incredible. They might get 14 teams in the tournament and the top of the league. You've got four of the top six or so teams in the country, probably going to have two one seeds and two two seeds out of this conference.

It's really impressive. The one I'm kind of enamored with right now is Florida. I just think they're so strong across the board, backcourt, frontcourt, interior. They've got shooting. They've got a bunch of depth so they can play different kinds of lineups.

They're not worried about a potential foul trouble because of the different options. Florida, I think, is maybe the hiding in plain sight national title contender right now. Jim Root is here with us on the JR Sport Reshow Coast to Coast. What other teams may not necessarily get the attention of a Duke or an Auburn, but you also feel strongly that they may go out there and win on that Monday night? A big one for me, and it's been this way since the preseason, is Texas Tech out of the Big 12. They've got a great coach, Grant McCaslin. He's won at all different levels coming up through low-major basketball into mid-majors and now into the Big 12. And they've got just a greatly constructed roster where they've got size, they can play big, they can match teams that way, but they've also got a bunch of guards that can shoot so they can spread you out.

Just different ways to play, different ways to win. That kind of flexibility and depth, I think, does matter a lot heading into the postseason. And then another one maybe a little bit further down the board is Memphis. They've kind of fallen out of the national picture just because they've been in the American Athletic Conference not playing a bunch of ranked matchups, but back in the non-conference when they played one of the toughest schedules in the country, they were terrific. And the talent level that they have, the way Penny has kind of matured as a coach, and I think he's really gotten them strong on both sides of the floor, I think Memphis will be a team that gets heard from in March. They were a basket away from maybe making a run a couple years ago against Florida Atlantic, so I think we see the Tigers make some noise. Well, let me ask you about some teams that aren't around right now, Jim.

Well, tonight I get it, we'll see. North Carolina, how the hell did Hubert Davis get a contract extension? How the hell did that happen? I think that one might be one of those phony extensions where as long as the buyout didn't increase, it's more for optics, maybe for recruiting, where it looks like, oh yes, you commit to Hubert Davis, he'll be here for a while. But if the buyout doesn't increase much, I think he could still be on thin ice in the long term, especially if they don't win tonight and they end up outside of the NCAA tournament, that's two of his four years there, he doesn't make it. I think they would at least think long and hard about moving on this year, and it could end up being next offseason if they don't have a really strong bounce back with some increased NIL this summer.

They're gonna have to ask Michael Jordan if he'll come by and coach, man, this is looking bad out there. Rutgers, how the hell did they have all this great offensive talent? Bailey, these guys are gonna be like 2-3-4 in the draft, but Rutgers stinks, they're done. What happened there?

Well that's a great question. They did not play any defense this year, and sometimes it even looked like an effort thing on that end, where they just didn't have the physicality or the want to to keep a guy in front. It's an effort thing sometimes on that end of the floor, and I think Bailey's more pro upside than he is current college winner.

We'll see how that potential merits out when he gets to the pros. So that was a flaw, and then their supporting cast just did not do a great job of building the right kinds of shooting, and they had no size in the paint. They got whooped on the glass, which is never a typical thing with Steve Heichel teams up there at Rutgers. So just a lot of mistakes in the roster around Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, and then even I would say Bailey himself had some issues defensively and as a rebounder that really hurt the team. Jim Root is here with us from the Athletic.

You talk about Bailey, and we know we will not see Cooper Flag maybe for the next week. Who are some other prospects? We know the kind of the landscape and pipeline to the pros, has changed as so many players who come over from Europe. Who are some other prospects that we'll see, hear, and learn about during the course of the tournament? Yeah, I kind of alluded to him earlier at Baylor. VJ Edgecombe is a fantastic prospect. He and his fellow classmate Rob Wright are a really nice dynamic freshman duo for the Bears. Wright actually played high school basketball with Flag, one of the most loaded teams you'll ever see in high school ball, because they also had Derek Queen from Maryland, who's an all-conference guy from the Big Ten, another top 20 team there for the Terps, with Queen as the leader. And then Georgia is sneaking into the tournament this year, and they've got a guy from that team, Asa Newell, who's a 6'11 lefty that can shoot from deep, but also a pretty solid shot blocker and rebounder.

Those guys are excellent, and you also mentioned the international pipeline. Illinois point guard, Kaspers Yakuchonis, a Lithuanian 19-year-old that is a 6'6 point guard, makes plays for others but can hit really big shots late in games. He's got a great step back. And then Yegor Demin for BYU, a Russian freshman that dealt with some injuries, but he's going to be on a big stage tonight against Houston, one of the best defenses in the country, and I think scouts are looking for him to make a big impact. He's a fantastic passer. It's like a 6'8, 6'9 kind of point forward.

Wow. I mean, shoot, I guess Gilbert Arenas is going to be complaining about this any day now. We got more Europeans balling out on the college level now. I guess he can't wait to complain about that. Jim Root here with us on the JR Sport Brief Show. One name that we've only heard this year when he's complaining is Dan Hurley. Like, there's no back to back to back to back to back for UConn. That's not happening this year. Is he going to shut up next year? Is he going to shut up next year? Like, what's next for them?

No, no, I don't think that's his style. I think Dan Hurley wants the lights focused on Dan Hurley, and he's going to make sure he can draw some headlines, even if they're not winning. But yeah, this team's got some problems this year, unfortunately. They can't really defend. They foul like crazy.

So teams get basically a parade to the free throw line, and they're really reliant on a freshman, Liam McNeely, who coincidentally was the fifth member of that high school team with flag and dual and right. I mean, they were ridiculously loaded. But yeah, I don't think UConn is going to be back in the Final Four. Maybe they're dangerous in the second round against the high seed, but I think they've got a somewhat limited ceiling just because they're not playing the kind of defense that they need to. And speaking of loud head coaches, I remember, well, the St. John's is moving.

Like, how about that? Like, who would have thought that they would have been here? They were getting ripped to shreds about a year ago, getting called out, and here they are, one of the top teams in the country. Yeah, they are. They're a team I love watching. And, you know, there's a big knock on them is that they can't really shoot, and I will not dispute that. It's not a team loaded with perimeter marksmanship. But the way they defend, the athleticism and physicality they play with, and it's just clearly imbued with the Rick Pitino identity of just fighting for every inch, not letting teams get easy baskets. They're currently number one in the country defensively at 10 palm. So I think they're going to be heard from in March, just because even without the shooting, they're good at everything else. Rebounding, forcing turnovers, limiting easy baskets. It's a well coached team with athleticism, with some big time veteran playmakers.

I would expect to see St. John's earn the headlines that they're likely to get this March. Yeah, well, I thought Rick Pitino was done more than a decade ago. Here he is competing for another national championship. Hey, Jim, I appreciate the time. Tell everybody where they can follow you and all of your work with The Athletic. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm on Twitter.

My handle is at second chance points, two ND chance points, everything coming from there. And then, yeah, writing for The Athletic, a little bit for Action Network as well. Just and we have the three men we've college basketball podcast. People want to hear me ramble even more than I did here.

But two of my good friends and I have that got there. So encourage people to check it out and I appreciate you giving me a chance to plug all that. Absolutely, Jim. Enjoy all the madness. I know you got a busy next couple of weeks, man. So we'll catch you on down the line. Catch you soon. Perfect. Sounds good. Yeah, thank you.