GG Jackson decommits from UNC basketball - Should the NBA trade their age limit?

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast, brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is the Adam Gold Show. I don't know if I'll be physically able to play another British Open here at St. Andrews.

I certainly feel like I'll be able to play more British Opens, but I don't know if I'll be around when it comes back around here. The warmth and the elevation at 18, it got to me. And just the walk, I felt the guys stop there off the tee at 18. It was just incredible. This is the Adam Gold Show. This is the Adam Gold Show.

Hi everyone, I'm Adam Gold, Dennis Cox, in the producer's chair. Thanks to Hayes Permore for sitting in yesterday and for knocking 325 units off the total. What an absolute disaster.

How did you do with the cooler in this chair, Dennis Cox? I had two futures and one... One loss? One loss. Yeah. That's Hayes for you, man. Yep.

Gosh. I don't know, I can't remember if you were listening at the start of the show yesterday, but Hayes left his drink in his car. Did he? So he goes to go grab it just before the show starts. And he locked himself out? No, he didn't lock himself out.

But it's basically just after 12, the intro had played. I'd set up just for me and I. Oh really? Yeah.

Where's Hayes? Look, I've done that. So guests are like, welcome to the Adam Gold Show. Oh, you started the show? Yes.

Because Hayes walked in at like... He's like, what, it's just after 12? I'm like, oh, you mean when the show starts? Wow. It's okay, the video's online. Alright, I gotta check that out then.

For this proof. At the Fan Rookie, it's there. I have to check it out then. It was a funny moment. Oh, man. I put together a special intro just for him. Really? And he didn't hear it? No, it's not live. That's too bad.

Oh, well. We got a lot of things to do today. Love you Hayes. My friend Mike Decor, she's going to join us for a little bit. We're going to talk to Luke Decock.

Also, New Hurricanes defenseman Brent Burns will be on the show. But I feel a little sad today. I feel a little sad today. We might have seen the last time.

Let's start so we can just get right to it. Tiger Woods did not have his A-game. No. Just did not have his A-game. Just didn't have his A-game. Over an opening 36 holes that will demand no worse than level par in order to play the weekend.

I mean, seriously. We have a major championship and you're going to have to be... It's possible that you might have to be under par. I think the cut is going to be even.

But it might be under par. Tiger Woods could manage today only a second round 75 and nine over par through two rounds. He birdied the third hole today.

Then bogeyed the fourth, sixth, doubled the 16th. And the last insult was missing about a four-footer for birdie on 18. I mean, it would have been great. Making the cut would have been great to have him walk off that final green in style.

Place would have gone nuts. Jack Nicklaus birdied his last hole at St. Andrews. But maybe it wasn't his final competitive trip around the old course.

But then again, maybe it was. I don't know if I'll be physically able to play another bridge open here at St. Andrews. I certainly feel like I'll be able to play more bridge opens.

But I don't know if I'll be around when it comes back around here. So the warmth and the elevation at 18, it got to me. And just to walk, I felt the guys stop there off the tee on 18. And it was just incredible. The amount of understanding and respect from all the people that are involved in this event that come out and support it. The players, the knots I was getting as a player for going out. I looked over there and Rory gave me a tip of the cap. J.T.

did the same. It's just something to it that's just different. First of all, you're not coming back if you keep calling it the British Open. Ah, whatever.

Get out of here. He was emotional. Tiger was having a little trouble keeping it together walking up the 18th fairway. So you could tell. The players allowed Tiger to walk ahead so the crowd could just, you know, wash him with praise and respect and all of that. And you could tell everybody was looking at him.

And he sort of pulled his cap down over his eyes and he was trying to hold it together. But look, he's going to play, I think, many more major championships. As long as long as he can walk, he's going to play many more majors. There's not an open schedule to go back to St. Andrews for the next four years. They've got the next three planned out. They're going to Liverpool next year.

Then I believe it's Royal Portrush. The next the next three are planned out. And there's no there's no set schedule when they were going to go back to St. Andrews. Usually they go every five to seven years.

So me is 46. And with his ankle in the shape that it's in, you just don't know how many more he's going to play. But my sense is that he will play another open at St. Andrews. I think for him, this was one that he felt like he could compete in. But his putting was awful. Tiger Woods putted like a 12 handicap for two rounds. It was just not good.

And like Tita Green, his game wasn't incredible. But had he putted reasonably well, he would have had a chance to make the cut. That's how bad his putting and his work around the greens were.

I mean, it was just absolutely terrible. So I don't think it's his last trip around St. Andrews. I think he'll be back when they come back.

But, man, it was just a bummer that he didn't even threaten to make the cut. Cam Smith is absolutely destroying St. Andrews today. He is 6-under par through 10 holes. Actually, through 11 holes today. He's 6-under par through 11 holes today. It might even be 12. I think it's 12 holes today.

No, through 13. He's 6-under through 13 holes today. Oh, he's slacking now. 11-under par overall. He's actually missed, for him, two almost gimme birdie putts. And for him, it's anything inside of 15 feet.

He has been a machine today. Cam Young dropped the shot early but is now at 10-under par. He, too, has missed two very short birdie putts. One of about 4 feet.

The other about 6 feet. So he could really be in the lead. There's a Dustin Johnson shot a 67 today. He's at 9-under par.

He had the lead through two rounds here in 2015 before kind of falling apart. A group at 8-under par with Scottie Scheffler and Terrell Hatton. Taylor Gooch, Adam Scott, Patrick Cantlay, Sahitha Gala, all 7-under par. Actually, Rory McIlroy is also 7-under par but he's kind of in neutral. If Rory were putting better today, Rory might be 12-under par. He has missed basically everything he's looked at from 15 or so feet and in. He did make about a 7-footer, 8-footer for birdie on the 5th. But even that was to avoid a 3-putt par because his lag putt came up well short. He's playing Tina Green. Rory's playing really well. But he has gotten really nothing out of it. For those of us that really want Rory to experience another major championship, especially at St. Andrews, there's a lot riding on it for me. There's a lot riding on it for me, Dennis. Do you have any action on Rory? No, not on him.

I had it yesterday only in the opening round. 6-under was very good but it could not challenge Cam Youngs. By the way, Wake Forest guy. Cam Young, did you know that?

I guess, very much. A Wake Forest guy, so very cool. So Rory has hit it inside 5-feet for birdie on the 7th hole.

We'll see if he can convert that. Alright, so I know I was a fabulous guest for Hayes, wasn't I yesterday? Let's do that hockey. No, really. Are the Hurricanes a better team today than they were a year ago? I'm not sure Hayes asked me that.

I know I went on with Chris Lee yesterday. I think they used it in the news and he asked me that question yesterday. Are the Hurricanes a better team today than they were a year ago? And the short answer to that is no, they're not.

But I also do not believe that they are anything close to a finished product at this point. The rebuild or the reconstruction of a team that totaled 116 points a year ago isn't complete. Although, if you looked at their team, you would say, oh, they've got 13 NHL forwards. Assuming that Drury is the 4th line center and Neches is resigned. And they have a full complement on defense.

Right? They've got you. Jake Gardner is one of them at this point. So, you'd look at their team and go, alright, they've got enough players. Yeah, but this roster, if this is the roster, then the answer is an absolute no. They're not as good as they were a year ago. That team last year was better. But, it was a good start.

A very good start to the retooling. They opened up free agency day, not really, with free agents. Almost. Almost got Mason Marshman. Yeah, we don't like him anymore.

He stinks. Brent Burns, who will join us later on, Max Pacioretti. That's a good start to rebuilding your team.

Again, 116 points a year ago. Look, one of the things that is really great about covering the team and doing the podcast. And there was sort of a morning after podcast, because I did one, a quickie, about a 20 minute podcast.

Kind of about 11 o'clock Wednesday night. And got it up, because ultimately I was guilted into doing it. There were some, one person, but there were other people that kind of reached out. You doing a podcast today? My intent was to not do one.

But I thought, alright, let's just do a quickie. I'll give my quick thoughts on the three major moves that were made. Burns, Pacioretti, and Andrei Kasha.

So I put out a quick podcast, but they at least handled the major things they had to right away. Number one need, and I know people got wrapped up in scoring and all that. Number one need was a right defense move. Somebody who could play the right side, ideally manage a power play. And even better, could he play top line ice time with Jacob Slavin? Well, we're going to talk to that guy Brent Burns in just a little bit.

So I do think they have figured that out. I believe that that will be the best pairing in franchise history among top players. I don't know how long Brent Burns has got left. Maybe we'll find out. Maybe he'll tell us exactly how long he's got left.

He's got three years left on his current contract. So that was job one. But they also needed to find somebody else to score.

Max Pacioretti, if he can stay healthy, should be that guy. My job is to put the puck in the net. I've done a really good job of that over my career. But as you get older and as teams get better, as goalies get better, as you go further in the playoffs, that gets harder and harder to do. So I work at my craft every day to try and make sure that my offense doesn't dry up, especially as I get older. In fact, I think the last couple of years I've gotten even better at that, whether it be being a little bit smarter on the ice or off the ice with my body and whatnot. So I feel like I have so much to contribute to this team.

And what he said is exactly what they told me. So the transparency there is they want someone to come in, help them put the puck in the net, and it's so important in the playoffs that you have depth. Because you can shut down one or two guys, but you see the teams that win the cup, it's the teams that roll over four lines, and anyone can put the puck in the net. Look, over the last three years, this is what Pacioretti is talking about, getting better at this. 154 points, 158 games. So, yes, he has gotten better at producing points over the last three seasons. Problem is, last year, only played 39 games. And over the course of his career, he has not been as durable. It's not like he's missed huge swaths of a season, but he's got a couple of 66 games out of 82, 64 out of 82.

He's only played 80 games in a season, at least 80 games, three times. So Carolina needs that guy to be in the lineup, and they need that guy to be available in the postseason. If he's healthy, it's a great ad. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. If he's healthy, it's a great ad.

They just kind of need to, I mean, they don't need to know, but they really have to have their fingers crossed that he stays healthy. He is a six-time, 30-goal scorer. That's big time. He had a dozen power play points a year ago, and 51, I believe, in four years with the Golden Knights. He's a big body, too.

6'2", 220. Look, he's a good player, really good player. Hopefully, you know, they have to replace a lot, but I also, and I've been saying this, and this is, I think, what bothers Hurricanes fans, and we're going to move on to not breaking news, because I know you guys talked about it yesterday, and the de-commitment of Gigi Jackson.

We're going to move on to that in just a second. But the fans don't want to hear, the biggest way for the Hurricanes to take the next step is for the players, the core players, to get better. So, nobody wants to hear that, but they're not taking another step because Max Pacioretti's here. They're going to take another step because Sebastian Ajo got better. Andrei Svechnikov got better. Jesperi Kotkaniemi got better. Tevo Taravanen got better.

Seth Jarvis got better. Those are the guys who are going to take you, hopefully, to a Stanley Cup. Not Max Pacioretti. I mean, I don't know how best, how better to say it, but if you think that Max is going to be the difference, you could not be more incorrect.

The difference has to be their best players. And those are the guys I mentioned up front. Adam Gold in studio with my man coach Pete DeRuta with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement. Coach, let's say I have more than a million dollar balance in my 401k. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. How can that actually come back and bite me? Well, because, and this is a thing that we, it's a mirage.

You see mirages, I've ridden in the desert before, you see what's water ahead, but it's not there. Well, your financial mirage is thinking that that total balance in your 401k or your IRA is yours. We have two people that want to get ahold of it, two uncles.

Uncle North Carolina and Uncle Sam. Both of them are going to do some damage to that balance, depending on what kind of other income you have. You could lose 40% of your value.

So if you're looking at a million dollar IRA, maybe it's only worth $600,000 to you. So how do we get around this? Well, you don't get around it because you end up in jail if you try to do that. But you can do tax planning to minimize the effect of taxation into the future. The tax train is coming Adam, we need to make sure to minimize the effect of the derailment of our financial accounts.

And for the next 10 people, we'll do it at no cost or obligation, put together your very own tax and retirement plan. 800-661-7383 or text ADAM to 21000 for coach Pete DeRuta. So the number one recruit for the 2023 basketball season, Gigi Jackson, did the thing.

He decommitted from North Carolina. I think this is a big deal simply because he's the number one recruit in that class. But I really don't follow recruiting or all the ins and outs.

But I know someone who does. Sherrell McMillan inside Carolina recruiting expert, guru, analyst, all of that. All right. So big picture the thing for me first in what something like this. I don't know about meaning, but other than he's a great player. What you know, so big picture it for me.

Yeah, I think big picture is not it's a big deal because like you said, he is number one player in the country. But it's called the basketball has changed over the last, you know, five to 10 years. You're able to mitigate a loss like that.

If you're North Carolina, a variety of different ways, you know, now we have the transfer portal, right? And in the past, you know, if the number one recruit said he wasn't coming in July, you'd be scrambling. And North Carolina does want to fill the spot in this class.

But I think that it's not as bad as it would have been, you know, in Royal Williams, his first years as UNC, just because of how college basketball has changed. I think where it does impact them is for the 2023 2024 season when he would have showed up. Now they have a big hole at the fourth spot. And that spot is proven to be really valuable for you.

Davis started with Brady Manick. Now they have Pete Nance who will likely to play that position this year. And then next year, they were looking to Gigi to fill that slot. And then even in a couple of years, there are other players already. They've identified for that particular position. I think that's the big thing is now they have to try to figure out who's going to play that slot. Not this coming season, but the year after that.

All right. So he reclassifies because that's ultimately what is going to happen here. And it appears that South Carolina is. I don't know if there's been a commitment to South Carolina or not, but man, the state newspaper has been absolutely buzzing about this.

So I'm guessing. If he reclassified, tell me how Carolina is in a scholarship crunch that they couldn't find one for him this year. So essentially what happened, the timeline is so Gigi committed to UNC really was April 27th or April 28th.

As you know, the transfer portal, you have to enter it by May 1st to be eligible the next year. That Sunday, Kerwin Walton, who used to be a guard at UNC, entered the portal, giving them one scholarship available. They had 12 guys on scholarship all coming back and they had one scholarship left. And basically from that point, from May 1st until essentially when Pete Nance committed to UNC, they did have a scholarship open.

And we do know the subject was broached with Gigi and his family. It's just a matter of at that time, we think they didn't want to reclassify. And I think that's where a lot of the consternation from UNC fans is kind of coming from, is that he did make the commitment and then he had an opportunity to reclass at UNC in 2022, but opted not to.

So for Carolina, I think the math kind of is Pete Nance versus Gigi Jackson next season. And, you know, I think it would have worked out for them either way. So what changed that caused him, do you think, to want to reclassify now? I mean, he didn't want to reclassify then when there was a spot open.

What changed in the last two months? Well, you know, I can't say I don't know he didn't want to reclassify. He told folks he didn't want to.

Whether or not he actually didn't want to, I think is something we're still trying to figure out. That is the question, Adam. That's what everyone kind of wants to know. If UNC is where you wanted to go and they had a scholarship open, then why not reclassify and go there if the scholarship was being offered to you?

That's the question that everyone wants to know. Shirelle McMillan at Rell DMC, one of the great Twitter names ever, is joining us here on the Adam Gold show from Inside Carolina recruiting expert. So is there was there a sense that because he's the top, you know, one of the top, if not the top recruit in the class, that if if your choices are between North Carolina and let's just say South Carolina, that you have to go to UNC. And that maybe deep down he just wanted to go to South Carolina or a place closer to home? I think the pool and tug of home is definitely a huge deal.

He's from right outside of Columbia, you know, been there his whole life, all his family there. So I get the appeal. And then, you know, with certain things that college athletes can get now, there are ways to help, you know, those guys stay at home. So I think that's part of it. And then if the the idea all along was to reclassify into 2022, then it's like, you know, you have one last chance to kind of be at home with your family before you go off to the NBA.

Why not spend it at the hometown school, you know, being the hometown hero? So that appeal can't be discounted. It's what a lot of schools, especially in the triangle in football recruiting against, you know, some of the bigger powers like Alabama and Florida and Georgia stuff.

And I think it kind of the opposite happened in this regard in basketball. Final question for Cheryl McMillan of Inside Carolina. In general, it seems like Hubert Davis has done very well in recruiting. They have good class coming in this year. What, you know, looking forward, how have they done?

I think from the Pittsburgh game on in February, I think you would give them a plus before that. Probably, you know, something like a B, but on the recruiting trail, they definitely are getting into rooms and talking to kids that maybe they wouldn't have before in the last couple of years. They have a commitment from Simeon Wiltshire, who is a top 15, 20 guard defending a bunch of us in the 2023 class. He's a talented player.

And then there's a lot of local talent in the upcoming classes in the junior class, in high school in North Carolina and in South Carolina. So they're able to mind that and get players. So, you know, overall, I think they're doing a good job.

And he's also really using the new parts of the modern game, which are the transfer portal and signing guys in what essentially is college free agency. They hit a home run with Brady Mannix. They thought they had hit a home run with Dustin Garcia.

And they think they've hit a home run with Pete next. So using all of the available avenues for, you know, roster construction and player acquisition, I think it's something that Hubert Davis has done really well. Cheryl McMillan at Rell DMC on Twitter inside Carolina. I thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate it. Be well. Talk soon.

Yes, appreciate it. So the the NBA is talking about lowering the age limit from 19 to 18. Adam Silver is an advocate for that. Does have to be collectively bargained, I believe. But that is something that might be on the horizon for the NBA.

Our next guest, Mike DeCorcy of the Sporting News, not a fan. We will discuss it. I understand his point. But there are two different things working against each other. Being fair to the kid.

And what is good for the sport. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina.

It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now.

Find Canes 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcast. One of the things and there's a bunch of things I want to talk to Mike DeCorcy about, but one of the things we're going to get to is the fact that the NBA has openly talked about. The commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, has openly talked about lowering the age limit for draft eligibility from 19 to 18. Now there was a time where they were going to raise the age limit to 20. And in fact, Adam Silver even talked about raising the age limit to 20 a few years ago.

And that's when the idiots in college basketball were sort of demonizing one-year players to the point where Adam Silver went, well, if they don't want them, maybe we'll take them. So this is where we are. Mike DeCorcy of the Sporting News, my friend at TSN, Mike on Twitter, has taken a break from writing golf columns to talk basketball.

And he joins us on the Adam Gold show. How are you? I am well, Adam, if I'm taking a break from writing from writing golf columns, I think I can retire now because I wrote my one for the for the half decade there.

So hey, look, I'm good. Sometimes there are interesting stories that bring you to a sport you don't normally write about. And there's no question that live golf has become, whether you like it or not, has become a very interesting story. I don't want to have that discussion here because I've talked too much, too much about it.

But let's talk because there's a few things I wanted to get to. I want to get your thoughts on what Adam Silver had to say, because here's the way I look at this issue, is that I think I agree with your overall point that it's not good for the sport to have 18-year-olds playing professional basketball in the NBA. It's not it's just it becomes less of a product when these kids were not ready to play at that level are there. But I have a fairness problem that I can't get away from and that they should be allowed because some of these guys will be ready, but they should be allowed to make that decision.

How do I balance that? Well, I think first of all, especially now that we have name, image and likeness, that you have the G League ignite, it's no longer a question of can you be a professional basketball player? Can you make money playing basketball after high school?

That's almost universal now. If you're if you're a talented basketball player, you can make lots and lots of money without entering the NBA. And what you have to understand is the NBA, like when people talk about when they talk about the NBA and how much players are paid, what they forget is the concept of it is that's the product, like that's not your labor force building the product. That is your product. And so you have to look at the product that the which is the competition among elite basketball players. Well, you have to look at how do you protect the integrity of that product? I mean, it's like if you're buying, let's say, a TV like whichever company you're buying it from doesn't just say, oh, well, this one's almost good enough.

This little part's almost good enough to make our television. So let's just stick that in there. You know, this is your product.

So assuring that you take the best care of your product should be Adam Silver's number one priority. And and when you look at the failure rate of high level basketball players during the preps to pros era, I mean, those were your best of your best prospects and the failure rate was far too high. Yeah. OK. So KG and and LeBron, especially in Kobe, they made it, you know, and not, you know, as I said to a user on Twitter the other night, like Mozart didn't need piano lessons, you know, I mean, like he just had it.

And so the next time you find the Mozart, you know, then it's a it's your main discussion. But there hasn't been a LeBron. He came out of high school in 2003.

It hasn't been anyone close to him in nearly two decades. So I don't think that it's wise to be injudicious with your product. And that's why I'm really surprised that Silver continues to go down this road. His teams don't want it.

I've talked to dozens of people scouts. They don't want it. They don't want to go to high schools. Right.

They don't want to be nice. They want they want the certainty of someone who has competed at a high level. And that could be the ignite.

It could be Europe. It could be Division one college basketball. But they want to see that player and how he adapts to instruction and how he adapts to to elite strategy imposed against him, which he gets in all three of those venues, at least most of the time. So that those are the things they want to see. And I think that it's a mistake for the NBA to ignore the voices of of their, you know, their own constituency. Mike, of the Sporting News is joining us here.

Do we have data that says that we get a much better idea after one year of college? Because, Mike, I mean, maybe it's a little bit better, but I don't know that it's dramatic. It's well, it depends on what one considers dramatic. As I I did a piece three, four years ago called Stern Warning. That was the that was the kicker headline column. I don't know what the rest of it was, but basically Adam Silver don't do this. You know, the rest of the headline and the the the one year players, the one and done outperformed the preps to pros at every level. And I think the most germane was that in the whole of one of the preps to pros era, only nine players out of about thirty six, I think is the number eventually made an NBA All-Star game. And in that year now, there were, I think, a hundred and ten one and done by that point total. And in that particular year, eleven of the twenty five players, I think it was around twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Eleven of the twenty five players who made the All-Star game that year were one and done. So, I mean, they wiped out the record, the entire record of the preps to pros in one year.

So I think it's I think that shows that those guys are better prepared to go. And I think we've seen that obviously, like if LeBron had gone to college, would it have helped him? Well, it wouldn't hurt him, but he didn't need it. He was the greatest basketball talent we've ever seen. And Kobe worked his way into it.

And Kate, you know, obviously with a tremendous talent, it worked his way up. But remember, you look at Kobe's first two, three years. I mean, he wasn't killing the NBA level.

Wasn't the same for KG, the only one who's been able to walk out of a high school gym and onto an NBA floor and immediately be a star as LeBron. Mike, of course, of the Sporting News is joining us here. Like I said, I, I understand with your point about the sport. I have a I just have a fairness issue that I have a hard time kind of overlooking. So that's it. That's it.

But let me let me say this. If that's a fairness thing, then you have to start deconstructing everything that the NBA does in its talent acquisition process as a fairness issue. The draft becomes untenable. The rookie salary cap, which is the worst they've ever done. Yep. It is totally untenable. And here's the thing about the rookie salary cap.

It's led. They thought it would keep more kids in school. Right. And it did the opposite. And as soon as it did the opposite, they should have scrapped it.

But I don't. But the league liked the cost control. They liked not having to negotiate. Glenn Robinson was the last one and he negotiated this massive contract. And Glenn was good, but he wasn't as good as the guy went third named Grant Hill.

It was it was just wasn't too bad that Grant had so many ankle problems in his career because who knows how great he could have been. But yes, the the rookie wage scale and the NFL got jealous and then the NFL did it. And that's the worst because they shouldn't even call that a rookie wage scale in the NFL. It's just it's just a contract.

It's your first contract because most of those players never get a second one. All right. Let me let me ask you this. You wrote this. This is how I found out about it. You wrote about this the other day because otherwise I'm not really intently following the Western Athletic Conference. But their plan on seating for their conference basketball tournament is the goofiest thing I ever I've ever heard.

Basing it on Ken Palm and other statistical measures. Why not just put like let him roll dice? It'd be the same.

I just don't understand. Like you're a mid-major league. You are a mid-major league.

You are who you are. You've been getting 12, 13, 14 seeds for your entire existence as you stand now. The last time they got anything that wasn't anywhere near this was they were a totally different league. Like there was maybe one member that's still left in the league. I mean, New Mexico State's been in the lack for like a hundred years and everybody else has rotated through like a revolving door. In this in this iteration of the WAC, I mean that you don't get double bids and you don't get high seeds. If you're really good as New Mexico State was this year, you get a 12 and then they went out and beat UConn. But it's not going it's not getting much better than that. So if you want to go out, if you're if you if you're in New Mexico State and you think you're really good and you can find a way to get a good schedule to get in the right tournament or whatever, more power to you. Maybe you can sneak up to us eight or nine or maybe if you do what what Murray did this year, you get to a seven. But it's to completely distort your league standings in order to.

And this is the weirdest part to me. This is a totally neutral tournament. It's all played in Vegas. So it's not like you're giving a home court advantage to anybody like it. So the advantage you're given is a slightly better place on a neutral court bracket. And for that, you're completely distorting your league standings so that no one who follows your league, like if you're a fan of Stephen F. Austin or whatever, you know, never know what place you're in. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. And it's just, you know, more example of mid-major programs feeling like they're if they're not trying too hard, then they're not trying hard enough.

Mike, of course, he is with us. I got about two minutes left and I'm I was sort of following what's going on at the Big 12 meetings and they're talking about, you know, expansion, whatever. I mean, do what you can to save your league. The Pac-12, it's going to be difficult to see that league staying together because I think they're just ripe. If you lost Southern Cal, you lost UCLA. If the Big 12 expands, it's going to take more of your schools away. They might end up with six schools left in the Pac-12, who knows? But I think it was Sonny Dykes, the head coach at Texas Tech or Texas, whichever one, one of the Texas schools, the TCU that said that we need to make decisions that are good for college football, not just the power five.

And I'm like, you're just are you are you new here? Because this is this is none of this is good for college football, but I'm not sure that college football is going to exist. Like we see it exist now, five years from now. It's only about money. Well, I bet it's only been about money forever. I mean, really, you know, and people talk about the traditions of college football going away. I mean, which ones are we talking about? Ball games?

Good. I mean, they've never been good for college football. It's always been ridiculous to turn over your postseason to outside concerns. You want to play a nice day, a game in the Rose Bowl Stadium.

It doesn't have to be the Rose Bowl. I just don't think you're losing that much in that sense relative to member conference membership and rivalries and all that sort of thing. I mean, we've seen that change really for what now?

Thirty five years. So I there's the one thing that, you know, that I see that I don't think enough people are or too many people are overlooking. I mean, I saw one quote in the athletic this week in a story about expansion and realignment and all that. That basically said and this was, I believe, from an ACC employee, not an ACC conference employee, but an employee at one of the thousands of members that they have in the league right now that said that the league is finished.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? Where are they going to go? And how are they going to get there, given that they have a 14 year contract with each other?

There's just so much panic. But the difference in money between being an ACC member and being a SEC member has been significant for the last 10 years. I would say what the ACC has made about two thirds of what the SEC has made.

Yeah. And yet since the football playoff was put in place not eight or nine years ago, Clemson's been that right there over and over and over again. Is it harder than when you have an extra couple of million or an extra 10 million or 20 million or whatever it's going to be? Yeah, it's harder, but it hasn't stopped them. The only way I see this, Adam, being a significant factor in how college sports operate is if they are forced to treat the athletes as employees. Once it becomes an employer-employee relationship, then all that extra money, that extra 50 million or whatever you get, then it becomes a significant difference. But until then, it's harder.

But it's not undoable. St. Peter's, my goodness, they were doing it with chewing gum and they made the Elite Eight. So it can happen. It just is a little harder for those who are not at the advantage league.

Yeah, Villanova won two national championships in three years playing in the Big East that doesn't have football anymore, so they don't have that kind of money. Mike DeCorcio of the Sporting News, at TSN Mike on Twitter. You're the best. Good to talk to you. We'll speak again very soon.

We didn't even talk about Mo Salah's long contract, but next time, I promise. You bet. Thanks, Adam. This is the Adam Gold Show. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6th, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now. Find Canes' 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts.