Brendan R Marks, from The Athletic, joins Adam to talk college hoops.

Oh, man. See, you got me.

You got me. With the best Pink Floyd song. It is.

I do like this one. Gosh, it's so good. Best album. I'm playing it for the same reason. I understand.

I totally understand. But, yes, it is great. It's the best album, too. Wish You Here is the best Pink Floyd album.

I'll fight anybody who disagrees. So, we will talk more about Christian McCaffrey, Trade to San Francisco. If you think about what the Panthers have done, or better said, what the players the Panthers have had, it's almost hard to get that attached to Christian McCaffrey because he played, what, he had three full seasons, right? Because this is year six, and he's missed most of the last two.

So, it's really three full seasons, and we already had fallen hard because he's that good. Yeah. I just wonder if people realize around the league how good he can be on a really good team with a really good offensive line, how good he can be. They're going to see now. Yeah, they are. We're going to talk about it more after we talk a little basketball with a good friend. Brendan Marks from the athletic, covers Duke, covers Carolina. He's in Chicago.

Those two teams are not there. I know you're a busy man. I appreciate your time. You also write nationally for the athletic, and at the end of this, I'm going to ask you one question about one of your recent pieces, but let's get to UNC. So, I saw your Twitter, at Brendan R. Marks, by the way, on Twitter. Both Carolina bigs, both Carolina guards making Sam Vicini, friend of ours too, his top 20 at that position.

That seems like a pretty good place to start from, no? Yeah, there are definitely worse starting points, and I think, you know, to be quite frank, you could make the argument that in both of those rankings, I think, you know, Sam had Armando Baycock being the fourth best big in the country. Pete Nance being maybe number 15 or so, like, you could easily see those guys climb much higher. You know, the thing with North Carolina, and I think one of the things that I'm interested to see and one of the things I think fans are interested to see is just how much reliance is there on those guys, because they are obviously so talented.

They are so established, but at the same time, this is a team that maybe does have the luxury of a little bit more depth than it did last year. I think Caleb Love is probably going to be tired for the next 30 years because of how many minutes he played last year. This is one of those situations where, as good as these guys are, Hubert Davis now has a challenge of finding the best spots for them and making sure not to overutilize them at certain points. All right, we're going to get to the depth thing in a second, but this is my read on Baycock. The Pete Nance thing, like, we know he's talented, but coming from Northwestern to this situation is going to be a completely different animal. But here's my favorite thing about Baycock. He knows exactly what he is, and you know where he is going to be, and I also think he's got leadership skills that we don't see, you know, every day in college basketball.

Yeah, I would agree with that. He is Mr. Dependable, and you know, I think for Hubert Davis, having that guy, you know, as great as it is to have shot makers like Caleb Love and RJ Davis, as great as it is to have, you know, an older established guy like Leaky Black, who had previously been the only person at North Carolina to have any sort of real success in the postseason at least. Um, Baycock is the one who makes everything come together without him. The rest of what Hubert Davis wants to do doesn't necessarily work.

Um, you can fit in different shot makers. You can fit in different guards and, you know, North Carolina is going to have another great outcome the next year. Seth Trimble, I think is going to be an impact guy as a freshman this year. Um, but everything else falls apart without Armando and uh, yeah, is he a little bit goofy? Absolutely. And I think that's what this team needs. Um, but at the same point, just like you said, the leadership skills are there. Um, he's the guy who, when things get tough, when things are not looking great, he's the guy who's going to go to the opposing player and he's going to give him an elbow and he's going to look at him as he's running back down the court. Like he, he is so valuable from an on-court perspective in terms of making all the pieces fit, but also personality wise, being assured of himself. Um, you know, I think that is essential to anything else that Carolina does. I mean, a little grit isn't just available in hockey. We can have that in basketball as well. Brendan Marks from The Athletic is joining us here.

So Baycock was left off somebody's first team, all ACC preseason ballot. I mean, can you and Nicole Auerbach do an investigative piece on that? Yeah, basically. I mean, Jesus, what more does the guy have to do?

He's got to break both his ankles and still be out there? I just didn't understand. Like I get if you didn't want to vote him player of the year, I mean, that's fine, but I mean, there aren't five players in a league going into the season that you could say, well, they're ball better than Baker. Like that's, that's just silly. Yeah.

It's blasphemous. Um, and I, I, you know, I don't know if people realize this, but for as good as he has been so far in his career, like Armando, they caught some time in conference play and I would, if I had to be a betting man, I'd say it probably happened at the beginning of January or so he's going to come. He's going to be North Carolina's all time career leading rebounder. And if they go on another sort of post-season run like they did last season, which is entirely possible, he's going to put that thing so far out of reach that nobody else was ever going to have a chance to touch it again. Like I know we got so caught up in the double doubles last year in the streak and obviously the end of the season and you know, but when you start getting an invention with names like Tim Duncan, Jameson and Hans bro, like that is how reliable this guy has been. And just like, you know, nothing he does is really flashy, but it's, you know, 13 boards every single game. You know, he's, he's going to be in the record books. He's going to be someone who, you know, is probably going to hold that title for, you know, maybe, maybe for a hundred years.

That's, that's, it's crazy to think about how far he's come since he was a freshman, but he is actually that good. All right, now to the depth issue. You do think they're deep enough because I still, I have my doubts about that element. Main wreck is on the South side of the tracks. Report of male driver, late twenties, severe injuries.

Copy that. Can you see the vehicle? No, it's way up there. I heard a witness say the stop arm was down, but he tried to beat the train. Anyway, too many drivers are killed crossing railroad tracks. Even though they know a train is approaching what they don't know is even after it breaks, a train can take up to a mile to stop requesting ambulance stretcher to show a crash victim back to the road.

Copy stop trains canned paid for by NHTSA. I, I think there are depth pieces. I do not know that those depth pieces have established themselves in any sort of logical order for Hubert Davis yet.

And I think that's his biggest challenge is I know that I am going to play, you know, eight to nine people. I do not know who those extra four are going to be on any given night. Like, you know, I think we all can agree that, you know, after what he did in the NCAA tournament and especially what he did in the national title game, like, Oh, Jonathan, no, probably going to be the six man.

Yeah. But after that, you're talking about Seth Trimble and DeMarco done and Dontress styles. And I mean, what Tyler nickel did shooting the three ball at late night or sorry, live action. Now, I mean, if he can shoot the ball like that, Hubert Davis is going to have to find him there. And then you talk about a guy like Jalen Washington, who, you know, maybe is the most talented backup big that they have.

But is he healthy? What does it look like when he does get to that point? So I think there are some interesting pieces. I just think that it's going to be a headache for Hubert Davis trying to pick his spots for each of them. And then eventually, you know, he's going to have to sort of whittle things down to a reliable group.

And that's where I think things get really hazy. Brendan Marks from the Athletic also covers Duke and not to put them on the back burner, but we're obviously doing that here. But I do have one, maybe two questions about this. I know, I know you put Jeremy Roach on your first team and he was first team all league pick. But I'm curious if the best version of Duke doesn't have Roach as like their fourth best player, similar to when Quinn Cook was Duke's fourth best player in the on the 2015 team behind Tyus Jones, Justice Winslow, Jalil Okafor, just to name those three. Because if Duke is going to be great and I don't know if they are or not, because they're all new, then to me that Roach has to be that guy, that depth guy, unless he is a lights out shooter. Right. And he hasn't been thus far in his career.

And I don't think that that's something that you magically flip the switch. I agree with you, actually. And I think the best version of Duke, you know, it's going to look a little different, you know, in two weeks when they start the season versus what it will look like in February when everyone's back and healthy.

But yeah, I think you're spot on. Jeremy Roach is not Duke's best player. He can't be. If Jeremy Roach is Duke's best player, then Jon Tarr is going to have a tough first season. Jeremy Roach is a very good college point guard, but he is not a game breaker or at least has not proven the ability to do that over a long period of time.

Obviously the NCAA tournament was a great sample size, but now he doesn't have, you know, five other first round picks around him. I think realistically the best version of Duke this year is going to be a lineup where Darique Whitehead and Tyrese Proctor, who I voted for as the newcomer of the year. Um, I think he's just going to be an absolute stud and Derek Lively are the three best players on the roster. They're the ones who I think have the most upside.

They have the most talent. Um, but Roach can put them in the best and most advantageous position. That is what I think John will probably realize by, you know, January or February when he has everybody fully healthy. Um, you have to let those guys cook, but letting them cook means letting Jeremy Roach set them up. So that, that I think is going to be Jeremy Roach as well.

You know, he is not the guy who's going to be able to carry the mountain by himself. Um, but he absolutely can make sure to get everybody else involved the way that he needs to and, and make sure that, uh, he's accentuating the other players around him. How good can Tyrese Proctor be? I don't think it's inconceivable that by the end of the season, we're talking about him as Duke's best NBA prospect, um, by all accounts of everything that I have heard from practice so far, um, you know, both from people within the program and, you know, scouts and people who have come through to see practice, uh, he, he just gets, you know, he just, he's, he's a grown man already.

He's been playing with grown men in Australia. He has passing vision. He has dribbling. He has shooting. He can play defense. He's, you know, six, five, the, he plays bigger than that. Um, I don't think it's inconceivable that, especially with some of the unknowns about to reek white heads foot, I think he's going to be as central to Duke getting off to a fast start as any other player.

All right. Final thing for Brendan Marks. You can follow him on Twitter at Brendan R. Marks. You and Nicole Auerbach, uh, wrote about the potential for an expanded NCAA tournament. Is Jim Phillips who supports this, is he crazy? He's crazy, but he's not in the minority.

I know that's the scary part. Um, you know, I, I love the NCAA tournament. I think it is in a great form right now. I think that it makes the college basketball regular season valuable.

Um, you know, there's a whole cottage industry just around the bubble. Uh, but at the same time, when you hear the comments from him and his status being on the NCAA transformation committee, when you hear comments from Greg Sankey, who is probably the most powerful person in college athletics right now, um, when you hear so many prominent coaches, you know, I think half of the SEC coaches said that they were in favor of it. Numerous coach Jim Bayhive, Jim Lerna, also, they were in favor of it in the ACC where there's this much smoke, there's fire. And, um, you know, do I think that that's the best thing for the NCAA tournament? Absolutely not. Do I think that it's a cash grab opportunity for these guys?

I do. Um, but at this point it, it looks like this is probably more likely than less. Um, and it's just going to be figuring out what the actual logistics of it are. If you go to 80 teams, if you go to 96 teams, I don't think the NCAA tournament's going to get that big.

Um, going to 80, I think is probably the most realistic option on the table at this point. And in that you would essentially expand the first four. So when you normally just have those two games to determine who gets into the quote unquote field 64, I think you're going to see that expand and you're going to have an extra, you know, essentially first round of games with some of those, you know, 10, 11, 12 seed caliber teams. Um, they're going to be the ones who I see, you know, that's probably where it's going to be expanded. He's, he's crazy, but he's also probably, you know, he's, he's working with a coalition right now.

Yeah. They're, they're reading the room and that's where the room is going. And the room is going to find out that it really isn't more money, but that's another matter altogether. CVS and Turner don't want to pay more money for it right now because they don't have to.

And the contract says they don't have to. Uh, Brendan marks, I appreciate your time. My friend will talk to you, uh, talk to you more as we get cranked up this year. Absolutely. I appreciate you and looking forward to games actually starting records on the South side of the tracks report of male driver, late 20 severe injuries. Copy that. Can you see the vehicle?

No, it's way up there. I heard a witness say the stop arm was down, but he tried to beat the train. Anyway, too many drivers are killed crossing railroad tracks. Even though they know a train is approaching. What they don't know is even after it breaks, a train can take up to a mile to stop requesting ambulance stretcher to shuttle crash victim back to the road. Copy. Stop trains can't be paid for by NHTSA.